Summoning Shadows: A Rosso Lussuria Vampire Novel (37 page)

He swam to the steps and emerged. It took me a moment to realize he was coming for me.

“What are you doing?” My ears flattened and I felt my tail swing in an uncertain twitch behind me.

“One way to find out!” Cuinn yelped with glee. “Throw her in! We’ll see if she sinks!”

I looked past Vasco’s pale shoulder to glare at the frantically paddling fox.

“Watch it,” I warned him.

Cuinn sniggered before taking up a chant that encouraged Vasco to throw me in. Vasco stepped forward and I stepped back warily.

“You better not,” I said.

Cuinn called out from the pool. “What? Being turned into one of them made you a scaredy-cat? Here kitty, kitty! Come on, furball, the water’s fine!”

Vasco took another step forward and his roguish expression told me that if he got his hands on me, he would throw me in. I sank to all fours and he hesitated.

Cuinn had taken up a song while he swam in merry circles, continuing to egg Vasco on.

“I once knew a scaredy-cat, who thought she couldn’t swim, till me ol’ mate Vasco hoisted her up and decided to throw ‘er in!”

I glanced up at Vasco and gestured as inconspicuously as I could by nudging my head toward Cuinn in the pool. He seemed to understand, and as his grin split more widely, he gave the barest of nods.

Cuinn was still singing, though I no longer focused on the words that he barked and yipped. The damn Fata had gone bleedin’ bonkers and seemed thoroughly distracted by continuously swimming in circles while he sang like a drunkard.

When Cuinn made a small loop that brought him closest to the edge to us, Vasco took a single step back to get out of my way. I didn’t think. I lunged forward, my ears and wings flattening to my body and my tail catching the air behind me.

Cuinn turned his head. His eyes grew large as he realized what was about to happen and he yelled, “Shite!” and tried to paddle rapidly in the other direction.

I leapt off the edge, and for a moment, I was airborne. And then I fell. I landed mostly on top of Cuinn, his words gurgled as his head went under water. He pushed at me as we sank to the bottom, his paws drumming repeatedly into my midsection as he sought to kick me off. I tried to swim, to push back to the surface, but the water enveloped me. The wings stretched out from my back and caught the water even as I tried to push against it.

I flailed and tried to figure out how to gain on the surface while Cuinn cursed bubbles beneath me. A hand gripped my shoulder and an arm wrapped around my waist and I was hauled, spluttering, from the water.

Iliaria glowered as she dragged me unceremoniously to the side of the pool. “You idiots,” she hissed. “What in your right mind made you think the Dracule can swim?”

“We were just trying to have some fun,” Vasco tried to explain.

Iliaria didn’t seem to care about his explanations. She turned her vividly angry gaze on him. “Drowning her is fun? Really?”

Cuinn sputtered as he struggled to climb out of the pool, his nails ticking on the hard concrete as he flopped onto it. “Alas, me hearties. She sinks, she sinks indeed.” He coughed and spat a mouthful of water before he shook from head to tail.

My fur was wet and plastered uncomfortably to my body. The shorts Iliaria had given to me dripped as she seized me by the elbow and hauled me to my feet.

“They meant no harm,” I said.

She jerked on my arm in attempt to guide me toward the door.

“Iliaria!” I hissed, protesting and pulling against the strength of her hold. I wasn’t a child to be scolded.

She used the grip she had on my elbow to bring my body up against hers. “You’re done here, Epiphany.”

At the expression in her eyes, I shuddered. Something dangerous and commanding lurked in her gaze, more dangerous and commanding than anything I had seen in her when she dominated me in the bedroom. I could tell she was angry and had no intentions of budging.

But I saw something else, a hint of fear mingled with the displeasure of her gaze.

She loved me.

Iliaria loved me, and since she and Renata had rescued me, I had not paid much attention to her feelings. Equipped with such knowledge, I found it difficult to defy her. I nodded and obliged when she led me back to our room.

