Eternal Seduction (14 page)

Kerestyan took the glass when Odin handed it to him. “Are you sure this won’t hurt her?”

He laughed. “It won’t do any lasting damage, but for the next 45 to 47 hours she’s gonna feel like her own body is trying to crawl away from her.”

“What do you mean?”

“What I mean is she’s gonna get sick as all hell. And when I say sick, I mean put a towel on the bathroom floor and keep her close to the toilet. She’ll sweat like a hooker in church until her fever spikes, so keep her full of water. If she pukes it up, make her drink more. If she starts scratching, don’t let her. She won’t have any concept of how hard she’s pushing. She’ll scratch her skin off until she’s a bloody mess. And for God’s sake, I don’t care how much she screams and begs, do not get her more heroin, Kerestyan. If you do while that mixture’s in her system, she’ll die instantly. If all goes well, with a little luck and your help, she should come out of the entire withdrawal cycle about two hours before you have to take her to Dad.”

Kerestyan stared down into the frothy substance and grimaced. “How long after she drinks this will the effects start?”

“Within five minutes, ten at the absolute most.” He rested a hand on Kerestyan’s shoulder. “I know it looks bad, but believe it or not, it tastes like a really chalky protein shake.” He pointed towards the hallway. “The longer you stand here and stare at it, the closer you cut it. I’d suggest you get in there and get started.”

Kerestyan nodded then headed for Logan’s room. For the first time since he’d become an immortal, he didn’t have the luxury of time. Before he reached the hallway, he turned around and looked at his brother. “Thank you, Odin.”

“You’re welcome. For the record, I did this for you…not her.”

With nothing else to say, Kerestyan returned to Logan’s room and placed the homemade potion on the counter in the bathroom. After spreading the comforter from the bed, as well as a few pillows on the bathroom floor, he gathered Logan’s unconscious body in his arms and held her close as he sat down in the middle of the makeshift bed.

Once he’d situated her between his legs, with one arm wrapped around her waist to keep her upright and the back of her head resting against his shoulder, he reached up and grabbed the glass.

Again, he stared down into the thick liquid as doubts clouded his mind. What if it didn’t work? What if her modern body didn’t handle it the way Odin’s ancient warriors had? What if Odin had let his obvious disdain for her overshadow what she needed right now? Would he do such a thing knowing their Father had personally requested her presence?

If so, the punishment for interfering with his demand would be legendary.

Drawing in a useless deep breath, Kerestyan blew it out along with all his concerns. Right now, he had to believe Odin had done nothing but attempt to help him.

He pressed his lips to Logan’s ear. “Logan? Logan, you have to wake up for me. I need you to wake up.”

It took a few tries, but her eyes slowly blinked open. “Kerestyan?”

“Yes?”

“Why are we in the bathroom? Did I throw up on your bed?”

He smiled. “No, you didn’t vomit on my bed.”

“Oh, God.” She tried to cover her face with her trembling hand. “I didn’t pee, did I?” Her voice was quiet and filled with horror.

“No, Logan, you didn’t relieve yourself in my bed, either.”

“Good. It’d be really embarrassing to pee in such a hot guy’s bed. I know if I was a guy and some chick pissed in my bed, I’d never be able to look at her without thinking, ‘Hey, that’s the bitch who pissed in my bed. She ruined my satin sheets’.”

Although the humor was definitely her style, and Kerestyan was more than pleased to hear she thought he was “hot”, the way her words rolled and slurred together told him she wasn’t completely aware of what she said.

He couldn’t resist. And in his own defense, he felt it was important to know if she’d simply loosened up because of her state, or if she was delirious. “Logan, did you enjoy what happened between us in the kitchen?”

She over exaggerated the nod and when she threw her head back, her skull cracked hard against his clavicle. “Oh, yeah. If your little freak of a brother hadn’t shown up when he did, you’d have been screaming Logan Ellis all night long. Well, maybe not all night…but a good fifteen minutes at least.” She reached up and rubbed the back of her head. “My head hurts. What did you do to me? I’m thirsty.”

