Four

 

Yuri immediately felt Celeste hadn’t just escaped the room, she’d left the club. The awareness was more than a result of being the best tracker in the coven. She’d been part of his daily life and his deepest dreams for too long and she would always be more than an assignment. Whether she was ready to admit it or not, their connection was stronger than ever.

Within the time it took him to race up the stairs to Damien’s penthouse, he knew she was no longer in New Orleans. As much as he wanted to go after her first, duty trumped desire. Leaving Damien uninformed put the entire coven and their clientele at greater risk. The hunters had no qualms about destroying anyone between them and Celeste.

Yuri knocked on the door and Maureen answered. Whatever expression she saw on his face, she turned and called for Damien before inviting him inside.

He regretted standing here alone, but that was his fault for pushing Celeste to accept him, to accept what his soul had known for so long. She’d said he’d been her fantasy as well as her friend all this time. That could be -would be- enough to build on, assuming his fuck up didn’t lead to her being captured or killed.

When Damien entered the room, Yuri gave his report swiftly and succinctly. He explained the change in Celeste’s skin and stated her reactions as objectively as possible.

“This glow as you’ve described it might be a spell designed to reveal her.” Damien swore. “Did you see anything that precipitated this change?” Damien asked.

Yuri dodged the question, making a more imperative point. “She’s left the club,” he said, bracing for the quiet, lethal fury of Damien’s reaction. He wasn’t ready for the blank panic that fell over the leader’s features.

“We have to find her. It isn’t safe for her in the city. We’ve confirmed a Lehara hunter is here in New Orleans.” He paced along the long bank of windows that overlooked the city.

“She isn’t in New Orleans,” Yuri said.

The news didn’t calm Damien at all. “Then where is she?”

Yuri closed his eyes and focused on Celeste. The trail was faint, but there was nowhere she could hide from him. “She’s gone home,” he said.

“What?” Damien roared. “She’s planted herself on the fucking doorstep of the Albu coven.” He stalked away, still shouting. “Does she plan to cut off her own head for them? Wrap herself in chains, maybe? What the ever-loving fuck was she thinking?”

Yuri flinched at those scenarios, knowing he should confess to driving her away. “Not on my watch,” he said.

Damien barked out orders to assemble a search party and protection detail Yuri didn’t plan on heeding. They could settle the issue of his insubordination later, unless Celeste died, in which case, Yuri would sit on that cliff she loved and wait for the sunrise to take him.

Dismissed, he left Damien’s penthouse and went back to Celeste’s apartment. Quieting his mind, he focused on her to the exclusion of everything around him. At last, the sounds of the club faded away and Yuri found himself in another apartment, surrounded by glossy antiques from centuries past. Thick rugs padded the stone floor and a low fire burned in the fireplace on the wall facing a massive bed, where soft moonlight hair streamed across the cool lavender pillowcase. The faint light illuminating the linens made it clear her glowing skin had yet to fade.

The tension eased from his muscles. She was safe and whole. He’d make sure she stayed that way.

“Ah, good.”

Yuri spun toward the cultured voice, stunned that anyone had managed to sneak up on him.

“Simon Drake, at your service,” the man said, bowing low and rising. The short, dark hair was graying at the temples, his face weathered from a life of sun and wind that challenged the cliffs outside. “I kept watch for you. She fed and is resting comfortably, as you can see.” The smile as he aimed at Celeste was warm, paternal. “There is plenty of blood stocked so take your fill.” He pressed on a wall panel carved with a forest scene and revealed a modern cooler filled with pints of blood. “I’ll inform Master Damien all is well. If you need anything, simply call for me and I will hear you. We are honored to have our princess back home and in perfect health at last.”

He left the room, his steps barely audible, and the big door closed silently on well-oiled hinges.

Yuri watched Celeste as he fed, wishing his fangs were nipping into her flesh rather than the plastic pouch. His mouth watered, yearning to discover her texture and flavor. They would find a way to be together. Happy. United. Whole.

“All this time, I’ve loved you,” he murmured.

She sighed and turned in her sleep, her hand reaching for the empty side of the bed.

Exactly the place where Yuri longed to be. In the perfect world of his mind, that fine-boned hand would be resting on his chest, safely sheltered by his bigger palm. He replayed every second of the bizarre evening, looking for an explanation for her abrupt change.

Or was it an abrupt restoration?

Perfect health, the Drake had said. Yuri watched her, wondering. If the glow was her natural state, she was more beautiful than ever.

The curse on her skin had burned him once, ages ago. It had been an accident. She’d tripped and he’d steadied her without thinking. The brief touch had left a wound that required the coven’s healer to repair.

