Aphrodite's Hunt (6 page)

Panic ripped through her and she froze, her desire-addled brain struggling to switch gears. He stroked her hair, his hips still surging up to keep his cock steadily stroking in and out of her body. The glide of his palm over her jagged locks soothed her and the steady thrusting of his body stoked the fire of her passion, slowly melting her fear.

He kissed the slope of her throat and another tingle of alarm raced down her spine despite his assuring gestures. Before she could renew her fight, his fangs pierced her neck.

The sensation straightened her spine and made her dig her fingernails into his shoulders. It was unlike anything she’d ever felt before, pleasure with an edge of violence. Pleasure delivered on the tip of a sword, ecstasy riding the sharp edge of pain. Her blood heated until it scorched her veins, scalding her on its way to the waiting mouth of the vampire locked onto her neck. He suckled at the wound in her neck and her mouth fell open as ripples of pleasure sang over her nerves. Her body swayed in time with the pull from his mouth, urging her to join the dance of her blood on his tongue.

She rode him harder, her hips grinding down as she rocked in his lap. His arms held her to him, keeping her from tearing herself open on his fangs as the orgasm crashed over her body. Every pull from his mouth brought another wave of pleasure and he matched each one with a long sure stroke deep into her weeping pussy. Together they became a circle of continuous pleasure, his stroke inside her causing a rush of passion that erupted into his mouth on a hot wave of blood.
 

The earth pitched on its axis, spinning her around until she had to hold onto Sorin or risk falling to the floor. Her hands scrabbled at his back trying to hold on, but her muscles didn’t seem to want to work. She lulled to the side, but his arms tightened around her before she fell.

He feels so warm.
Gia’s cheek rested on his shoulder, feeling the warmth of his skin through the thin material of his shirt.
Vampires are supposed to be cold.
Her nose twitched and she sucked in a deep breath, drawing the scent of copper deep into her lungs. Blood. To humans it was a scent to fear—a sign that something had gone wrong. To Gia it usually meant food.

She struggled to open her eyes, not sure when she had closed them. As she tried to raise her head, a weight on her throat alerted her to the fact that Sorin’s fangs were still in her neck. Little ripples of pleasure shivered down from his mouth and she sighed.
He must have been hungry
, she mused.

A little more firmly this time, she pushed at his chest. He took the hint and pulled his canines free from her body, nuzzling her neck before raising his chin to rest on her head. Gia half-smiled, her eyes falling to where their bodies were pressed together.

Blood. Lots of blood.

She frowned as an alarm went off in her head. Something was wrong. She stared at their bodies. All she could see was red. They were covered in blood. Why was that bad?

A cold sweat broke out on her forehead as her own rapid breathing finally registered in her ears. Suddenly the warm skin under her cheek wasn’t comforting anymore. The world seemed chaotic and dangerous and she didn’t know why. She struggled to think through her confusion, but her brain swirled in lazy circles, refusing to land on solid ground.

“S . . . Sorin,” she whispered.

Bliss. Pure, unadulterated bliss.

Sorin smiled against Gia’s hair as he reveled in the pleasure still coursing through his limbs. Never had he felt this alive. The scent of blood was all around him, teasing him with its rich decadent scent and reminding him of how delicious it had tasted swirling around his fangs and sliding down his throat. He’d been a fool to ever turn away from this—the only true form of sustenance.

Gia squirmed in his arms and the feel of their bodies sliding together with blood spilled between them sent a new rush of desire along his nerves. She was a temptress, a siren. Half-human and half-animal, she’d lured him into the forbidden and satisfied him like no other ever had. Even now the feel of her wet silken walls holding his cock deep inside her filled him with a primal sense of possession. He wanted to take everything she had to offer—body and blood.

“S . . . Sorin.”

Her voice feathered over his ears, pulling his head down to hear the sweet whisper. He smiled and nuzzled her neck, licking at the glistening trail of blood. He was so full, not a trace of hunger nibbled at his stomach. The power saturating her blood filled him with euphoria, so that he floated on warm waves of pleasure. His eyes traveled down her luscious body, covered in a sheen of red.

Horror cracked over him like the blow from a whip.
Too much blood.
He reared up and looked down at Gia’s body lying limp in his arms. Suddenly the whispery quality of her voice wasn’t sexual—it was weak. Terror crashed down on him as he realized what he’d done.

“Gia,” he gasped.

He leaned her back in his arms, his gaze roving over her face. The deathly pale pallor of her skin sent his heart into his throat. Her eyes were open, but unfocused, the golden depths having just enough life left in them to bore into his soul. Those eyes would haunt him forever if she . . .

“Grigore!”

Sorin pulled himself free from her body, easing her gently to the floor. The air against the wetness coating his cock only served to twist the knife in his spine, reminding him that he’d let passion steal his mind. He’d given up his humanity and followed his carnal instincts into iniquity. That weakness may have cost Gia her life.

He ripped the sheets from the bed, covering her naked lower half. The gesture seemed almost ridiculous given how close to death she was, but somehow it was important that he guard what dignity he could. Her eyes followed him, hazy, but still accusing. She knew what he’d done, knew what was happening to her. Covering her nudity with a sheet wouldn’t mean anything.

Images roared through his mind like demons of the Wild Hunt. A woman with long flowing blond hair lay before him, her face and golden locks bloodied from her victims. Her eyes stared up at him like balls of blue glass, condemning him to Hell. She lay like a broken doll, silent and staring.

“Not again,” Sorin whispered. “Dear Lord, not again.”

