Untamed (Vampire Awakenings, Book 3) (39 page)

Ethan rose from the chair and sat on the bed
beside her when she pushed herself into a seated position. The
swelling was already gone from her eyes and nose, her nose had
realigned and there was only a shadow of a bruise beneath her right
eye. She still looked exhausted and a little battered but she was
moving, talking,
breathing
as she
sat before him. He brushed her thick hair over her shoulder, but
Tristan's bite marks had vanished during the change.

"Is Jill ok?" she asked anxiously.

"She's fine," he assured her as his thumb
stroked over her cheek.

The love radiating from his eyes was almost
more than she could stand as she leaned closer to him. He smelled
of the ocean and of allspice or maybe it was cinnamon? She couldn't
quite place the scent but she now recognized it as power, even more
power than either of them had ever realized he possessed.

"What happened?
How
did it happen?" she asked.

"Jill must have been grabbed on the bus by
Tristan or one of his helpers. When they died whatever hold they
had over her was broken. She doesn't remember anything that
happened though."

"Coming out of that daze, to
that
house, must have been a shock to her," she
muttered.

"I imagine it was," he said as he took hold
of her hand.

The sensation of his skin sliding over hers
caused her to blink in surprise. He'd always been able to warm her
and give her a thrill before, but now it made her skin come alive
in ways she'd never known possible. It felt like she had ten
thousand more nerve endings in her body than she'd had before and
every
one of them was begging for
more from him.

"Amazing," she breathed. The smile he gave
her eased some of the stress from his face. Finally seeing him
relax a little was even better than the feel of his skin against
hers. She leaned toward him, becoming even more aroused as her
breasts brushed against his chest. "This is something that I don't
think I'll ever get used to."

He smiled at her as he continued to run his
fingers over her hair. "It's one of many new things you'll
experience."

"And I'm looking forward to every one of
them," she murmured. "Ethan, what happened at the house, what you
looked like, has that ever happened before? Is that something that
happens to vampires?"

He shook his head as his hand stilled on her
hair. "It's never happened to me before, but I know it would happen
again if you were ever threatened again. It won't happen to you
though."

"Because I wasn't born into this?"

"Yes."

She couldn't get enough of the feel of him as
she ran her hands over his arms. "I'm worried about you."

"Don't be," he said as he leaned forward to
kiss her. "I was in control of myself in there, I'm ok with
everything that happened in that house and I would do it all over
again if I had to. None of us have ever seen anything like it
before though. Stefan has always said that no one really knows what
a pureblood might be capable of."

"Like walking into a house that you weren't
first invited into."

"Like that," he said with a smile. "But
there's
nothing
that I wouldn't do
for you."

She lifted his hand and kissed his knuckles.
"I know," she whispered. "What is going to happen with the house?
With all of those bodies?"

"Brian, Aiden and Ian disposed of the bodies
and set the house on fire. There was no hiding what happened in
there."

"No kidding," she muttered. "How is your
side?"

He pulled away from her and lifted his shirt
to reveal the smooth, unblemished skin beneath. "All healed."

Emma stared at him in disbelief as he lowered
his shirt back into place. "And I'll be able to do something like
that now?"

"Not as quickly, but yes. Your eye is already
better, your nose is healed, the bite marks Tristan left on you are
gone, and I bet the broken bone in your foot has set, or it will as
soon as you feed."

"Feed," she whispered and poked at the tips
of her canines with her tongue. Her hand flew to her mouth when
they lengthened at her prodding. "Oh."

He smiled as he took hold of her hand. "It's
ok; it's something you'll be able to control, given time. I'll
teach you and I'll help you to get through it all. You must feed
though Emma, you don't ever have to feed from a human, or a blood
bag, but you will have to feed from me on a regular basis if you're
going to stay in control. We also have to complete the bond between
us."

Involuntarily, she felt her gaze slide to his
neck. Her teeth tingled; saliva filled her mouth as she saw the
pulse of blood through his veins. "I can hear your heartbeat," she
whispered.

