Hunger Revealed (3 page)

Whatever they used this place for, it
obviously ensured the people inside remained comfortable. It was a
sensual feast. The walls were covered in gauzy material, cascading
down in waves that left the impression of a breeze at constant
play. Although he couldn't see any lit candles, the room smelled
soft and delicate. Very feminine. The scent, one he couldn't place,
reminded him of flowers yet seemed very homey.

The same kinds of pillows piled high
in the center also framed the room's perimeter. They served as
seating places, as well as places where people could lie
comfortably. In four corners, shelving units painted to match the
reds and purples of the drapers stood watch. There were velvet
blankets, folded silken sheets, plush towels placed in each one and
it didn't take Corin long to figure out their purpose.

Whatever this room, it ensured its
users would be extremely comfortable while they fucked and
cavorted.

He couldn't hear or sense
anyone else in the room, so Corin moved to Jasmine. By the time he
reached her, the soft
click
of the door closing behind him sounded. A lock
engaged a moment later, but distracted, Corin ignored
it.

“Jasmine?” he repeated.

Chapter Three

Jasmine vaguely heard Corin. Her man.
Her husband and lover.

God, how she loved him.

Her lids fluttered, but didn't open.
They felt so heavy. And she was tired. And craving
something.

Not something.

Him.

His taste. His kiss. His
blood.

“Talk to me.” His voice came low,
concern twined through it. “Are you hurt?”

She licked dry lips. “No.”
Memories assaulted her, every one of them fuzzy. She'd been
shopping. A woman took her. Then a man talked to her. He'd called
her…
something…
something nice. Reverent. “I'm hungry,” she
murmured.

His voice whispered across her skin as
he leaned in close. “What have they done to you? Anyone touch you?
Make threats?”

He sounded wounded, and for this
reason, Jasmine pushed her eyelids open, though it took
effort.

A surge of ripe lust bolted through
her as her gaze swept over his face. Intense, dark eyes. Roman
nose. Boxer's jaw. Full, sensual lips.

She swallowed hard as hunger and need
intensified. Her vampire instincts demanded she feed; the feminine
part of her psyche insisted on sexual satisfaction. Something
whispered of caution, of the necessity for waiting, but the soft
sounds drifted away before they could fully form and Jasmine could
clasp onto them.

Lifting her hands to his neck, she
stroked over the pulsing skin that signaled a heartbeat moving
rapidly. Corin bore her scrutiny without comment, but she knew the
tension holding him hostage. “Feed me, Corin,” she said
softly.

He'd never before denied her when her
hunger rose. He'd been the one to help her through transition from
human to vampire, when her bloodlust rivaled an erotic lust.
Although reluctant at first, he'd eventually given in. Now, more
than a year later, feeding and sex went hand-in-hand. Here in this
place, as she subtly writhed, twining her legs together to
alleviate some of the ache in her swollen clit, she felt the
decadent touch like a live wire through her teeth.

His face darkened, awash with
memories. They'd been here, in a situation almost identical to
this.

“We need to get you out of here,” he
said resolutely.

“Yes, but later.” She stretched arms
overhead, the filmy material brushing over heavy breasts and
plumped nipples.

“C'mon.” Corin climbed onto the
pillows and grasped her hand when she made no attempt to move.
“What have they done to you?”

“I assure you that she's fine,” said a
familiar voice.

Corin whipped around to face the large
man entering through a door she'd failed to notice. The man was
caramel colored. Large, in a
still-eating-two-large-pizzas-by-himself kind of way. Black hair
lined with streaks of gray led to confusion about his possible age.
He exuded confidence, yet possessed a serenity that Corin could
have learned from just about now.

She remembered him. The Reverent
Father.

He continued speaking to Corin. “What
you see is some of the aftereffects of the drugs my acolyte was a
little too eager to institute. It won’t stay in her system much
longer, be assured.”

“What do you want with us?” Corin
turned to face the Reverent head on, keeping Jasmine at his
back.

He dipped in semi-bow. “Only to serve
the lady and goddess Jasmine.”

“See? I'm fine, sugar.” Her gaze
continued to slide up and down Corin's back, wanting with
everything in her to feel his strength blanketing her right now.
She needed to feel him inside her. To touch and kiss him. A smile
broadened her face. “He wants to worship me. I want to worship
you.” The smile turned into a giggle. “We can all worship each
other.”

Corin shot a glance at
Jasmine over his shoulder, his brow furrowed. “You're
drunk
.”

“Am not.”

“You are. Flying high, drunk.” He
shook his head. “Later, Jas. You, the Reverent Father, I presume,
need to point the way to the nearest exit. I am Corin Gerulaitis.
An executioner of the Council, wholly authorized to legally kill
any vampire deemed a threat to the nation. You will not keep me nor
my wife here without consequence.”

“Hold, executioner. We're a peaceful
family. No harm has come to the goddess.”

“Peaceful? Then why did you take
her?”

He shrugged, a slight
did-what-we-had-to-do smirk quirking his lips. “The goddess was
never in any danger by my acolyte. Still isn't. They are here to
serve her. If it helps, consider what we offer as no more than a
spa day for the goddess. We would pamper her as fitting her
status.”

Although Jasmine listened to their
conversation, the meaning of their words drifted out of her grasp.
The sounds hovered at the periphery of her consciousness before
dissipating.

She loved this sensation flowing
through her now. Fuzzy. Warm. Sexual.

Okay, so maybe she was
a
little
drunk.

