Prince of Power (26 page)

They barely made it back inside the door.

Tyra had bared her fangs and punched two holes in her wrist, and a hum had gone from Anton's head to his cock and back again as soon as the tang of copper and strawberries had exploded on his tongue. Then she'd torn off his clothes—to check if he was okay, she'd said, but by then Anton's frayed nerves and unspent adrenaline and what few functioning brain cells he had were firmly engaged in other activities entirely. All that energy and blood had rushed straight to his swollen cock.

“Anton.” No sooner had she licked closed the punctures on her arm and he'd licked away the traces of blood than he'd begun to kiss her lips and fucking devour her whole. He needed to breathe her in because maybe having her inside him was the only way he could be sure that she would be safe.

Oh, man. She'd been amazing out there. Watching her fight like that. He'd been so proud of her.

“Anton.” Her hand pushed at his chest, and he pulled back, panting.

“Seriously?”

She lay on the floor, chest heaving and swollen lips parted, suspended in motion. Her head sort of wobbled back and forth with a look of dazed disbelief on her flushed face. “Are you sure you're really okay? You got shot a little while ago, you know.”

He surged forward and attacked her lips again. Her breasts were warm and firm and fit perfectly in each of his palms. He took only a moment to appreciate the fact before they rolled together and he set her astride him in the dark foyer. Even though he still wore pants, the thick ridge of his erection jerked and sought to get closer to her. He could barely make out her smile. “See how okay I am?”

Her palm caressed his face and trailed gently over his chest and stomach. It was amazing how such a gentle touch could soothe and arouse so completely at the same time. He groaned and lifted his hips a scant amount to grind against her and was gratified when she laughed a little.

“You can't blame me for worrying. You've been through a lot. We both have.”

But even as she voiced what passed for a reservation, her finger went to the fly of his fatigues and slipped the buttons free. He groaned. “Oh, definitely.” He exhaled heavily. “You're right. We have.” He swallowed hard when she tugged the last of the buttons on his fly free. “You were—gaah…” Warm fingers and cool air caressed his erection when it popped free of his briefs. He struggled to finish his thought while he still had blood flow in his northern hemisphere. “You were fucking amazing out there. Watching you—dammit, Tyra.”

Wet heat engulfed his cock and he couldn't believe he was doing it, but he gripped her shoulders and tugged her up the length of his body.

She eyed him dubiously. “You did not just stop me from blowing you.”

He clunked his head against the floor.
No, because that would have been stupid
. “Let me say this, Tyra.”

Down below, his cock was hot, hard, and painfully angry.
Down, boy
.

She sighed and laid a head on his shoulder. “I'm sorry, guess I don't always handle…” She gestured between the two of them. “This part of it very well.”

He smiled. “Tyra, I get it. You met, in a manner of speaking, my father. I take ‘emotionally unavailable' to a whole new level. We're both going to have to put a little effort into this, okay?”

She nodded and closed her eyes. “Be patient with me.”

He kissed her jaw. “I have to tell you that it was terrifying out there. And thrilling at the same time. The same as before, fighting alongside you. It hit me that you're probably never going to need my help. Is that okay with you?”

Her eyes opened wide. “Sure. It's okay with me. I don't really know anything different. Is it okay with you?”

He exhaled. He admired her so much. Of course it was okay. It seemed to defy logic. It seemed that his caveman guy brain should want a tiny woman that he could club and throw over his shoulder.
Should, should, should
. Screw “should.” He nudged her chin so that he could kiss her properly. “I love the way you are. I wouldn't want to change any of it.” He shrugged a little. “I admit I worry about keeping you safe, protecting you… I'm going to do everything I can. I'm going to work with Thad. We'll figure it out.”

She kissed him again. “You love me?”

He frowned. “Of course. Haven't I said that from the beginning?”

She sighed and rolled her eyes. “But that was different. That was…” She studied him. “I mean, it is different now, right? This isn't the same as the crush you had on me from afar, is it?”

His cock deflated, and he wanted to beat his head against a brick wall. Clearly, he hadn't been doing anything right if she still questioned what he felt for her. How could she possibly, after what they'd been through?

***

For the first time since Anton had carried her out of that bizarre portal, she allowed herself to be open to his emotions. His pain moved through her veins like shards of icy glass that bumped along and into each other, and she wanted to curl around herself and close off to all of it.

This was why it was so hard to really be with someone. It had been easy with Siddoh. No real commitment, no real feelings to muddy up the works, not until the end. And no one she could worry would leave her alone like her mother had… her mother, who according to her father had loved her so much.

