Undying Destiny (22 page)

“What are you saying?”

“Remember when I spoke of vampires having the ability to mate? Blend with another at the level of their very soul?”

“Yes.”

“That is what I want with you. To share the rest of my days as a part of you, Wildflower.”

She rocked back. Her hands shot straight to her face and covered her mouth. Speechless. With a shake of her head, she rattled a few coherent syllables together. “There are no words …”

“Think about this clearly. I have. And I have no doubts that we were meant to be together.” His gaze dropped to the leather pouch still sitting between them. “Those straps that I gave you, if you decide you want this, are for you to bind me with. I must submit to you.”

“Kenric, you’re joking.” She shook her head. “I have to tie you down?”

He took her hand in his. “Yes, we would become a part of one another, and at the end of the blending, you would share in my strength. That is why the male submits. I know this probably feels like we’re moving fast.”

A chuckle bubbled up from Emily’s gut. “Everything about us has moved at lightning speed. But that doesn’t mean it’s wrong.”

“With Marguerite’s power escalating, we don’t have the luxury of a long courtship. As the other half of my soul, and for as long as we live, neither I nor any male will ever control or dominate you again. Not that any would dare touch you, if they wished to continue living.”

She smiled, having seen the proof of that statement with Jeff. The man before her was incredible. He understood her fears and offered her the power to conquer them. To free herself. Never to be at the mercy of another man again. Bound to a fortress of power, yet at the same time, she would maintain the strength of her independence. Her head spun. “Kenric, what you’re offering me is staggering. That you’re willing to give yourself to me in this way touches me so deeply.” She squeezed his hands. “You said a blending. How is this done?”

“It would require you to drain me. My soul would leave my body at that moment and enter yours, blending with your essence. Afterward, you would need to compel me to feed from your vein, and, as I revive, my soul would return to me as a blended version of us both. You will sense me as never before and gain the ability to communicate with me telepathically.”

“But I have to kill you. Is that what you’re saying?” She jerked her head back and forth and snatched her hands free from his. A horrific panic gripped her, and she wrapped her arms under her breasts. “What if something goes wrong and I can’t bring you back?” Submission of his body, that in itself moved her, but he wanted to give all of himself—his power, his soul, his life—to her, and he trusted her to return it to him.

“It won’t. To actually kill me, you would have to remove my head or put a dagger through my heart. In this situation, I would neither be dead or alive. But that’s not going to happen.”

She scoffed. Mr. Always So Confident. For some crazy reason his explanation did not make her feel any better.

“Nothing will go wrong,” he repeated. “Because I know this was meant to be.” His hands encircled her arms. “The most important thing here is…” Roughened palms loosened her hold and stroked her forearms. “Is this what
you
want? Marguerite is still a threat, and she will be enraged when she learns of this. I promise you, I will protect you with my life and all that is in my power. It sickens me to know that my world puts you in danger, but I can’t exist any longer without you. In here.” His fist struck his sternum.

Ever since she’d found him lying injured and unconscious, her body and soul had yearned for him. Her life had changed forever that night. His words rang true in her heart and mind. Destiny had brought her to this moment in time.

“Yes,” she breathed.

“Are you absolutely sure?” His fingertips glided across her cheek. “There’s no way to reverse this once it’s done. No divorce like in the human world. We will be married on a plane so deep, death will not even part us.”

She took his hand in hers and laced their fingers. “Look at me.” She leaned in a little closer, her voice hoarse. “I would choose to die tomorrow, having shared my life with you—having been loved by you, rather than be gifted an eternity without you.” She sealed her pledge with a greedy kiss, yearning for the future he offered.

The leather pouch tumbled to the bed, reminding her of what they must do first. She removed her lips from his and scooped it up from the mattress. “I take it I need to secure you with these.” She lifted the small bag, indicating the bindings inside. He nodded before reaching behind his head, stretching his arms wide to grasp the headboard.

“Be sure you wear the gloves that are inside,” he said, lifting his chin to indicate the bag in her hand. “Dump the contents out first and find them. The silver on the underside of the straps will burn you, if you’re not careful. They were made specifically to contain a vampire.”

