Blood & Steel (5 page)

Why had she risked herself for him?

Chapter 5


Elyn woke lying in an infirmary bed. Her body had that achy, logy feeling she associated with a session in regeneration. That meant she’d come damn close to getting killed, as vampires healed most injuries just fine. Anything bad enough to put a vamp in regen would have killed a human outright.

A thought had her jolting upright despite her exhaustion. “Blade? Where’s Blade?” They’d come so damned close to killing him. What if— He rose from a chair beside the bed. She hadn’t even seen him sitting there.

“I’m here.” His dark gaze was surprisingly tender. “How are you feeling?”

Elyn blew out a breath. “Much better now that Daven and Urthar are dead.” A sudden thought made her frown. “They
are
dead, right?”

His smile was savage. “Oh, yeah. Between the two of us, they’re most definitely dead.”

“How did Station Security feel about us beheading a couple of vampires?”

Blade lifted one broad shoulder in a half-shrug. “I had death warrants on both of them, so Security didn’t kick too hard.”

Elyn considered that. He would have had to go to court to prove the two men were involved in the murders of Arden Galen and Blade's team of bodyguards. Considering the amount of blood and DNA the vampires had left on the scene, she wasn’t surprised he’d been able to get warrants.

A new thought made her eye him warily. “Do you have a Death Warrant on me?”

“No,” he said shortly. “I didn’t seek one. You weren’t involved in those killings. You were with me.”

Elyn lifted a brow. “But I was still an accessory.”

“Anything you did was not by choice.” His gaze searched hers. “Are you ready to get out of here? Because I don’t mind telling you, I hate infirmaries.”

“Too much time in them?”

“Something like that.”

“Then I’m ready to go.”

* * * *

They walked out of the infirmary into one of Kring Station’s corridors a few minutes later. Elyn was still moving slowly. She felt weak as a fledgling before her first feeding, and her hands had a distressing tendency to shake.

Blade studied her as they walked along surrounded by a jostling crowd of travelers, ships’ crew, and station workers. “You need blood.”

She couldn’t hold his gaze, looking off at a triddie advertising budget tours of Earth. “They gave me a transfusion.”

“But you need more than bottled blood.” His eyes blazed hot. “You need me. And I need you.”

He was right, of course. There was psychic energy in feeding from a donor that you didn’t get from a medical process.

“Yes.” She could barely get the word out through her tight throat. Her eyes flicked to the pulse in his throat, then across the width of his shoulders and down to his big hands.

Blade lifted his chin as if offering his throat. Right there in front of everybody.

Shame stung her. “You’re not just a blood source to me.”

His gaze didn’t drop. “If I had been, you wouldn’t have risked your life for me.”

Elyn stiffened. “I don’t want you out of duty.”

“Duty has nothing to do with it.” Heat blazed in his eyes. “This is about us.” He reached out and took her hand. His fingers felt warm.

And deliciously possessive.

* * * *

They walked through the
Stiletto’s
airlock doors with their fingers still entwined.

Elyn found that her gaze kept sliding away from his, no matter how she tried to hold it. “I’m almost seventy years old. How do you make me feel sixteen?”

“What you feel is vulnerability.” Blade pulled her around to face him. “I feel the same way. It’s tough to let someone in so close. They can hurt you.” His dark eyes seemed to blaze in his hard, handsome face. “But I’m not going to hurt you. How could I?” Pain flashed across his face—the expression of a man with a mortal wound. “When Daven stabbed you, I felt like he’d scooped out my guts. It hurt worse than when my team died, and I’d fought beside them for two decades.” He shook his head. “How did you get so deep in me so fast?”

Elyn’s heart was pounding so hard it thundered in her ears. “Infatuation?” But she didn’t believe it.

“I’m forty-two years old. I know infatuation when I feel it. This is different. This is. . . .” Blade tugged her full against him and threaded both hands through her hair. His mouth stormed hers in a delicious assault of lips and tongue and teeth. She moaned as he spun her around. Her back hit the airlock door, and he leaned into her, solid and male.

Elyn gasped at the feel of his cock pressing against her belly as he cradled her head in his hands and made love to her mouth. It was intoxicating as astral mead, a spill of fire that tumbled from her lips to her sex.

