Текст книги "Burning Blood"

Автор книги: Pepper winters

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Pushing inside me until he reached that barrier, he quaked as he let his cock go and fisted both hands in my hair. He stayed perfectly still, pressing the softest kisses to my lips as if he was worshipping me instead of about to fuck me in the dirt.

“This is going to hurt...” he whispered. “And it kills me that I’ll be the one hurting you.”

I couldn’t catch a proper breath, needing him to do it, hurt me, take me.

“I’m past the point of caring.” I dug my fingernails into his ass, trying to pull him down. “Do it. Please.”

His muscles flexed as he fought me, his elbows digging deeper into the ground. “I’m trying to decide if I do it fast or slow.” He nuzzled my nose with his. “Tell me, Rook. How should I fuck you for our first time?”

I had no logical explanation for how wild he made me, only that I needed him to breathe, to function, to exist.

“I don’t care,” I snapped, wild with hunger. “Just do it.” My hips arched up, seeking, begging. “Please, Lucien. Do it. Take me. Please just—”

“Fuck.” He surged inside me with one tearing impale. Thick and hard, deep and thrusting. He didn’t protect me or treat me gently—almost as if he wanted to get it over with as fast as possible.

It was both the best and worst thing I’d ever felt.

Something tore.

Something ripped.

I screamed as my body split and yielded, becoming his with the brightest flare of agony.

“I’m sorry. Fuck, I’m so sorry.” He didn’t move, holding himself deep, deep inside me—stretching me unbearably, condemning me to feel every sting of his claiming.

And the pain didn’t stop.

I wanted it to stop.

I wanted pleasure to replace agony, but it didn’t.

After a lifetime of suffering, I couldn’t help shifting beneath him, wanting him to give me some space...just for a moment.

Tears came to my eyes for ruining this.

For taking something so special and making him feel like a beast.

As if he sensed my discomfort, he captured my mouth in the sweetest kiss and...withdrew.

“No,” I mumbled against his lips. “Don’t go. I don’t want you to stop.”

“Hush.” Tilting his head, he brought his hand to his mouth. Never looking away from me, he sank his teeth into his healed flesh. His eyebrows knitted together as he broke the skin and didn’t say a word as he pulled his finger free—revealing golden-tinted blood on the tip.

“What are you...?” I trailed off as his shoulder dipped and his hand disappeared between my trembling legs.

I gasped as he pressed his bleeding finger inside me.

I clutched his shoulders as he found that stinging tear deep within.

And I froze as the pain suddenly vanished in a sizzling wash of heat.

His forehead furrowed as he touched every part of me, curling his finger, seeking out every piece that he’d broken.

He healed me...and good God, I couldn’t stand it.

I couldn’t survive the level of intimacy and care. How he put my needs over his, even though he quaked with hunger so intense, the tips of his hair kept catching fire.

“Better?” He pressed a second finger inside me, loosening a curse as he found both penetrated deeply with no barrier to stop them.

I was beyond speech.

Past words.

Grabbing his wrist, I yanked his touch away and dug my claws into his hip.

He smirked as I jerked him back where he belonged.

He snarled as I wrapped my fingers around his cock and placed him exactly where I wanted him.

And then he roared as he claimed me in a single thrust.

And.

It.

Was.

Glorious.

Chapter Forty-Three

I TRIED TO BE GENTLE.

I tried to be soft, so I didn’t scare her with the depth of how much I wanted her but...it didn’t work.

I sank inside her, filled her, took her, fucked her.

Where the hell had she been all my life?

Why had I been destined to spend so many years in misery without her?

Never again.

Never again would I be alone.

Never again would she leave me.

“Everything about you crucifies me,” I hissed into her ear as I lost myself to something I never thought I’d do. I rutted into her like an animal, lost entirely to lust.

“I’m harder than I’ve ever been in my entire life and being inside you...” I bit her ear, loving the way she gasped and twitched and encouraged me to go harder, go deeper, take more and more and more. “I’m either going to have a heart attack or decimate this entire valley.”

She groaned, another flicker of frost decorating her eyelashes. “Less talking. More fucking.”

“You’re driving me insane, you know that, right?”

Fuck, she was gorgeous.

I couldn’t stop touching her, kissing her, aching from the sharpest gratitude that she was the only one who’d never wanted something from me.

Back in Cinderkeep, she didn’t want my blood, my company, or my child.

But out here?

She wanted everything.

She was demanding and greedy and I loved every moment of it.