Falling back against the pillows, so
soft and comforting, she settled in to stay a little while longer.
“I like being a goddess.”

“You are not a goddess.
Wait…shit. You are
my
goddess, but you are not the type of goddess these people are
referring to.”

Corin's frustration made her smile.
“Feed me?” she asked sweetly.

“After we leave.”

She sighed. There was also something
she was supposed to tell him, but damn if she could remember
now…

“You are in no danger here. If the
goddess's consort would care to feed her in private, I will
withdraw. I only ask that you do not attempt to leave until we can
celebrate her miraculous transformation in a ceremony this evening.
Only two hours away,” the Reverent Father said. “Until then,
please, enjoy our hospitality.”

“
How much longer before
she's lucid?”

“Not much longer. It was a small
amount. Meant to keep her calm so that she did not harm
herself.”

“Hello!” Jasmine called from her
pillow pile. “She is right here and not amused by this
conversation.” God, did that sound oddly familiar. “I'm perfectly
lucid. And hungry. And I know what I want. We've been crazy
stressed this past year, and there are some people who want to
pamper me for a little while. And silly, selfish me wants to be
pampered. And I want to enjoy it with my husband. You. Does that
make sense?”

Corin's arms folded across his chest.
“No.”

“Just join me. Two more hours here
with people wanting to do my every whim. What really could go
wrong?”

~ * ~

Everything in him said this was a bad
idea, but she would never forgive him if he dragged her away from
this type of indulgence…if the Reverent Father could be held to his
word. Warrior’s instincts fought to believe it, but the compassion
of loving husband wanted to believe. It hurt to admit, but he had
been a little rough around the edges about the way he treated his
wife lately.

Too many questions scrambled for
dominance in his mind, and without answers, they all seemed too
important to ignore. When the Reverent Father exited the room
almost as quietly as he'd slipped in, Corin found the voice to ask
one of Jasmine. “Has the past year with me really been so
bad?”

He'd thought they'd be together for
hundreds of years more. Hundreds. Had a gap already started to form
in their relationship? Looking back, he recognized how they'd been
almost forced together, with little room to negotiate or compromise
on a lifetime of being committed to one another. Although he'd
fought it initially, he'd fallen in love with a speed that shocked
everyone and he'd done it hard. He'd thought she'd done the
same.

“I love you, Corin,” Jasmine said. Her
eyes were glassy, but he recognized the effort to unfog her
thoughts. “But I think sometimes you're afraid I'll disappear. I
won't walk out on you or our marriage. When I bonded with you, you
warned me that it meant forever. And it still does mean forever to
me. But honey, you've got to give me some space
sometimes.”

His gut churned, the force of her
softly spoken words ricocheting through his insides and leaving
behind a bruise everywhere they touched. She'd wanted to go
shopping for lingerie by herself today, but he'd insisted on coming
with her. When she wanted to do anything at all, he stood by her
side. Protests that she could never surprise him with gifts because
he remained hitched like a tick were laughed off. He'd go through
the motions of acting like he understood but hadn't truly
listened.

He'd never before thought he had to
explain the reason for it. Not until now.

“I still hear your screams,
sometimes,” he said, unable to look her in the eyes any longer.
“The night Sijourn had you, and I couldn't get to you, you
screamed, Jas. You screamed, and I couldn't do a thing to help you.
I had to stay there and listen. And I can still hear you at night.
In my dreams.”

A long moment of silence passed where
he felt the weight of her scrutiny. Still, it wasn't cause enough
to look up.

“Why didn't you tell me about your
dreams before?” Her hushed voice made the quiet room seem even more
stark.

Corin uncurled his fist and pushed
through the tightness in his throat to respond. “So that you could
have done what? Hold me? Tell me it's okay? Woman, I am an
executioner and before that I was a gladiator. I have killed
hundreds and heard the screams of hundreds. This…this shouldn't
affect me like it has.”

Jasmine pushed her hand into his,
threading her fingers in between his. Together they watched the
contrast. Her shorter fingers intimately placed next to his strong,
rougher ones. When she tightened her grip, he automatically did the
same.

“Have you never dreamed of the people
you've killed?”

He gave it a thoughtful reflection
before answering. “In the beginning, I had nightmares.”

“And now?”

“Nothing. I remember their faces, but
I'm no longer haunted as I once was.”

“How long did it take for the
nightmares to stop?”

“Years, I think.”

“Did you love any of them, the people
you've killed?”

With a sharp glance, he finally met
the force of concern on her face. “No, of course not.”

The corners of her mouth tipped in an
indulgent smile. “Do you love me?”

Corin would not look away for this.
“With everything that I am.”

“Then accept the fact that
it will be years before you no longer hear me when you sleep. I
wish there was something I could say or do to make it stop
happening, but I don't think there is. You smothering me every
second of the day certainly isn't going to help. And I wish I could
say that I wish I never went through being tortured by Sijourn, but
I can't
—
”

“Jasmine!”

She squeezed his hand. “I
can't wish it never happened because without him, we might not be
where we are today. We might not have survived the hard roads laid
before us. We might not have fallen in love. And Corin, those
things in the end, are worth any amount of pain I might have gone
through.
Any
amount.”

Corin tilted his head back, eyes
squeezed shut, as he digested her words. After a moment, he
squinted at her through one eye. “At least you seem to be a little
more sober. And I suppose hearing you tell me that you love me is
worth allowing this crazy situation to run its course for a while
longer.”

Jasmine grinned.

“But at the first sign that
something's not right, we're gone.”

She grinned wider.