Raging Passions (8 page)

Scooping her up, Caden lifted Rage until her legs wrapped high around his waist. He carried her until her back pressed against the stone wall. Rage rubbed her crotch to his washboard abs. His mouth trapped her breast. He sucked as much of it as he could between his lips. The rough drag of his tongue stroked over her nipple. The pressure of his teeth pinched and tugged until Rage lost the scream she tried to suppress.

Caden carried them away from the wall and onto the bare mattress on the floor, his chain dragging across the concrete floor as he went. “I want to see you,” he whispered against her breast. “All of you.” Rage lay back on the mattress and watched as Caden peeled her stretchy pants down. The fabric slithered down her skin, leaving her erotically sensitive. Finally he slipped her sneakers off without bothering to untie them.

He abandoned the pants with her shirt before burrowing his wide shoulders between her knees. “So beautiful,” he whispered. Tenderly, Caden bent to her pussy. The moist heat of his tongue dragged up between her lips. Rage wrapped her legs around his shoulders. With gentle touches Caden opened her to his attentions. The quick flicks of the tip of his tongue sped her heart rate. His lips circled the bud of her clit and he sucked until Rage arched with the pleasure of it.

She cupped her breast with one hand and squeezed. Her other hand rubbed through Caden’s hair, encouraging him. “I want this so bad,” she hissed as her hips worked with the swirling of his tongue, “I want you, Caden.”

His powerful grip supported the roundness of her ass as he lifted her higher. Caden ate at her passage, licking and nibbling. Rage could not keep still. She danced against his loving mouth, gasping. When she came for him, her body bucked against the overwhelming pleasure. Caden helped her to ride out her pleasure, slowing his worshipful licking until she dropped down on the mattress, spent completely.

Caden crawled up her body and rolled to the side. He drew idle swirling patterns on her stomach as he smiled that cocky smile of his. Rage shook her head. “Oh, you know what you do to me.” He nodded and chuckled.

“Two can play that game.” Rage crept down Caden’s tall form. He lifted his bottom so she could strip him of his pants. His swollen cock strained toward her, even larger than she had remembered it being. Rage reached for it. Her thin fingers pumped over the velvety flesh of his shaft. The fat vein running along the sides tickled her fingertips.

Rage captured his cock between her lips and sucked him deeper. Her fangs glided on either side of his shaft, adding to the sensation. The supple skin of his cock slipped smoothly over her tongue and down into her throat. Caden tasted every bit as good as she remembered. With his hands encouraging, supporting her head, Rage swirled the full length of her tongue over his shaft. As her head plunged forward and then retreated, she worked her hand over his balls, rolling them gently. A hint of salty pre-cum spiced his flavor.

“I need you now,” Caden growled. He shoved Rage back. Her legs moved wide of his hips as he drove himself forward. Her slick pussy helped him to glide between her lips. His cock forced her body to widen enough to accept his width. This time they both cried out. Caden filled her in more than a physical way. Rage wrapped her legs and arms around him, feeling her joy and her remembered love for him swell and rekindle.

Caden snuggled his face into the curve of her neck. He pressed into her so eagerly that with each stroke Caden scooted her inch by inch, farther up the mattress. The fiery tingle shivered from her core and down both legs. For Caden, each word was a gasp and a thrust, “Regina! Regina!
My Regina!”

Rage lifted into each bucking of his body as he worked deeper inside her. Her tears still flowed, but not from pain this time. “I love you, Caden. I love you!”

His hands curled under her knees, bending them up higher along his sides, changing their position to an even more delicious angle. Looking up into his too-blue eyes, she saw everything she needed to see. He didn’t need to say he loved her, but he did. “I have never loved anyone but you.
Only ever you.
Always you, Regina.”

Knowing her as only he did, Caden found the spot within her that set her aflame. Her body quaked as her orgasm flared into life. Giving herself to him as she never gave herself to anyone else, Rage surrendered to the flow of their bodies. Instinctually she followed the rhythm of his cock pulsing into her pussy. The spasms gripped Caden and he lost his control only seconds after she had. When he leaned back, caught in the moment, all the muscles of his arms and chest tightened beneath the glisten of sweat painting his skin with glittering reflection.

