Jules (Golden Streak Series Book 5) (10 page)

“We have to speak to them.” She shook her head and told Viktor that now was not a good time.
“But the vampires mean to kill her soon, and we know some information that Lenore will need to know.”

“If
you tell them about it tonight or tomorrow, will it make that much difference? I mean, they’re going to need time to come together. They need each other. Can’t you just…I don’t know, protect them tonight so they can become a couple?”

Peter went to the window and looked out.
She couldn’t see around either man as they stood there blocking her view, but she knew when they turned, it had been just what she’d hoped for.

“They are in the pool
house.” Peter smiled. “We can’t protect them, but we can make sure to stay close. In the event that anyone comes here, we can warn them.”

Sandra nodded
, then looked at Viktor when he cleared his throat. “You should call your family together for tomorrow during the day. We have much to share with them. Some of the information is…some of it we’ve only just discovered ourselves.”

“I can do that.
How about one o’clock tomorrow? I’ll have them all here and we can figure this out together. They will be…I’m hoping that they will have worked out their differences by then, and are well on their way to becoming a couple.”

Peter laughed. “I don’t
believe there is any doubt on that, my lady. I believe our young Jules will be a better man for what he’s going to get out of having her as a mate.”

Viktor nodded. “Her birthday is the day after tomorrow.
She will be in the most danger between now and then. If she dies, all is lost.”

“Lost how?
Will Jules and she be able to survive this?” Viktor shrugged at her. “Well that’s no answer, is it? I demand that you tell me what’s going on now. You’ve been keeping your secrets about this girl long enough. What is it about her that has you so…you’re afraid for her? Good heavens, you’re her father, aren’t you?”

“No
, my lady, I’m not. But I did have a hand in keeping her safe when she was but an infant. I wish she was my child. I could save her from the monster that comes for her. I could simply give her my powers and let her take out the one that would have her dead before her date of birth.”

Sandra sat down and
tried to think what was going to happen and how she was going to be able to save her family. Not just her sons but their wives and children as well. She wanted them all to be safe. She glanced at the back door and hoped that Jules and Lenny would have a long life together, but the look on the two vampires’ faces was not making her feel very positive about their future.

“Will she
die if this person gets her?” Neither man answered her. Sandra felt the weight of this bear down on her. “Well, can you tell me, does she have a chance at coming out on top?”

“More than she would have without a mate.”
Sandra nodded. “My lady, she is only as strong as she wishes to be. And with her mate beside her, she can be invincible.”

Sandra didn’t believe anyone was invincible and told them so. “Every person has a weakness.
Every being, including the two of you. But they can be as strong as they could be and come out the winners because of it. Jules told her he loved her. I believe him. I also believe in love, and the fact that it can make everything work out. So you tell me who this person is that is trying to harm them, and I’ll see what I can do about getting enough back up here should they need it.

“Her mother.”

Chapter 10

Jules locked the door to the pool house. She’d agreed to come in here so they could have some privacy, but he hoped that they wouldn’t be leaving until tomorrow morning, if not the late afternoon. She turned to look at him when he moved to the center of the room and turned on the fireplace to take the chill off the room.

“What do you mean
, you love me? Why? How did that happen all of the sudden?” She started pacing as he moved to one of the couches that surrounded the fireplace and stood near it. “You just want to get back in with your family and you’ll say anything to me to make it happen. Well, it won’t work.”

“I never thought it would and that’s not why I said it to you.
I do love you. But like any idiot, it took me a while to figure it out.” He sat on the couch and watched her move back and forth. “I was wrong about everything. But not about loving you.”

“Do I have to take off my clothes again to show you what I look like?”
The thought of her taking off her clothes had him pulling a pillow over his lap. “You did see what that monster did to me, didn’t you? How he left me there to die?”

“Yes. And when you showed me
, all I could think about was how much you had suffered and how lovely you looked.” She started to speak, but he cut her off. “You are the most beautiful creature I’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing. Your skin is soft and warm. Your breasts…when I tasted them through the sheet, it was all I could do not roar out that you were mine.”

“
I’m not whole.” He moved to the edge of the couch and crawled on his knees to her. He was afraid she’d bolt, but she stood still as he wrapped his arms around her thighs and laid his head on her abdomen.

“To me, Lenny, you’re more than whole
. You’re everything to me.” He held her this way until he felt her fingers in his hair. When she tightened in it, he looked up at her. “I want you. I want your heart and your body. I want to show you how much you mean to me, how much you’ll always mean to me.”

“Why?”
He kissed her hip, then her belly. He opened her pants and pulled them off her slowly, as reverently as he could without hurting her. She stepped out of one leg, then the other, and he ran a hand down each pinked place where she’d been stitched back together.

