SovereignsChoice (27 page)

Aiden doesn’t stop until he has me in the
living room of his house and is sitting on a couch, still holding me. Only then
does he speak.

“Darling.” He crushes me to him, burying
his face in my hair. “Oh, Emma, I thought I’d lost you.”

I’m tempted to melt at his words but then I
remember he said the exact same thing after we healed the binding spell and I
fainted in front of the Vampire Council. And then he left me and never called
once. I struggle against him, trying to sit up.

“Why are we here? Why did you bring me to
your house?”

“I…” Aiden looks stricken. “Instinct, I
suppose,” he says at last. “You were in danger. My first impulse was to bring
you where I knew I could keep you safe. To bring you home.”

“Your home,” I whisper. “Not mine.”

“No.” He clears his throat. “Of course
not.” Abruptly, he puts me down on the couch and moves back, putting some room
between us. “Forgive me,” he says formally. “I didn’t mean to make you
uncomfortable.”

“You didn’t. I-I just…” Miserably I twist
my fingers into knots, trying to think of what to say. How many times have I
imagined this moment in my mind, since the last time I saw him? How many things
have I planned to ask, to beg, to demand, to plead? And yet now they’re all
gone and my head is empty. “How…how did you know I was in danger?” I ask at
last.

Aiden looks at the carpet. “I felt it,” he
says in a low voice. “I don’t have much of your blood left—I bled most of it
out onto the Council Room floor. But there was just enough left to let me know
you…you needed me.”

“Thank you for coming,” I say softly. “It
was Sanchez. I set fire to him because he…he was going to…” My throat locks up
and I can’t get the words out, can’t stop seeing those slotted yellow eyes as
the satyr hissed his final threat.

“I know what he was going to do.” A muscle
in the side of Aiden’s jaw clenches. “I should have killed him years ago.”

“Well, he’s dead now,” I say with a shiver,
remembering the screaming, clawing lump of burning flesh the satyr became when
the witch-flames engulfed him.

“I’m glad he won’t be bothering you
anymore.” Aiden clears his throat. “As it happens, I won’t either.”

“What? What do you mean?” My heart is suddenly
thumping so loudly I’m afraid Aiden might hear it. “Where are you going?”

“I’m going to ground again,” he says quietly,
still looking away. “I’ve tried living in the human world and it doesn’t suit
me. Not without…someone to share it with. And I’ve never liked the company of
my own kind.” He clears his throat. “I was actually just about to enter my
coffin for the final time tonight when I felt your distress. Now that I know
you’re safe, I can go ahead with my plans.”

I feel numb all over. “So…I guess this is
goodbye.”

“I guess so.” Aiden’s face is calm but his
deep voice is hoarse. “I’m sorry for any pain I may have caused you, Emma,” he
says formally. “I hope…hope in time you may find it in your heart to forgive
me. If I ever come out into the light again, I promise to look after your
descendants and make sure they’re happy and safe.”

“My descendants,” I whisper and I know he’s
talking about sons and daughters I’ll have with some other man. The children
who have nothing to do with him—with a vampire who’s nothing more than a
footnote in my past. A distant memory of a love that never was.

Suddenly there’s a lump in my throat that I
can’t swallow and my eyes are stinging. “Excuse me,” I whisper brokenly. “I…the
restroom. I need to—”

“Of course,” Aiden says. “Help yourself.”

But I’m already rushing past him, the tears
stinging my eyes and my heart caught in a vise. He’s going. He’s leaving me. Leaving
forever and if it hadn’t been for Sanchez coming around to murder me in my bed
tonight, he never would have even come to say goodbye. I’ve done the stupidest
thing a girl can do—I’ve allowed myself to fall for a man who cares nothing for
me. I’ve given my heart away and now I can’t get it back.

I run blindly through the mirrored maze of
the house. Somehow I find myself not in the bathroom but in the study,
surrounded by the rows of leather-bound books and facing the huge mahogany desk
that dominates half the room. I sink down and lean my cheek against its cool
surface for a moment, my shoulders shaking with silent sobs. Whatever I do, I
can’t let him hear me. I don’t want him to know that he’s hurt me this badly, don’t
want him to guess how desperately I love him…

If you love him, go and claim him.

