Bound by Night (The Moonbound Clan Vampires) (10 page)

She returned to Riker, cradling the pulverized ash in her palm. “Hey.” She eased down next to him and tilted his head up. “I’m going to need you to breathe this in.”

He thrashed, slamming his arm into hers and dumping half of the precious ash out of her hand. She tried again, with similar results and what would no doubt be a knot on her elbow later.

“I guess we do this the hard way,” she muttered.

She straddled his broad chest, using her thighs to hold him still. The moment he exhaled, she gripped the back of his head and lifted it until his nose was in her palm. When he tried to squirm away, she held harder.

“Riker, settle down, okay? I need you to inhale for me.”

She wasn’t sure if he heard, but he sucked in a huge breath, the rush of air sounding like it had come from someone who had been holding his breath underwater for an hour. Ash shot into his mouth and nostrils, and then he was coughing, bucking under her, and clawing at his throat. For a split second, his eyes opened. Misery and accusation whirled in the silver depths, gutting her.

“Easy, vampire.” She pulled his hands away from
his neck and held them against his chest. He was strong, though, and she had to plaster the weight of her body on his to ease his struggle and keep him from tearing at his own skin. “I know it hurts, but the ash is working.”

She hoped. God, she hoped. If she’d made things worse, she’d never forgive herself.

Gradually, he stopped fighting, but he kept hold of her hands, even when she tried to extricate herself from his grip. Between her thighs, he was hot, his body so wide she figured she’d feel the tug of tightness in the morning.

Dear God, what would sex with him be like, if just holding him still gave her muscle strains? And why in the world would her mind go there?

Maybe because there was some truth to all of the talk about vampires being supersexual creatures. A friend of hers had once said that the ugliest man on earth would be hot if he had fangs. And if he had the extremely toned body that came as standard issue on all vampires. Daedalus was still trying to figure out the biology behind
that
.

Had Riker always been cut like a superhero—or super
villain
—or had he been molded into one by the turning process?

Either way, she had Supervamp beneath her, his bare chest under her palms . . . when only hours ago he’d wanted to kill her. And she’d nearly killed him.

With a light, faltering touch, she skimmed her hands over his rock-hard abs and up to his shoulders, telling herself this was part of a medical exam, but when she reached his left bicep and found the tattoo
there, all pretense went out the window. She was flat-out curious about his body. Oh, she’d studied vampires in class and lab settings, but this time, her focus was more personal. This time, she wanted to learn about the individual vampire, not the species as a whole.

Beneath her fingers, the tattoo seemed to pulse as she traced the curved lines of the sideways crescent moon circled by a serpent. The design was simple but elegant, and she wondered what the meaning behind it was.

“MoonBound,” Riker rasped. “It’s our symbol.”

Startled, she jerked as if she’d been burned and peered into his eyes. The dull, tarnished silver reminded her how close to death he’d been. “Thank God,” she breathed. “You’re okay.”

“How?”

“I neutralized the effects of the boric acid with calcium carbonate. Ash,” she explained. “Now that your body doesn’t have to fight the toxins, it can heal the other wounds.” She grabbed a bottle of water from the bag of supplies next to her and held it to his lips. “Drink.”

He took greedy, long gulps, draining the bottle in a matter of seconds. Once finished, he closed his eyes, perhaps in relief. His hand squeezed hers . . . in gratitude? Flustered, she remained frozen, even when he moved his hand to her thigh. He seemed to have no problem breathing now, his chest rising in a steady rhythm, but
she
had stopped taking in air the moment he touched her leg.

She struggled to catch her breath as his hand drifted up to her hip. Then higher, easing along her
waist and rib cage, and when his thumb brushed the side of her breast on its trek north, she finally sucked in a cool, desperate rush of air.

His fingers slid over her collarbone, finding her throat. The pad of one finger scraping her scars brought an involuntary flinch. Riker’s eyes popped open. No longer dull, they shone with an eerie light, all marble gravestone under the full moon.

For what seemed like hours, she stared, mesmerized. It wasn’t until she tried to swallow—and couldn’t—that she realized he’d wrapped his hand around her throat with a viselike grip.

Firmly but gently, he pulled her so close that the heat of his breath fanned her cheeks. “Why,” he growled. “Why did you save me?”

She was beginning to wonder the same thing. “Because I’m not the killer you seem to think I am.”
And if I have any hope of surviving the poachers, it’s with you
.

In an instant, he flipped her and came down on top of her, his heavy body flush against hers, his hand still on her throat, his hips pressing down between her legs.

“What I think,” he said in a deep, guttural voice, “is that you’re going to regret not letting me die.”

B
ETWEEN NICOLE’S LONG
legs was the last place Riker thought he’d be today. Of course, he hadn’t thought he’d be poisoned, stabbed, or shot at, either. The day was full of surprises, and it was only early evening. There was still time for a meteor to land on top of him or some shit.

Nicole lay beneath him, her throat throbbing under his palm. To her credit, she wasn’t freaking out. If anything, she seemed annoyed.

“Well?” he asked.

“Well, what? Do I regret not letting you die? You’d love for me to say yes, wouldn’t you? All your preconceptions about me would be confirmed.” Scowling, she flattened her palms against his chest and shoved.

Amused by her pathetic efforts to dislodge him, he grinned. “Not by a long shot. I have a
lot
of assumptions about you. Few are flattering.”

“You are such a dick.” She struggled like a rabbit caught in a snare, but he controlled her easily, sinking more of his weight onto her smaller frame.

Big mistake. He might not like her, but he hadn’t
been in this position with a female in decades, and his body didn’t care what he thought about her. All it cared about was how her curves fit against his hard muscles and how her pelvis was rocking against his. It also had immense appreciation for the way her magnificent breasts rubbed against his bare chest.