She sighed and pressed herself against Anton's body and stared into his dark eyes. “I can see it now, you know?”

He frowned. He clearly didn't see it.

She smiled at him. “I was thinking about my mom. I always wondered how she could have left me with my father and not looked back. It hadn't occurred to me before that maybe she knew something about this whole wizard business, and that maybe she did what she did for my safety.” She rubbed a cheek against Anton's rough stubble. “It seems like sort of a stupid no-brainer now, but I was too busy being angry with her to think of that before now. I kept wondering how she could give me up. How she could give my father up. It still hurts, but I guess I get it now.”

He exhaled softly. “I'm glad that you do,” he murmured. His hand came up to touch her hair. She kissed his palm as it ghosted past her face and then kissed his lips lightly. He wasn't a vampire, and she realized that, until this moment, she had not truly given him the credit he was due for how strong he'd been to go through all of this for her.

He lay there on the floor, nude and glorious and wearing the open hurt of what he still believed was her rejection of him. And he was man enough to show every bit of it to her. Most vampire males would have offered a flip response and left the room by now. He had fought for her in every way imaginable.

He had killed his father for her. For all of them.

She wasn't sure she could ever have done something like that. That took… she wasn't even sure what that took. And for him to want to live here with her, knowing the kind of hate and mistrust that would surround him? For him to turn against his own kind? Maybe he loved her and maybe he didn't agree with their ways, but to betray everything he'd ever known still took an unimaginable strength.

“I'm sorry,” she blurted out.

He licked his lips and cocked his head sideways. “For what?”

She frowned. “I know I said the wrong thing earlier. I questioned your feelings. I shouldn't have.”

He shook his head. An arm snaked around her body and pulled her on top of him. Immediately a spark sizzled between them at the renewed intimacy of all their pleasure points touching at once.

A large, comforting hand came to either side of her head. “Honey…”

Something unexpected and hard to define swelled inside Tyra. She'd been called that before, but never by someone from whom it meant something. And she hadn't realized it didn't mean much before, or that it meant so much from him, until he said it.

She bit her lower lip. “Yes, Anton?”

His gray gaze bored into hers. “You were raised as the second-fiddle older half sister to the king of all of vampire-kind.”

She rolled her eyes. Jeez, it sounded kind of sad when he put it that way.

He smiled wryly. “It's not a bad thing, but it's the truth.” He huffed out a breath of air. “Your father loved you, at least. But I get how that wasn't enough. At least you had that, though. Someone loved you. Your father. Your brother. Probably your mother too, if she left you here to be cared for. My father—” He cut off and pressed his lips together, and his face got a little red.

The tide of his emotion nearly made her cry, it so was throat-cloggingly powerful. “My father didn't love me. Or like me. He enjoyed me like a pet or something, and even then, I wasn't so much fun when I didn't perform the way he wanted.”

“Anton, I'm so sorry.”

“No.” He shook his head. “No, that's not my point. My point is that between the two of us, we've got a whole fleet of issues and baggage and reasons why we don't really know how to handle normal and healthy. That concerns me quite a bit.”

He was right. As Tyra's heart began to sink, though, something she couldn't put her finger on helped buoy it back up. “But I'd like to try,” he said.

Maybe that something was hope. Whatever it was, it poured out from inside her like someone had turned the sun on inside her chest.

She grabbed him and kissed him as hard as she could. Relief swamped her senses, drowning out everything else. She slammed shut the channel on his emotions, deciding to rely on communication for a change. It was a skill they both needed to work on.

Anton's arms came around her back, and a large hand settled firmly on her ass. The friction of their bodies had him hard again, and they were both panting and needy in no time.

It had been a hell of a night, and connecting physically was something they could stand to work on, too.

Anton groaned and shifted, seating himself in Tyra's tight heat.

If he lived to be a hundred, he would never get tired of being inside her. Wow. Would he be able to live that long? His heart flipped in his chest. He'd never thought to ask, and oh God, he wouldn't ask now because….

Her hands planted on his chest and his hands gripped her hips. He reveled in the roll and pitch of her hips, the bunch of her stomach muscles, and the gentle sway of her breasts. Her face was full of blissed-out pleasure, her lips parted and her eyes wide, and he experienced a wonder unlike any other: he had put that pleasure on her face. Him.

Holy cow.

