A gasp escaped her throat and she shivered in delight when his fangs bit into her vein. Moving her fingers through his thick hair, she caressed him, held him tight to her thigh. Her mind was a shambles. Should she have stopped him from taking so much of her blood? Alek would now have access to her whole mind. She reveled in the feelings he brought to her, cherished how his mouth felt tasting, licking her. His tongue was rough, electric against her clit, yet he was so gentle, so soft and it caused her to whimper with joy. He stroked her cunt with his fingers and an unexpected orgasm slipped violently from her, sending a flood of liquid from her core into his hand.
He licked and closed the punctures then moved his mouth back to her canal. His tongue delved into her pussy and his mouth captured the last drops of cum slipping from her. Never had she been so thoroughly…wonderfully… What had he said, ‘Just for tonight I’ll love you’. And he had.
Finished, he rose to sit beside her. “Now I’m done.”
Speechless, with no explanation for the emotions swirling through her, she stared at his back.
Viv’s heart fluttered with life at the awe and surprise tingeing his soft voice when he whispered—
“You quench my thirst.” Then he vanished.
Chapter Three
Alek sat on the balcony and watched the sun climb into the sky over the arena.
Quenched!
His chest rose and fell rapidly with the deep draughts of air he drew into his lungs. Never had he stayed in bed all night with a woman or beast. But he hadn’t wanted to leave Viv. She was vampyre through and through and would be sleeping the sleep of the dead by now. He would have been alone anyway. Damn, he wanted to lie there, touch her and smell her heavenly scent all day.
Quenched! Is it possible?
No way could he let her find out about…about what? Technically nothing had ever happened between him and the prince. Sure, at times he had wanted to go there, at times they touched and mentally fondled each other. That was all. They’d both drawn back in surprise and fear of their out-of-control lust. Hell, he didn’t care about men loving each other, he’d just always been attracted to women. Plain and simple. This thing with the prince… Well, he couldn’t explain it. He knew wolf males often cavorted together, lay with each other and that didn’t cause him to think any less about them as people or men. Finding love, no matter where, should be a beautiful thing. Cats just didn’t do it that way.
It was the blood, the vampyre elixir of life that made him hunger for his friend.
She quenches my thirst. If only I could be sure. Unable to get the thought of his words to her out of his mind, Alek shook his head in amazement.
Soon he’d be thirsting for the prince’s blood. But his body exhibited none of the telltale signs yet. No needy sweating, no anxiousness.
The lion, his tiger, both preened and stretched inside him, quietly alert and waiting. For what?
It was weird.
Suddenly the tiger began to prowl, clawed and pushed at the lion, moved him aside. The only cat that ever emerged was his striped beast. Would he ever see tan fur running down his body, wear the black mane of the cave lion with its enormous paws? Shit, did he want to?
Nikol was a formidable sight when he changed. Not what the present day’s small lions looked like in zoos or on the African savannas. Today’s tigers were much larger than the fawn-colored cats. But they’d be no match in size to the close to eight hundred pounds of muscle and sinew the prince became.
His heart rattled an erratic beat. Something wasn’t right.
Alek’s striped hair lifted from his neck in a breeze blowing across the balcony, spraying around his face, weaving a peculiar odor through the air. Nostrils flared at the unknown scent and now the lion pranced about inside him.
When both cats displayed nervousness, the pain was unbearable as they fought for supremacy. “Fuck, what now?”
Don’t be afraid of what you are.
“Who in hell…” The voice in his mind was strong, a power he’d never felt before.
His body lifted from the chair he’d sprawled in, floated over the arena. Alek had no control of his extremities. His beasts growled and ripped at his insides, both crying for release.
Become what you should be.
“Goddamn it.” Landing softly in a heap on the sandy ground, Alek curled into the fetal position, sure he was about to die.
See what you can be.
Pictures flashed through his mind. A tiger and lion gamboled together on a grassy knoll. Alek sensed he knew them, felt they were one.
Clothes vanished as his body bowed from the ground. A keening sound wrenched from his throat followed by a growl that shook the earth beneath him. “Let…me…go.” His pleading words slipped through parched lips stretched in a grimace. Alek’s eyes watered, tears flowed into the hair at his temples. Pain raged violently as he lurched to a kneeling position.