Phoenix Rising (5 page)

“Miles?!”

“Shut
up
, Kels Bells.
Mon dieu.”

She swallowed and he could feel it. So hyper aware was he of every movement she made, of every drop of blood and its destination in her body.

“Are you…? Miles… Oh,
screw this!
Are you going to bite me or not?

He opened his eyes and moved back just enough to watch her face. Her jaw was set and she didn’t look scared anymore. Or maybe
as.

Yes, not
as
scared.
He didn’t understand why. She had to know what was coming.

“It appears so.”

“Can you stop it?” And in her eyes, the unspoken question, 'do you
want
to?'

“
Je ne crois pas, non.”

“God.” Her voice shook, but then she stunned him by tilting her head, letting her hair fall to the side. The sleek dark waves parting neatly over her neck, exposing her throat to him.

Offering herself to him.

“Just do it, Miles. Please, get it over with.”

He blinked and it was her turn to laugh.

A fairly hysterical laugh, yes.

Still, considering everything, it rather unsettled him, and pissed him off. Did she think this would change anything?

“Forgive me for being conflicted about biting someone whom I was quite sure is terrified of it.” His voice was even and cold.

Deliberately, he let his fangs slide out, feeling them elongate and harden as he drew back his lips. “I seem to have been mistaken.”

She shrank away from him, just a fraction before he felt her steel herself.

“You’re not mistaken, Miles. And you damn well know it. But it appears you have put us both in a position where there is no choice, haven’t you?”

Her golden eyes were blazing at him now, her heartbeat accelerating again, shooting that siren perfume of hers into the air.

“So just do it alre—”

Her words ended in a gasp as he struck, incapable of holding back one second longer. Her head fell back and her body shook under his onslaught.

The sharp tips of his fangs pierced her deliciously soft skin and his lips closed over her throat. Kelsey’s blood flooded his mouth almost instantly and his knees buckled at the fierceness of her heartbeat.
Quoi
! So strong and rich.

Her taste was as powerful as he’d ever imagined, and infused with that wild honey scent of hers that matched her eyes. The tremors running through her only ratcheted up his need. Soft and firm, strong yet delicate, the feel of Kelsey against him was near enough to make Miles lose his mind.

Her blood pumped fast and hot, but Miles found the rhythm and matched it.

Every starving cell of his body shuddered in wicked pleasure as he fed. And every second that terrible monstrous part of him whispered, as it always did, that he never had to stop.

Never.

At least not until her heart did.

Kelsey’s spine bowed in shock as Miles’ fangs sank inside her. Her body arched into his as that never-forgotten burn like hellfire spread outward to her limbs in one shocking heartbeat, immobilizing her. Her mouth opened to scream but no sound came out. Terror and pain shot through her brain-telling her to fight, to hit, to struggle—
anything to get away!
But against Mile’s need, she was helpless.

Her para powers being purely offensive, Kelsey had trained hundreds of hours in defense. Both while with the Cleaners and on her own. It seemed like she had tried every form of hand combat known to man at one time or another. She was good at many of them, even very damn good.

Now that was all so incredibly useless. She could barely move for the pain anyway.

White-hot, it
consumed
her. Kelsey felt like the glass behind her should melt from this terrible heat.

You can think of it like penance
, she had told herself, when she had met his eyes and realized there would soon be no choice at all. In that instant, she had made her decision.

Kelsey knew despite the fact Miles was more than
capable
of killing her, that actually doing so would break something deep inside him. Miles hadn’t killed a human by blooding in centuries. He didn’t drink from the unwilling. Ever.

Yet, he had pushed them both into a position where it would be damn near impossible for him to resist. Was he testing himself?

Testing her?

Kelsey had no goddamn idea what his motivation, but one thing she did know. She could make it easy for him.

She could give in. Give him what he needed. She owed him that.

And she
wasn’t
sorry she had. Even if this was agony beyond anything that she had remembered, and what she remembered had been waking her up screaming and drenched in sweat for damn near fifteen years.

Her body was going numb.

Kelsey thought it might be shock, but she was dumbly grateful all the same when the pain started to ebb.