He gripped her hips tighter. His fingers dug in, and the slight pang of guilt over handling her a little too roughly was chased away by her gasp of pleasure and the hard slam of her body against his. Realizing he loved it when she rode him hard, he encouraged it, bringing her down harder with each stroke, murmuring filthy things like “yeah, fuck me,” that he never imagined himself saying. He was too caught up in it all to be embarrassed, even though later he probably would be.

She leaned low and threaded her fingers through his; he managed to catch a nipple in his mouth briefly and loved the hard, wrinkly skin against his teeth, the low moan from her throat. The hard squeeze of her sex and the faster, faster, harder slide that told him she was almost there.

And thank glory hallelujah because he'd been riding the edge, and it was only through sheer force of will he'd never known he possessed that he hadn't let go already.

But then her thighs squeezed against him hard, her breasts slid, sweaty and perfect against his skin, and the wintery scent of her hair passed under his nose as she buried her face in the crook of his shoulder.

The pinch and burn of her bite and the suckle at his vein set off a chain reaction he couldn't have stopped for any threat or money. He bucked and shouted beneath her, and she simply squeezed harder and held on, moaning and riding him through it all. Somewhere in the middle she licked at him and threw back her head, moaning and panting through a release of her own. A trickle of blood ran down the corner of her mouth, and he swiped it away with his thumb, strangely eager to taste himself.

He didn't note anything particularly special about the flavor as he touched his tongue to the stuff, not like the sweet strawberry flavor of hers, but if she loved it, that was all that mattered. And she seemed to.

They floated together from their cloud of bliss back down to the carpet, and he wondered at his good fortune. He'd been dealt a lot of crap, no arguments there, but Tyra was… everything. He could never have imagined loving her like this. Even when he had watched her and longed to protect her.

He hoped he could show her that, eventually.

No.

He
would
show her that, eventually.

Whatever it took, however long their lives were together, he would devote that time to protecting her as best he could and to proving his love.

She reached to the back of the sofa and pulled a blanket on top of them.

“You know,” he said quietly, “your bedroom isn't that far.”

“I know. I don't feel ready to move yet.”

He understood.

“I love you too,” she murmured against his chest.

Anton closed his eyes and hugged her against him.

“I'm sorry that I questioned you before.”

He lifted his head. “We're going to have to set ground rules about you eavesdropping on my feelings.”

Her smile was sleepy. If they didn't move soon, they were going to wake up on the floor later and be very sorry for it. “I wasn't. I know I didn't respond the right way before.”

His eyebrows drew together. He wasn't quite sure he believed her; something about the expression on her face was slightly guilty.

She rolled her eyes. “Okay. Earlier I was, and I could tell that I hurt you, and I'm sorry.” She bit her lips a little. “I told you I'm not very good at this.”

He kissed the top of her head. “It's okay. We'll have plenty of time to get good. I hope.”

Her head tipped up, and her brown eyes were smiling and warm. “We will. You know if you drink my blood, it'll…” For some reason, this made her blush a deep crimson. Damn, it was adorable to see her flustered that way. “There's no way to know, exactly. I don't think any vampire in history has mated for life with a wizard. But we do know that drinking vampire blood extends wizard life spans.”

He had to ask. “I don't know why this is making you blush, exactly.”

She shook her head. “I guess it's silly, but you know you only cease to age as long as we…” She laughed and put her hands over her face. “It's so stupid. I never thought about spending the rest of my life with someone before, and here we are… we met in a homeless shelter. Anton, you were supposed to kill me. Or kidnap me.”

His gut clenched. “Don't fucking remind me.”

“Well, you have to admit, it's pretty out there. I've been more or less single for over a century, Anton. I still feel a little funny thinking of myself as anyone's mate, much less yours. Much less telling anyone. I'm sorry. Is that silly?”

“Yes.” His expression was deadpan, but he was tempted to roll his eyes. “Tyra, I'm pretty sure everyone else is already referring to us as that.”

Her eyes widened. “They are?”

A laugh burst out of Anton. It rolled on and on until she was staring at him as if he'd grown a second head on his shoulders, which only made him snort harder.

Tyra hovered above him, her expression dubious, like maybe she wasn't certain whether she wanted to laugh with him or haul off and hit him with her kung-fu action power. Maybe it would turn out to be both. He'd kind of already established he was okay with that.

She went with option C and pinched him.

“Hey!”

“I'm glad I make you laugh.” She tried to keep her face deadpan, but deep in those brown eyes was a sparkle of amusement.

He
was
glad. “There hasn't been a lot to laugh about.” His fingers tangled in her hair. “I want to laugh with you for a long time.”

She smiled and kissed him. Now
that
he could do forever.

