Blood Fire (33 page)

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Authors: Sharon Page

Tags: #Romance

BOOK: Blood Fire
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No. Hell, he would not hurt her. Blindly, he turned from her and ran to the fireplace.
“Matthew? Matthew, stop!” she cried.
He grabbed a piece of kindling. It wasn’t sharp, but he had enough strength to drive it through his chest. He pressed the end of the stick to his coat, over his heart—
“Stop!” Mrs. Darkwell commanded. “Wait.”
She was right. The hunger receded. The pain around his heart stopped, and his muscles no longer felt as if they were burning. Panting, chest heaving, he held the stake. If the hunger came again, he would use it.
“Matthew?” The soft, questioning voice was Octavia’s.
“It is over,” Mrs. Darkwell said. “You are free. You were willing to destroy yourself rather than hurt her. Not only have you won her heart, you have proved you are worthy of her love.”
Matthew fell to his knees. There was a strange pain in his mouth, then it went away. He felt weak; his heartbeat pounded like a mortal’s.
What drove him to his knees was not the pain of being freed from a curse. If he was being saved, it meant Octavia truly loved him. He had actually won her heart.
How had he done it? What did she see in him worth loving? He should have told her he didn’t doubt his love for an instant—that he believed in true, unconditional love, because that was what she deserved.
That she would love him anyway humbled him.
That he was worthy of her love amazed him. He hadn’t been able to save Gregory, or his mother from the despair that had made her drink herself to death, or his father from suicide.
But he had been determined he would do anything to save and protect Octavia.
He loved her deeply, intensely, with his heart and soul. There was nothing like almost dying, after being a vampire, to make a man understand what really mattered in life.
Octavia mattered. And Lottie mattered. Giving them all the love and devotion they deserved mattered.
He opened his eyes and saw Octavia’s worried face above him. He grinned. “I think you saved me, my beloved.”
Tears sparkled in her eyes. Tears for him. He cupped her face, drew her closer, then kissed her. No fangs to get in the way or hurt her. No temptation to take her blood. All Matthew felt was the fierce need to show her how much he loved her—
She pulled back. Worry had been replaced by wide-eyed fear. She spun toward Mrs. Darkwell, who had stood up from the sofa.
“You made him a mortal again, and you have freed him from being a vampire, but that means I will kill him!” Octavia cried. “I am a succubus, and I will destroy him.” Heavens, it meant she was faced with the same choice her mother had made. Leave the man she loved, the only man she wanted—the
only
man she had ever wanted. Or stay with him, selfishly follow her heart, and destroy him.
Mrs. Darkwell waved her hand gracefully. “Perhaps not. If you truly love each other, you will work together to survive—and to have both love and passion. This is why you felt weak again once you saw him: You two are intended to be soul mates. You need his love and passion to keep you strong. I was the one who ensured you found your child. I gave you and Lord Sutcliffe the location of the baby. It did exactly what I wished it would do: It forced you two to recognize and find your love. Now, I must go. It is my duty, Octavia, to ensure you find true love, but that does not mean I can let it come easily to you.”
With that, the woman left in a burst of purple-colored smoke.
Damn—why did the woman do that? Why give only part of an answer, a hint of hope, then vanish?
“Should we pursue her?” Matthew asked.
Octavia shook her head. How she wanted to, but she had to accept the truth. “I don’t think it will do any good. I think—I think this is some sort of test. What I don’t know is how we pass the wretched thing.”
 
