Nightbred(52)

Christian.

I’m here. Jamys, hurry.

Now Jamys felt the psychic barrier between them, as tall and wide as the wall of a fortress. Another Kyn had entered their dream and was using ability to prevent Jamys from reaching Chris’s mind. Without hesitation he threw himself at the other immortal’s barrier, battering it with his thoughts. At first it held fast against him, but as he continued to pour his power against it, he felt it flex and then grow thin. Just as he gathered himself for one last barrage, in his mind appeared a panel of smooth stone that changed from solid white to an opaque gray, and showed on its other side Christian, who stood beating her fists against it.

Such determination for such an untried warrior, another voice said, and the strangeness of it crawled through Jamys’s mind like a swarm of hungry, burrowing insects. In the face of eternity, will you be as steadfast and valiant? Would you kill her to save a hundred, a thousand, a million?

No, Jamys thought, lashing out in pain and rage at the other alien mind. I would die so that she might live.

Save her, and you are lost. Kill her, and then perhaps you both shall live. The other immortal’s power abruptly vanished.

Jamys!

He caught her in his arms, and they fell together through the voice and the wind and the darkness. Jamys landed on his back with Christian thrashing blindly on top of him.

“I have you.” He closed his arms around her, holding her still until she opened her eyes and stared down at his face. “I have you.”

She looked up and all around at the boat’s cabin before she collapsed against him. “Oh, God.”

Jamys cradled her as he sat up, turning her so that he could hold her as he braced his back against the frame of the bunk. He felt as weak as if he had not fed for a month, and it took all his self-discipline to stifle the tremors vibrating from his very bones.

“I thought I was having a nightmare.” Chris shifted, tucking herself into the curve of his arm. “What was that?”

“Not a dream.” The rapid beat of her heart distracted him; he could hear it humming through her limbs. Wherever they touched, it pulsed beneath the thin silk of her skin. “It felt like the nightlands.”

“That’s where you go when you sleep?” She shuddered. “I’d rather stay awake for eternity.”

Exhaustion and hunger made his fangs emerge into his mouth. “Sometimes it can be frightening.” He needed to put her aside, moor the boat, and leave her to hunt. And as soon as his head cleared, he would.

She lifted her face from his shoulder. “But I thought the Kyn were the only ones who could cross over into the nightlands. Why was I there? Jamys, your eyes.”

“Forgive me.” He eased her off his lap and tried to stand, and was vaguely alarmed to discover he could not. “Go to the helm, Christian, and take care of the boat. I will rest now.”

She ignored him and pressed her fingers to his neck. “Damn it, you barely have a pulse.”

Jamys felt her move away, and his body responded with a sluggish flow of need. That he couldn’t act on it was his only relief. He would rest through the daylight hours, and when he woke, he would hunt.

The unyielding wood made a poor pillow, he decided, until he felt warm hands lifting his head onto something much softer.

“You’re a lot heavier than you look.” Cloth slid from beneath his cheek. “Well, Burke said not to let it show.”

Her words made no sense to him, but he smelled her blood spill into the air a moment before a drop of it touched the corner of his mouth. Jamys tried to turn his head away, but her hand prevented it.

“Right now you need it more than I do,” she chided softly. “Go on. Drink.”

Her command was his wish, and the undoing of all his resolve; his lips sought the source of the blood and covered it. The taste of her made his fangs stretch out, eager to penetrate and take more, but to spare her more pain he used the last dregs of his strength to only suckle at the small wound.

Even that thin flow poured life and strength into him with astounding speed. Soon he brought up his hands, expecting to feel her forearm beneath his lips and instead grasping the tight muscles of her thigh. He raised his head to look at what she had done to herself, and saw a small wound marring her flesh, high up on the inside of her thigh. She had cut herself for him.

Her hand stroked over the back of his head, gently pressing as if to urge him back to the source of his delight. He ran the flat of his tongue over the wound, gathering the bright red beads that had welled there, and heard the soft sound she made. He could smell the arousal darkening her body’s scent, and followed it until his mouth found the edge of her panties. The sharp points of his fangs easily sliced through the flimsy fabric, and he peeled it back from the pretty flower of her sex.