“When we’re hurt as cats
, we can shift and we’re as good as new. Even in reverse we can shift to cats to care for our human self. Had I known you before this, I would have changed you into a tiger and you would never have these reminders.” He looked up at her. “That’s all they are, Lenny, reminders. They don’t define you. They have made you stronger, but they didn’t make you. You did that all by yourself.”

Jules kissed the area right above her panty line and inhaled. She smelled like heaven and he wanted to taste it.
Moving his hands up her body slowly, he slid his hands under her shirt and up to her belly, where the bandage had not been replaced. He lifted the shirt up, and she pulled it off and dropped it to the floor. When she put her hands over her wounds, he pulled them away.

“Never with me
, love. Never hide yourself from me.” He kissed the one closest to her hip and licked his tongue along it. “I can heal you this way. Not internally, but these wounds.”

She moaned when he flicked his tongue over her navel and he suckled the
crevice into his mouth and nipped. She rocked her hips toward him and he cupped her ass cheeks and brought her closer to him.

“Jules, please. I
can’t stand up any longer.” He grinned. “Please, just let me lie down on the couch or something.”

“I would rather
taste you like this.” He slid his finger down her ass and to her opening and found her to be wet and hot. “You will let me drink from you like this, won’t you, Lenny? You’ll let me suck on your pretty clit until you come, and then allow me to drink deeply from you?”

She moaned his name again
, and he took that as her assertion and tore her panties from her and buried his mouth over her. Christ, she was going to make him come from just tasting her. Spreading her thighs wider for him, he drank from her and knew that even if he had his whole life, he’d never tire of her. Sliding his finger into her sheath, he felt her juices run down his hand and to his elbow. He couldn’t drink from her fast enough.

When her knees started to tremble
, he lifted his head and looked up at her. She swayed and he stood up and lifted her into his arms. He took her to the bedroom that he knew was in the pool house and laid her on the bed. She looked up at him with lust-glazed eyes.

“I’m going to make love to you.” She nodded.
“All night and every night for the rest of our lives, if you’ll have me.”

“You want me?
Even after this?” She put her hands over her belly and he dropped to his knees beside the bed and moved her hands. “I’m not like other women.”

“No
, you’re not. Thank God. You’re lovelier than any other woman I’ve met.” He kissed her navel again, glad to find such an erotic place on her body. “You’re stronger than me, smarter, and a great deal more patients as well. I would have shot me long ago.”

“You do make a good case for carrying a gun.” He tried to look wounded but made her laugh.
“Are you really going to sleep with me?”

He shook his head and
smiled when she looked disappointed. “I’m thinking we aren’t going to get a great deal of sleep. Will it make you mad if I bit you again, marked you?”

“No. I think…will your tiger bite me as well?” His cat stirred along his skin
, and he purred. “I can see him in you. When you’re angry or…sexually aroused, I can see him.”

Jules let a little of his cat go and felt his skin crawl with fur before changing back to human flesh. When she ran her fingers over his throat
, he moaned. And when she lifted her head and licked the area there, he cupped the back of her head and held her there.

“Bite me
, love. Mark me with your bite.” Her teeth grazed along his skin, and he felt his cat snarl at her to do it. When her teeth grazed his skin, he growled low and she lifted her head.

“Will it hurt?”
He shook his head, unable to say anything just now. “If I bite you, will you be mine?”

“Yes,” he hissed at her and brought her back to his neck.
“Do it, Lenny. Mark me as your mate and taste my blood.”

When her teeth broke skin
, he lifted her hair out of the way and bit her shoulder as well. He reached between her legs and pinched her clit hard, and she screamed around his shoulder. Every part of him wanted to flip her over to her belly and take her hard, but he had to be careful yet of her wounds. When she lifted her head, he felt his cat snarl and he had to fight to hold him in check.

“Let him go. I want to see him.” She was panting hard
, and he wanted her more than ever. “Give me to him, Jules. I want to have him mark me.”

He let him go.
Even as he took him, Jules knew that he wanted more than to simply bite her and mark her. He wanted her. Jules looked at her through his cat’s eyes and purred low. She lay back on the bed and he joined her there.

Her belly was
bleeding a little, and his cat leaned down and swiped his tongue over the wounds. They would heal quicker now and not be as sore. When he nosed her pussy, Jules tried to call him back, but Lenny moaned. When she opened her legs for him, his cat moved in to taste her.

His tongue was wider and thicker than Jules
’s, but he didn’t enter her. He only tasted her once before moving up to her throat. Jules’s breath caught when she tilted her head for the big cat, and when he sank his teeth deep into her muscle, he knew that he wasn’t just marking her; he was claiming her as well. Even as his teeth marred her lovely skin, Jules brought his cat back and lifted his head from her shoulder.

