The Burning (43 page)

He smiled, trying not to be distracted by the pressure of
her breasts against his side as she breathed. “How can I know? I was born to the Companion. But I see better than humans do and hear things they cannot. So I suppose the answer must be, yes.”

She searched his face as though to memorize it. He knew what she wanted, though she would not voice her desire. Her Companion would be demanding it, just as his did now. He was fully erect, throbbing with desire for her. Traitorous body! He should be properly contrite for what he had done to her. He should be worrying about the Daughters.

The Daughters! They were out there, waiting for him. He must face them, to protect Ann. He would be killed. That was a foregone conclusion.

Then you should give Ann something to remember you by, something that shows her the good side of having been infected, that she might not lose her way in regret
. Was that his Companion talking, wanting the ecstasy of sexual union so badly that it found any excuse to indulge? No, he told himself firmly. He was long past his youth, when his sexual needs had controlled his body. Control? Ann was running her small hands under his shirt now, across his chest, thumbing his nipple. He had spent two years under the tutelage of the Daughters learning control, yet at this moment he could hardly think coherently. He kissed Ann’s forehead, knowing it took the last bit of control he had to do so only lightly. Now his control was all used up. There was no turning back . . .

Need surged through Ann like a rising tide. Universal forces were at work inside her body, moons and gravity, the earth and its molten core. She splayed her hands across Stephan’s chest and felt the crinkle of each hair, the tightening of his nipple under her thumb. His heart pounded against her breast, his blood throbbed at her. She pulled lightly at his
shirt, and it ripped away. That made her stare! Was she so strong? She felt a grin widen her mouth without her permission. Stephan ran his hands over her shoulders and bent his head. She reached to kiss him. His lips were soft, but their touch sent bolts of lightning through her spine. She pressed her tongue inside his mouth. He tasted sweet and moist, more sensuous than she could ever have imagined before today. It
was
day. The sun was shining somewhere, though she did not know how she knew that.

What matter? She and Stephan were safe here in darkness and candlelight, and she wanted him with every cell in her body.

Wait! How could she ask a man so weakened to indulge in the kind of exertions she was even now imagining? She pushed back, examining his face. The smudges underneath his eyes had faded somewhat, and what burned in their dark depths said he was more than eager to exert himself. She ripped her shift with one hand and pressed her bare breasts against his chest. The hair teased her nipples into hardness.

“Stephan,” she whispered frantically, “Stephan, take me.”

She didn’t want the tender exploration of their first encounter. She wanted his cock inside her, thrusting, his tongue kissing her and sucking at her breasts. She wanted to feel him ejaculate inside her, spurting again and again. There would never be enough of him to satisfy her, but she was willing to die trying to be satisfied. She pulled at his breeches and the buttons popped away. She pulled them down even as he pulled up her shift. She straddled his hips as he sat against the rock, pulling his cock up straight and settling herself on to it in two deep thrusts. They groaned together at the sensation of filling and being filled.

Hands on his chest, she moved her hips up and down, once, twice slowly, then faster. He was panting, so was she. He bit his lip. She heard him murmuring.

“Don’t you dare try to keep control, Stephan Sincai!”
she whispered, leaning forward to take his lower lip in her teeth. “You know you can’t hurt me. And I want the whole experience.”

A grin flickered over his face and was gone, replaced by an intensity that might make her burst into flames on the spot. He wrapped his arms around her and pressed her to his body. They moved their hips in counterpoint. Their lips locked together. Her breasts were flattened against his chest. His tongue thrust in her mouth. The flood of sensations threatened to overwhelm her. The friction on her point of pleasure was almost unbearable. Had anyone ever felt so intensely? No human, surely.

Then all thought was banished as her world exploded. Shards of herself were mixed with the light and color that shot outward into the universe. It was if someone else was making the small cries she heard. She felt Stephan pulsing inside her as he grunted uncontrollably. On and on they arched and pulsed, shuddering in rhythm with the pull of life inside them. Finally, after what seemed like ages, there was a wrenching pull at her center and sensation whirled back down the scale. She collapsed upon his heaving chest. He wrapped his arms around her.

