Caitlin lifted her emerald gaze to the disturbing intensity of Zendedari’s black eyes. He was so close that she could feel the heat of his skin reaching out to her. His fingertips brushed the curve of her cheek, her mouth. His need of her was as elemental as the storm itself. It burned in him like the hot sizzle of electricity, like the slowly spreading heat of molten lava. "Need me, Caitlin." His voice ached with it. "Need me the same way I need you. I would give my life for you. Live for me. Find a way to live for me. Love me that much."Her eyelashes swept down, raindrops glistening on the ends of the feathery crescents. "You don’t know what you’re asking of me."His hands framed her face, thumbs brushing her frantic pulse. Each light caress sent flames dancing through her body. Her gaze once more reluctantly found his, her eyes filled with a kind of hopelessness."Of course I know what the cost is to you, little one. I feel your reluctance, your revulsion of our feeding habits."
Zendedari caught the water in his mouth, his body thrusting hard into hers. Flames burned them, consumed them, leapt between them. She was fiery heat gripping him, holding him to her, drawing him deeper and deeper into the magic of her spell.His mouth found hers again, a little brutally, feeding voraciously, dominantly, laying claim to her, branding her for all time. "Open your mind to mine." The whisper was once again against her throat She felt his mouth at the hollow of her shoulder, his teeth, the heat and beckoning hunger. "Give me your mind, Caitlin. Let me in and keep me there." The whisper was a sorcerer’s web. He was weaving a spell so strong, she had no thought to deny him anything.He surged into her body, pushed through the barrier into her mind, and claimed her heart. At once everything was different. He felt her pleasure, so intense she was nearly on fire with it. She felt his pleasure, reaching for the very stars, his body gathering strength, his wanting her fulfill
Holding each other, the rain cooling their bodies, they laughed like children. "I expected steam this time," Zendedari said, crushing her to him. "Can you do that?" Caitlin fit the back of her head into the niche of his sternum. One hand idly slid over the heavy muscles of his chest. "Make us so hot we turn the rain to steam?" He grinned boyishly down at her, for the first time so carefree that he forgot for a moment the torment he had suffered. She made him invincible. She made him vulnerable. Most of all, she made him alive. "No, really - what they did, those others. They were like fog or mist. Can you really do that?" She persisted. "I mean, you said you could, but I thought maybe you were delusional." His eyebrows shot up. "Delusional?" Zendedari flashed a cocky grin, held out his arm, and watched as fur rippled along the length of it, as the fingers curved and extended into claws. He had to make a grab for Caitlin as she scrambled away from him, her eyes enormous. He was caref
Zendedari, unprepared for Caitlin’s entrance into his mind, had been confident he could keep the grimmer side of their existence watered down for her. She had always been reluctant to enter his mind; it hadn’t occurred to him that she would do so whenever she wanted.His expression was so rueful that Caitlin burst out laughing. "Where I grew up, that’s called being caught with your pants down."He looked down at his body, glistening with the rain. His grin was self-mocking, his black eyes amused. "Literally.""So where is the blond guy now? Was he killed?"Zendedari’s mind refused to relinquish the information at first. He had to go over and over the pieces to the puzzle, looking for an answer. Because it was hurting him, Caitlin rubbed lovingly at his arm. "Don’t try anymore.""The United States. The last I remember, he and his people went to the States to control the vampire problems there. Vampires no longer stay here in the mountains where they are easily hunted. If he is still
Caitlin, behind Zendedari, stirred uncomfortably. Barry’s sorrow appeared more than he could bear. She wanted to reach out to him, make an attempt to ease his obvious suffering.Do not!The command was sharp in her mind, clear and in a tone that brooked no argument. Zendedari remained motionless, as if carved from stone. Barry’s words did not appear to move him in any way.Byron shrugged, his face twisted with pain. "When we thought you were dead, we searched for your body. Months, years even. You were never out of our thoughts. You were my family, Zendedari, my friend. It was hard to learn to be completely solitary. Kendalf and Enoch survived the centuries because, as alone as they had to be, they had a bond, an anchor to keep them strong through the bleak centuries. You were mine. Once you were gone, my struggle became immense."When Zendedari remained silently on guard, Caitlin pushed at his back.Can’t you hear his grief? He’s reaching out to you. Even if you can’t remember him, h
Caitlin skipped a little to keep up with his ever-quickening pace. "I don’t think so, Zen. I recognized beauty in you when you appeared to be a monster. I knew there was something beyond what I could see. I think I would recognize evil just as well.""It was the call of our souls to one another that you recognized. We are lifemates, bound together even when apart.""Call it anything you like, but I think I would know if Barry were truly the vicious creature I feel watching us. It hates." "Only Kendalf gave you blood. And I.""If I were you, I would not bring up the fact that you forced me to take that spell-casting healer’s blood." She twisted away from him, annoyed all over again. "How could you betray me that way?"With great male superiority he glanced down at her face. "Your health comes before your pride." The truth was, he was ashamed he had forced such a choice on her, yet he was grateful it was over and she was not nearly as weak as she had been."Says you. I hope he bled a l