A rush of fury heated my blood, smoke bled from my skin, and unlike all the other times when the flames overwhelmed me, pain didn’t come. Just relief and power and I kissed her so damn hard because she was the reason for everything.

She clawed at my back. “More. I need more.”

More?

Fuck, I’d give her more.

I drove into her, hard and fast.

Her hair was full of bracken; her skin smudged with river sludge.

I definitely should’ve waited until I had her in a bed.

But...I couldn’t help it.

Couldn’t stop how unhinged she made me.

I lost myself to the prehistoric rhythm of making her mine as hard and as deep as I could.

A flash of frost covered her.

She struck me dumb with how beautiful she was.

How she glittered with snow, her eyelashes spiky with minuscule icicles, her lips a life-defying shade of blue.

And I couldn’t do it.

A roaring fire broke out of me as I sank as deep as I could, singeing the tree leaves and sending them scattering with raining charcoal.

Her eyes flared as my skin danced with flames but...I didn’t hurt her.

Everything else caught fire but not her.

Because she was my perfect opposite.

“What am I supposed to do with you?” I kissed the tip of her white-frosted nose. “How am I supposed to survive after falling head over fucking heels for you?”

She gasped as I kissed her.

Her tightness and heat undid me, triggering predatory instincts to hold her down and ravage.

Her core clamped around me as I gave her everything.

I took her.

Right there on the ground.

I couldn’t stop as her breathing turned tattered and every muscle in my body contorted with pleasure.

I wanted to come.

Shit, I wanted to come.

Her previous orgasm made her hot and wet and...fuck, I couldn’t last.

I didn’t want to embarrass myself.

But how?

How was I supposed to survive this?

How was I supposed to survive her?

Burying my face in her frost-crackling hair, I thrust again and again. The head of my cock slammed against the top of her core, tearing a guttural grunt from my chest.

She moaned.

I tried to stop. To check she was okay—

“If you stop, I’ll kill you.”

“But I’m not going to last.” I chuckled as I kissed her ear. “You’re too much for me to handle. Especially on my first try.”

“You told me we’d practice.” She turned her head to capture my mouth. “So...practice.”

We kissed hard and messily, panting and drowning.

My hand dove to where we were joined, finding her clit and making her tremble.

She wanted me to break? Fine. But she’d break with me.

She cried out as I rode her.

She tensed as I stroked her.

And instead of breaking her, I broke myself because...I was nothing.

Nothing without her.

Feral urges took control. I needed to conquer this woman, to make her mine, to mark her. My teeth sank into her neck as I drove her to that tipping point.

She screamed as she fell again, her body clenching around my cock.

I couldn’t stop myself.

I bit her hard enough to break her skin.

Her blood hit my tongue—icy and sweet and potent.

And the same thing happened as before.

That bond between us flared white-bright. An unbreakable chain forged between her heart and mine, locking tighter with every thrust.

I pulled away to look at her; my breath punched out of me.

She looked like a glacier backlit by the sun. An inner light gleaming from beneath her beautiful skin, leaking out with every rock.

“You’re...you’re glowing,” I breathed, my pace slowing in wonder.

But she just locked her ankles behind me, arched her hips, and...I didn’t stand a chance.

With a savage little scream, she rocked against me and sent me shattering.

I jerked and snarled as the most intense release tore up my legs and exploded out of me. I lost myself to pure ecstasy—her inner muscles demanding more, forcing me to come and come, threatening to make my heart burst.

“Feel that?” I grunted as a full-body shudder stole my ability to breathe. “That’s twenty-nine years of waiting for you and finally finding where I belong.”

She shimmered like starlight. Emotions churned in her stare. That silver-white ring around her pupils turned luminous and I collapsed over her, capturing her lips in a vicious kiss. My tongue plunged in time with the lingering wakes of pleasure, my cock twitching deep inside her.

And when we broke apart, she slung her arms around my waist in the sweetest hug.

I gave her all my weight as I scooped her up in the tightest embrace of my life, crushing her against the ground.

I clung to her, suffocated her, and refused to let go when she tapped my back to release her. “Eh, Lucien.”

“Quiet.” I buried my face in her icy hair. “Don’t make me move. I refuse.”

“Look!”

Her panicked tone made me frown as I pushed upright and followed her terrified gaze.

My eyes locked onto something that should’ve been an impossibility.

Something that was impossible—before the past few days had happened.

With a wince, I withdrew from her and staggered to my feet.

Naked, I bent to grab her hand, hauling her upright to join me.

And we just stood there.

Looking at what we’d caused.