I knew Iliaria cared for me, but I had not really acknowledged how deep that caring went. It was something I should have known, I should have acknowledged sooner, and a part of me felt guilty for failing to see it. She had tried to protect me. She had tried to save my life by offering up her own. In spite of how harsh she had been, I knew she meant well. I was her dragă, and I had failed to understand what that really meant.

What thanks had I shown her? I hadn’t given her fear of losing me any consideration at all. I would have survived drowning, but perhaps all it took to rattle her was the thought. Perhaps I had been too close to death too many times recently.

My focus when she had saved me had been mostly on Renata. Though we had shared a bed together, I had not pleasured Iliaria. I had not told her how much she meant to me. I had made love to Renata while Iliaria made love to me.

I sighed and looked at her. Iliaria’s shoulders were tense. She wasn’t looking at me. I touched her wrist and she stepped away from me to walk to the far side of the room.

“Iliaria,” I tried. “I’m sssorry.”

She ignored me as she sat on the edge of the bed with a flop.

“Iliaria,” I tried again.

“For what, Epiphany?”

“I’ve neglected you.”

“What are you babbling about?” She turned to face me.

“I feel like I’ve been ssso focusssed on Renata, I’ve made you feel neglected.”

“I’m fine.”

I knelt at her feet. I put my furred hands to the side of her thighs. This time, she looked puzzled. I don’t know what propelled me to do it, but I began to slide my cheek across her knees.

“Epiphany,” Iliaria said, amused. “Are you trying to claim me with your scent?”

I hesitated. “I don’t know, actually.”

She touched the tip of my ear and it tickled. I ducked my head and her fingers sank into the fur at the back of my neck. She grabbed me by the scruff and pulled up roughly, until our faces were only an inch apart.

“Take off the shorts,” she whispered, her breath tickling the fur of my cheek.

For a moment, her request caught me off guard. “Why?”

“Need you ask? Take them off.”

I unhooked them, wiggling my hips to send them from my limbs and to the floor below. I kicked them off and freed my tail.

“Another lessson?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. She moved behind me, her hands sliding through the fur at my hips and up my sides.

She pressed the front of her body against the back of mine and that one little touch was all it took to send pleasant sensations bolting through me. Iliaria’s hand dipped down my stomach and my knees grew weak with the knowledge of where it was going.

She cupped me in her hand gingerly, and my head rolled back. Steady and pleasurable warmth suffused my limbs and made my body ache in a way that had nothing to do with pain. The node of flesh between my thighs awakened at her touch, pulsating with blood and desire.

“I told you I would teach everything you need to know about the Dracule,” her voice whispered breathily against a particularly sensitive spot of my neck. “We can skip this lesson, if you’re squeamish.” I shuddered as she applied a bit more pressure. “If not,” her voice took on a purring and dark edge, “I’d be more than happy to show you.”

Even if I had been squeamish, the murmur of desire rushing through me was too strong to ignore. The idea of Iliaria taking me, any way she pleased, sent a thrill of excitement through me.

“How do the Dracule make love?” I asked.

I felt more than saw the dark smile that spread across her lips. “Get on the bed, Epiphany, and I will show you.”

I crawled up on my hands and knees and waited. I heard her move behind me and turned to find her in all of her slinky Draculian glory.

“In thisss form,” she gave a rumbling laugh at my slightly surprised expression. “Oh yessss, we fuck in thisss form. There isss alwaysss a dominant and sssubmisssive,” she explained. “The dominant ssslipss behind like thisss.” She used her knees to guide my legs apart. Though I was Dracule now, Iliaria was still taller in her Draculian form than I was in mine. She guided my wings to rest loosely outward before she bowed her body over mine. Her hands came to rest just above my shoulders as she bridged over me.

I felt her face against the back of my neck and she growled. The growl rumbled against my skin and sent tiny jolts of electric desire down my spine. The muscles in my back twitched uncontrollably in response.