Her hands trembled, making it difficult to slide her fingers into the black leather gloves. With the gloves in place, she shifted off his body. The hardwood floor chilled her bare feet as she made her way to the headboard and the large wrists waiting for her there.

“When you bind me, be sure you place the silver to my wrist.” His darkened gaze flicked to hers.

“You want me to put this so it will burn you?” She took a step back from the bed.
Oh my God.
She couldn’t stand the thought of intentionally hurting him.

“This is about complete submission. I want this, Wildflower. I want to give myself only to you.” The tone in his voice clenched her core. He was hers.

Emily cinched the strap tight around his flesh. Within seconds, a tendril of white smoke curled from where the silver met his skin. The stench of burning flesh stung her nostrils, shooting the taste of bile to the back of her throat. Her gaze darted to his face. He hadn’t flinched. How could he stand the pain?

“Kenric, please… This has got to be excruciating.” She gripped the top of the headboard to keep herself from ripping the silver off him.

He tilted his head in her direction. “It’s not too bad. Don’t worry.” A slight shrug lifted his shoulders. “It’s going to be worth every minute, because when this is over, I’ll have you forever.”

“God… If I didn’t love you so much, I’d have you committed.” Even through the agony she knew coursed down his arms, he graced her with a smile that beckoned her to take him. She ran her fingers through her hair and sucked in a calming breath.

With his wrists secured, she tugged the leather gloves from her hands one finger at a time, enjoying the way he watched each movement, raking her body with his smoldering stare.

Her fingertips grazed the top of the silk sheet as she circled the four-poster bed. The air left her chest in shallow bursts. He was magnificent. Nude and fiercely aroused, the warrior lying bound to the massive bed met her perusal with equal intensity. She loved how he made her feel. Desired before all others. Powerful. In control, yet out of her mind at the same time. It had all happened so fast, and she could barely remember the trip. But she’d take it again in a heartbeat if it would bring her here. To this very moment.

Like a predator with her prey, she climbed onto the mattress beside him. She traced the rapid rise and fall of his chest lightly with her fingertips, following his ripples down the center of his abdomen. She mapped the hard lines, ending with the length of his straining erection. As she reached the tip, his back lifted from the bed, and a bead of moisture appeared in the slit. She smoothed the liquid over the flushed head and circled the ridge, wringing a hiss of approval from the back of his throat. She adored the way he responded to her touch.

“I love you.” His velvet voice caressed her, drawing her gaze to his. “I’m yours, now and forever. Take me for your pleasure, my love. My flesh, my soul, and my blood, they’re yours. Draw me into your body. Blend your essence with mine, and spend the remainder of eternity with me.”

Never in her wildest dreams had she dreamed that she would find someone who loved her so completely. She believed that someone found their one true love, a hero, only in fairy tales or romance novels. Somehow, by some divine intervention or destined fate, she’d found one, and he’d just offered her his life.

Emily straddled his hips, relishing the feel of his hard cock parting her swollen folds. This was it. Once they fell together over the precipice there would be no turning back. Two would become one. She wrapped her fingers around the hot shaft, smooth silk over hard steel, holding herself completely still. Her breath trapped in her lungs. Kenric moaned with anticipation, the head of his cock waiting at her entrance.

And she’d never wanted anything more in her entire life.

With one firm press of her hips, she claimed him. Her head fell back, and the room winked out for a split second. A deep groan, her own and his, returned her to her senses. No one had ever filled her the way he did. It wasn’t penetration with Kenric. Rather, it was a joining of two bodies.

Her fangs burst from her gums, coaxed by the lust for her mate. In slow, precise glides, she slid over his cock, every nerve on fire, and eased forward, seeking the pulse she craved. His head fell to the side. Her tongue flicked at his throbbing vein, her own heartbeat pounding away at her skull.

“Kenric,” she whispered. “Please tell me if you have any doubts before I can’t turn back.”

“I want you,” he growled. “Do it. Take me.”