“Well...fuck.”

Chapter Forty-Four

THE VALLEY WAS NO LONGER SHROUDED in darkness but lit up by fire.

It looked like the aftermath of a meteor strike. Entire trees glowed like torches—burning from the inside out as if his fire had threaded through their roots. Half-charred leaves spiralled around us as the fire chewed its way down the river, infecting every bush and tree—sap popping with bright flashes.

Birds took wing from burning branches. Insects scurried. And thick, grey smoke coiled toward the stars.

The drunken haze from having the best and only sex of my life vanished.

This...isn’t possible.

Spinning in place, everywhere I looked was alight with blooms of orange and gold. “What...what did you do?”

“I...” He tensed. Completely naked with wild black hair, red-ringed eyes, and a piece of warped metal over his heart, he looked half man, half something else. “I felt a spike of heat when I released but...I didn’t know I’d unleashed this.”

Had it been him?

My mind literally couldn’t accept it.

But...logic said if it wasn’t him, then who?

After all, I’d seen him detonate in the caves. I’d seen him lose control and had the bruises from the powerful shockwave to prove it.

Wait.

My fingers strayed to my chest where the punch of his power had slammed me backward.

I didn’t have any bruises.

My eyes locked on him—searching where there ought to be a row of black stitches from stabbing him but...they were gone. The small sutures from removing the port cuffs no longer existed. The cuts on his neck from when I’d held a knife to his throat had disappeared, and the numerous silver scars from other injuries when he was younger were no more.

Even the wound on his finger from healing the tear of taking my virginity had vanished...

And his eyes...

God, I lost myself in them.

Scarlet-ringed and alight, he glowered at me with such hunger, such possession, he made my entire soul jump off whatever path it was on and collide firmly with his.

Fear trickled, then flowed, then overflowed.

Because what the hell was he?

What the hell did all of this mean?

My fingers strayed to my empty throat, the habit too ingrained after a lifetime of reaching for my pendant, bracing against an impending migraine.

But the migraine didn’t come.

And my necklace...

“My necklace. W-Where’s my necklace?”

His face turned guarded as he stopped looking at the hell he’d caused and landed on the empty hollow where my pendant used to live. His jaw clenched as his eyes dipped lower, lingering on my bare breasts.

The urge to cover up made me blush but I just stood there, panic growing worse. The sense of loss threatened to make me cry. “H-Have you seen my necklace?”

The emptiness around my neck felt as if someone had stolen my last piece of home—as if I’d lost my mother twice.

Vague memories of the chain breaking—of it vanishing in a gush of bubbles. Perhaps it’d been tossed over the falls with me? It could be in the river—

I have to find it.

I spun toward the water, but Lucien stepped forward and snagged my elbow. He trembled a little as his cock hardened, reacting to me just like I reacted to him. My insides melted, and for a second, it looked as if he’d pin me onto the smouldering ground and take me again.

With a sharp cough, he let me go.

Stalking away, he found his ruined trousers strewn over a smoking bush. Yanking them on, he muttered quietly, “If you don’t want to be flat on your back again, I suggest you get dressed.”

“But my necklace—”

“Put some clothes on, Rook.” His voice was strained and gruff. “Hopefully by then, I’ll be able to concentrate instead of suffering the very real agony of needing to fuck you again.”

With my heart pounding and neck terribly empty, I found the only part of my outfit he hadn’t turned to ashes. At least it’d dried from the fires instead of sopping wet from the falls.

Shaking out the filthy white skirt, I pulled it up past my breasts and fashioned it into a simple strapless dress, knotting the waistband to keep it up.

Only once I was appropriately covered did Lucien roll his shoulders and fix his gaze on mine. “I have a hundred questions that need answers, but for now...let’s focus on your necklace.”

Hope leapt through me. “Do you have it? Did you find it?”

“No, I didn’t. And I’m glad it’s gone. Even if you hadn’t lost it, I would’ve destroyed it. Because tonight just proved I was right.”

I frowned. “Right about what?”

He tapped his fingers on the piece of metal trapping his heart. “You had a vitalsync core...just like I did. Only difference was, you could be trusted to never take yours off and mine? It needed to be surgically implanted to prevent me from destroying it.”

“I...don’t understand.”

“All of this—” he arched his chin at the burning valley “—started the second the vitalsync core was defibrillated back in the bed and breakfast. It’d only been dead a few minutes before I almost melted the damn bathroom.”

My breathing quickened.

