Lifebound (12 page)

She wanted to, oh she wanted to. But wanting and doing were two different things. Josh had no idea of the mess they were getting into. Everyone at Wiccan Haus had warned them to stay away from each other for very good reasons.

But as the tip of his tongue met the bud of her clitoris, she forgot all those very good reasons. He nuzzled her and stroked her, sending lightning shivers of sensation throughout her entire body. Her head thrashed helplessly against the pillow as she moaned against the waves of pleasure. Any residual soreness from their earlier lovemaking faded rapidly in the onslaught of ecstasy that ran over her body, leaving chill bumps behind.

Over and over he took her past the boundaries of her body into a wonderland of pure delight. She shivered as the little flicks and tickles of his lips and mouth cascaded over her in orgasm after orgasm.

At last she practically dragged him up onto her because she needed him inside her again. He was too far away from her, and in the many days to come, he would be too far away from her again.

“Are you sure?” He moved up to lie beside her.

“Yes, please, Josh.” She pulled him into her.

He slipped inside her again, moving as gently as possible. She tried to keep her face open and welcoming, but she couldn’t help but wrinkle her brow at the discomfort.

Her previous relationships with other lamia had been very short lived and very long ago. They had left her feeling used and desperate, and her body had closed itself off from intimacy. Now, despite the discomfort of opening herself up again, she knew she’d been right to wait for Josh. She’d been right to wait for the one who loved her, who cherished her.

She pushed aside any twinges, knowing that tomorrow she would be sore, that she would still feel the effects of their lovemaking even after the spell had worn off and they were back to the briefest of contacts. The tenderness he left behind would remind her of the way she felt right that moment with their bodies intertwined.

A sadness enveloped her and threatened to ruin the moment even as it occurred.
All that matters is right now.
She rocked against him, stroking the tight muscles of his back and buttocks with her fingers, memorizing every inch of the wonderful man who shared her bed.

“You feel so good,” he gasped. “So sweet.”

She smiled at him and watched him enjoy her, glad she could give him the same kind of incredible pleasure he had given her.

Then a tickle began in her skin that had nothing to do with the press of Josh’s warm skin against hers. A surge began to grow that was not caused by the way his hardness caressed her softness.

It was over. Tears sprang to her eyes as she began to fight the return of the field of energy around them.

“Hurry, Josh,” she whispered. “We’re almost out of time.”

The sudden look of sadness that crossed his face almost broke her heart. He stopped and began to pull free of her, but she reached out for him instead.

“No, please finish,” she said. “I want to feel you let go inside me again. Please give me that.”

He nodded and began to push into her once more, but still held back to keep from hurting her further.

He couldn’t hold back. He needed to take her hard and fast, or it would be too late.

She wanted it like that. She wanted him to leave his mark on her. When they went back to their regular non-touching lives, she wanted to feel him with her in every ache and pain for as long as she could.

So she thrust herself against him, grabbing at his ass and urging him deeper inside her. “Harder! Faster!” She hoped a take-control attitude would be a turn-on.

Fortunately, the rough stuff appeared to work as he reached a climax so strong she could feel his pulse beating against her.

As he sank against her in release, he also rolled away, and not a moment too soon.

Within seconds, the energy fields that had been her constant companion and source of vitality her entire life surged back around her, enveloping her once more with the push and pull of the life force that nourished her.

But as she turned to look at Josh, his eyes closed in exhaustion, his breath still coming in heaves, she knew the real push and pull of life lay beside her. The real nourishment she needed was him.

And he was lost to her.

Chapter Thirteen

A
driana reluctantly peeled herself free of the warmth of Josh’s bed very early the next morning, pushing aside the pillows that surrounded her and easing his pillow-protected arm off her stomach while making sure not to make physical contact with his skin. He murmured a little and pulled the pillows into his chest, resting his cheek against the soft linen.

“O, that I were a glove upon that hand, that I might touch that cheek,” she quoted, then shook herself. They were not Romeo and Juliet. Somehow they would make it work. She believed in Josh. He meant what he said to her, love meant more than sex. Somehow they would love and thrive until they could come back to Wiccan Haus. “In a year and a half,” she sighed aloud.

He slept so peacefully she couldn’t find it in herself to wake him. So she brushed his lips ever so briefly with hers, the contact enough to balance her for the entire day, and headed downstairs for a cup of Sage’s tea.

In the lobby, Cemil and Myron stood at the huge desk, deep in discussion.

“I’m telling you, Cemil,” Myron said, “the portal will open in thirty minutes whether all the paranormals are ready to go or not. If there are any humans that still don’t have a clue, you’d best get Sage to knock them out or start working on your cover story.”