The witch-whisper in my head startles me so
much I nearly scream. I jerk my head up off the desk and look from side to
side, trying to see who’s talking to me. There’s no one there, though. Just the
ancient copy of
Farrow’s Handbook of Spells and Summonings
,lying
open on the desk blotter.

“What?” I ask in a whisper. “Who said
that?”

I did.
The
book jiggles a little.
I, your ancestress, Katherine. Speak to me in your
witch-whisper. I will hear you.

Katherine?
I
send back, my eyes wide with disbelief.
Are you really still here?

Only a small part—a piece of my spirit I
left tied to my spell book,
she assures me.
I
wanted to be able to watch over my beloved Aiden even after I was gone. I knew,
you see, that I would precede him in death. Truthfully, it was what I wanted.

Why are you talking to me now?
I demand of her, still staring at the book.
What do you want?

For you to do what I never could,
she whispers.
I want you to make Aiden happy.

Make him happy?
I snort incredulously.
How? He doesn’t care if I live or die—I
don’t think it’s in my power to affect his happiness.

That’s not true and you know it.
Katherine sounds stern, maybe even a little angry.
Would he have
come to your aid tonight if he didn’t care for you?

He was responding to the call of your
blood, that’s all,
I say dismissively.
He never
would have come otherwise.

My blood is long since gone from him,
Katherine says quietly.
It was
your
blood that
called to him, Emma. You that he wanted to save. You that he loves.

Yes, he saved me. Whoop-dee-do,
I say angrily.
And now he’s going to ground and he’ll never see
me again. Is that the act of a man in love?

It is the act of a man who feels he has
lost your love,
she whispers quietly in my ear.
The
act of a man desperate to remove himself from the pain of that loss. He thinks
you don’t want him anymore, Emma. And if you don’t speak up and let him know
otherwise, he’ll go to his coffin thinking that. And this time, I don’t think
he’ll rise again. This time he will let go of his life essence and return to
the ground.

The thought of Aiden giving up—letting
himself die and decay—hits me like a ton of bricks, knocking the emotional wind
out of me. I can barely hold back a sob. I want so much to believe her when she
says that Aiden still loves me, that he is only going to ground because he
thinks he’s lost me…but somehow I can’t do it. I just can’t.

Katherine seems to feel my disbelief.
If
you don’t believe me, test him yourself,
she snaps.

How?
I
demand back. Short of going back out to the living room and declaring my
desperate love—which I’m
not
going to do—I can’t think of any subtle way
to let him know I care and see if he does too.

You know how,
she tells me, the book’s pages rustling with quiet violence.
Submit.

But…what…how…?

But the book is quiet and I sense my
ancestress is gone. The little piece of her spirit she left behind to watch
over Aiden’s happiness seems to feel it has done its duty. The ancient copy of
Farrow’s
is just a book now and I’m on my own.

At first I’m tempted to ignore her advice.
After all, what does she know? What will I do if I try to submit to Aiden and
he just ignores me? Or worse, politely puts me off?

What will you do if he goes back to
ground?
whispers a little voice in my head that I
recognize as my own.
If you never see him again? Are you really too much of
a coward to even try? Which would be worse—his rejection or the knowledge that
he might have loved you but you were too afraid and proud to try to find out?

I know the answer to that. I’d much rather
risk rejection and know that I tried than wonder my whole life if Katherine’s
spirit was right or not. But how exactly can I do this?

A gleaming spot of red on the desk catches
my eye and gives me the start of an idea. It’s my collar—the one with the ruby
pendant that Aiden took from me when he released me from his service. I could
have sworn it wasn’t there a minute ago but now it is, lying beside the copy of
Farrow’s
and gleaming innocently in the soft lamplight.

Suddenly I know what I have to do. It may
win me my Master back…or it may end in terrible rejection. But whichever
outcome happens, at least I will know I have tried.

Taking a deep breath, I reach for the
collar.

“Emma?” Aiden calls, just as I finish
getting ready. “Are you all right?”

“I’m just fine…Master.” I can barely get
the words out without stuttering but somehow I manage. “I’m here, in the
study.”