She shifted her hips and pushed against me, pressing her sex against the damp folds between my legs. A shaky breath left me, and I grabbed at the blanket, feeling my claws unsheathe as I did so. The sound of cloth tearing beneath my claws was loud and strangely erotic.

Iliaria’s mouth opened and she bit me. The bite made me groan and arch my spine to press my butt into the cradle of her hips. She growled around the mouthful of my skin, and this time, those tiny jolts of pleasure made my muscles jump in a way that was almost painful. Her teeth pressed harder, her fangs drawing pinpricks of blood.

A frustrated growl built low in my throat. “Pleassse.”

Iliaria growled again and bit down until she sheathed her canines inside of me. The bite immobilized me and slowly, her hips began to move behind me. The Nod Dragoste between her legs brushed my sex as she pressed against my entrance and continued to roll her hips. It felt as though I would die from the need that was building inside me. Her hips rocked forward. She penetrated me and I cried out at the sensation of it, a rumbling sound spilling from somewhere inside of me. I had taken her inside me before and found that though Draculian women were slightly more equipped, such an act worked incredibly well for foreplay. With the position she had chosen, she was able to sheath more of herself inside me than I had been able to riding her in my human form. I would not spend myself, but knew by the tremor that ran through her hips that she would.

“Pleassse,” I begged.

She released the back of my neck and I felt her straighten behind me. She placed her hands on my hips and began to push and pull my body back into hers.

“When I am ready.”

The gentle sway that connected our bodies before she guided us apart again was sweet torment. The memory of Renata and her olisbos swam behind my closed lids, and it hurt to recall the particular memory that rose: Renata behind me, piercing me rough and sudden, the way her expert hips thrust as she pushed inside of me as deeply as she would go—

It was not fair to Iliaria, thinking such thoughts while the small knot of her sex buried shallowly inside me. I pushed the thoughts from my mind and concentrated on the moment. Iliaria’s thrusts quickened and helped bring me back to the present moment as my body reacted, muscles tightening. I felt her body react to mine. She shuddered as she approached the crest of her climax. She took her pleasure from me, and while she did, every sexual sense within me ignited and threatened to consume me. I wanted to roll onto my back, to rub my sex against her so that I could spend myself in wild frenzy.

But I didn’t. In spite of the crippling need, I remained complaint.

Her hips thrust harder as she began to lose her control in the crescendo of lust. She plunged inside me, pushing as far as she could go. Her hands clawed at my hips and became deadly points that held me in place with their threat alone. She thrust inside me one last time, her body bowed, her hips pressed hard against me. My body tightened in reaction to her touch. The cry that fell from her lips was a sound caught somewhere between a moan and a growl.

She released me and I fell to the mattress. My sex pressed stiffly against it, and I groaned, raising my hips slightly as I found myself on the verge of a pleasure so sharp, it brought tears to my eyes.

Iliaria touched my cheek with a human hand.

“You were spectacular,” she said.

I groaned to express the agony I was in and she laughed. “Hmm, we’ll have to do something about that.”

Flipping me onto my back, she sank down on top of me and her sex burned hot and wet against mine. Her wings stretched out behind her and she threw her head back as she began to ride me, guiding my sex between her delicate folds. The orgasm came in a rush, the touch of her sex against mine unleashing the hell fire that burned within me. Outward and outward, the pleasure spread, until I cried out at both the sight of her above me and the touch of her between my legs.

Iliaria collapsed on top of me, catching herself with her elbows. She raised her lower body. The knot between my legs pounded as if my heartbeat had transferred to it.

“I want you to learn how to change,” she murmured. “Now.” That one word was spoken with delicious command and promise.

“How?”

She caught me roughly by the jaw and forced me to look at her. The wild and hungry expression she wore just about undid me. “You have but to think it and will it be so.”

Iliaria’s face moved toward mine and I realized she was inclining for a kiss. “Give me your lips, Epiphany. Give me your body.”