When it slipped away altogether, she was momentarily frozen, afraid to move or breathe. The absence of the awful fire was so blissful she was terrified one wrong move would bring it roaring back to life.

Slowly she became aware that Miles’ mouth was still locked on her throat like caressing velvet. His chest was still hard and immovable, pinning her to the glass wall.

His skin was warm now, though…so very warm.

The delicious heat of him seeped through his shirt, making her breasts tingle as she stretched to her toes, wanting to feel more. His grip had slackened on her wrists and she tugged free. Miles didn't resist, but his hands came down to rest on the glass near her waist, keeping her firmly in place as he continued to drink his fill.

Her hands were free now. Free to touch him.

Kelsey slid her fingers into his hair, sighing at the silky rough texture of it.

Oh, she had missed
this
. She'd always loved playing with his hair. It was longer now than he had kept it when they had been lovers. She couldn’t resist wrapping her fingers in all that luxurious dark gold as a new fire started to burn within her, making her legs slip apart as she leaned back into the wall and wrapped one leg around his waist. Her thin skirt tangled and slipped high on her thighs as she tugged harder, pulling his hair, letting him know she wanted more. She whispered his name and felt him shiver, though his mouth never left her skin.

Miles stepped forward, responding to her need, eliminating the last breadth of space between them. One hand instinctively reaching around to palm her ass, lifting and supporting her as she rubbed against him, helpless as a cat in heat. She could feel the long ridge of his cock, thick and hard through his jeans.

Pure primal desire shot through her. Miles wanted her, not just her blood, but her body and god, she wanted him right back.

Kelsey cried out as he ground against her, hard, slamming her into the glass wall. The vibrations slid up and down her spine as her head started to spin.

They were far beyond predator and prey now.

Kelsey didn’t know what the hell they were, or what was happening but she didn’t want it to stop. In ten years, this hadn't faded, hadn't waned at all. This carnal need for the man she loved. From the moment she'd opened her office door and seen him again, it had leapt in and clawed at her. Her body knew who it belonged to.

But
this
…this was entirely different.

Every pore in her body was starving for him. This wasn’t mere lust, it was a physical craving so demanding and urgent she could no more halt it than blow out a raging 5-alarm fire.

Her nipples were tight and hard against his chest, her arms around his neck. She slipped one hand down, ripping a button free at his waist to slide it under his shirt. The feel of his smooth skin under her palm, firm and muscled, the rough smattering of wiry hair on his chest, tingling the tips of her fingers. The fabric of his shirt against the back of her hand; cool and crisp. Every sensation was acute to the point of pain.

Her hand slid up over the hard curve of his shoulder, clinging to him as she shuddered. She could smell the clean scent of his hair, the hot musk of her own skin, the grass wet with dew. All of it so exquisitely clear and sharp. And she needed it all,
wanted it all.

Even his fangs piercing her veins felt overtly sexual, an invasion of her body that she far from resented any longer. She only wanted more of him, more of him inside her.

Miles lifted his head.

The instant he pulled back, his mouth leaving her skin, she gasped at the sensation of confusion and loss. Her nails dug into his skin to prevent him from pulling any further away. Kelsey looked up at him with bewildered eyes, her body a riot of demands screaming to be met.

“Miles, what …?” Her voice was raw, panicked.

“I know. I know,
mon cœur
,”
He whispered. “It’s only the blooding. Easy, Kels. I won’t leave you like this.”

She didn’t understand what he had in mind until his fingertips brushed the damp silk of her panties. His touch had the effect of an electrical charge. She arched immediately into his hand without any sort of control, her body beyond reason.

Her arms wrapped around his neck again as she begged him to make it stop. To ease this terrible need consuming her.

Miles ripped her panties off with one harsh tug. She could hear his breathing, just as ragged as hers as he threw the fabric to the ground.

Her head fell back against the glass wall as he cupped her bare wet sex. Kelsey moaned, her inner muscles contracting at the feel of his hand against her, stroking the fire inside her until she writhed against him. She could hear Miles’ voice, the words a musical unbroken stream of French that she was too blind with passion to interpret.