He smiled again. Had she loosened up? Markedly so. Was she delirious? Not quite. But if nothing else, at least he now knew the last name of the woman he’d more than willingly “pressed against an appliance”.

And when all was said and done, and she found herself safely returned to his home, he silently promised her he would finish what he’d started.

“Can I have some water?”

He raised the glass to her lips. “Drink this for me.” Before he’d even finished asking, she wrapped her fingers around his and began drinking in large, eager gulps.

She’d nearly swallowed it all before she pushed his hand away. “What the hell was that?” He could hear the suction between her cheeks and tongue as she opened and closed her mouth. “It tastes like… like…chocolate covered ass.” She pushed back against him and flipped over in his arms. “I’m serious, what was it?”

He set the glass back up on the counter then laid back and turned onto his side, pulling her with him. “It was a mixture of old ingredients that will help you through the withdrawal process.”

“It tasted like shit.”

“I’m sorry.”

He felt the heated burst of her breath against his throat as she snickered. “No, you’re not…but I forgive you.”

He didn’t comment further, focused instead on the hollow echo of seconds ticking away in his mind. Silence seemed to still the air around them as he internally counted, knowing at any moment he would lose her to herbs that hadn’t grown in the wild for thousands of years. Spices that now only grew in the mystical gardens nestled in the shadowed courtyards of Nelek castle.

Kerestyan closed his eyes and waited. Would it take five minutes for the elixir to begin working, or would luck gift them ten?

By two, he could feel the temperature of her skin rising.

Luck withdrew its support at three and a half as her body violently seized and convulsed in his arms. She screamed into his chest, her tears burning his skin, and then locked her arms around him with such force that if he’d needed to breathe, he wouldn’t have been able to.

He pressed a kiss to the top of her head and tightened his arms around her, dreading the next 48 hours. “I am truly sorry, Logan. More than I’ll ever find the words to say…far more than you’ll ever know.”

Logan did her best to remain as calm as possible while consciousness worked at a furious pace to reclaim her. First, she felt her heart pounding at a slow but steady pace, rushing heat through her chilled veins. Next, it was her body and every single muscle she owned throbbing as though she’d just run a marathon, twice. Last, and certainly most disgusting, it was the hairy spider that must’ve crawled into her mouth at some point and woven a sticky web around her tongue.

But in spite of all that, she had to admit if someone asked her how she felt right now, for the first time in five years she could say she felt good and mean every word of it.

There was only one possible explanation…

Withdrawal had killed her.

And that thought was only reaffirmed when she slowly opened one eye, only to be blinded by bright, white light. That single brilliant pearl of light, surrounded by a thousand shimmering halos was all she could focus on.

Obviously someone had made a big mistake.

She should’ve seen flames and heard hundreds of people screaming. There should’ve been little red imps with leathery bat wings dancing around with glasses of ice water and plates of triple chocolate cake.

She smiled. She should have gone down, not up.

But as her vision gradually adjusted, it was her theory that died when she realized she was staring at one of the track lights recessed into the white ceiling of the bathroom.

She closed her eyes and rolled her head to the side, letting her cheek rest against the cold tiles. She should’ve known better. The only way she’d get into heaven, if the place really existed, was if she won a bet against Satan himself.

All she had to do now was find the freaky bastard.

She opened her eyes, intent on getting up to find Kerestyan, but relaxed when she realized his handsome face was only inches away. His eyes were closed, and for the first time since she’d met him, she could barely see the thin lines around his eyes. His lips, usually firm and drawn tight, seemed so soft and inviting now. And the dark stubble shadowing his jaw, which she was sure hadn’t been there before, made him look more like a slumbering medieval warrior than the serious Lord Vampire she’d come to know.

It was as she traced the length of him that she realized just how naked they both were. One of his large arms was bent, serving as a pillow under his head, the other draped over her hip, hand resting at the small of her back. While a sliver of space separated her chest from his, from the waist down there wasn’t a point where their bodies didn’t touch. His long legs mingled with hers, one knee nestled snugly between her thighs.

It wasn’t until she noted their intimate position that she really felt him. Before, the contact of his warm skin hadn’t registered in her mind as anything more than an extension of her own. But now she felt every centimeter of his hard body, each sculpted muscle pressed against her, every delicious inch of his bare flesh.