“I need to be
inside of you. Now, love. To complete our bond, I have to come with you as we bite. Can we…will you be mine, please?” She nodded, and he shook his head. “You have to say it, baby. I know that we’ve already surpassed this part, but I need to hear you say that you’re mine.”

“I’m yours. I need you
, please. I’m all yours.” Jules settled between her legs and moved so that his cock was just at her entrance. She moaned and rolled her hips, and he felt his tip slide into her and he moaned. “Please? I need you.”

Taking
her mouth with his, he moved deep into her. He wanted to go slow, enjoy her, but she was so hot, so tight that he had to have more of her. When he moved his mouth to her breasts, she arched up and fed him. Her nipples tasted so delicious that he wanted to bite. Cupping them in his palm, he lifted her ass up so that he could fill her. When she wrapped her legs around his thighs, he knew that he was going to come soon.

“When you come
, you need to bite me again.” She moaned. “Lenny, love, I’m so close. Do you understand me?”

“Yes. Oh
please, I’m coming.” Her body bowed up and then she shattered. He watched her come apart and then together again before he remembered he needed to claim her. As soon as he licked the area at her shoulder, he felt her do the same. Once they did this, there was no turning back. When she screamed out another powerful climax, he sank his canines into her shoulder and felt her bite him as well. The immediate and profound connection took his breath away.

Come again. Now
, Lenny, come again.
She lifted her head from him and screamed before he could let his own body have a release. He suckled as much of her into him again and sank his teeth deeper. With a hard shake of his head to mark her for all to see, he let go and roared out his release against her skin.

~~~

Naomi woke from her sleep and sat up in the dark room. Something had happened. She had no idea what it was but could feel…something wasn’t right. She lay back down and tried to rest, but whatever had waked her was still there. When she rolled to her side and tried to concentrate on the feeling, all she got for her troubles was a feeling of emptiness and something akin to terror.

Sitting up again
, she moved to the blackened window and put her hand on the glass. It was only about four o’clock; still hours before she should have been waked. Moving to the bathroom, she switched on the light and looked at herself.

Her mouth was still sore
, but she could at least feed now. Of course, she had to cut the vein open when she did it, but she didn’t really care so long as she could eat. She should have known better than to kill her watcher, no matter how badly he’d pissed her off. She turned off the light and went to bed. Closing her eyes, she had a feeling that whatever had woke her wasn’t going to be anything she could solve until the sun went down, and she let sleep take her. Before she was fully asleep, she sat up in bed again.

She
’d mated.

“Fuck.” Naomi got up and started pacing the room. She had taken a mate
, which meant that her daughter was going to get some of her powers with that. And even if she had some of the weaker ones her father had given her, it would be enough to defeat the vampires who had been trying to kill her, not to mention enough to knock her on her ass when and if she had to end up dealing with her on her own.

Naomi didn’t want to have to deal with her at all
, but knew that she was going to have to. And she just knew that Viktor had managed this because she didn’t want a kid. And now she had to deal with this, and her Grunt was not even around to reap what they’d sown together in creating that brat.

“Now what the fuck am I supposed to do?” She didn’t have any answers
. But she knew one thing; she had to double her efforts to kill the brat. And if that failed, she would have to figure out a way to make nice with her so that she’d get her to beg her benefactor to let her mommy keep her powers.

Not likely
, she thought. Her daughter had probably been told all sorts of stories about her since Viktor had taken her from her. Naomi smiled and wondered what the Realm would say if they thought that their precious Viktor and Peter had taken her little girl practically from her arms at birth and had never let her see her again.

Naomi felt a little puke back up in her throat on that thought.
She couldn’t even remember when she’d been taken away, only that she’d gotten her Grunt back. And as far as what she looked like, there was no way she would ever be able to tell them that. Not that her daughter had been much to look at. She’d been as bald as her father had been, and what little fuzz there was, it was that fucking red of his ancestors. And those eyes…dark green like the fields, he’d told her.

And now the bitch had a mate.
She wondered what but didn’t really care. She just hoped it wasn’t one of the tigers. All she wanted to know was how to kill her before the clock struck midnight tomorrow night. She looked at the clock again and realized how little time she had left. Just over thirty hours left until she’d lose it all.

Naomi thought of Viktor.
He’d visited her twice since he’d taken her daughter away. She’d been going by the name of Divinity the first time she’d seen him, and had never corrected him when he’d come back the next two times. The third and final time they’d met, she’d called him to her. She needed…a favor.