“Master?”

Grigore’s voice held no accusation, no condemnation, and yet it pierced Sorin’s flesh like a dagger. He gestured at Gia’s body, letting the brownie see for himself what he’d done.

“Look at her. Look at what I’ve done!” Hysteria saturated his words, widening his eyes as he waved his hand at his latest victim. “I swore this would never happen again, Grigore. I
swore
.” He shook his head. “I’ve killed her.”

Grigore went to Gia and knelt beside her. He checked her pulse, pulled back her eyelids, and felt various points of her flesh. Sorin jumped as his back hit the wall, not realizing he’d been backing away from the carnage. Guilt fell like lead on his body and he collapsed to his knees on the floor.

When Grigore left the room, he nearly cried out for the other man to return. Gia had to be all right, there had to be something that could be done. He didn’t know what had happened, what had freed the demon inside him when he’d held it contained for so many years, but he would find out. He would lock it away again and never let it bring ruin upon another life.

Something stirred inside him, but before Sorin could concentrate enough to examine it, Grigore returned. Relief flared to life as Grigore returned to Gia’s side. He set a bottle of wine on the floor. After working the cork free, he raised a tiny vial of a thick red substance. A feeling of numbness settled over Sorin as he watched Grigore pour the fluid into the wine.

“Can your alchemy heal her, Grigore?”

His flat tone echoed in the room, quiet save the sound of Gia’s shallow breathing. He sounded more like the dead than the living.
As I should,
he told himself sadly.
I am dead.

“She has lost a great deal of blood, master, but Gia is not a new pup. She is powerful and she can heal this with a little help.”

Traitorous hope blossomed in his chest. “How?”

Grigore lifted the bottle of wine to Gia’s lips, helping her raise her head with his other hand.

“Gia, I am giving you a mixture of Dragon’s Blood and red wine. It will help replace the blood you’ve lost. In order for the transformation to work, you must shift to your wolf form. The magic of your shift will take the potion with it and when you retake your human form all will be well.”

Gia drank the wine, her eyes never leaving Sorin’s face. He wished she would look at Grigore, at the wine—anywhere but into his eyes. He couldn’t bear the look in those golden orbs, the condemnation he saw.

When Grigore lowered the bottle, Gia’s head lolled back. Her body strained as if she were trying to move, but the blood loss seemed to have weakened her too much. She struggled, her body barely twitching in response to her demands. Finally she closed her eyes and collapsed back on the floor.

“M . . . m . . . moon,” she whispered.

“She is too weak to change,” Grigore said, turning to Sorin. “We must take her outside and let the full moon pull the beast from her body.”

The full moon.

Fear iced over Sorin’s skin and his body trembled as the dark shadow inside him began to roll like Leviathan under the ocean. The very mention of the full moon seemed to please the monster who had wreaked this havoc and he was suddenly very certain that letting the glow of the moon caress his skin would be a grave mistake.

“I cannot,” he choked.

With shame burning a trail through the cold fear gripping his body, Sorin fled from the room. Guilt ate at him from the inside, throwing up images of Gia’s bloody body to torture him further. By the time he got to his room, he was near mad with grief. Desperate to escape the scent of his crime, he ripped the clothes from his body and bolted into the bathroom.

He nearly ripped the handle from the faucet as he turned on the bath. The roar of the water crashed over his sensitive nerves, pounding them until the sound faded to a dull cacophony. He stepped into the tub without waiting for the water to warm—and recoiled as the chill bit into his flesh. He shouldn’t feel the cold like this. The amount of blood he’d have to drink to give his flesh that kind of warmth would—

Gia’s face leapt to the front of his mind and he cried out in panic and guilt. He grabbed a bar of soap from the table beside the tub and reached out to snatch a washcloth from the edge. Working up a thick lather, he began to scrub at his body. The soft cotton of the washcloth grated over his skin as he pressed as hard as he could, determined to remove every molecule of blood from his flesh.

It seemed like hours until his skin lost its red coat of blood. He stared at his pale arms and hands as if they belonged to someone else.

“How could I?” he whispered. “So many years I controlled such urges. Why should my willpower fail me now?”

His sire’s voice slithered through his mind.
“Do not associate with the lycanthropes. You are above them now, better. Do what you must to maintain good politics, but do not let your interactions with them go beyond good manners or they will drag you down to their level and drown you in their heathen ways.”

She is the one doing this to me.
The thought was at once a horror and a relief. It was not his willpower that had failed him. He was a man as he had always been, it was only her heathen influence trying to drag him into depravity. He clutched the thought to him, buffering his battered spirit with the soothing balm of another’s complicity.

The more he thought about it the more it made sense. She had come to his home, interrupted his solitude. It was she who had forced blood to his lips, seduced him back into her barbaric world of flesh and blood. She’d manipulated his hunger—pushed him past the brink of sanity. It was her fault that harm had come to her—her machinations that had led to her near death.

Righteous indignation smoothed the edges of his guilt and torment until his body no longer bowed under the weight of his crime. He shut off the water, straightening his spine as he stepped out of the tub and then strode into his bedroom. It wasn’t—

The scent of dried blood hit him in the face like a hammer. Suddenly it was as if he was standing in Gia’s room, staring down at her limp form as her blood danced in his veins. Horrified all over again, his head swiveled wildly, trying to find the clothes he knew to be the source of the blood. They were gone. He’d cast them to the floor in his mad dash to the washroom and now they had vanished. He backed up, putting a hand to his head.
I am losing my mind.