Blood Deep (31 page)

And she shut her eyes and thought of a quenching, powerful light—something that would burrow into the heart of the fog and blow it apart forever, so it could never wrap around a person or a village again. It could never take life or power or a soul or whatever it craved—

The force of the energy that seemed to explode out through her bare skin drove her back. Zayan and Lukos held her hands tight. She opened her eyes. There was nothing to see, but she felt
it
. Then she saw a ripple in the air. A ripple of movement that tumbled over on itself like a black ball rolling through the night sky.

Instead of exploding, the black ripples spread through the air; Miranda could see them where they blocked out the trees.

They looked like dark arms reaching out to embrace the fog. At once, the fog began to race back on itself. But the black tendrils reached it—touched it—

A unearthly shriek almost burst Miranda’s ears. The vampires at her sides flinched too. The fog raced back with such force, it brought trees falling. Tall trunks that fell like dominoes and slammed against each other. Some hit the ground, shaking it.

The fog was gone. For the first time since they had reached Blackthorne Castle, days before, the sky was clear. Black as jet, like velvet, and festooned with winking stars.

Miranda looked to Zayan. He was straining to listen.

“It’s not destroyed,” he said grimly. “It just retreated. I can still sense it. What went wrong?”

Lukos shook his head. Miranda found her gaze straying down his naked body—it was a beautiful, lithe, powerful form.

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with the need to celebrate life. She wanted to kiss each man. She wanted—wanton woman that she was—to touch their bodies.

At the same time. One hand to caress and fondle Zayan, and one to do the same to Lukos.

Althea and Serena had done it. They did it every night, and had frankly admitted they enjoyed it. She’d pushed the thoughts aside when talking to the women, because they made her blush.

She’d had to admit she was curious . . . And now, standing in the quiet grove with Lukos and Zayan, she saw the allure of shared love. At once she was aroused—hot, wet, creamy, and completely ready. She wanted to savor the beauty of both men.

She wanted—

Oh heavens. Four hands on her. Four legs to stretch out along hers. And fingers—all those fingers to make magic on her skin. Two mouths to take her nipples, to kiss in her most private, most deliciously sensitive places. Two tight, beautiful masculine derrieres for her to touch, perhaps even to . . . to kiss.

And two long, hard, swordlike cocks—

Oh.
She’d confronted an intense power with courage, but thinking of all the sexual games she could imagine, her strength was draining away, making her weak with need and desire, making her breasts ache and her cunny throb.

She wanted to recapture the pleasure she’d known with each man. They had not been able to destroy the red power. And she knew, before Althea and Serena had gone after their foes—she tried to forget that was Zayan and Lukos—they had shared their beds with two men.

“Perhaps we are supposed to . . .”
Courage, courage, Miranda,
she advised herself. “To go to bed all together first.”

“What normally happens,” Miranda whispered. “What should I do? Do I lie down? How do we begin?”

“Not so clinical, angel,” Lukos laughed. “We begin like this.”

He dropped to his knees, lifted her velvet cloak, and rained kisses BLOOD DEEP / 255

over the curves of her rump. She giggled—a sound out of place in the now-hushed grove, beneath the dark sky, in the aftermath of a battle.

Zayan captured her lips. Having two men’s mouths on her was dizzying. Hot lips skated over her everywhere—Zayan’s along her throat to her collarbone, then to the tops of her breasts, lingering there and teasing until she grasped his shoulders to stay standing. Lukos kissed her bottom, licked her inner thighs and set her trembling. He teased her calves with her fingertips—she’d had no idea that would feel erotically pleasurable.

Lukos turned her abruptly, rotated her away from Zayan, and put his mouth to her nether curls. He drew patterns through with his tongue. It tickled. It was wet and compelling.

He was good at this, and he knew it; he smiled confidently as he slicked his tongue over her nether lips and made her quiver.

He gripped her thighs, holding her to his mouth, and she soon knew why. Gentle caresses turned to fierce, exquisite torment.