Cemil ran one hand through his blond hair and groaned. “I hate that damned portal. Why can’t it be consistent? Every arrival and every departure it’s the same old story.”

“I’ll call all the paras and tell them to get their asses downstairs pronto.” Myron caught sight of Adriana. “Portal in thirty if you are taking it instead of the ferry.”

“You mean you don’t know?” Adriana half-teased, half-asked the precog.

“I call ’em like I see ‘em. Sometimes I don’t see ’em.” Myron held out a long, thick white envelope bearing the Velen crest. “You have a letter.”

Adriana started to refuse it. Her family could have nothing to say to her. Nothing remained to be said.

But curiosity got the better of her, and she opened it to see her mother’s distinctively artistic handwriting covering the page. Her hands shaking, she forced herself to read.

Adriana,

I hope you have had a good holiday and your rest has improved your outlook on selecting your new host. The Council has made a few preliminary recommendations and I have enclosed their particulars. When you return home today, your father and I will be happy to give our opinions on the applicants.

Adriana shivered and decoded the message. The Council had decided to place her with a new host immediately and her parents had already picked out their favorite from the pack. Applicants. She snorted in disgust at the choice of words. These men never applied to be the host of an energy parasite. The Council had selected them as her potential victims, nothing more, nothing less.

She kept reading.

Odd rumors have reached us that perhaps you have selected your own host—a popular athlete, I believe. I sincerely hope this is not true. The reasons a lamia never selects his or her own host should be second nature to you, and I would be highly disappointed should I find that you have chosen to ignore your education and good sense in this regard.

In case you might have forgotten in your temporary infatuation, chief among these reasons is the danger of his death or even your own should you become lifebound. If you care at all about this young man, you must end this relationship before it is too late.

Dearest daughter, do not do anything you will both regret. Come home, Adriana.

With love,

Mother

Adriana slowly folded the letter and inserted it back into the envelope, never even looking at the résumés of the men enclosed. She had only received a handful of letters from her mother in her entire life, and the utterly composed Tania Velen had never signed one “with love,” nor had she referred to Adriana as “dearest” anything before. Her family did not demonstrate affection in writing or in public or indeed anywhere at all.

She held the letter to her cheek for a moment.

Was her mother right?

Adriana frowned as she considered anew everything she was asking Josh to give up by becoming her host. He deserved a real relationship with a woman who could love and touch him every day without the threat of death. He deserved children. Tears welled in her eyes at the beautiful picture of Josh as a father, holding his newborn baby in his arms.

She would not be able to give him that. If she were to become pregnant, her body would be likely to consume the energies of any human child before it could even develop, and if by some miracle a child of theirs survived with lamia powers, that child would never be able to touch its father without draining him.

Then she considered the rest of the contents.

Lifebound. The curse of the strong connection. Each party grew dependent on the other to the point that their energies synchronized completely. They would be forced to touch one another many times daily and could not be more than a few miles apart at any time.

Both of them could forget having any semblance of an independent life. Wherever one wanted to go, the other was forced to follow. Josh wouldn’t be able to go on tour without her in his hip pocket, tagging along to every single event. She wouldn’t be able to go shopping in the next town unless he were right there with her, holding her purse so to speak.

Lifebinding gave leg-shackled a whole new meaning.

Even if they chose to bind themselves to one another, naively believing their love would be stronger than their resentment of each other’s continued presence, she couldn’t touch Josh long enough to synchronize to him without killing him. Their connection was too strong.

Worse, the binding carried a death sentence. If something happened to Josh, she would not be able to take a new host as she would no longer be able to draw on any other human. If she were to pass away, he would be unable to live without the connection to her. When one died, the other would follow in days.

One way or another, if she stayed with Josh, she would probably kill him.

She wiped at the tears that had come to her eyes. Her mother was right. She’d been kidding herself. Even worse, she’d been deceiving Josh, leading him to think that somehow they could have the life they both dreamed of.

He was human. She was lamia. She was a monster.

And she had to let him go.

A half-hour later, the sound of a loud boom stirred Josh from slumber. He opened his eyes to the soft golden glow of morning light that shone through the window of his room, his arms still wrapped around Adriana—or so he thought at first. In fact, he only clutched the pillows that he had placed between them to keep them from touching once Sarka’s tiki spell had sputtered out.

He sat up, stretching his shoulders.

Her side of the bed lay cool and vacant, but the coverlet had been carefully smoothed back over him. “Adriana? Where did you go?” His voice echoed slightly in the very empty room. Maybe she was in the bathroom. A quick check revealed no Adriana.

He dressed quickly and headed downstairs. As usual, the elevator refused to stop for his human self on the paranormal-only second floor, so he couldn’t check to see if she had just gone to pack in her room. After all, departure day had come, and he’d planned for the two of them to ride the ferry back to normalcy. Well, as normal as life with a lamia could be.