“What are you doing in there?” I hear him
ask. “Emma, what—” He stops short in the doorway, the words dying on his lips
when he sees me.

I run my hand through my hair nervously,
hoping he likes what he sees. I thought about keeping my nightgown on but it’s
sooty and scorched and besides, he always said he liked to see me naked. So I
have taken everything off but the collar, which I am wearing in hopes he’ll
treat me as his submissive again and not some stranger. The AC kicks on and a
cool air current flowing from the vent teases around my naked nipples and
pussy, making me shiver.

For a long moment Aiden just looks at me,
and I can’t tell what the hell he’s thinking. “Emma,” he says at last, sounding
stern. “What do you think you’re doing?”

I give him a look of wide-eyed innocence. “Getting
ready for my punishment, Master. I-I was very bad tonight. I almost didn’t jump
when you told me to and—”

Aiden is across the room in a flash. Taking
me by the shoulders, he shakes me roughly. “Do you think this is some kind of a
game, Emma? Some twisted little scenario you can play out one more time before
I go to ground?” he asks harshly.

“No!” I cry, dropping the innocent
submissive routine. “This is no game—it’s my life. A life that included you
until you decided to throw me away like a piece of trash you didn’t want any
more.”

“A piece of trash?” he repeats hoarsely.
“Is that really what you imagine I think of you?”

“What else am I supposed to think?” I snap,
crossing my arms over my bare breasts protectively. Now I wish I wasn’t naked
but it’s too late for regrets. “I thought maybe…maybe you didn’t like the way I
look now,” I say, making a gesture that takes in my purple eyes and black hair.

“You’re beautiful, Emma, always beautiful
to me,” he murmurs. “Although I must say, I’m very glad you kept your figure.
It would have been a shame if you’d become as terribly skinny as your cousin.”

I try to laugh but it turns into a sob.
“That’s…that’s the only part I
don’t
like,” I confess. “Why couldn’t the
magic make me thinner while it was changing everything?”

“Maybe it knew I like you like this.” His
gray eyes flicker over me, taking in my naked body in a way that makes my
cheeks get hot.

“You have a strange way of showing you like
me.” I raise my chin, trying not to show my embarrassment. “You left me and
never once called, never came over to check on me.”

“Oh, darling…” He puts a hand to his eyes
for a moment and shakes his head. “I’ve been doing nothing
but
checking
on you. I’ve been coming around your cousin’s house night and day, staying out
of sight, trying to make sure you were all right.”

“If that’s true then you must have seen how
upset I’ve been,” I whisper. “You must have had some idea of how abandoned I felt.
Why didn’t you come talk to me? Tell me you cared…if you do care at all, that
is.”

“Of
course
I care,” he says fiercely.
“I love you, Emma! But I thought…” He shakes his head. “Thought you’d hate me for
not being able to save your mother. For not being able to stop what happened so
long ago when you were only a child.”

“Why would I blame you for that?” I ask blankly.
“I blame myself.”

“It’s not your fault,” he whispers, cupping
my cheek.

“It’s not yours either,” I say in a choked
voice. “And I could never hate you, Aiden. Never. I…I love you too.”

He pulls me close, crushing me to his chest
and covering my mouth in a long, delicious kiss that takes my breath away.
“Emma,” he whispers when he breaks the kiss at last. “Do you really mean that?
Even now that you know the whole truth? My involvement in your past?”

“I wouldn’t say it otherwise,” I assure
him. I put my arms around his neck, glad that even with my new height I still
have to look up at him. “Are you still going to ground?” I ask softly. “Please,
Aiden, say you’re not going to. If you leave me again I don’t know what I’ll
do.”

“Of course I’ll stay here with you.” He
strokes my cheek gently. “On one condition—that you form a life-bond with me.”

I frown. “But that will cut your lifespan
in half.”

“And lengthen yours to match it,” he says firmly.
“I’ll only stay in the light if I have you with me, darling. I have no interest
in living any length of time without you.”

I know I should say no, should refuse to
let him sacrifice centuries of his life for me but I can’t help myself. The
idea that he wants to be with me so much, that he doesn’t want to live without
me, fills me with joy so intense I can barely breathe. “Yes,” I whisper at
last. “Yes, if…if you really want to.”