She wanted to keep him inside her forever. This sense of completion could last eternally and still not be long enough. Rage hugged him, drawing him down to her. Caden collapsed over her, only his elbows keeping him from knocking the breath from her. She clung to him. He completed her. It sounded crazy. It sounded doomed, but it was true. As his body relaxed, Caden’s softening cock finally slipped free of her body. He lifted his head and kissed her once more.
Long, lingering, timeless kisses.

Rage’s hands cupped Caden’s neck. The collar’s cold steal blocked her. She blinked, stunned that she’d let her passion overrun her good sense. “We have to get you out of here.” She wiggled out from beneath Caden. “Ripper will kill you.”

At the sound of someone clearing his throat, Rage glanced at Dean leaning in the doorway. He dangled the keys from a ring balanced on his outstretched finger. “Well, well, well.
Rage, my darling.
Whatever will you give to me…” his eyes roved suggestively over her, “what will you do for me with that fabulous body of yours to get your hands on this little batch of keys?”

Chapter Six

Curling back her lips from her fangs, Rage considered boning the Offspring like a fish where he stood. Before she’d even fully taken a step in Dean’s direction, Caden caught her elbow.

Caden growled, “Dean, you ass, get me out of this thing before I stake you myself.”

Straightening from where he lounged as artistically and as handsome as the model he looked like against the doorframe, Dean smiled broadly. “No wonder you two were going to get married. You are exactly alike. Neither of you has a sense of humor.”

Gaping in shock, Rage watched Dean select the correct key from his ring and unlock the collar that Caden wore. Even with the bandages taped to his chest, Caden stood straight and defiant as Dean freed him.

“What took you so long?” Caden growled. He snatched up his fatigue pants and jerked them on. Rage dressed just as quickly. She might yet decide to spoon Dean’s eyes out of their sockets for his voyeurism, but right now they needed any help they could get.

“Hey, give me a break.” Dean tossed aside the collar he’d removed. “I had to wait until the house quieted down. Besides, I don’t hear a lot of sympathy and concern about the cracked ribs and punctured lung I suffered saving your ass from Ripper.”

“Wait…” Rage stepped back and stared at the men. “What? You two know each other?”

“It’s a long story,” Caden said, gathering Rage to him, his hands curling possessively around her lower back. “We have to leave.
The three of us.
You have to come too. Your clan will destroy you for this betrayal.”

Enclosed in Caden’s embrace, Rage searched his brilliant blue eyes. He felt warm and strong.
Familiar and yet foreign.
She remembered loving him, deeply. But she wasn’t that girl anymore. And he wasn’t the same man. Different though they both were now, the love still felt the same. Rage curled into Caden’s body, wanting to wrap
herself
up in him. Where would they have been if their love story had not been interrupted? Would they have reached “happily ever after”? Was there even a chance that they could rewrite their ending after all this time? “It is because I want to give ‘us’ a second chance that I can’t leave yet.”

Dean’s hands glided onto Rage’s shoulders and he squeezed gently, massaging, as he spoke. He’d moved in close behind her so she could feel the muted heat of his vampire body enclosing her, but he did not actually press to her. “Caden is not just an executioner, Rage,” he explained. “He is a Summon for the Executioner Clan. Ripper knows this. So do others. They will not permit you to survive this.”

The way they surrounded her was both meant to reassure and to insist she submit to their protection. Rage looked at Caden, seeing him differently now. He’d seen a lot. The tension firmed the muscles beside his mouth and around his eyes, as if they’d become accustomed to doing so. As a Summon, a human servant to a vampire or clan, he would have naturally witnessed quite a lot of violence that most humans would have cringed away from.
So much more so with the Executioner Clan.
There were executioners and then there were Executioner Clan executioners. Vampires policed their own numbers. A clan’s Kinsmen eliminated their excess and inappropriate Offspring. The Executioner Clan eliminated excess and inappropriate Kinsmen and Offspring alike.

The Executioner Clan Kinsmen traveled to
clans
worldwide, evaluating and dealing death where they deemed necessary, sometimes even destroying entire clans. Unlike most clans that established a territory, the Executioners were always on the move, preventing others from discovering them and retaliating.