She trailed her eyes back to his peaceful face. Although she didn’t know how or when they’d ended up in such an interesting position, she vaguely recalled the feel of him behind her and the cold bite of porcelain against her cheek. She remembered the hot sting of water against her back mixed with a hazy image of his intense blue eyes as he held her in the shower, remembered his gentle hands stroking her hair while she cried against his chest.

But what she did recall, with striking clarity, was the feel of his wet hair in her hands and the strained, almost brittle sound of his voice when she’d begged him to make the pain stop.
“I can’t, Logan. But I promise I’ll stay with you. I won’t leave. I won’t lose you.”

He’d sounded just as scared as she felt.

Logan reached out and brushed a wisp of still damp hair from Kerestyan’s shadowed cheek, wondering why he’d stayed with her when he should have walked away.

When the fog of withdrawal had initially begun, she’d heard Odin’s angry voice somewhere in the distance. And deep inside, she agreed with every single word that echoed around her. She deserved every moment of agony, each and every shred of pain she felt. She’d done it to herself, and should’ve been left to endure it alone.

But the man only a handful of inches away, the moody and sometimes far too serious vampire, had promised he’d stay…and here he was.

She leaned closer and let the backs of her fingers scrape against his newly acquired stubble, wondering what it would feel like to be loved by a man like him. What it might feel like to love a man like him.

What it might feel like to love anything again…

Fortunately, she didn’t have the chance to consider it for long because her thoughts scattered in a thousand different directions when Kerestyan’s arm tightened around her hip and he pulled her lower body even tighter against his. Pleasure danced down her spine, lighting tiny fires under her nipples as a quiet growl vibrated in his chest and his hand slid from her lower back down to her ass.

She sucked in a deep breath and tried to hold it, even though what she really wanted to do was slip her tongue into his enticing mouth. Of course, it didn’t help at all that she could feel something hardening against the flat of her other hip. Granted, she knew men were capable of getting an erection while they slept, but did it hold true for vampires?

He’d said he only slept for a few hours every month, but didn’t say when the last time was. Was he sleeping now, or was he just pretending to be?

She stared at his face, watching for even the slightest twitch as she brushed the pad of her thumb over his nipple. She smiled when it puckered, but even more when not even the corner of his mouth rose.

Oh, the things she could do to him right now.

Squeezing her eyes closed tight, she stretched her mind, attempting to fill in the space between drinking the rotten milkshake and now. But all she could find, past what she’d already recalled, were a few blurry memories of lying in Kerestyan’s arms.

She had no clue how much time had passed. She didn’t know what day it was, what time of day it was, or even if it was day. If it was day, would he sleep until the sun went down? If it was night, could he wake up at any moment?

In the movies vampires slept like the dead. Nothing woke them up except the sun or getting staked by a crazed hunter. However, he’d already told her the movies had it all wrong. And right now, the only staking she was willing to consider ended in a screaming, panting orgasm for both of them.

Logan whimpered as her fingers, in blatant defiance of her mind, worked their way down from Kerestyan’s chest, exploring the hard grooves between his abs. She grumbled when they found his navel, followed closely by the thin trail of hair leading to where their bodies touched, and to something far more exciting. Something her fingers wanted to touch again, right now.

Really, did he have to feel this damn good?

She pried her hand from his body and covered her face. She’d die if she had to stay here much longer. Not able to move because of the strong grip he had on her ass. Not able to crawl away for the very same reason…and not even able to dip her head enough to suck that hard nipple into her mouth for a little taste.

As it was, every time she drew a deep breath it moved her body just enough that with the way his hand was positioned low on her left ass cheek, she had to endure the maddening sensation of his fingertips grazing her intimately.

She stifled a moan by grinding her teeth together when that damn hand, as if queued, squeezed tighter, spreading her just wide enough that she could feel his powerful thigh ripple against her clit. If it wasn’t bad enough that his now rock hard cock throbbed against her hip, she had no doubts that because of one well timed grope, there was a more than ample wet spot on his thigh.