Page 55 of A Clash of Moonlight

He growled and curled his fingers inside her, gliding over that one perfect spot and increasing the pleasure burning through her. She rode wave after wave, and when the aftershocks finally quieted, when her body relaxed completely, she opened her eyes again and met Jared’s sinfully dark gaze.

“I do not know what you screamed,” he said, “but it was not my name.”

She laughed, kissed him, then laughed again when she saw the strain on his face. She was torturing him. It was selfish and cruel, and she really shouldn’t enjoy it as much as she did.

She smoothed her hand over his chest. “I think it was a yes.”

He studied her, wary, as if he was worried he would misinterpret her words.

She ran her fingers through his dark hair. “Yes, I want your teeth on my skin. I want to feel your bite. I want to feel you sucking—”

He struck fast, his fangs piercing her neck so quickly she didn’t register anything close to a sensation of pain. It was immediate euphoria, potent and aura-shattering. Her body, which had been quenched a moment before, suddenly filled with lightning. It raced through her veins, triggered every pleasure spot, and the moment his mouth closed around the wound and pulled at her blood, she came again.

Ecstasy exploded through her, then exploded again and again while he sucked and sucked. She had no inhibitions. Her hips bucked, hands shook, back arched and arched. Gods, she… It was soul-rapturing bliss, and she didn’t want it to ever stop.

Nora’s blood flooded his mouth as she cried out his name. Screamed it. Her back arched with the strike of her orgasm, and her pleasure became his pleasure. He held her tight as wave after wave rocketed through her, as her blood, her power coated his tongue, slid down his throat, absorbed into his body. She ground against him as he drank, pressing herself against his aching cock. It was too much—she was too much—and he had to stop.

Stop for now. He would taste her again, be inside her again, drink from her as pleasure spiced her blood.

“More,” she demanded when he lifted his lips from her neck. “Again.” She pulled his head back down.

He nuzzled the spot he had bitten. It had already healed. He fought the urge to bite again and the even stronger urge to reach for the knife he knew to be stored in the nightstand. She could not drink from him. Her pack would scent him in her blood.

“Bite,” she demanded.

He smiled, then brushed a kiss across her lips. “If I take too much, your pack will sense the dimming of your aura.”

“Fuck, Jared.” She pressed her body against his. Writhed against him, really, and he loved it, loved her, loved this thing between them.

“After the full moon,” he said, which was the same day she would speak with her father. Then they would have time to do all the things he could imagine together.

And time to plan. Devising his master’s death would not be a simple thing and trusting a coven? He would have to tread carefully.

“Rest,” he told her. “Rest and then I will show you all the other places you want me to bite.”

Her smile was a beautiful thing, full of contentment and joy. He felt similar emotions. They wove their way through his aura and settled around his heart.

“I will hold you to that, vampire.”

And she did. For the rest of the day and the entirety of the night, they did not leave the sanctuary. He would have kept her with him beyond that had she been able, but she had things to attend to—the meeting with her father and the pack’s Gathering the night of the full moon. Besides, the longer they were together, the greater the risk of his control breaking. He ached to be inside her again.

She kissed him goodbye Sunday morning. Later that evening, when he stepped out beneath the night-blanketed sky, he looked forward to the future for the first time in decades. He even found himself smiling until something pulled at his attention. His gaze scanned the lake, then the shadows of the forest. It was not until he felt the sensation a second time that he identified it.

His slow-beating heart stilled.

The familiar consciousness brushed against his mind a third time.

He swallowed down the initial wave of dread, and then he embraced the cold. He welcomed it. He allowed it to erase every hint of emotion residing within him.

His master was summoning him.

20

Arcuro resided in an abandoned and forgotten missile silo at the foot of the Appalachians. Originally over two hundred feet deep, Arcuro had blasted and carved through additional rock and soil, creating a colossal underground shelter. Depending on his master’s mood, the compound hosted anywhere from five to five hundred vampires and human servants.

Jared approached the decoy house set atop the silo. The door to the white, two-story structure opened as he reached it. Gloria, a beautiful, seductive vampire, bowed as he passed. He walked through the home, expression devoid of emotion.

Two more vampires bowed to him in the small study. They had opened the hidden door to the stairs that led below. Jared gave a sharp look of warning when the younger one took a step toward him. Jared dimmed his aura only a little here. Anyone not strong enough to resist the call of his blood would die.