The Vampire Queen's Servant(64)

She couldn't see him, but she apparently knew he was in this glade, for from slight movements of her head he knew she was traversing it with her gaze. Shadowed by the three trees, he was safe for the moment. He'd been fortunate to move his head when she was looking elsewhere. As widely spaced as her eyes were, they weren't quite wide enough to have caught the movement.

The position of her head, the slight tilt, told him she was now focusing on where he was. Jacob remained motionless. She kept staring. She knew he was there, but she couldn't separate him from the shadows of his cover. It had been an excellent choice, but he suspected he had only a series of seconds before its usefulness would expire.

Less than that. She exploded from the branch, swooping down. She thought she could flush him with panic or intimidation. He held fast as she plunged toward his spot, marking the best time to move even as a part of him marveled at the fascinating sight. The thin body, ribs as pronounced as a greyhound's. The leather-like wings, extended so he could see the curved talon at the elbow joint, were nearly ten feet wide, tip to tip. She looked like a fallen angel, one of God's outcasts coming from the bowels of hell seeking souls for Lucifer. Or a fairy bathed in blood so often she had brought sensual beauty and horror together in the same form.

She should have looked frightening, unappealing, but there was a precise elegance to her, the sparing movements he'd know in any form.

Closing his eyes, he waited until he sensed she was almost upon him. He threw himself out of the alcove as the sweep of her wings passed over him, her talons grazing his back, tearing his shirt. He ducked under her reach, spun and leaped on her back, snugging his arm around her throat below her jaw, taking the teeth out of the equation.

They tumbled, but she used the powerful wings to take her from the ground with him still holding on. Six feet in the air she executed a flip, which slapped her wings through the grass of the glade. It threw his weight in an unexpected direction, disorienting him. He lost his grip and two blinks later found himself on his back, his wind knocked from him and her sitting on his chest. Just as she had sat in the tree, her bare feet flat on his stomach, knees bent up to her bosom, protecting herself. Her wings were half outstretched to balance herself, those dark eyes focused on him. This close up, he could see far more of Lyssa in her features, though he had no lingering doubt he was in the presence of his lady.

Of course she appeared impassive right now, but he read other things. The tension in her body indicated an overwhelming energy, barely suppressed. It could be bloodlust, or just plain lust. Or something else, something more unguarded this form allowed more free play than her vampire form did.

She had him effectively pinned. At these close quarters, her strength and speed would counter anything he did. Testing, he lifted one arm and it was immediately seized in her grip, the talons overlapping so he felt them scrape against his skin. Pressing forward, he communicated intent instead of struggle, keeping his gaze steady on those dark eyes.

She'd not yet spoken, and he didn't know if she could speak in this form, at least in a way he would understand. But he didn't feel a need for it, lying beneath this beautiful, fascinating creature who could destroy him without a thought. He felt certain her power over him was not as absolute as she thought it was. But proving that was no longer as important to him as touching her face.

While she granted his desire, she kept her grip on his wrist. When he brushed the firm gray skin of her cheek, her eyes, those large dark pools, remained unblinking, watching him. As he pressed a fingertip along the prominent cheekbone, there was a silver sheen to her skin, a type of oil that set off a ripple of glittering reaction, like static rippling in tiny starbursts along a woman's skirt as she moved. This had an electrical tingle to it but no pain. The area on either side of the bridge of the nose and under the eyes was drawn taut in three symmetrical folds. They gave her eyes a further depth, a sorrowful mystery, and his heart tightened as he passed his thumb over them, wondering at the track shedding tears would take. Or if she could cry in this form. Now he moved on to her ear, twice as long as an elf's and yet standing just as upright, giving her the appearance of small horns. He traced up to the point, rising up on one elbow to do so. She tilted her head down toward him, making a soft crooning noise, a noise of pleasure as he dipped into the shell of it.

He couldn't help but marvel at the precise artistry of her. Her neck was long, giving her better reach to look over her shoulder when flying and execute maneuvers like he'd just experienced. He wanted to caress the line of it, but first he wanted this. He moved from her ear to cup her head, the bare skull under his palm. It was smooth and silken like her body when it had been brushed with a lustrous powder. There was an exotic, different scent to her as well, almost a hint of vanilla cream. Tantalizing.