The passage into the cave was so narrow, Caitlin had to hold her breath to squeeze through. It seemed to go on forever, the rough walls scraping her skin, the oppressive feelings of tons of rock over her head, surrounding her body, waiting to crush her. She couldn’t look at Zendedari, who had somehow made his large body thin and weird looking. His kind were capable of doing things she didn’t want to think about. How had she gotten herself into this mess?Sex. A good-looking intense man with black, hungry eyes, and she fell like a lovesick calf. Sex. It ruined many otherwise sane women.I can read your thoughts.The amusement as soft and caressing, wrapping her up in strong arms.I was perfectly sane and sensible until I met you. Now look at me. I’m crawling around inside a mountain.Suddenly she stopped and held herself perfectly still.I’m hearing something. Tell me you are not taking me into a cave full of bats. Say it right now,Zen, or I’m out of here. I am not taking you into a
"If he hates all of you enough to want you tortured and killed, why doesn’t he just do it himself?" Caitlin asked Zendedari."The vampire must seek the earth before the sun rises. Unlike us, he cannot take even early sunlight. Dawn would bring his destruction. It limits his reach.""So he was in the woods watching us, just as I feared, and must have followed Barry and somehow trapped him. And he has to turn Barry over to the humans before dawn. The humans must be close.""Kendalf said the very soil groaned under their boots.""So this betrayer cannot help the humans as long as the sun is up.""Absolutely not." He said it with conviction."But the dawn does not have such an effect on us. We can stand it, Zendedari. If we move now, we can find them. All we have to do is get Barry back and hide him until around five or six this evening when we are strong again. We can do it, I know we can. There are only so many places he could be. We can stand the early-morning sun, and no one will be e
When they clambered to the surface of the ground, away from the lab, the girls breathed in relief, freed from the nightmares they had been subjected to for years. It was then that Olivera took a blood bag from the polythene in her arms, feeling better in the night hair, and took a sip, wary of how the blood would taste. She had heard Jacob talking about the heady feeling, worse if it came from an ancient. But it still hadn’t prepared her for the kick of pleasure. She found herself moaning as she greedily drank the blood, until she drained the bag. When she was done, she looked at the others. They were staring at her with unexplainable emotions on their faces. At least it wasn’t disgust. Olivera thought with a shrug, before handing the bag over to Miriam. When her friend hesitated in collecting it, she piqued an eyebrow. “You want to do the dismantling of the structure, without alerting the soldiers?” Miriam huffed, and took the bag. As much as she had great magic, she didn’t want
The first thing Olivera saw when she stepped into the hole where the passageway stopped was the largeness of the space, which could contain more than five thousand people. Then she saw the tubes, the boiling liquids and the lab rats. A modern lab.‘Where are you?’ She asked the girl, needing to get out of here; it was making her nauseous. Ten more minutes here, and she might be vomiting all over the place. And there was the fact that she didn’t know when the soldiers would be waking up. ‘At the far end of the cave…’Olivera nodded as if the girl was speaking to her physically. And gesturing with her head, for Miriam to follow her, she sauntered toward the end of the hall, making sure not to look at the tubes housing different organs and parts of an organism. What the hell! She screamed mentally when she saw a full brain at a table which looked like a butchering table. “Oh, my god…what are they doing here?” She heard Miriam ask beside her and sighed. Whose brain was that? A human
Miriam’s heart pounded erratically as she followed Olivera, who seemed very confident on what she was doing, and on where she was going. Three times she thought of grabbing Olivera and walking away from the region, but she also knew it would have been a futile attempt. Her friend’s mind was already made up. She watched as the latter walked past the last barrack, and stopped by a pole, the only pole in the backyard. Behind it were the gates towering them. They have come to a dead end. “Olivera, there is nothing here? Are you sure this girl is real?” Olivera gave Miriam no answer, instead she concentrated on looking around her, waiting for the signal. When she got nothing, she traced the vibration residue, touching the girl’s mind. A jerk in her mind path told her that the girl was surprised she had breached her mind guards. But should she be surprised? Or was something else at play here? ‘Where next should I go?’ She continued, because she knew she was at the right place, that t