“I do.” His gray eyes shine, reflecting
back my own happiness as he pulls me in to kiss me once more.

“What exactly does forming a life-bond
involve?” I ask breathlessly, when he finally lets me go. “Is it some kind of
ritual?”

“I’ll show you,” he murmurs. “Starting
right now.”

“What? You want to do it this minute?” My
heart is already speeding inside my chest at the hot way he is looking at me.

“Can you think of a better time?” he asks.
“I almost lost you once, Emma. I don’t intend to risk it again. I love you and
I want to tie you to me now.
Right
now.”

I hardly know what to say but he’s already
kissing me. Running his big, warm hands all over my bare body, murmuring how
soft my skin is, how he loves my full breasts and hips. It’s making me so hot I
can’t think straight. And then, before I know it, he has me seated on the edge
of the desk and is kneeling between my legs.

“What…what are you doing?” I ask
breathlessly although it’s pretty obvious.

“Getting you ready.” He looks up at me, his
gray eyes blazing. “I need you open and ready to submit, darling.”

“I’m ready,” I assure him and indeed my
pussy is already getting hot and wet though he hasn’t even kissed me yet.

“Not just ready for my kiss, darling. I
need you to be ready for my bite.” He opens his mouth, showing the sharp white
fangs that hurt so much when they pierced my wrist the night he first claimed
me.

I bite my lip uncertainly. “Your bite?”

“In order to form a life-bond, we must
exchange blood. If you were flowing right now I could taste you as I did the
night I took your virginity,” he explains. “But as you aren’t, I will have to
pierce your sweet flesh to get a taste of your blood.”

I look at those long white fangs again and
then down to my tender, sensitive inner thighs. Goddess, this is
so
going to hurt.

“No, it’s not,” he murmurs, doing that mind
reading trick he has. “It won’t hurt a bit, darling, if you can just let me in.
Just submit to me completely as you did the night we healed the spell.”

I take a deep breath. “I…I’ll try,” I
whisper. “It’s just…a little scary.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” he assures me.
“I’ll be gentle, my darling. And I’ll give you pleasure first. You’ll barely
feel it when my fangs slip in.”

“If you say so…” I sound doubtful, even to
my own ears but Aiden doesn’t seem concerned by my lack of faith.

“Just watch,” he commands softly. “Watch me
taste you, Emma. Watch me slide my tongue deep in your hot little cunt and
taste your honey.”

As always when he talks dirty to me, I can
feel my body reacting. My nipples are suddenly tight and my clit is throbbing
for his touch.

Aiden seems to know his effect on me
because he gives me a gentle kiss on my inner thigh and laughs softly when I
jump and moan.

“Watch,” he commands again and I do—I can’t
help myself. I am perched on the edge of the desk, my legs spread wide for him
as he kneels before me, preparing to taste my pussy. My stomach feels as if
there is a wire inside it, winding tighter and tighter as I watch him lean
forward and press a soft, open-mouthed kiss to my tender cleft.

“Aiden,” I whisper but his only answer is
to kiss me again. As he does, he looks up, catching my gaze with his own. Those
cool gray eyes, now hot with passion, hold mine, refusing to let me go as he
kisses me deeper, his tongue sliding delicately into my slippery folds to
caress me in the most intimate way imaginable.

I gasp and bite my lip again as I watch him
trace my clit with the tip of his tongue and then press deeper to bathe my
entire pussy with a long, slow lick that starts at the bottom of my slit and
ends at the top. And all the while he holds my gaze with his, commanding me to
look at him, never allowing me to glance away even for an instant from the
erotic sight of him tasting my naked pussy.

“Gods, I love the taste of your cunt,” he
murmurs before licking me again. “So sweet and salty and creamy and hot. You
have the most luscious pussy, darling. I love to tease you with my tongue.”

“But you’re just going to tease me—you’re
not going to let me come, are you?” I asked, already disappointed. Aiden spent
so many weeks making me hold back sexually and delaying my orgasms in the past
I’m sure that’s what he’s planning now.

But to my surprise, he shakes his head.