In Octavia’s experience, it was nursemaids who took babies outdoors. But the next morning was wintery but not too cold, and Matthew oversaw Lottie’s preparation for a stroll in her perambulator.
He had dressed her in a frilly white baby dress, then a pretty coat, and wrapped her in many blankets. He selected her hat and tied its ribbons in a large bow beneath Lottie’s tiny chin. Charlotte promptly spit up milk that leaked toward the ribbons, but he just grinned and wiped it away.
Octavia stood back and watched him work. She couldn’t help smiling. Really, the man was adorable around his daughter. “She looks perfect,” she said.
His dark brow lifted. “Perhaps too perfect. I don’t want her to start breaking hearts just yet—”
He broke off. For one moment, his expression sobered, then his smile returned. But Octavia knew it was a forced one. She knew what he was thinking. It was the thing they had skirted around for two days and never spoke of directly.
Esmeralda had said that Charlotte had the same powers Octavia did, but had the vampiress lied to coerce Octavia to help her? The wicked and vengeful woman had not been someone Octavia believed would tell the truth. They would have to find out what the truth really was, but she was not sure how.
“Let us go for a walk,” Matthew said, his voice gruff but cheerful.
She banished worries. It was a beautiful, crisp day, and she didn’t want to let fears darken it.
Cradling Lottie in one arm, he offered the elbow of his other. “You saved my life, my lovely countess, and I want to savor every moment of sunshine with you.”
Her lower lip wobbled a bit, so she stayed quiet. Savoring sunshine. That was what they would do, and she refused to worry about the future. Later she would try to understand how to pass this damnable test so they could have a future.
Together, she and Matthew went downstairs, crossed the lane, and entered the gate to Hyde Park. On such a chilly day, there were only nannies out with babies tucked into perambulators. She enjoyed watching Matthew reveal what a devoted father he was.
The afternoon was filled with laughter, then they returned home. Octavia fed Lottie, and the nurse took the baby to bed. Matthew and she had a very hasty supper.
Then her husband clasped her hand, and they ran to their bedroom. Sharing laughter, they tumbled together onto his enormous bed.
“I love this. I love making love to you when you are giggling,” he said. He nibbled her neck, which tickled. He kissed under her arm. She hadn’t expected it, and it made her laugh so much she could barely breathe.
He kissed down her tummy, and she was almost doubling up with giggles. Then he rolled onto his back and pulled her with him, planting her cunny right on his face. Wickedly, she turned on him, as gracefully as she could, clambering over him. She wanted to pleasure him while he pleasured her.
His cock was thick and hard, twined with veins, with a full, taut, velvety head. She smiled: Seeing his erection was like greeting an old friend. It was only months ago that she had felt so unsure with him, that she had felt apart even when they were intimate. Now they seemed like two halves of one whole.
Especially in this position, when his tongue slicked over her clit, and thrust inside her, and even—heavens—teased the rim of her bottom.
She bent and took his cock in her mouth. How she loved the taste of him. And she loved making him moan. When she sucked hard, his legs shook.
Then he began to lick her clit wildly, and she could barely suck him, she was so weak with delight.
She was going to make him come when she did. She was determined.
With no idea how, she tried suckling hard, then licking, then just giving much suction on the head. She tongued his ballocks, tugged his nether hair with her teeth. She played with him, happy, confident. Savoring love.
Then his hips began to buck fiercely, driving his erection into her mouth. She concentrated on taking him deep . . . until he grasped her hips, clamped her cunny to his face, and did amazing things with his tongue.
Melting things. Soul-shattering things—
She came with a wild scream. At the same moment, his cock went rock-hard and swelled in her mouth. His hips thrust up abruptly. A stream of hot, rich-tasting semen filled her mouth. She swallowed, the motion tugging on the head, and he moaned intensely into her quim.
Then Octavia let him out of her mouth and fell off him, panting with pleasure.
Matthew was in heaven. His wife did the most amazing things with her mouth. He wanted to get up and cuddle her, but his arms and legs wouldn’t obey him.
What was wrong with him? He couldn’t move. He managed a gruff laugh, though it hurt his chest to expand. “You’ve made love to me so intensely, you’ve just about killed me.”
“Oh no,” Octavia whispered. “It is because you are mortal again. We cannot do this anymore. I can’t make love to you anymore. I’m doing exactly what my mother did, and I have the same choice. I can’t hurt you with sex. And to protect you, I can never make love to you again.”
White’s. It was a feat to be admitted as a member to its famous rooms. Yet vampires came here to gamble, and none of the snobbish members were aware that shape-shifters and blood-drinkers mingled amongst them.
Matthew found Sebastien De Wynter lounging casually in the famed bow window overlooking St. James Street. With his legs outstretched and crossed, De Wynter looked completely at home, adding his wicked comments to the ribald dissection of the fashion sense of gentlemen passing by.
Matthew took a seat, waited for a few minutes, then leaned toward De Wynter. He knew his friend was watching him. Waiting.
De Wynter had not spoken to him since he had been transformed from vampire back to mortal.
You look worried, Sutcliffe.
De Wynter spoke in his thoughts.
I take it you have been celebrating your freedom with your lovely wife? If I were you, it’s what I would do. I would still be in bed, in fact.
He answered the same way, knowing Bastien De Wynter could read his thoughts now that he was mortal again. De Wynter could both project thoughts and hear them.
I would be, except Octavia realized she was killing me and refuses to hurt me anymore with pleasure.
Frustration and anger at fate made his words, even those spoken by thought, sound like a growl.
So we went through hell together with Esmeralda and survived, broke a curse, and I’m going to die if I keep making love to her. Darkwell says we can have a future, but insists we have to find the answer ourselves.
Let us go somewhere we can speak quietly,
De Wynter said. He stood and stretched. “It’s time I go in search of deep play.” He bowed. “Gentlemen.”
Matthew quickly rose. “I’ll join you, De Wynter.”
Together they left. De Wynter’s carriage already waited at the door, and he grinned. “One of the benefits of being able to send messages by thought—and of using a vampire coachman.”
Matthew had learned De Wynter and his brother, Brookshire, employed preternatural beings. It gave them work, money, and safety. De Wynter leaned elegantly on the seat.
He joined his friend. “Whom can I go to for answers? We’ve spoken to Darkwell, to Guidon. Lucifer will not let her go. There has to be a way.”
“It is possible that if she were to make love to other men, she would not drain you—”
“Share Octavia? Hell, I can’t.” He remembered what Mrs. Darkwell had said, about Octavia’s needing his love and passion. Even if she didn’t, he couldn’t let her go to someone else.
De Wynter gave a slow grin. “Let me explain about my unusual marriage.”
Matthew frowned. “You aren’t married.”
“I am. My brother and I both consider ourselves married to Althea. We were both in love with her, and we are both vampires. We were destined to have a threesome for eternity. Of course, nothing naughty happens between Yannick and I—there are some things even I would not embrace, one of those things being my brother. We share Althea.”
Matthew’s head reeled. “Your brother accepts your sharing a bed with his wife?”
De Wynter nodded. “Althea belongs to us both, and we both love her dearly.”
“I—Hades, I don’t think I could do that with Octavia.” He rubbed his jaw. Without Lucifer’s help, what could he do? “Couldn’t a witch turn her into something else? If I could be made into a vampire with a soul, one cursed to die, couldn’t someone free Octavia from her need to drain a soul through sex?”

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