Her nipples hardened helplessly, and she instinctively grabbed the round, firm muscle of his ass so she could pull herself against him as close as skin. “I couldn’t let you die,” she gasped against his mouth. Rolling her hips, she savored the feeling of his hard length, his big body, his Tekker strength. “I need you too much.”

Blade’s mouth covered hers again, and they drank each other, desperate, drugging kisses that made her entire body tighten and her fangs throb in her upper jaw.

His big hands left her head to find the hem of her top, and he stripped it off over her head with one hungry pull. It hit the floor with a soft thump. Her breasts bounced, bare nipples tightening. His hand cupped one, lifted the soft flesh. When his lips closed over her nipple, Elyn threw her head back with a throaty, helpless moan.

Blade dropped to his knees like a supplicant, his hands hooking the waistband of her skinpants. The fabric rolled down her hips, but made it only halfway to her knees before he yielded to temptation.

Blade’s hands found her ass, dragging her forward to meet his hot and eager mouth. His tongue slipped between her folds, slick, a hard thrust over her clit, deliciously wet. She squirmed, panted, writhed. “Blade, Gods, Blade. . . .” Her hands found his hair, forked through the silken strands, held on tight as he sent her higher with each long lap.

Even as Blade savored her sweetness, his hands worked her skinpants the rest of the way down her long runner’s legs. He paused only long enough to pop the seals on her boots. She stepped out of them like a dreamer, and he left off tonguing her with a growl. Rising to his feet, he tumbled her into his arms.

“Hi, there.” Gloriously naked, she grinned up at him and looped her arms around his neck. His cheeks were flushed, her eyes bright. Her fangs gleamed white in her wicked smile.

“Hi, yourself.” Blade had to grin back as he carried her down the corridor to his quarters.

It was all he could do to look where he was going. His eyes kept drifting down to the lush nudity cuddled in his arms. She felt delightfully warm and soft everywhere she should, and taut and muscled everywhere else. Her blonde hair lay in artful curls around her shoulders, and her nipples looked as rosy and fat as a pair of cherries. He knew from experience that they tasted just as sweet.

The door to his quarters whispered open at his approach, and he carried her inside, heading straight for his bunk. Tumbling her onto it, Blade followed her down, his cock throbbing against the thin fabric of his skinpants. She grabbed the hem of his shirt and hauled it off over his head.

She tossed the shirt aside without watching where it landed. She was too busy tracing her fingers delicately over the ridges of his ribs. She paused to flick her fingers over Blade’s erect brown nipples. He inhaled sharply in delight.

Slipping one hand down his torso, she cupped the thick bulges of his balls. Blade’s dark head fell back as she caressed him through his skinpants. “Stellar Gods,” he groaned. “That feels incredible.”

Elyn released his heavy balls and slowly traced one finger up the curving length of his cock. “
You’re
incredible,” she breathed, staring with absorbed fascination at his cock. Grabbing his waistband, she hauled it down, freeing his cock to spill into her hands. Unable to resist, Elyn grabbed his cock and angled it up. Blade watched her, eyes glittering and hot as she leaned down and slid the thick shaft into her mouth.

The head of his cock felt deliciously warm and slightly nubby in her mouth. She closed her lips over the head and suckled, enjoying the feel of him, the heat of his intense masculinity. The way he jolted against her with every pull.

Big hands slid down to find her nipples, and tug and twist with a gentle ruthlessness that made her quiver.  Elyn moaned softly as her need intensified. She sucked harder, and he threaded one hand through her hair, gently urging her to take him deeper.

So she did, engulfing half the big shaft in one sudden swoop that tore a gasp from his lips.

“Elyn! Oh, Gods, Elyn!” The deep groan was impossibly arousing.

She smiled around her mouthful of cock. The hand on her hair suddenly tightened, and he gently drew her off his shaft. “Blade, I’m not—”

“Neither am I,” he growled, flipping her onto her back. He rose over her, seized both her ankles, and spread her ruthlessly wide. Releasing one leg, he grabbed his cock and aimed. His entry tore a gasp of delight from her lips.

He started thrusting. Deep, grinding digs that made her toss her head back on the pillow.