“On the contrary, darling. I’m going to
bathe your sweet little cunt with my tongue until you come for me. Come hard,
all over my face,” he murmurs.

My heart, which had almost slowed down,
goes triple time now.

“Y-you are?” I stammer.

Slowly, he nods. “And you’re going to watch
me the whole time. I never want your eyes off me. Stay here in the moment and
give yourself up completely. To the pleasure and to me. Submit, Emma, and
you’ll see how delicious it can be.”

I already know that submitting to him can
be plenty delicious. Not to mention crazy hot and insanely intense.

“Yes,” I whisper, more than willing to give
him what he wants now. “Yes, Master, I submit.”

“That’s a good girl, Emma,” he murmurs,
kissing my open cunt again, very gently. “Such a good girl to spread your sweet
little pussy for your Master’s special kisses.”

“Yes, Master,” I gasp breathlessly. “Yes, I—”
But my words are lost in a groan because he has gone back to tasting me but
this time he’s not being quite so tender. Before, it was as though he was
gentling me—reassuring me that everything would be all right. Now that I’m more
willing to give myself, he seems to have one thing only on his mind—to make me
come as hard as possible.

He presses me back against the desk, his
long, muscular arms winding around my thighs, his broad shoulders splitting me
wide. The position forces me to be open—completely open for him. My pussy lips
spread, clearly showing my slippery inner folds and the pink pearl of my clit.

Aiden growls low in his throat—a sound of
approval and lust as he eyes my open, vulnerable pussy. Then he presses his
mouth between my thighs and plunges his tongue between my spread petals.

I gasp as the flat of his tongue slides
eagerly over my open folds. The feeling—and the sight—of him going down on me
and kissing this most sensitive and intimate area makes me feel almost faint
with pleasure. I am propped up on my elbows, watching, held tight in his grasp
and helpless to move as he sucks my aching clit into his mouth and begins to
torture it with his tongue.

“Aiden…oh Master,” I cry and find that
somehow one of my hands has found its way down to tangle in his dark hair.

Aiden doesn’t seem to mind. He releases my
clit and tongues me with long, slow licks before going back to tracing my hot
little button with the tip in a way that makes me moan his name again.

My pleasure is building now, getting almost
unbearable. My hips buck uncontrollably and I nearly writhe right off the desk
but Aiden clamps down on me and keeps me in place, forcing me to submit to his
intense kisses. Holding me still, he licks me hard, rubbing over my sensitive
bud until I swear I can see stars dancing before my eyes, it feels so damn
good.

Suddenly it is too much. I feel the wire
that has been tightening inside me snap and I am moaning and crying as my
orgasm peaks and the pleasure washes over me.

“Ah!” I gasp, my back arching and my
nipples tightening as desire floods me. “Master…Master, yes! Yes,
please
.”

Aiden rides out my bucking and gasping, his
arms locked tight around me, his mouth buried between my legs. And then, just
as I think the pleasure can’t grow any more, I feel his fangs. Their
razor-sharp points find my inner thigh and as I watch, Aiden prepares to bite.

I would feel frightened at this moment if
my body wasn’t so flooded with endorphins. As it is, I can’t spare a second for
fear. All I can feel is pleasure, all I know is completely submission to my
Master’s demands.

There are two sharp little pains right in
my inner thigh but the sensation fades almost immediately to pleasure. Even
more pleasure than I felt when he licked my pussy, I realize with a little
shock. In fact, it’s almost as though as Aiden feeds on me—as he sucks the
blood from my thigh—he is also injecting me with something that makes my whole
body throb with need and desire.

“Aiden?” I gasp, my back arching again. “Oh
Goddess, that’s so…
Oh!
”

Relax,
I
hear him murmur inside my head, talking to me the same way he did the night he
named me his.
It’s just my essence. Now that you’ve submitted completely,
you can feel its true effects. It gives incredible pleasure when you’re ready
to receive it. To receive me.

Incredible pleasure is right. I’m flat on
the desk now with my legs over his broad shoulders and both hands buried in his
black hair as I urge him on. Though Aiden’s mouth is busy on my thigh, he
obliges my unspoken plea with his hand. Long, strong fingers enter me and
stroke inward even as his thumb slips over my clit.