“How are we getting past that?” Olivera asked Miriam as they came to stand before a huge gate that towered many feet over them. She could now see why Miriam had wanted the journey to be done in the privacy of the night. As much as she could see—as they had zapped to this point—this area wasn’t open to the city dwellers, only to the special few. She looked around her again. Barracks with soldiers sleeping within. None was even standing guard at the gates. She didn’t believe such a thing would exist at this time. City gates. Where did it lead? She piqued an eyebrow when Miriam smirked. What was the latter thinking? “As if you don’t already know…which other way, if not by mist…there is no way I am climbing that. I don’t think I am ready to fly with you above it…” Miriam spoke, covering the distance between them, and wrapping her arms around Olivera, her mouth fixed in a pout. Olivera shook her head, yet unable to stop the smile that cascaded her lips. It seemed that her friend was g
A knock woke Olivera up from her deep slumber. After bathing and eating off the snacks she had bought earlier in the day, from the shops in the new city, she had fallen like a log of wood to the bed, and hadn’t even stirred after that. Still groggy from the smooth sleep, she let her hand search for her phone which was the only thing that had gone to bed with her, should Miriam call for her. She peered at the screen. It was one in the morning. It was time then. She yawned like a hyena, causing Miriam to chuckle from behind the door. The chuckle dissipated the remaining fog fostering around her head. Taking a deep breath in, she stood up from the bed, flung a sheet around her naked body, and walked to the door. When she opened it, she saw that Miriam was alone, and carrying a tray of steaming food. “You are a lifesaver.” She muttered, opening the door wider for her friend to come in; the rumbling sounds that emitted from her stomach in agreement with her. Miriam chuckled again, an
“Where are we heading next?” Olivera asked Miriam immediately they stepped out of the borders of the town, into a city sprawling with people. After they had left the males who had tried to detain them because of her eating habits, they had walked to the largest building in the town, because if Clooney was a big name, it was probably because the man was rich. They hadn’t been right in their deduction, but they had at least gotten away from the unsettling males. Olivera had taken her friend behind the building, and had quickly switched to her mist form, turning Miriam into the same, and together they had zapped the remainder of the city without stopping, till they were out of it, till they were in a new one which looked more modernized than the previous. She looked at Miriam, who was staring at the city with artificial skylights, and wondered if her friend had ever been here before. “I never get over the culture shock, you know, seeing the drabness of the town we just left. The cont
What now? Olivera thought, looking at the six males that couldn’t be a year older than twenty five years old. What were they doing in front of her? “State your names, and what you are doing in this town…” The male, slightly in front of the others, spoke with a steel voice, causing Olivera and Miriam to exchange furtive glances. What was going on?There was a minute hesitation before Olivera spoke. “I am Darcy. My friend is Lilian. Who are you?” She patted herself mentally for names well cooked and delivered. Darcy and Lilian? How had she come up with those seemingly true names? She watched the male that had just spoken, looked to his comrades behind him, and judged that he was the leader of this small group. Were they the police? She looked at them again. They didn’t look like the police. Vigilantes? Maybe. But why were there vigilantes in the town? She kept a seal on her thoughts when the male returned her attention to her. “My name is Luke, and these are my associates. Our job is
“We will kill him right?” Miriam asked, as they stepped out of the camp, and turned around to look at it again, reliving what they had seen in there. “We need to. He is evil. Why will a sane man work with a vampire? Is he crazy?” Olivera just couldn’t understand the foolishness, no matter how much she tried. Why would one make a deal with an almost eternal wickedness? Had he no fear for his life, for his family? “I think he is crazy. Evil-y crazy. But that’s by the way. What are we going to do now?” Olivera looked around the camp, and spat in disgust. “We will burn it down. We will burn it until it’s nothing but dust. We will eradicate this curse from the face of the earth.” Miriam couldn’t agree less, but then she remembered that the ancients might have use for the materials in there. Olivera, having sensed the latter’s thoughts, shook her head. “They won’t be needing it. I’ve already transferred the necessary details to Raul, and Jacob. They can take it up from there. The mater
“Do you think anyone is in there?” Olivera asked Miriam, immediately she shifted to human self. Miriam looked at her clothed self and smiled. “Seems you have gotten the best hang of shifting, and still keeping your clothes on.” Olivera shrugged her shoulders. “There was no other choice. I can’t keep going up and down with my clothes in my hands or mouth. Since I’m part ancient, I have to improvise.” She took in a deep breath, inhaling the air tainted with magic and something else. “This place is tainted with magic. You smell it?” She shook off the imaginary dirt on her clothes, just in case, whilst waiting for Miriam’s reply. When she looked up, her friend was smiling. “What’s tickling your fancy? I don’t think my question has that much prowess…” Miriam cackled. “I never thought riding on a wolf would be so exhilarating. If I had known, I would have befriended a werewolf, and snagged rides every week at least. It’s quite freeing and therapeutic.” Olivera nodded. It was just as