"I'm told that you will get used to that too,
over time. I imagine it will all be overwhelming at first but my
parents adapted, Stefan and Brian adapted, and somehow so did The
Stooges." Emma nodded but she found it disconcerting that with
every beat of his heart, her hunger rose. She was growing
increasingly consumed by the craving to feed from that vein. "Come
here."

He wrapped his hand around the back of her
neck and pulled her close. His breath was warm against her lips as
his mouth moved over hers and his tongue entwined with hers. She
became so lost in him that she almost forgot the thirst growing
within her until he moved her head to his neck.

The potent scent of his blood hit her and
caused her fangs to elongate instantly. She could feel his
excitement in the quickening of his breath and the hands that
pressed against her back. Fear at the thought of hurting him
slithered through her and caused her to hesitate.

"You have to do this if we're going to
complete the bond," he urged. "And we have to do that Emma. We
have
to."

She knew the words were true, she could feel
the necessity of them in her soul; her entire being was begging her
to join with him. Instinct took over and Emma found that she
knew
what to do. She took a deep
breath before sinking her newfound fangs into his vein. Happiness
slid through her as his warm blood filled her mouth and immediately
began to ease the ache that had been growing within her. It was
more than just her hunger that his blood was bringing to
completion; it was also completing the bond that she hadn't
realized she'd been missing while human. She could almost feel the
steel bands of their growing bond wrapping around them to adjoin
them for life. No, it was joining them for an eternity, she
realized as her fingers dug into his back.

Thoughts filled her mind,
his
thoughts. She was swept up in the love
radiating from him as his thoughts urged her to bite deeper and she
obeyed. Emma felt his breath on her shoulder seconds before his
fangs sank into her flesh. A groan of contentment escaped her as he
took her blood in long, deep pulls. A sense of coming home
encompassed her and she knew without a doubt that joining with this
man had been the best decision of her life.

Ethan wrapped his arm around her waist and
pulled her into his lap as another desire surged to life within
him. Shoving his boxers down, he freed his swollen cock. The
nightgown she was wearing had bunched around her thighs; he hastily
pushed it upward and settled her onto him. He was pleased to find
her already wet with wanting for him as he rubbed his cock
teasingly against her opening. She let him know her disapproval of
his teasing by biting deeper and blasting her need into his
mind.

He released a low chuckle at her impatience
and slid himself into her. He was whole now, it was the only
thought he had as he buried himself within her. Her bliss slammed
into him when she wrapped her legs around his waist and clung to
him as she rode him up and down.

Ethan withdrew from her shoulder and licked
away the last drops of blood on her flesh. Her fangs retracted from
his neck; her eyes were smoky and dazed as they met his. Needing to
see and feel all of her, he tugged the nightgown the rest of the
way up her body and tossed it aside.

A seductive smile curled her lips as she
tugged his shirt over his head. Her fingers slid over his chest as
she marveled over his chiseled masculine beauty. Bending her head,
she nipped at his skin, drawing blood that she ran her tongue over
as she moved over his body. She relished in the sweet and salty
taste of his skin mixed with the alluring taste of his blood.

Ethan's hands curled into her hair. Her mouth
continued its trail of pleasure and pain across his chest. His head
fell back as her body continued to move smoothly up and down his
throbbing dick. He kept his hands firmly in her back when she
retracted her fangs and lifted her head to kiss him. The taste of
his blood on her lips only pushed him to higher and higher levels
as the bond between them swelled and solidified. The monster within
him, the one that had been struggling for years to break free,
hadn't been completely caged, but it had been tamed and subdued by
the woman within his arms. He'd never thought such a thing could
happen in his life, but she was the greatest gift he'd ever been
given, and she was
his
.

Ethan gave himself over to the pleasure
engulfing him as she rode them both to completion.