For a while she just lay there on top of him, her panting slowly subsiding, feeling him still inside her. No thoughts circled in her mind. Then tears welled up from nowhere and she was sobbing. He lifted her off his softening member and cradled her, but he didn’t seem surprised by her tears.

“Shush,” he whispered. “I know.”

“It w-was so g-good,” she managed. “I f-felt so close to you.”

“The blood is the life,” he whispered into her hair and that seemed to say it all.

But wait . . . He attributed all she felt to the Companion. Certainly the sensations had been far more powerful than when they had made love before. But to put it all on the
Companion was too easy, too dismissive. It wasn’t just the urge to life. The sexual experience was good because she loved him and she knew he loved her. He must acknowledge that.

“I love you, Stephan.” It was taking a chance to say that, but then, most women could not be sure the man they said it to loved them in return. They didn’t have Ann’s gift.

Stephan held her tighter, but he didn’t say he loved her.

She raised herself on her elbows, loosening his embrace. Her brows creased in worry as she examined his face.

He swallowed. That was not a good sign. Then he smiled a tiny, deprecating smile. “I . . . I know about first loves, Ann. I was Beatrix’s first love, as well. But those are not always the wisest or the truest loves. Even Beatrix admitted that she grew out of loving me.”

Ann felt the outrage well up from the same place as the tears had come. “You grew out of loving her, too.”

Stephan glanced sharply at her, as if to protest. But his words died on his lips, as they must if he was being honest with himself. He might have loved Beatrix Lisse at one point, but she
knew
he loved her now. He still cared for Beatrix. She knew that, too. But not the way he loved her. He had left his passion for Beatrix behind. That might be brutal, but it was true.

He shrugged. “The world is full of prices that must be paid,” he said. “The fact that love died for Beatrix and me was a price. It doesn’t change the fact I am your first love. It doesn’t change the fact that there are other prices to be paid. I, for instance, have much to pay for yet.”

She stared at him in disbelief. It was the drenching guilt she always felt when she touched him that stood between them now. He could not admit he loved her because he felt he was not worthy of happiness. Something so deep-seated might not be cured, but she had to try. “It is very arrogant of you to take the blame for everything, you know.”

She could see by his expression that it hadn’t succeeded. He shook his head. “I am not the only one who blames me.”

“This Rubius? His daughters? Have you ever thought they might have reasons of their own for blaming you?”

“They hold the keys to peace, therefore who they blame is paramount,” he murmured, his gaze sweeping the walls. “Though, of course, I’ll never gain entry to Mirso now.”

That stopped her.

It all fell into place. Mirso had been his dream, his hope. And she had convinced him to spare Kilkenny, forced him into making her vampire.
She
was the reason he would be denied the peace and atonement that he thought would finally free him from his guilt. Guilt drenched her like a bath of ice-cold water from the stream through the cave. This, this was what he felt every day of his life. She struggled to say something that might make him feel better, even if she did not. “Then . . . then you have already paid your price.” That was stupid. He would pay the price of his lost dream every day for the rest of his life.

“There are still the Daughters, waiting in Cheddar Gorge,” he said softly. “They have a shot they’d like paid.”

More payment. She took his hand and pressed it to her bare breast. “Then don’t go into the village. We could just go away. We’ll go to France, or America, the West Indies, someplace far away. They have no hold over you.”

He gathered her to him. “Perhaps you’re right. Tonight, I’ll get what we need from Maitlands, then we can choose where to go.”

Was it that easy? She pressed herself away from him and searched his eyes. He was lying to her. He was making an excuse to go into Cheddar Gorge and confront them.

He was right. But not for the reasons he thought. He couldn’t run away from them. They would keep looking for him to punish him for his “crimes.” A life looking over your shoulder was a life half-lived. But he couldn’t run away
for another reason, too. As he said himself, they were the arbiters, the ones who judged him guilty. If he didn’t face down that judgment, even reject it, he would never be whole again.