He flicked his tongue fast and hard on her clit. If he hadn’t kept her prisoner, she would have backed away. Zayan parted her cheeks, his hands cradling them, and he licked the puckered entrance of her rear.

Zayan’s tongue plunged, Lukos’s flicked. She clutched Lukos’s shoulder as sensation built. She rocked her hips—forward to Lukos, back to Zayan, sandwiched between their mouths. Their hands stroked, over hips, down her thighs, on the small of her back, the planes of her belly. She was engulfed in delight. Smells came to her—of the new leaves, the sweet night air, of her lovers—

Lukos sucked at her clit and she exploded. Before her climax ended, she was laid gently down on her outspread cloak. She couldn’t remember either of them removing it. Zayan laid on it, and lifted her, so she sprawled over him. His hard cock pressed to her sopping cunny.

She joined him in a heated kiss. They devoured each other’s mouths; he shifted his hips, and his cock filled her.

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Lukos’s thumb pressed to her already pleasured anus. Yes.

Yes, she did want this. A caress of his finger, and she felt wet and slick back there. As he held his cock to her, he stroked and teased, until she was panting.

Pressure. A twinge of pain. The amazing sensation of opening for him. Pleasure claiming her from both front and back.

Then he was in her, in a few precious inches, and she was amazingly full.

Braced on his powerful arms, Lukos stayed in her, without moving. Zayan shifted his hips, pressing his cock deeper, so deep, and she gasped. She gripped his biceps.
Lose your control,
she begged.
I am ready.

She had never expected to release such passion. Lukos drove deeply into her, too, drawing out to the sensitive rim of her anus, then filling her again. She rocked between them both—

Oh!

The climax took her quickly. And the men kept thrusting, taking her to another. And another.

“God, my angel, you are precious.” Lukos managed to rasp those words aloud; then he bucked into her, filling her snug rear passage with his hot come.

“Beyond precious,” Zayan shouted, and he surrendered to his climax too. He reached down between their bodies, tweaked her clit, and made her explode once again.

Oh,
she cried.
I adore you both.

They collapsed together on the velvet cloak. She should be chilled, to be covered in perspiration in the cool night air, but the men cuddled close to her.

We adore you,
Lukos said, gruffly.

“But you seem to hate each other.”

“If you want me to forgive Zayan for what he did to Ara. If you expect me to kiss and make up, I will not do it.”

“It’s not the truth, damn it, Lukos. And the price for your blasted stubborn stupidity could be Miranda’s life.”

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Miranda levered on her arm and faced Lukos. The truth had to be gotten at. “Why do you think Zayan did it? How do you know?”

“Lucifer revealed it to me. Why would he incriminate Zayan if the blackguard was innocent?”

Zayan leapt to his feet. “Because of this. Lucifer has demons with the power of prognostication. He could have looked into the future and seen that we would join together with a woman of incredible power.”

A woman of incredible power.
Miranda sat up, and Lukos draped his conjured cloak around her shoulders. She twisted to face him. “It does make sense.”

Lukos frowned. “There was already a prophesy written about me. It claimed my mate was Serena Lark, a half-vampire woman.”

Miranda stilled. “Lucifer might have seen something different.”

“The truth is I never served Satan,” Zayan said. “I was the red power’s slave. I was never an apprentice to the devil, as you were. And your sister was imprisoned only because you went willingly to the Underworld to gain the devil’s magic—”

“I damn well did it to save my people.”

Zayan bowed his head. “Your sister was hurt to punish and torment you. I understand how that feels—”

“He does,” Miranda cried. “Don’t you both see that you should sympathize with each other? You could help each other with the pain and the grief of your pasts. If only you would stop believing lies and would put your pride behind you.”

The men stood, silhouetted by fingers of moonlight against the night sky. “She is right,” Zayan groaned.

Lukos simply growled. Rising onto her knees, she knew she had to try to break through to him . . .

She realized she was between them, her mouth at the level of their crotches. She could smell the blend of her aromas and theirs.

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Sensual desire heated in her again. Althea and Serena had told her that passion could break through reluctance, that pleasure could allow the men to push aside anger and mistrust.