And Caden, having been fed on and exposed to substantial vampire magic and harboring a grudge against vampires in general, would have been susceptible to the Summoning of the Executioners. When a clan or vampire sent forth the Summoning for a human servant, only those attuned to that specific call felt its pull and were drawn to comply. Once the humans arrived, they had the choice to serve the clan or feed it. And those who fed it do not survive.

Dean was right. The Blood Runner Clan would kill her for releasing the Executioner Clan’s Summon, even if Ripper tried to defend her. And she knew despite his threats, Ripper would defend her. After what she saw in his soul, she knew he would tolerate no harm to come to her.

Rage glanced back over her shoulder at her vampire brother, seeing not his usual joking expression, but genuine concern and caring for her. “Why are you doing this, Dean? Why did you save Caden from Ripper? Why are you risking your life to free him?”

Carefully, he stroked back a few strands of hair that had escaped her braid and smoothed them behind her ear. Then, instead of the flirting or suggestive behavior she anticipated from him, Dean stepped back. There was
a sadness
to the forced smile he offered. “After what Ripper did to you and Caden, do you really have to ask? After all you’ve seen? Shit, after all you’ve done? We’ve been rebirthed as monsters, but we don’t have to act like monsters.” Dean flicked his gaze to Caden before continuing. “The vampires and Summons of the Executioner Clan do more good than you know. There are some diseased sons of bitches out there just as vile as Vlad the Impaler ever dreamed of being. Just because we are undead doesn’t mean we have to be inhuman.”

“You’ve joined the Executioners?” Her voice was nearly inaudible, even to herself. If anyone else suspected, Dean would be flayed into minuscule and unidentifiable pieces. Until he became a Kinsman in his own right, Dean was at Ripper’s beck and call, just as Rage was. Not that Ripper
lorded
his power over his male Offspring as he did over her. Still, it would be impossible for Dean to just switch clans, unless…
“Oh my God.
Did an Executioner Kinsman rebirth you?”

He didn’t need to answer her. She could read it in his eyes. Before she could say anything else, Dean cocked his head and listened. “It’s time to go now.”

Rage followed Dean upstairs and Caden brought up the rear. He held her hand possessively, and that sign of his feelings for her meant more to her than she could have expected. She still cared about him. The passion that had fueled her rage had once fueled their love. And it did so once more. Seeing him again made her realize that.

At the top of the stairs, Dean stopped and listened. Cautiously, he cracked open the door to the kitchen hallway and checked. With a firm hand on Rage’s shoulder he held her back silently, telling her with his touch to remain there while he continued forward.

Nervous fear boiled inside her, making her breathing come in shorter gasps. If anyone wandered through the house while they were freeing Caden, the alarm would be raised and none of them would survive. If only she could get Caden outside, the daylight would protect him. She and Dean would be trapped until sundown. The vain hope that no one checked on Caden before they could escape was their only chance.

Her sensitive vampire hearing detected a soft rolling, crunching sound.
Wheels rolling heavily on grass.
Soft as it was, any vampire in the house who was awake might hear it. She whispered to herself, “Damn it, Dean. What are you up to?”

In a moment, Dean returned to the basement door. With his hand supporting her elbow, he guided her and Caden to the back entrance. The door stood open. Backed up to the entrance was a cargo van with its back doors wide open. A shaft of sunlight less than a foot wide separated the safety of the house and the dark interior of the van. Dean must have signaled the human driver to risk pulling in close to the house to minimize the exposure to the sun. “Get in,” Dean told them.

Rage jerked free of Dean and Caden, panic etching along her nerves at the sight of the deadly daylight. “No way
am
I getting into some strange van in the middle of the day, especially not a van I know belongs to your Executioner Clan.”

“Rage, it’s the only way.” Dean reached for her, but stopped when she flinched away. The hurt frown that darkened his charmingly boyish features was genuine. “We don’t have time to argue. You’ll be safe with Caden and me. I promise.”

“Just go. Get Caden to safety. I’ll be okay.” Rage backed away, smelling the hot sunlight that spilled in the open doorway. As a human it had smelled like life, now it smelled like death. Even that short rush through the light would scald like acid. “Dean, if you leave with Caden, then the clan will just think it was you alone. It will make sense after you stopped Ripper from killing him.” Her hand touched the vial in her pocket. Ripper might let Dean escape him, but no way in hell would he let Rage go. She had to use the potion Morgana procured for her. It was the only chance that she might escape him.