“Blade!”

“Elyn,” he growled back, fucking her hard. Claiming her. The sensation of so much cock filling her so full sent rolling waves of delight through her body.

He shafted her without mercy until an orgasm seized her in a wicked velvet trap that pulsed and gripped deep inside her. She tossed back her head and came. And came.

And came.

Somewhere above her head, he roared, an animal bellow of pleasure. He drove to his balls and held there, head flung back, every muscle of his big body in high relief. “Stellar Gods, Elyn!”

“Yesssss,” she hissed. “Oh, yes!”

* * * *

The storm released them at last, and Blade collapsed on top of her, a hot, deliciously satisfying weight. He wrapped his arms around her, and rolled onto his back with a soft groan, taking her with him.

Sprawled across him, Elyn panted, his softened cock still clasped inside her. Deliciously sated. Her hunger instantly ignited again when his hands found her head and guided her to the pounding vein in his throat. With a desperate moan, she bit him. Hot blood poured over her tongue.

“Mine,” he growled.

She could only growl back—an assent, a staking of her own claim. Delicious minutes passed as she fed, until she knew it was time to stop. Carefully, reluctantly, she eased her fangs from his throat and dropped her head to his chest.

“I love you.” Blade said the words with a stark, simple honesty.

Elyn froze, her gaze flying to his. “What?”

“I love you.” He sounded utterly calm, but his eyes flickered, and he winced just slightly.

She realized two things. The first was that he expected her to reject him. The second hit her in an explosion of joy that left no room for doubt. “Gods, Blade, I love you.
I love you!
”

He blinked, and she saw an echoing joy in his eyes. “Are you sure? We barely know each other.”

“We know what counts.” She wrapped arms and legs around him in a silent demonstration that she had no intention of letting go. “We know more about each other than couples who’ve spent fifty years together.” Her voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. “I know I’d die for you.”

“I’d kill for you. And I know I have no desire to live without you.”

“But I have. . . . ” She paused, searching for a word that communicated the depth of her suffering. “Some very bad memories.”

“I know,” he admitted. “And at first I thought they’d broken you.”

She winced. “Maybe they did.”

“Oh, kakshit,” Blade said impatiently. “A broken woman wouldn’t have faced her worst enemy without blinking. A broken woman wouldn’t have fought him even after she’d gotten a blade through her lungs.” His gaze went fierce. “A broken woman wouldn’t have taken his head.”

Looking into those dark, certain eyes, Elyn felt the rise of pride. “I did what I had to do to save you.”

“And you did. Which is why. . . . ” He broke off, as if gathering his nerve. “I want you to make me a vampire.”

Her eyes flew wide, astonishment shooting through her. “But then you’d be bound to me for a century or more. I’d never enslave you, but what if you changed your mind?”

“I won’t.” His expression was serene with surety.

Her vampire senses told her he meant every word. But. . . . “Let’s just. . . wait. Let’s just be together for a while.” God, she wanted to say
yes
to him so badly her fangs ached, but she wanted him to be sure even more.

He simply looked at her. “I know what I want, Elyn. And I want you.” Blowing out a breath, he added, “Enough to wait until
you’re
sure of
me
. Because I love you.”

“And I love you.” Enough to deny her own desperate need for him. Enough to wait.

Somehow, deep in her heart, Elyn knew she wouldn’t have to wait long.

About The Author

New York Times and USA Today Bestselling Author Angela Knight’s first book was written in pencil and illustrated in crayon; she was nine years old at the time. But her mother was enthralled, and Angela was hooked.

In the years that followed, Angela managed to figure out a way to make a living—more or less—at what she loved best: writing. After a short career as a comic book writer, she became a newspaper reporter, covering everything from school board meetings to murders. Several of her stories won South Carolina Press Association awards under her real name.

Along the way, she found herself playing Lois Lane to her detective husband’s Superman. He’d go off to solve murders, and she’d sneak around after him trying to find out what was going on. The only time things got really uncomfortable was the day she watched him hunt pipe bombs, an experience she never wants to repeat.

But her first writing love has always been romance. She read The Wolf and The Dove at 15, at least until her mother caught her at it.