She had to try.

Miranda grasped both shafts and drew her men to her mouth.

Zayan looked up to Lukos. “A truce to pleasure her?”

“All right.” They both waved their hands and created two long, slim wands of green light—the wands were about the size of the men’s cocks. She trembled with nerves and anticipation.

But she was so wet from so many climaxes, the lights easily went inside her. The columns of magic thrust slowly in and out of her quim and derriere, as the men’s erections had done. Both magical cocks surged in at once, and the sensation was so intense, she found herself squeezing the two cocks hard. Too hard. The heads both turned a dark purple.

“Heavens, I’m sorry.” She relaxed her grip, slid her hands up and down.

Both men protested she had nothing to be sorry for, but she knew how to acquire their forgiveness. She opened her mouth and took Lukos’s rigid cock inside. His velvety skin slid along her tongue, her lips lightly bunching it. She really had no idea how to please him, but she liked the earthy taste of him. It was naughty, exciting, to hold him in her mouth. Each pleasurable thrust below made her moan around him, and he moaned in response.

“I love that, angel.”

Even Zayan groaned his approval, though she’d forgotten to stroke him while plying her tongue around the intriguing ridges and vein lines of Lukos’s cock. She glanced up. Both men looked in agony, their mouths tense, their lashes shielding their eyes.

Zayan rocked his hips so his cock slid slickly against her palm. Lukos was thrusting harder into her mouth, but she felt his restraint. He was fighting for control.

Take him beyond control. Instinctively, she sensed she had BLOOD DEEP / 259

to do that, if she wanted to release magic. But how did an untutored woman do that?

Playfully,
Lukos urged into her head.

It had been years since she’d played. Not since Simon’s drowning—after that, after she’d discovered she had power and no longer understood herself, she’d never felt playful again.

Naughtily, she stroked down Zayan’s shaft and reached for his dangling balls. She wobbled them, stroked them, let them roll around her hand and pour off, tugged them.
God, yes, love,
you are a wonder when you’re playful.

She pulled on Lukos’s member and gave Zayan’s a kiss. She gripped Lukos’s rump and squeezed, while fondling Zayan’s balls and suckling him. Both men were breathing harshly.

Could she make them come this way?

Angel, you are no longer pleasuring yourself,
Lukos chided.

We want you to come again first, sweeting.

Two fevered bounces took her there.

Then both the men exploded in ecstasy with shouts that rang up to the sky.

She was still mortal, and dawn did not drag at her and force her to seek sleep. Miranda trudged up the last few yards of the rough, rutted road that led to Blackthorne’s castle. Exhaustion weighed on her, pulling her down, making her take steps with annoying slowness. Last night, with Zayan and Lukos, she had not slept at all . . .

They had taken her to the closed-up manor house they had been hiding within. Empty of a family, it held only a handful of servants. They had crept through the quiet house to one of the farthest bedrooms. Magic had provided blankets. And they’d savored more pleasures all through the night . . .

She took a deep breath, kept walking, and tried to force herself to move faster. This was more than just being tired, and more than the draining effect of several hours of intense and ac260 /
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robatic lovemaking. The air felt as thick as water and she was trying to wade upstream against the current.

What if making love together did not give them the strength to stop the red power?

That fear had haunted her as she had watched Zayan and Lukos succumb to sleep. They had both tried to fight their daysleep, determined to watch over her, but the compulsion was too strong. It must be the price for being able to survive beyond death—their bodies
had
to fall into that dormant state.

Once both vampires were slumbering, Miranda had left their bed. She’d slipped from room to room until she found a wardrobe of woman’s clothing. She borrowed a dress and shoes, and put on the cloak Zayan had created for her. To fight the red power, she believed she had to understand. Just as Aunt Eugenia had told her a slayer had to understand a vampire to destroy him—or her.

Perhaps she was mad, but she believed she’d find answers from the vampire slayers. Assuming they did not lock her up for her own good.

“I need to know everything you know about the red power.”

Althea and Serena stared at her, perplexed. “I’ve never heard of such a thing,” Althea said.