He’d been certain their hands had touched earlier when they struggled over the shower curtain, yet there was no mark on his skin. It supported his theory that the curse on her skin had been broken because he loved her and had found a way under the mystical barriers to reach the woman inside.

Celeste had spent the majority of her life isolated, separate. She had few friends and had never entertained a romantic partner in person. Her unique situation had left her emotionally aloof, though she remained a compassionate person with a heart of gold.

Something between them had changed, yes. And it had been more than the incredible sexual indulgence.

Determined to prove it, he stepped close to the bed, close enough to touch a lock of her hair. Either he was a genius, or about to be confirmed a fool. With a heartfelt plea to whatever gods or angels -fallen or otherwise- that might be watching, he lifted a lock of her hair and twined the pale strands around his finger.

It was like holding a cool curl of moonlight. Not the slightest burning in his fingertips, though the silky texture set other parts of him on fire. She’d never trust his pledge or even allow him to finish speaking it, if he couldn’t demonstrate that he could survive touching her.

He didn’t really want to disturb her sleep, but awake, she’d keep running. Better too, if he was wrong, that she didn’t see the pain take him over if the curse took him down. He loved her too much to put her through that.

He brushed his knuckles over her cheekbone, and felt only the warmth of desire. No sting, no lancing prickle that wormed its way under the skin and into a body. Still, he paused, examining his hand to be sure. Nothing so much as the reddening that had happened often when she’d come too close to him or another guard.

He checked the urge to throw his head back and roar with victory. That wasn’t the sensual way he intended to wake her. Instead, he touched her again, the shell of her ear, the line of her jaw, the supple column of her throat. Each stroke firmer than the last, he reveled in marking every point where he would put his lips, yet he was careful not to pull her out of her sleep.

Stripped bare, he slid under the covers, under that beautiful outstretched hand, and started bringing to life the most innocent of his fantasies of Celeste.

He watched her sleep, utterly content, as sunlight played through every detail of the stained-glass windows. At last the colors deepened as the sun set on another day.

On a sweet sigh, her body shifted closer and he let her seek him in her sleep where she thought they were safe. He kissed her fingertips, the barest touch of his lips to her flesh and her flavor hit him like a drug, buzzing through his system.

Moving as gently as possible, he traced her arm with lips and tongue, over the rise of her shoulder to the join of her neck, where her pulse beat under that stunning starlit skin. He suckled gently there and she moaned his name, still caught in the shimmering web of sleep.

He knew of vampires who could keep a human in this enthralled state, pleasuring and feeding for as long as they liked. Yuri didn’t have that skill and most vampires were impervious to it anyway. He smiled against that soft vulnerable place just under her jaw. His strong, gorgeous Celeste would never be susceptible to such a trick.

No, Yuri had a far bigger challenge: keeping her in this bed once she discovered it was more than a dream.

Through the years, she’d given him clues to her fantasies. In the club hallway, he’d been blessed with a clear tutorial in what she enjoyed. On top of that, she’d admitted to using him as a fantasy. He could build on that.

With open-mouthed kisses, he blazed a trail along her throat and lower to the tantalizing pink lace of her bra. He laved the creamy skin there with small flicks of his tongue, moving so slowly and gently his sanity was in jeopardy. In that dreamy state she moaned and arched. He barely got the rest of his body out of the way.

He used his fingertips to pluck at her nipple as she’d done and was immediately rewarded by the sound of his name from her lips. He replaced his hand with hers and cruised lower, stroking the flare of her hips, sliding his tongue along the lacy edge of her panties.

Breathing in the scent of her arousal, he wanted to roll her over, pull her back on her knees and shove those panties aside to drive into her. Another morning, he promised himself, once she trusted that he was impervious to any curse.

The glow in her skin seemed to pulse responding to his caresses, confirming his theory that they were destined. He smiled against her inner thigh, tortured himself by brushing his fangs against that sweet, tender flesh without taking even the smallest taste.

He brought her free hand to her pussy, sliding her fingers under the lace, urging them to move through her slick folds, up to her clit. He stroked her with her own hand, desire ratcheting higher, need coiled at the base of his spine. Losing patience, he nuzzled aside her hand and panties and put his mouth to her pussy. God, her taste shot through his system, straight down to his balls. He lapped up the sweet nectar, suckling and nipping, breathing her in. She moaned his name and when she reached for her clit, he drew her fingers into his mouth. He slipped a long finger into her tight channel, then two. Her hips bucked when he stroked the right spot deep inside her body.

Continuing to stroke in and out, he released her fingers from his mouth, smiling when she put them right on her clit. He blew across the bundle of nerves as she touched herself and her hips bucked, her breathing changed.

