Daysider. Susan Krinard
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blood of any kind. That they were taught to loathe the very taste of it, even though it could sustain them as well as it could any Opir or Darketan.
Yet she had bitten him. Had she forgotten who and what she was? Was she reverting, becoming something a lifetime among humans had suppressed?
She pulled him down again, putting a quick and decisive end to Damon’s speculation. This time she used her own tongue to tease his into her mouth. He felt the sensation of it all the way down into his belly, and his cock swelled until the ache exceeded anything he’d suffered in the hollow when he was fighting to survive.
Alexia couldn’t have missed the pressure of his groin in the cradle of her thighs, but she didn’t stop. She lifted her legs and wrapped them around his waist, rocking and thrusting as if they were both naked and she was begging him to enter her.
Damon groaned. This couldn’t be happening. Nothing about this was sane, or right. But the more desperate his need, the less rational he became.
It was instinct, pure and simple. This couldn’t end until he was inside her, thrusting deep, hearing her gasps and moans of pleasure. And surrender.
As if her own thoughts had merged with his, Alexia began to tear at his shirt. She managed to unbutton it without ripping it to shreds and clawed at his undershirt, seeking flesh. Her fingers brushed his chest, scraping him with her nails as if she wanted his heart, as well.
Damon took more care with her shirt, some remnant of sense guiding his hands, but Alexia wouldn’t allow it. She tore it open herself and ripped her close-fitting tank from neckline to hem, baring her breasts.
They were perfect, like the rest of her, but Damon was too hungry to admire them for long. He bent to take one nipple into his mouth. Alexia arched upward, letting her head fall back, gasping as he suckled her, hard and fast, with no attempt at gentleness. His teeth grazed her tender flesh, accidentally drawing her blood as she had drawn his.
It was sweet. Incredibly sweet, like the taste of her mouth or the way he imagined the rest of her would be.
But he had not forgotten his vow never to take her blood. A vow that seemed increasingly impossible to keep. For it was as if, somehow, a part of his blood already flowed through her veins.
No, not his blood. He had never taken dhampir blood before, and it was to be expected that its signature would be utterly different from anything with which he was familiar. But this was much more subtle than the unique amalgamation of strains that came of her mixed heritage. It was so muted that he couldn’t identify it, but it had the effect of releasing the last, pitiful scraps of his reason.
He moved to her other breast, licking and nipping, raising himself high enough to work his hand under her waistband. He found her undergarment, damp with perspiration, and reached beneath.
She was wet and hot and ready, pushing up against him with an uninhibited boldness that took his breath away in spite of all she’d already done to him. He stroked her, distantly aware of her moans of pleasure as she found his cock and rubbed it through his pants, tracing its contours and molding it with her fingers. He closed his eyes and groaned when she began to unzip him. Only moments now. A few quick movements to free themselves of their clothes, and then—
The muzzle of a gun barrel came up hard against the side of Damon’s head.
“Get off her,” Michael snarled, “before I blow your frickin’ bloodsucker brains out.”
Chapter 5
Alexia heard her partner’s voice as if through muffling layers of gauze that seemed to fill her head and keep her thoughts from comprehending what was truly happening. Her body throbbed—not with pain, but pleasure—and her breasts ached as if she had scratched them on the sharp little branches of the manzanitas growing nearby.
She opened her eyes. It took her a moment to recognize what she was seeing: two faces, both male and as pitiless as the Court that had condemned Garret to a lifetime of servitude.
“Cover her up,” one of the men said—Michael, his blond hair mussed and his face smudged with dirt. The other man, the one whose scent still bathed her skin, laid something on top of her…his jacket, still warm from the heat of his body.
“Alexia,” Michael said, staring down at her. “Are you all right?”
No. Not all right. The pleasure was beginning to fade, replaced by a sense of something profoundly wrong with her body. She began to remember what had happened since Damon—yes, that was the other man—had left her alone, hot and shivering and barely aware that he had gone away.
Then there had been brief moments of lucidity between much longer spans of darkness, the consequences of the illness raging inside her body. When Damon had come back for her, she had been half out of her mind. More than half. She had known she needed something, something important, that only Damon could give her.
Garret. She had said something about Garret. And then she’d forgotten about her half brother, forgotten everything, and…
She felt frantically under the borrowed jacket. Her uniform shirt and undershirt were torn wide open. The bandage was gone, and her shoulder wound was nothing but a patch of puckered skin, cool to the touch. She brushed her lips with her fingers. They were bruised and sore.
God. What had she done? What had he done?
“I can kill him now if you want me to,” Michael said, his voice ringing with hatred. He held the muzzle of his gun to Damon’s temple, just as when they’d first met. Damon looked steadily at Alexia.
She tried to sit up, but a surging tide of dizziness forced her back down. The borrowed jacket slipped to the ground, and she pulled her own jacket closed over her breasts as she fought to clear her mind.
“No,” she said, as steadily as she could. “It wasn’t what you thought, Michael.”
“Then what was it? It looked to me like he was about ready to tear your chest open.”
Was that what he’d seen? Which would be worse—his believing that Damon meant to take her blood or that they were having sex in the middle of a dangerous mission?
Sex with a Daysider. And she’d been willing. More than willing.
“He didn’t hurt me,” she insisted. “It wasn’t his fault.”
Mike scowled at her, contempt in his eyes. Not only for Damon, but for her. Judging her, even before she had a chance to get him alone and explain.
How could she ever do that when she didn’t understand it herself?
“Where were you, Michael?” she asked.
He shifted his weight and looked away. “Scouting. I didn’t leave you, Alexia. I—”
“Did you know Damon and I were attacked?”
He blinked at her sudden question, hearing the anger in her voice. And she was angry. At him, at Damon, at herself most of all. Herself, and the sickness that was stealing her mind and will and body bit by bit. Her bizarre behavior had tempted the predator in Damon, Darketan or not. If he looked chastened now, if there was any regret in his eyes, she doubted that it had anything to do with shame.
Had he taken her blood? She could find no sign of it, but then again a small enough bite would heal quickly, and chemicals in Nightsiders’ saliva both sterilized and closed the small incisions created when they fed.
A vague memory of tasting blood hovered on the edges of Alexia’s mind, and she nearly gagged. I couldn’t have, she thought. It isn’t possible.
“We were shot at by unknown assailants,” she said, forcing the image out of her mind. “Possibly from the colony. You didn’t hear the gunshots?”
“No.” Michael’s skin had paled beneath the dark smears across his face. “Were you injured?”
“How