Her head whipped back and forth as he worked two long fingers inside her. A slow invasion at first, easing into her slick, tight core as she bit her lips and tried not to scream.

Seconds later, she was beyond trying to control anything. Her cries rang over the grounds as the pleasure uncoiled inside her, liquid and hot and throbbing. His pace became faster as she opened to him. Her hips found his rhythm as he fucked her with his hand quick and hard. Miles' eyes never left her face as he pushed her to the release she needed more than she needed to breathe.

Her legs tightened around his waist as she met his gaze, that beautiful summer blue…

Then the ball of his thumb caressed the aching nub of her clit, over and over, and her whole world went white.

Kelsey fell forward as the climax tore through her. Her open mouth on Miles’ shoulder, biting into his blood-warmed skin to muffle scream after scream as her muscles locked down on his fingers. The pleasure unlike anything she had ever known.

Wave after wave of it. Ripping through her until she was limp. Her eyes closed as she fought to catch her breath.

Holy crap.

What the fucking hell was that?

Her heart felt like it was going to explode from her chest and a fine sheen of sweat covered her from head to toe. She shuddered with a burst of delicious aftershocks as he pulled his fingers from her.

Holy fucking crap.

When Miles slowly eased them both to the marble step, the shock of the icy stone on her bare ass made Kelsey jump. He immediately adjusted their positions, smoothing her tangled dress down even as he moved so he was leaning back against wall with Kelsey pulled half into his lap to protect her from the cold.

His innate consideration made her smile to herself. But Kelsey didn’t lift her head or open her eyes. She was exhausted, wrung out in more ways than one…and she didn’t want to lose that soft fragile glow. Not yet.

When she finally forced herself to open her eyes, the bubble burst. As she had known it would.

Miles didn’t look angry or brimming with tension anymore. He simply looked expressionless. His eyes no longer held the faintest glow, but they were blank and cold as he looked down at her.

Her heart that was just beginning to resume its normal rhythm stuttered in her chest.

There was no way in hell this was going to be good.

‘Alas, they were friends in youth,

But whispering tongues can poison truth

…and to be wroth with one we love doth work like madness on the

brain…’ ~Samuel Coleridge

He’d been laying there with her in his arms, feeling her blood caressing his body from the inside out for what seemed like ages.

Smelling her on his skin. Her juices dripping from his hand. His cock so hard and throbbing it was fucking painful. Not as painful as the hunger for her blood had been, but just as wickedly acute.

He found himself unable to move, to separate himself from her, even though he knew it must be done.

Mon dieu, it must be done.

Sharing her blood was quite the stupidest thing he could have done. He thought her memory had tormented him before. Now he was certain madness lay in his future. To have tasted her and know he could never do so again.

Madness and death, to be sure. Of his own making.

Almost entirely.

Almost.

When she stirred he had only one question.

“Why did you do it?”

“Do what?” She said hesitantly.

He brushed the spot where he had bitten her with the same two fingers that had so recently and intimately been inside her and Kelsey shivered at his touch, sending a powerful throb through his cock.

His voice went raw with strain and a newly rising fury. “You know
precisely
what I mean, Kelsey.”

Miles knew that she did, even though he refused to let her in his mind again. Since coming to Chicago, he'd had to concentrate constantly to shut her out.

Oh yes, he had always had the ability to shield his mind. In Paris, he had just not known it was necessary to protect himself from her.

Now he did.

Miles leaned back into the glass wall, watching the reflections of the swaying willows draw dark, feathery shadow tendrils over her face as the grounds whispered around them.

Her beauty had changed over the years, but to his eye it had only deepened. Those strong, bold features, the black-lashed golden eyes, the full lips, swollen from where she'd bitten them, so lush and ripe they begged to be tasted.

He longed to take her again. Properly. Not just with his fingers, but in every way imaginable. Here on the hard chilly stone. To lay her back and ease his way inside that hot, sleek sex, to feel her taut thighs grip his waist again. To watch her face as he plunged inside of her and made her cries shatter the night again and again.