“All along, I thought it was the reason I was burning but...I had it wrong.” He shrugged. “I was burning anyway. I’ve always been burning. The longer I’m free, the more memories are returning. I’m almost certain that I was born this way and the vitalsync core was the cage to stop me. Marcus kept me weak because he knew the second I was free, he would be dead. And the blood harvesting? I reckon he’s doing something else with it—not just running the Brimstone reactors.”

He came closer, his voice softening. “But all of that doesn’t matter because...if they truly are after my blood and know what I am, then...I hate to tell you, Rook, but they’re after you too. You’re just another version of me. The opposite of me. And that necklace of yours? It was just another cage to keep you weak.”

My ears rang as my fingers wrapped around my throat. “But...my mother was the one who gave me the necklace. She told me it could counteract my dizzy spells and headaches. She said it’d been especially designed for me by her team at Snowflake Corp.”

“I thought you said you only started having episodes when your parents died.”

“I...” I frowned. “That’s right.”

“Then why did you need something to help...while they were still alive?”

I froze solid.

It was like he tore a blindfold off that I’d willingly worn all my life.

Little snippets that never added up. The fact that I’d always had headaches. Always felt weak on certain days or triggered by strong emotion. The fact that sometimes—in my earliest memories—I’d woken to my room completely white. That occasionally, when my nanny gave me a bath, it’d snowed inside. That one day, when I was five or six, I squealed with joy as my father gave me a new toy, only for the carpet to become an ice rink.

“I...” I swallowed hard, shaking my head, backing up as truth kept chipping away at my naïve stupidity. “But...she said it was to help me.”

“And did it?”

A tearing in my heart. “No...” I couldn’t hold his stare, fearing he’d judge me for how ridiculously obvious it was now he’d pointed it out. “I grew worse. I started fainting from the pain. I’ve...spent the last seven years running away from life because I literally can’t survive it.”

“Are you still hurting now?” he asked gently as if aware how hard this was for me to accept. “Are you in pain now the necklace is gone?”

I sagged with despair.

Because the awful thing was...he was right.

I wasn’t in pain.

For the first time in my life, I was free—no nausea or jitters or vertigo. Nothing threatened to knock me out, even though I felt so many overwhelming things.

Glancing at my hands, my skin suddenly flashed with frost. My body turned arctic, but it didn’t hurt. It actually felt...wonderful.

And I panicked because...

We were a threat.

If anyone found out about us...we would be hunted. Tested.

My parents had done some incredibly dark things in the quest for immortality. I’d seen the results of their experiments but...what if Lucien wasn’t the only one they’d tampered with? What if the very people I’d called family had tampered with me too?

“It’s okay,” he soothed, placing his incredibly warm and comforting hands on my shoulders. “Whoever did this to us or why we are the way we are doesn’t really matter.”

“But how can you say that? What if—”

“I can because...I’m alive thanks to you. And you’re alive thanks to me. Whatever you are is the exact opposite of whatever I am. You’ve always eased me—even back at Cinderkeep. I could never explain why but now...I can.”

Digging his thumbs into my shoulders, he massaged me gently. “I knew you were the key to my freedom, Rook, but I never expected you to be the key to everything else.” He smiled gently. “The pain I suffered? It’s all gone. That weakness I endured? It’s all over. And I’m guessing it’s the same for you. Without that necklace keeping you trapped, I doubt you’ll ever have another headache again.”

I trembled as he pressed his forehead to mine—the move so familiar it made my stomach clench.

“You were mostly dead when I found you,” he whispered. “And I know you think it was all my doing that you’re still alive. But...you didn’t see what injuries I had from losing control in the caves. You didn’t see my skin almost entirely gone or that my insides were exposed.” Pulling me forward, he wrapped his arms around me in an all-encompassing embrace. “I was barely alive, yet you...the second your blood mingled with mine, something incredible happened.”

I squirmed in his arms, needing to see him.

He let me go just enough to catch my eyes, his face darkening. “I want to know why my blood has suddenly changed. Why it’s golden and yours is silver. I want to see if my suspicions are correct: that ever since the vitalsync core broke, my blood seems to burn whatever it touches, yet it never seems to hurt you. And yours...does the same thing.”

“Wait...” I scowled, looking at my arm as if I could see the silver-shining disaster beneath. “It does?”

“When I was healing you, the droplets that fell on the ground froze whatever it touched. Yet when I kissed you and our blood mingled, it didn’t just take away our pain, it reversed every injury within seconds. I saw your skin knit together before my very eyes. I felt you coming back to life.”