***

The baby had woken while the doctor was in with Theresa. It yowled and rooted at its little fist, squirming desperately in its Moses basket while trying to find a mother who was nowhere in sight. Something Theresa had said to Xander tugged at his heart—something about how newborns had never had to feel hunger in the womb, and so after they were born, hunger could seem an awful lot like pain. And with this information scrolling like a news ticker tape in his head, he lifted the child awkwardly with heavy, clumsy arms. His heart pounded like a kettledrum.

This little, squirmy thing was so light and delicate. Xander was surprised anew at how very tiny and fragile the baby was every time he dared to pick it up. He didn't do it often. Usually only if Theresa asked him to.

He glanced left and right guiltily, like he might suddenly be called out for doing something he ought not to be. He inhaled deeply. The little one's hair smelled sweet, like something unidentifiable but altogether baby-like. Some sort of automatic muscle memory had him cupping the little bundle with hands that always seemed too large and pulling it close against his chest, which quieted the crying immediately. The little mouth gaped and rooted like a fish, though, and Xander offered his pinkie for it to suckle on. That seemed to do the trick for a moment. It sighed and snuffled, and its little eyes fluttered shut again.

“I'm sorry. That's all I've got to offer you,” he said quietly. “Your mother will be back soon.” He glanced toward Theresa's bedroom door as if to prove a point, not that little Eamon cared.

It was amazing how once the baby was back to sleep, all the tension drained from Xander's body. He hadn't realized how quickly such a tiny thing's crying had cranked him up until he'd managed to make it stop.

A smile spread over his face even as tiny, puffy little lips flutter-sucked on his pinkie in sleep. Pretty amazing. He had a master's from the University of Maryland's online degree program and he'd killed hundreds of wizards, but he'd never felt more accomplished than right now, calming this feral little infant.

How odd.

“…and make sure you continue to get plenty of rest.” Voices approached the door of Theresa's bedroom.

Xander slipped his finger from the baby's mouth and quietly returned him to the bassinet. The doc opened the door and Theresa stepped out, her face bunched and confused. She glanced into the blanket-lined Moses basket where the baby lay sleeping. “Is everything okay? I thought I heard him cry.”

Xander shrugged, and it was a larger effort than it ought to have been. His arms and shoulders were made of lead again. “He woke up for a minute. I got him back to sleep. He's going to be really hungry next time, though.”

The doctor had his back turned and was busy gathering a coat and a bag of doctor-type things, and Theresa shot Xander a smile of gratitude that was so bright, it almost hurt him to look at it. He didn't want to see that from her. Didn't want her to feel it for him. He glanced at the sleeping baby.

“I was wondering, how are you doing? Physically? With the baby and everything?”

Her eyebrows jumped. The doctor handed her some papers and murmured some instructions, and Xander made a point of staring into space and filling his head with white noise while they talked.

When the front door had clicked closed, she sat in the overstuffed leather chair opposite his. “What do you mean?”

He exhaled. “I mean, I would like to get back to active duty, but I don't want to do that until you feel able to handle things on your own, and it hasn't been very long since…” Since Eamon died. “…the baby was born, and I don't want to leave you hanging if you still feel that you need help here.”

She rested her face on a single finger. It made her eyebrow appear to be perpetually raised, as if in a question. “I'm sure it's been hard, being away from the action all this time. I want you to know how helpful it's been, having your company. Thank you. But you know, I can get someone else here to keep me company. I don't need to waste one of the king's fighters to keep some stupid woman and her baby company.”

Xander's chest hurt all of a sudden. “You aren't stupid.” He growled a little more forcefully than was strictly necessary. “Sorry, it's been a trying couple of days. But you aren't stupid. Nor is the baby.”

She shrugged. “Maybe not stupid. You know what I mean, though. I don't need you here, Xander. Get back to your duties. Your life. Carry on.” She smiled at him. “Thank you for allowing us to lean on you these past few weeks.”

His tongue was as thick and heavy as his arms had been before. “You're welcome.”

The baby stirred and whimpered again, and she rose to reach for it. The act lit a fire under Xander's ass, and he almost knocked the remote control off the end table in his rush to stand.

“Let me go make you some tea. Chamomile?”

She nodded and smiled, apparently grateful for the offer. It had become his way of gracefully leaving the room when she nursed the baby. It was a beautiful and natural thing, and Theresa was always extremely tasteful about it. But truthfully, it made him squirm. It drove home in a way that nothing else did that parenthood was something he and Tam had never had for themselves. And now, never would.