At his touch on her skull, she made another of those soft noises, this time with a slight growl. He kept doing it, even as it became a low rumble and he knew he was arousing her with the stroking.

Hunger. She was hungry.

Raising his chin, he tilted back his head. Inviting. Offering.



* * *





Chapter Thirty-three





She looked startled, making him wonder if she even realized she'd been projecting the thought.

He understood an inkling of the bond that could grow between mother and child when the child was dependent on his mother's sustenance for life. While his feelings for Lyssa were not maternal in any sense, when she lowered her head and found his throat, allowing him to slide his arm over her shoulder, rest his hand on the crest of one wing, he knew the fierce, protective connection was the same, the sense that this was the most important thing he'd done or would ever do in his life, caring for her. Committing himself to her. Nurturing her whenever, however she needed it. He was also aware that hunger encompassed several different things for her.

He moved his other hand up her hip to the stark indentation of her waist and along the ripples of her rib cage, his thumb grazing the base of her breast. Stroking her, just feeling the slope of her. Her breath touched his jaw as she released his wrist to curve around his throat and shoulder, tilting his head up to an even more straining arch, making him aware of the rush of blood through the arteries, the vulnerability of his windpipe that could be crushed with the pressure of her thumb, the clamp of her jaw. Closing his eyes, he moved his other hand along her thigh as she changed her position and straddled him, pressing her bare sex down against his pelvis and eliciting a groan of pleasure as the movement confirmed he was hard and erect for her. Her wings moved, stretching out and then folding over both of them like the curtains of a bed, closing them into even greater darkness where he could just make out the line of her shoulder, feel the press of the elbow talon against his side.

He didn't want to do it, knew it was the wrong thing to do, but he had to.

My lady, a vampire's confidence in her superiority can be a fatal mistake.

He'd counted on her not using the mind link between them, but when he made the comment in his mind, she lifted her head, her fangs an inch away from his throat. He increased his grip on the slender stake he had pressed firmly between her ribs. In one blink, he could have sent it spearing into the heart beneath.

When one gave a shot to a horse, one thumped and poked the powerful muscle repeatedly. Once the animal was used to the rapping, one tossed the needle like a dart into the spot. The pressure and teasing of his fingers had served the same purpose.

As she rose above him, straightening, he gripped the shaft between them, broke it and let it fall to the earth beside him. "I'm not easily killed, my lady. I may be driven by anger when you are in danger, or distressed by that monster who pretended to be your husband's friend, but I never stop using my brain."

Except when I'm sunk deep into your body.

As she continued to stare at him, not speaking, he knew he might lose her in a blink, her capricious moods dictating she withdraw at his unexpected move and disappear into the shadows of the forest, leaving him a hollow victory. In fact, making his heart lurch with the loss, she suddenly stood five feet away from him, her back straight, that tail following the line of her hip, curled around the front of her feet. With her taloned fingers slightly curled, wings at half spread, she looked like a demonic angel.

"Don't go, my lady." He whispered it, sitting up and extending a hand toward her silhouette, not wanting her to fade into the darkness. "I beg you. Appease your hunger in whatever manner your body demands of me."

The wind kicked up, making the branches of the live oaks creak, the pines whisper secrets. The night creatures had stilled, sensing a predator in their midst.

He used his eyes now, keeping them clamped on her outline as if that could compel her to stay. Then she began to move back toward him. Slowly. One step, two. When she stepped over him, he settled his hands on the outside of her thighs, his thumbs caressing her flesh. Bending forward, he laid his lips on her upper thigh, close to the tight folds of flesh hiding her sex. If the emotions driving the gesture had physical force, color, perhaps he would have left the imprint of a tiny bloodred rose on her leg, a permanent reminder of the kiss and all it meant.

Her hands came to rest on his shoulders, pushed at him, eased him to his back as she straddled him again, pinning his shoulders to the ground before she sat back and continued to study him, as if confused by the type of prey she'd found.