"I'm so sorry Emma," Jill said for about the
hundredth time over the past couple of weeks.

"Jill, stop apologizing, it's not your fault.
I'm sorry I got you into this whole mess."

"But I nearly got both of my best friends
killed."

"And yourself in the process, don't forget
that," Mandy said as she sat on the bed. "It wasn't your fault; let
it go before
I
kill you. I think
the both of you have apologized enough."

Emma laughed as she dropped her last pair of
shorts into the suitcase and pulled the zipper shut. "Do you think
you'll get married?" Jill inquired.

"I'm sure it would make my parents happy if
we did," Emma said. "But we're already more linked than any
marriage license could ever make us."

"It would be a fun party though."

"Yeah it would," Emma agreed.

"What are you going to tell your parents?"
Mandy inquired.

"For now, not much. Only that I met the man
of my dreams while on vacation. I'm sure that will go over about as
well as a lead balloon and they'll probably think I'm crazy, but
they have to meet Ethan. It will still be a few years before they
become curious about anything. I'll have to decide then if I'm
going to tell them the truth or if it would be best to change their
memories. I don't think I could play with my parent's minds in such
a way, but I can't inadvertently place them in danger either. It's
bad enough that you two were almost killed because of this and that
you could still be one day."

"No we won't. No one is ever going to know
that we have this knowledge," Mandy assured her. "I'd like to keep
my head and you know we would never do anything to put you at
risk."

"I know," Emma said, but she was still
worried about them.

"Don't worry about your parents now. Like you
said you have a few years to decide."

"You're right," she agreed. She wasn't ready
to let the reality of those thoughts intrude on the happiness she'd
just found right now anyway.

"I can't believe our vacation is already
over," Jill moaned.

"Neither can I," Mandy said.

Emma dropped her suitcase on the ground and
sat on the bed beside Mandy. "It's going to be so strange not to be
with you guys every day."

"We'll see each other all the time," Jill
said cheerfully.

Emma really hoped that Jill was right, but
she also knew how life could go. Though, now that she would be
living in Oregon, they would at least all be on the same coast.
"Are you nervous about meeting the rest of his family?" Mandy
asked.

"Terrified," she admitted. "It's going to
take me forever to learn all their names. I just hope they like
me."

"Well it's usually normal to meet the family
before forming an eternal bond with someone, but you were never
much for normal," Jill said with a laugh. "And they'll love
you."

Emma laughed as she leaned against Jill's
side and savored in the warmth of her friend. She could hear the
steady beat of Jill's heart but it didn't spark her hunger. Over
the last two weeks she'd gotten used to the flow of human's hearts
and the enticing aroma that they emitted. It didn't mean they
didn't entice her still, but Ethan kept her fed well enough that
she was able to keep it under control.

She was anxious about being on a plane,
enclosed with so many people around her, but Ethan had assured her
that she would get through it. In order to prepare they'd been
going into crowded areas over the past week to help her adjust to
the influx of people. Last night she'd been able to stay in a
packed bar all night and she'd been fine. Ethan had made sure she
fed well this morning, and she was still rather stuffed.

"Are you ready?" She'd been so lost in her
own thoughts that she hadn't heard Ethan approach, something that
hadn't happened since the change. She knew where he was all the
time now, could sense him as easily as she sensed her own
fingertips. His mind brushed against hers constantly. The open
stream of consciousness that now connected them was still something
she was getting used to, but it was so comforting and intense that
she relished in the security and love that enveloped her because of
it.

"We are." Emma rose and grabbed her suitcase
from the floor. She didn't make it to the door before Ethan was
taking it from her. He kissed her cheek and took a step away.

She turned back to her friends as they
gathered their bags and walked over to join her. Though they'd
taken most of their things over to the other house, they'd still
had a few things in Mandy's grandparent's house that they'd had to
gather before leaving. All the damage to both houses had been
repaired over the past couple of weeks by a couple of handymen who
would never remember that they'd even been to either house.