Shadow's Claim

So much delicious stimulation. Her head thrashed, her legs locking around his waist.

“I told you, Bett . . . that you’d have me as deep”—circling those hips—“and as hard as you need me.”

She couldn’t answer his words—because pleasure gathered right at that spot in a sudden blinding wave.

As if from a distance she heard herself scream his name. Mindless, she writhed beneath him, clutching his hair, rubbing her nipples against his sweating skin.

Was that her throaty voice, shamelessly begging him? Don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop.

“Never!”

With a wet rush, she orgasmed around his erection, spasms so strong he had to feel them, tugging his length deeper, deeper—the connection unending. . . .

* * *

Control fraying. No, don’t follow her!

Keep your seed, keep your seed, Trehan’s mind chanted. Must make it last.

But what male on earth could withstand that irresistible clench? A better male than I.

And then her abandon? She screamed my name as she thrashed on my shaft!

Somehow, somehow, he’d steeled himself against her wanton response as her release subsided.

Wide-eyed, breathless, she asked, “Could you . . . could you feel me do it?”

She’s asking me if I felt her orgasm. He shuddered. Her innocent question, posed in that sultry voice . . . “Ah, gods, Bett, yes! Yes, I could feel you very well.”

And now the slippery heat of her climax beckoned him to plunge deeper, to revel in it.

He might have succeeded in keeping his seed for now, but he was paying for it. Urges began to spur him, primal drives that he’d never contended with before.

When a bead of sweat dripped from his forehead to her neck, sliding down, his gaze followed the track—then fixed once more on her pulse. He was not only battling his need to take her blood—he was denying the overwhelming drive to plant his semen deep inside his woman.

Both instincts screamed inside him.

Mark her neck, claim her! Pound between her thighs. Give her everything—your bite, your come, her female pleasure.

Until she surrenders completely.

He gaped down, stunned to find he’d collected her wrists, locking them over her head. Pin her, possess her. Master her! He felt very little like a Dacian, and very much like a savage vampire.

And it felt . . . good.

“Trehan?”

No! He wasn’t some common Horde vampire. He could control these impulses!

So why did he feel like he was denying them both something critical?

Dimly, he bargained with himself: Just a taste, a graze of your fang as you spend. The fantasy from his youth finally come true—

“Y-you said you wouldn’t hurt me.”

She fears me? He remembered her heartbroken plea the first time they’d been together. Somehow he gathered the ragged tatters of his restraint, forcing his predator’s gaze from her neck—to focus on her shimmering eyes. “Never hurt you.” He released her wrists, then twined his fingers with hers. As he began to move inside her once more, her eyes anchored him. “Better?”

She answered by going soft beneath him, opening up, meeting his thrusts. A plaintive moan escaped her lips.

Another bargain with himself, one he accepted: When she comes again, you join her.

To this end, he used his body to work hers, pumping his hips while she writhed on his pistoning cock.

Her eyes widened once more. “A-again, vampire?”

Between his gnashed teeth, he commanded her, “Ah, gods, again, my sweet.”

Even before she screamed, he felt the telltale squeeze around his shaft. The pressure of his rising seed mounted; his muscles tensed in readiness, his mind blanking.

“You—are—mine!” he roared as the clench of her orgasm milked him to perfection. No longer could he resist its demand. “Eşti a mea!”

Pleasure wracked him, made him throw back his head and bellow her name as he began to ejaculate deep inside his woman. Scorching jets of semen bathed her womb . . . over and over . . . until his voice was hoarse, his body emptied.

Never letting you go, female. Never!

With a dazed groan, he collapsed over her. Between breaths, he rasped, “Bettina, eternitate.”

Chapter 40

The next morning, rain poured outside, the wind whipping Bettina’s tower, lightning flashing all around.

But she was cozy inside her workshop, humming as she polished the most important piece of jewelry she’d ever created.

A wedding ring for tonight’s ceremony.

She’d started on it as soon as Daciano had left her at dawn. In the hours before that, they’d laughed, touched, and explored each other’s bodies in her bed. Actually, it was now their bed, in their rooms. He’d claimed them as well.

With Daciano in her life, suddenly her spire didn’t feel like a cloistered prison, but a hideaway for them from the world.

“I dunno what tune you’re hummin’,” Salem said as he appeared beside her, “but I’ll bet the lyrics go like this: ‘I—love—sex.’ ”

Bettina shrugged mysteriously, deciding not to be one to kiss and tell. But, yes, she did in fact now love sex. She had decided this after the first time, then enthusiastically confirmed it on the second and third.

She and Daciano probably would have enjoyed a fourth, but he’d been hindered by his healing wounds.

Just before he’d traced away this morning, he’d tucked her into bed. His hair had been tousled over his forehead, his eyes devilish. “I have some things I have to take care of today. But I await more of this tonight.”

She’d been wide-eyed and not a little awed by her vampire lover. As he’d pressed a kiss to her hair, he’d murmured, “Last night, I made you my Bride; tonight, I’ll make you my wife.”

Bettina Daciano? Instead of the constant crushing loss she’d come to expect in this tournament, now all she felt was excitement. To be his wife? To have an immortal lifetime of nights like the last, of losing herself in his onyx gaze . . . ?

There’d been no sleep for her; she’d rushed to her workshop and started on a gold band for him. It was simple in design to suit his taste.

And now, she understood the symbolism of an unending circle more than she ever had.

“Oh, and by the way, right thanks to you for the proverbial sock on the doorknob, flatmate,” Salem said, occupying the backboard. “I had nowhere to go.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t return to my room, you peeping phanTom.”

“Of course I returned. Would’ve stayed too. But last night, you and the vamp were