Thank God.
She struck. Hot blood spilled into her mouth, and she drank with greedy swallows. His back arched, followed by the driving thrusts of his hips. She matched each upward lunge with her own downward stroke. Each swift meeting buried his cock deeper, stroking the sensitized nerve endings until the dam on her orgasm broke.

A muffled scream wrenched from her throat.

Spasms of sheer ecstasy centered where his hard cock speared her core. Her muscles clenched, trying to capture and hold on to the rapture.

Beneath her, Kenric moaned her name, and the headboard protested. It creaked under the abuse of the warrior tied to it. With a loud bang of wood against plaster, he stiffened, and a guttural shout of pleasure filled the room. She swung her head from his neck. The straps remained intact, but the headboard lay broken and sagging against the wall.

Her gaze fell to his open vein. A trickle, instead of a stream, flowed from the wound. This was it. God, what if she lost him?

“Don’t stop.” His command came, as if he sensed her conflicted emotions. She gripped the pillow beneath his head. “Finish it,” he said on a ragged breath. “Drink, Emily.”

She returned, pulling at the wound, encouraging it to continue to give. His body grew cool and still beneath her. A wave of panic and dizziness inundated her.
Don’t leave me, Kenric. Please don’t leave me.

A tidal wave of intoxicating blood raced through her system. The potent essence of her mate had created her, but she wasn’t accustomed to so much at once. Her heart sputtered, and her limbs trembled. Chills ran down her spine, and a shiver skated across her skin.

Suddenly, the cold subsided on the heels of a firestorm, building inside her. “
Emily
.” Her gaze swung to Kenric’s lips. “
Emily
.” His voice, except his mouth never moved. She’d heard him in her head.

“
It’s you
.” She closed her eyes and spoke inside her mind. “
I can feel you. Your warmth consumes me
.” Her palms roamed her body, pursuing the trail of his soul. It danced under her skin in a kaleidoscope of heat, then flame. Behind her eyelids, colors whirled in dazzling reds, yellows, and blues.

“
Bring me back. It’s time. I must return, before it’s too late
.” The urgency in his words yanked her back to the present and into action. Bringing her wrist to her fangs, she bit.

With the flow of blood at his mouth, she prayed and worked the stream into the small part between his lips. A trickle of red seeped from the corner of his mouth. He wouldn’t swallow.

“Kenric! Damn you. Drink, you hardheaded vampire!” She choked back a sob. Wrapping what he’d taught her about compulsion into her voice, she threw her words at him. “I swear, I’m going to kick your ass if you don’t swallow and come back to me.”

His eyelids flew open. Wild, dilated pupils searched her face with a glassy stare. He gulped, then released a strangled cough from the overflow in his mouth. His chest rose on a long, deep breath. The warm feel of it at her wrist melted her. If she’d been standing, she knew her legs would have failed her.

Fangs pierced the flesh at her wrist. She cried out from the sharp dig of his teeth. Ravenous hunger drove him to sink deeper. With her free hand, she wiped at the fine layer of sweat popping at her brow.

The hairs on her arms and her nape stood on end. A hot, tingling sensation leaked through her pores as a portion of her, merged with Kenric’s returning soul, left her body. She would have thought to feel empty, but the remaining essence of her mate left her complete.

Her heart skipped in her chest as his eyelashes lifted. The summer blue of his eyes cleared. Her warrior had returned.

His fevered pace at her vein slowed, replaced by the warmth of his tongue. He applied pressure at the wound they had both formed before pulling away. The growing light in his expression told her that he felt a new acute awareness of her.

She dropped onto the bed beside him and grabbed her gloves to release the restraints she’d almost forgotten were in place.

As soon as his arms slid free, he pushed into a sitting position. With trembling fingers, she climbed the planes of his abdomen and chest. She’d never fully realized the extraordinary power that lay restrained within the vampire she now called her mate. Her mind hummed with it.

His hand met hers, his fingers brushing her skin, before he brought it to his lips. The link they shared flooded her senses.

“You feel incredible in here.” He tapped the place above his heart with their joined hands. “I honestly don’t know how I’ve walked this world without you for so long.”

She squeezed his hand, her mind spinning, overwhelmed with the depth of his emotions. “My love, you’ll never again journey alone.”