He slid one hand to her butt to hold her still, but all he accomplished was putting her sex in direct contact with his. He also discovered that her ass was rock-hard and a nice handful.

“Stop that,” he ground out.

“Screw you.” She bucked harder, and he hissed at the blatantly sexual motion. Behind the fly of his jeans, his rapidly swelling cock rubbed against her smooth slacks, creating a blistering friction that made him light-headed with sudden need.

“I mean it, Nicole.” His sexed-up voice was gravelly, rusty from disuse. “Stop thrashing.”

She sank her nails into his chest and tried to push again, but the little pinches of pain only added to the soaring pleasure as lust surged through him, hot and potent.

“Or what?” Almost before the words were out of her mouth, it became very clear to her what was going on. He saw it in the way her expression went slack and her skin flushed pink, felt it in the sudden taut set of her muscles. “Oh,” she breathed.

God, she was a study of female perfection right now, with her hair fanned out in a messy pool on the ground, her panting breaths, her full lips open and glistening. She looked like a woman who needed a mattress, a lot less clothing, and a male willing to use every
dirty trick in the book to make her mindless with ecstasy.

Braced on one elbow, he eased his hand around to the back of her slender neck to where her spine met her skull. With one swift thrust of his fingers into that spot, he could kill her before she knew what happened.

Or he could stroke the soft skin and thread his fingers through her silky hair.

This was stupid. It was completely crazy and inappropriate that his body was responding to her at all, let alone with a powerful rush of desire that had him dipping his head toward that perfect mouth. He wondered how she’d taste, wondered if her kisses were as sweet as the decadent nectar in her veins. The very thought made his body burn.

Without thinking, he brushed his lips across hers. Beneath him, Nicole stiffened, and when he did it again, this time with an even lighter touch, she let out a gasp. Under his thumb, her pulse ticked madly, and the scent of her anger and fear blended with a subtle note of arousal.

Instantly, his body burned hotter. He needed more. Much more.

He sealed his mouth over hers, groaning as he tasted his first female since Terese’s death. Her lips parted slightly, and the warm, wet recess of her mouth drew him deep. She was soft all over but firm enough in the right places for him to know instinctively that she could take him at his roughest. His wildest.

He shuddered at the direction his thoughts had taken. They couldn’t do this. He’d never been the type
to have sex with a female he didn’t like, no matter how hot she was or how much she revved him up.

Growling with frustration, he kissed her harder, which made no sense, and he knew it. Or maybe it did. The kiss was punishing, brutal, because, dammit, it was her fault he was between her legs in the first place.

Nicole’s breasts pressed into his bare chest as he shifted, moving against her in a primitive surge that made them both moan.

More.
He gripped her hip and tucked her more firmly under him.

More.
He dragged his mouth along her jaw. She smelled so good, so feminine. He moved his mouth to her neck, and instantly, she went taut and recoiled.

Right.
He was a vampire. Worth about as much as a stray dog. And this stray dog was humping her leg. She must be mortified.

Fucking humiliating.
He shoved himself off her, averting his gaze so she wouldn’t see the color change in his eyes that signified arousal. She was too aware of his desire as it was, and he was an idiot for letting it go as far as it had.

With a curse, he grabbed up his ruined shirt. It was bloody, dirty, and torn to shit. It wasn’t wearable, but he put it to good use while he waited for his heart rate and breathing to return to pre-hump-the-enemy levels.

After splashing the shirt with the bottle of water, he wiped the dried blood from his chest. His wound had nearly healed. Another couple of days, and there wouldn’t even be a scar.

The scrape of Nicole’s chunky-heeled boots echoed
through the cavern as she came to her feet. “Um . . .” She cleared her throat, because, yeah, this was all kinds of awkward. “Do you need blood? You know, to replenish what you lost?”

Yup, he did. He was operating at about half strength right now, but hell if he was going to tell her that.

“Don’t worry, Sunshine. I won’t sink my big, bad fangs into your pretty little throat.” He shrugged into his weapons harness. “Not until you get Neriya back, anyway.”

That particular threat was getting old, but right now, he needed to get his brain functional again, and that would require thinking about something other than sinking anything of his into anything of Nicole’s.

Her huff told him she was just as tired of the threat hanging over her head. “Why is she so important to you, anyway? Who is she?”

Riker didn’t owe her an explanation, but what the hell. They didn’t have anything else to do while they hung out in the cave except talk. Besides, maybe if she understood the importance of getting Neriya away from the humans, Nicole would be more willing to cooperate.

“I’m sure you’re aware that the vampire race suffers from a low birthrate, and when a female does get pregnant, the birth can be extremely complicated and dangerous.”

Nicole moved around in front of him. He wished she hadn’t. Even though she was dragging her fingers through her messy locks in an attempt to tame them, she still looked like she’d just gotten out of bed after a tumble with a man, and he definitely didn’t need to be picturing her on a mattress. Or with a man.

Or with him.

“One in four deliveries results in the death of either the mother or the child or both,” she said, sounding like she was reading straight from some
Vampires for Dummies
book. “I know.”

“Well, Sunshine Smartypants, all vampires develop special abilities at some point in their lives, depending on if they’re born or turned. One of the rarest abilities is also the most precious. We call it
usdida
.” Crouching, he gathered the first-aid supplies and tried to stuff them back into the box. They appeared to have multiplied. “Basically, people with this gift can ease labor and deliver babies safely. No one knows how it works, just that very rarely does a child or a mother die when a midwife with
usdida
is present.” What the hell—seriously, did bandages breed? Frustrated, he forced the kit lid closed. “Neriya is a midwife from another clan. We arranged to have her present for a birth, but on our way to return her, our team was attacked by hunters, and she was taken.”