Miles couldn’t give into that. Not unless he truly wanted to kill her. His hunger for her blood was nearly as fierce as his hunger for her body, even more so for having tasted her once. If he loosed one appetite again, the other would follow.

And Kelsey had no more blood to spare. He'd seen to that.

“Did I have a choice then?” Her voice was shaky and full of nerves when she finally answered him. Not that it was a proper answer at all and that ticked him off. She knew damn well how he felt about choices.

“You
always
have a choice, Kelsey. Everyone does. You could have made it as hard as possible, you could have fought, screamed—“

“Begged, Miles? Would that have stopped you?” Her eyes were quiet gold weights resting on him.

He shifted, a trifle uncomfortably under that gaze. Miles knew he would have felt more sure of himself if she had struggled, if she had pushed him away, or screamed at him to stop. He would have preferred it.

Her acquiescence had stunned him. Leaving him unsettled and furious.
What was she playing at this time?

Miles thought he had a good idea.

“Perhaps. I can only
hope
you aren’t under the impression you were sparing me anything.”

“Sparing you?” Her laugh was short and bitter. “Maybe I
thought
I was, but now I’d say maybe I cheated you. You wanted me to fight….Is that it, Miles?”

“Well, maybe it is about fucking time that you did!” Miles lashed out, shocking them both as his voice rolled over the grounds.

He saw her already pale face go bloodless as she jumped up.
Too fast
.

Miles got to his own feet just in time to catch her as she stumbled. Kelsey jerked away from his touch, swaying, white to the lips.

“Say what you mean, goddamn it, Miles.”

“I believe I just
did
.”

Miles let her hand fly, unflinching when it smacked into his face with a resounding crack. The stinging pain felt good. It felt
right
. He wanted her anger, not her goddamn acceptance.

But her next words floored him.

“
Me not fight?
Fuck you!
You
are the one who didn’t fight, Miles! You! Goddamn it, you wouldn’t even deign to
speak
to me. You had your damn servant dump me in the street, like a dirty chore you couldn’t be bothered to deal with!”

“You. Had.
Betrayed
. Me.” His words were short and harsh as a chisel flying into stone. “What in the hell was there for me to fight
for
?”

Kelsey spun away from him, dark hair flying, her fists at her sides as her delicate shoulders hitched, once, then twice. He caught a soft sob she immediately smothered with one hand fisted against her lips.

Her pain and anger both soothed his own and made it worse.

Miles rubbed the back of his neck, his fingers sliding into his own hair and pulling as he fought to control the rage and frustration threatening to strike out of him like a poisonous snake.

What the hell was he doing here? Had he turned masochist, for God’s sake? Bite her, get her off and then dredge up all this shit so they both could go back to being properly miserable?!

Was
that
what he was doing here?

He could not forgive her.
It just wasn't possible.

That is why he pushed her so far away so quickly. No matter what the excuse was, he couldn’t. She had risked lives, innocent lives. His own betrayal he could have lived with, but risking the innocents that came to him for protection—

Never.

Yes, it was true that none of his people had lost their lives because of what Kelsey had done, but….

Loyalty meant everything to him.
Everything.
You didn’t come back from betrayal. People pretended to, but they didn’t.

“I did. I did betray you, Miles,” her words were so soft, he thought at first it was the wind in the trees again. “Before I really knew you. Yes, I did.”

She hadn’t turned. Her head was bowed, her back to him, her fists still clenched.

“I was a stupid girl; abused and frightened and trained for
years
! Leashed and …bound in ways you can’t even comprehend. Conditioned, Miles, to think of you as a target. To regard all shades as evil. No more than a scourge to be eradicated.” She took a deep, shuddering breath before turning to face him. “But I never believed it, not really. I knew it was wrong. I just didn’t have the choice of walking away. Not—”

“I told you before, there is always a choice, Kels Bells.” One hand scrubbed his face as he bit the words out, instead of the ones he really wanted to say.

I could have protected you
, whatever it was!
Why didn’t you come to me? Goddamn, why?!

His heart screamed the words, but he didn’t speak them aloud.

Couldn’t.