She would not let him go to face them alone, however. Together they were more than each separately. And then there was the fact that she loved him. Each time they made love, her feeling for him seemed to grow exponentially. She almost told him right then she was going with him. But it was too soon. She bit her tongue. There was almost a whole day to be lived through before he could go to them. Best save her arguments until the time to go was upon him. That way he could not think better of any promise he made to take her along.

She smiled and touched his face. “How will we spend the time until then?”

His eyes grew soft, then melted with another kind of heat.

God, but she was beautiful in the candlelight, and brave without doubt. She would make more of the gifts the Companion brought than he ever had. She would be fine without him.

He had no illusions of surviving his encounter with the Daughters. But if they let their guard down, he might be able to take them with him. Unless he had lost his power to turn their essence back upon themselves. Somehow Ann seemed immune to that power. There was so much he still didn’t understand about it.

He touched Ann’s white-blonde hair, examined her clear gray eyes, her fine translucent skin. Some might say her beauty was like fine porcelain, too delicate to handle. But they would be wrong. She had been strong, before. Now her Companion made her stronger still. In one way her beauty did not lie. It reflected an essence that was good and pure.

And that must be how she survived their lovemaking. What his power could turn back upon her was only her goodness.

No danger of that with the Daughters. But that was for
later. Now, he would take his time making sure Ann’s memories of her first day as one of their kind were memories of love and pleasure. He gently put her from him and removed his boots, pulled his breeches off, and shrugged off the remains of his shirt. Naked, he got up and built up the fire. When he turned, she had removed the shreds of her shift. He smoothed out the blankets where she had lain next to the fire and beckoned her. Her perfectly formed limbs glowed in the firelight. Her slightly heavy breasts swayed as she came and knelt beside him. Her eyes were molten with desire for him.

She had already given him an incredible gift. She had brought the sexual act back to tender caring from the horrible training ritual it had become with the Daughters. He gestured to the blankets. “I think you’ll find this more comfortable, my lady.”

He lay down beside her and drew her down. “I believe it is your turn to receive.” She had liked it when he used his tongue the first night, but then she had not had the Companion in her blood ramping up sensation far past anything a human could experience. He intended to show her the difference.

She lay back, smiling. “And will you hog all the giving for yourself?” she asked.

“For now.” He dipped his head to her breast and tongued her nipple. She arched into him. The one thing the Daughters had given him was an almost infinite repertoire of sexual skills. He intended to set all of them to the task of showing Ann what it was like to have her Companion fulfill its urge to life. He had heard it said that the difference between sex as a human and sex for vampire kind was magnification of a hundredfold. He would ask her if that estimate was right later in the day . . .

Ann struggled up toward awareness from a dreamless sleep. She was warm. The fire still heated her back, though it had
sunk to glowing coals. She was enfolded in Stephan’s arms. The sun was setting outside the cave. She could feel it.

Well, if she wasn’t mad now, she would never go insane. The sensations of Stephan’s mouth on the moist folds of flesh between her legs, licking her point of pleasure while he stroked her breasts and kneaded them had been so intense, by rights they should have driven her mad. But with the newfound strength of her partner she had survived, nay even sought the sensations out a second time later in the day.

And she had taken her turn giving. She had Stephan’s experience to draw on, after all. She smiled smugly. She knew she had given him exquisite pleasure, sure of just what he liked best. At first Stephan had resisted her request to use her mouth on him, said she should save that. For what? For whom? He still thought that there would be other men in her life. She knew why. He thought he would be killed by the Daughters. He thought her love was puppy love. Well, she couldn’t disabuse him of that yet. And neither of them might survive the Daughters. In which case she wanted to have as much experience of love with Stephan as she could manage in the time left to them. In the end, he had yielded to her because his Companion bade him surrender. The wonder of silken skin, the throbbing in her mouth, the fact that he could not conceal the effect of her attentions had been a revelation. She liked to use her hands as well. Seeing him arch and spurt only confirmed just how much sensation she was giving him.