Then he considered the culture-shock she had certainly set herself up for by hooking up with a professional skater. He grinned as he imagined her on tour with him—chairman of the board would take on a whole new meaning for her. He couldn’t wait to show her around his place in Mobile, to take her to meet Alicia and Rob. But he had to find her first.

In the lobby, Myron sat in her customary spot behind the big desk, ever present cards in her hand. He half expected her to just point him in the right direction—dining room, garden, library—since she certainly knew who he was looking for.

However, as he approached, she folded her hand and looked up at him.

“I am not privy to the entire future,” she said out of the blue. “I catch hints, bits and pieces, snippets of things to come. So when I say I don’t know, I don’t know.”

Her words utterly mystified him. “So you don’t know where Adriana is?”

“That I do know. I watched her leave through the portal a few minutes ago. What I don’t know is what’s next. I don’t know if you’ll ever see her again.”

Josh stood there, boring holes in her with his eyes. “You don’t know if I’ll ever see her again?” Then after a moment he asked, “What portal?”

“The portal that transports our paranormal guests back to their lives. Adriana’s not really from around here, you know.”

“I had guessed.” Josh tried to make sense of it all. “So she is coming back? Sometime today?”

He waited for Myron to flip a card, but the deck stayed tight in her fingers as the medium shook her head sadly. Then she reached under the desk and pulled out an envelope. “She left this for you.”

He reached out to take the card, his hand trembling. The air in the room felt thinner as he ripped it open, cutting his finger with the edge of the paper in the process.

Dear Josh—

The words blurred a little and he blinked to clear his eyes.

I am so sorry to have to tell you this way, but I have to go. I love you so much, and I don’t want to hurt you. You deserve so much more than me. You deserve to be loved and to be happy. I am so sorry.

Adriana.

“What the hell? She’s just going to bail on me? She’s not even going to give us a chance?”

Cemil walked into the lobby.

“Where is she?” Josh demanded. “Where does Adriana live? I need to see her.”

Cemil closed his eyes briefly. “Josh, I’m sorry. We keep our guests’ personal information in complete confidence. If Adriana wanted you to know how to find her, she would have told you.”

Josh Trenton had never before felt the emotion that rolled over him then. He’d been disappointed before. He’d been angry. But until that moment, he’d never felt devastated. He shook his head and shifted his weight from foot to foot. His stomach tied itself into a knot of nausea, and his hands began to shake so badly he nearly dropped Adriana’s note. Cemil actually took a step away from him, wincing a little as he did.

Josh sent another wave of anguish then anger in the empath’s direction and headed upstairs to pack. The ferry off that damned island couldn’t get there soon enough for him.

Not quite two hours later, Josh boarded the boat, his backpack slung over his shoulder. He stood at the rail overlooking the ocean and studied the horizon. Preston Mitchell, clad once more in his three piece suit, joined him there.

“It’s an incredible place,” Preston said. “I’ll miss it.”

When Josh didn’t reply, Preston looked around and asked, “Will Miss Velen be joining you on the mainland instead?”

“No.”

Preston turned to face the open ocean before them and patted the teak wood of the handrail. “A shame. I placed all my bets otherwise.”

“You know something about their world. Where is she? How did she leave without getting on the ferry?” Josh’s voice was harsh and demanding.

The older man shook his head solemnly. “I am not exactly sure about the where, only that we humans do not make that trip lightly. I have never been invited myself. The portals between the worlds open periodically in certain designated places. Wiccan Haus Island contains one of them. But many paras spend a great deal of time in our plane of existence, under cover of course. The worlds have a sort of symbiotic relationship, I believe. Each needs something the other offers.”

The ferry launched, sending cold salt spray into their faces.

“If it helps any,” Preston added, “I truly believed Miss Velen would have been at your side. Perhaps when she clears up her loose ends at home, she will return.”

“What loose ends?” Josh asked.

“I believe she received a letter of some kind early this morning. I went down for a cup of coffee and to pick up my last correspondence and noticed a letter bearing the Velen family crest. She would have been the likely recipient.”

“So how can I find her? Cemil wouldn’t give me anything.”

Preston gripped Josh’s shoulder, a frown of warning on his face. “Do not look for her, son. The paranormal world is very protective of its privacy. You do not wish to come to the notice of their ruling Syndicate. Humans who ask too many questions tend to disappear. Even if I knew, I would not tell you. I already know far more about their society and their business than I probably should.” The older man sighed and let his hand drop back to his side. “And the lamia protect their own more closely than any group, other than perhaps the vampires. Your answers, Josh, likely lie with the Lamia Council. Most likely Adriana has been brought to heel.”