Almost as if he’d been able to see into my head and witnessed the flash of memories I’d always discounted as fantastical, he added, “I think if you look back on your childhood, you’ll see things that don’t make sense. Moments you were different. Adults trying to explain certain things away. We’ve been lied to and trapped, but now that we’ve found each other...everything is going to change.”

“But...” My fingers flew to the empty dip in my throat. “If what you’re saying is real—if we truly were born this way and carry the R gene like Marcus said...then how can you explain meeting each other? Isn’t that too much of a coincidence? No one could’ve orchestrated the sequence of events that led me to Cinderkeep. It’s just not possible—”

“But what if it is? Even if the law of chance didn’t bring us together, what if synchronicity did? We’re drawn together whether we want to be or not. What if you were there by mistake but your blood told Marcus everything he needed to know? What if they’ve been searching for you this entire time? What if he’s not just after my blood but anyone with the R gene? What if...” He balled his hands as anger flared his eyes. “What if we’ve been their little pawns ever since we were born?”

“But...I ran away and no one chased after me.” I tried to reason. “I’m not trapped behind a wall back in Iceland.”

“No, you just took your cage with you.” His lips tipped in a slightly mocking smile. “You behaved. That was all you needed to do to be monitored and not manipulated. However, I think they’ve been waiting. Maybe for us to find one another or for something else to happen, but...if they ever learn we’re free, I can pretty much guarantee we’ll be going to war.”

I shuddered. “But Frank is like a father to me. And Dillon—”

“Your handlers and nothing more.” Slinky crimson shadows crawled beneath his skin as he stalked toward a flame-crackling tree.

I stiffened as he placed his hand against it, testing everything he’d just said.

Instinct urged me to rip his hand away but...he didn’t burn. He showed no signs of being hurt as tiny fires licked around his fingers. Cinders crowned his inky hair as they swirled like burning stars.

Even if no one found out what he was capable of, he couldn’t hide the fact that he no longer looked human. He was God-touched—a fallen angel sent to deliver vengeance.

The bond inside me yanked.

Lucien spun to face me so fast, he scattered a few ashy leaves.

His eyes searched mine, locking onto me as if he’d heard me. As if he’d felt me summoning him when I hadn’t even been aware of it myself.

My nipples hardened as he stared at me. The delicious ache in my core returned, melting for more.

The longer we stared, the more the world fell away.

“Fuck, you’re far too tempting.” He stepped toward me with a slightly uneven step. “I want you so badly.”

A gush of ice flash-froze my body, rustling his hair with a chilly breeze.

The oddest sensation of raw power. A bubbling fountain of something inside me. Something new and strange and dying to be called upon.

My breath turned to fog and a cape of snowflakes dusted my shoulders.

“Look at you.” He shook his head as if he couldn’t believe it. “I knew I couldn’t breathe around you for a reason. You’re absolutely...breathtaking.”

I jolted at the depth of need in his voice as he padded barefoot over leaves that’d long since turned to ash. Silhouetted by blazing trees and embraced with spiralling smoke, I couldn’t look away from him.

Ice flowed out of me in ways I couldn’t understand, freezing the ground.

Lucien just watched me as if I was the most fascinating creature he’d ever seen. Coming to a stop, he tortured both of us by not reaching for me.

In the reflection of his eyes, I saw how he saw me. Saw how I glittered with frost and snowdust. His pupils blew wide as his gaze dragged over me—slow and hungry and hot.

Smoke curled from his back, spreading outward like sooty wings.

A surge of molten-ice darted out of my heart, locking around his like a cosmic noose.

My breath hitched as something slammed into place inside me, threading through every nerve and strand of my soul, tying me permanently to him.

I needed him.

I reached for him.

With a guttural groan, he backed up and shook his head. “I can barely move with how much I want you, but...we need to get out of here. In case someone’s seen the fire.”

He talked sense.

He was wise.

But I wanted—

“Fuck, stop looking at me like that.” Marching into me, he clamped his scalding hands on my frigid cheeks. “I want to fuck you so much I can hardly breathe. I’m seconds away from breaking but—” He kissed me hard and fast, breaking.

I cried out as he plunged his tongue into my mouth. My hand found his hardness as he stepped into me.

Tearing himself away, he growled, “You want me? Fine. Then put out the fire. Keep us hidden, and I’ll drop to my knees right here and make you come.”

“W-What?”

His fingers went to his fly, ready to unzip. “Snuff out the flames like you always do, and I’ll show you exactly how badly I need you...and probably never stop.”