“Sometimes …there are only two really
bad
choices, Miles. You don’t….” Kelsey shook her head, as if changing her mind about something she was going to say. She swallowed and started again. “There was a time I thought it was my
only
choice. That was before I fell in love with you, Miles. After that …I made a
new
choice. I told them I was done. I said
no more
. I made my stand—and you fucking deserted me for it.”

God, she had said it.
Why, Kelsey, why
now?

Every muscle in his body tightened and thrummed at her words, but somehow he kept his voice even while his soul bled.

“Yes, I did. Because I didn’t want to hear it, Kelsey.”

He might have.

God help him, he
would
have. Miles knew it. Despite everything, he might have forgiven her all.

If she had come to him first.
But she hadn’t. And that made all the difference in the world.

Yes, he had accused her of not fighting, but Miles knew he hadn’t fought for her either. But she hadn't allowed him to.

She hadn’t come to him.

Why wouldn’t she do that? He had asked himself the question a thousand times.

If she cared for him, if she truly had any feelings for him, why not admit the subterfuge and take her chances? Wasn’t he worth that?

Instead her organization had contacted him first, sending him documentation, pictures of her first three months of reports, on him. Neat clean dissections of his every move; photocopies of private papers in his home, about his businesses and the hospital that was his pride and joy.
Locations of the safe houses.

He'd sat there, frozen to his chair, every word slicing into his heart. Forcing himself to read until the very last page, his hands shaking, the slick glossies burning his fingertips.

In the end, one envelope remained. It had been addressed to him personally in a long spiky script. Only a single short line on the crisp note inside, written in that same spidery hand.

Were you truly fool enough to love her, my Lord?

Kelsey heard him repeat his last words again in that flat, utterly emotionless voice.

“
I didn’t want to hear it
. To listen to your excuses. No amount of words…or
penance
is going to erase what you did, Kelsey.”

She blinked back the hot burn of tears. She'd no idea he saw her quite
that
clearly. “Then what will?”

“Nothing.” His voice was so final her heart caught.

Kelsey hadn’t realized until that second that she'd still had hope.

“Okay then.” She skittered back from him in a half-blind haze, bumping into the glass wall and almost falling over again. Miles started to reach for her, but she saw him catch himself at her warning look. “Just so we are clear.”

“There is nothing you can give me that will change what you did, Kelsey. Not even acceptance of that part of me that terrifies you.”

“Because you wanted to make me beg…. Or you wanted to take it by force?
Really?
Is that it? To play the monster with me?” She leaned back, wrapping her arms around her shivering body.

He stepped back from her slowly. “What if I did? Would that shock you? Maybe that is the closure
I
need, Kelsey. The monster is a part of me, not an act. Not
playing
.” He spat out the last word as if it offended him. “You just never saw it up close this way before. I shielded you from that because I felt your fear. Did you ever consider what I
really
am?”

Kelsey looked at him levelly even as she shook, her eyes bright with the tears she refused to let fall.

“No, I didn’t and I
don’t
consider it
,
Miles. My fear of being bit was
mine
, it wasn’t about you, for god’s sake! Because
you
aren’t a monster, not in any way that really counts…and no one can make me believe different, not even
you!
I was the monster in the end, and even though I tried to take it back, it was too late. Always too fucking late no matter what I do.”

Kelsey reached behind her at those last words, choking them out as she fumbled desperately for the security panel. Before she lost it completely.

“Just go, Miles. Leave.
Please.
” Her voice broke finally and her eyes closed.

He said nothing for a long moment. She hoped he'd gone, vanished into that night with a vamp’s preternatural power, leaving her alone. Alone so her heart could finish breaking.
Again
.

The breeze stroked her tears with cool fingers and everything was silent.

His voice breathed from the night.

“I cannot.”

“Oh god,” She turned her back to him, not wanting him to see the flood of tears she could no longer hold back. “Why the hell not?
You did it before, how hard can it be?”

Kelsey knew that was hardly fair, but she didn’t care.

She had always known he would never forgive her, always. But hope was a stupid, stubborn, optimistic
bitch
that fought hard. Kelsey pressed her forehead into the cooling glass, willing him away as she keyed in the security numbers.