“Wh-what the-”

“Hang on, love,” he advised. He tore away her panties and caught her hips when she tried to squirm away. Claiming her pussy with his mouth, he slid his tongue across her swollen folds and then up, to tease the hard pearl of her clit.

She shoved the blankets back and he braced to follow her if she bolted again. Instead, her hands sifted through his hair, nails digging a little as she nudged her delectable cunny closer to his mouth for more.

It was his turn to mutter and moan and as he brought her to the peak of an orgasm, he pulled back, blowing lightly on her wet flesh. “Celeste.”

She shivered, goose bumps racing over her skin. Her violet eyes were passion-hazed. “Yuri?” She swallowed. “This isn’t a dream.”

“I’m here.” He squeezed her hips. “In the flesh.” He licked her while she watched him and he grinned at the blush that rushed over her cheeks. “I told you so.”

“How…” But her head fell back and she covered her face with an arm.

He let her hide. For now. Faced with her glorious, wet pussy he settled in to give her an orgasm even better than the one they’d shared in the hallway. When at last he let the climax take her, she screamed his name, her thighs pressing hard against his shoulders, her hand digging into his scalp. “That’s it, my love,” he murmured, coming to stretch out beside her. She curled into him, clinging. “I’ve got you.” It felt so good to hold her.

She pushed him to his back and straddled his thighs. Her hands molded his shoulders, his biceps, traced the veins of his forearms to link her fingers with his. “You feel, you feel so…” She couldn’t seem to find any words, but her eyes told him all he needed to know as she leaned close to kiss him.

Lips met, parted on a sigh and her warm velvet tongue stroked his. Their first kiss. He nearly lost it, and feared he’d come from this alone. His cock jumped and bumped eagerly against her.

She broke the kiss and sat up, dragging her hands over his chest, exploring every texture of his hair, outlining every ridge and hollow. He’d never felt so cherished.

“You feel like heaven wrapped up in sinful promises,” she murmured.

“Just tell me where you want to start.”

“I think I can figure it out.” On a laugh, she unhooked her bra and tossed it aside. She leaned forward to lick his flat nipple with the tip of her tongue. He jerked as her breasts rubbed his midriff.

She froze. “Did I hurt you?”

“Never.” He glided his palms up and down her back, soothing and enticing them both. “Consider me your playground.”

Her violet eyes sparkled and she took his cock in her soft hands. It looked perfectly at home bathed in that soft glow of her skin. She slid her hand up and down, then wriggled close enough to kiss the aching crown. He suppressed a shudder when she licked away the first bead of moisture, then the next.

“Mm. I like the way you taste.” Her smile was wicked. “I’ve only watched this done,” she whispered against his shaft. “Coach me through it?”

Her mouth closed around him and she sucked him deep, her tongue hot as she molded it to him. She pulled back and repeated the motion. Watching his dick slide in and out of those luscious, rosy lips it struck him hard: he was her first everything.

He hauled her up his body and rolled her under him. “You’re a natural. And I’ll let you finish another time,” he promised as her laughter sparkled all over his skin.

Smiling up at him, she opened her legs and he nearly lost it when his cock finally touched that slick, hot center. He drove in with one smooth thrust, lost in the tight feel of her channel gripping him. Her smile vanished, her brow puckered, and he cursed himself for forgetting she was a virgin. No matter the toys she played with, this would be different.

“I’ll make it better.” He shifted, changing the angle, easing back, but she caught him, held him close as she shifted her hips.

He groaned at the sublime effect. “Or you can.”

That ripple of laughter he felt on his cock. “Yuri.” She rocked her hips, her urgency clear. “Fuck. Me.”

He did, driving himself to the hilt over and over while her hands clutched his biceps, her soft lips parted as she panted in staccato breaths.

He stole another kiss and nuzzled her breasts, determined to seize every sensation, to give her every pleasure before the first climax grabbed him. Reaching between their joined bodies, he teased her clit again, felt her channel clench around him in delight and when pleasure overwhelmed her again, her violet gaze was locked on his face. She pulled his head close for another kiss, then dragged her tongue across his fang. That taste of her blood pushed him over the edge and the release shattered through him as he pumped into her.

He collapsed beside her and drew her into the circle of his arms where he wanted to keep her forever, but more importantly, where he hoped she would always want to stay.

*

I was tempted to pinch myself.

Lying here with Yuri felt better than anything I’d ever imagined or witnessed. Amazing. Fantastic. Nothing short of miraculous. I kept expecting his skin to blister or go dry and hot with a fever or worse. Though satiated, I didn’t dare doze off the way he did. What if I woke up and all of this had simply been the most fabulous, detailed dream? What if he died before I could tell him I loved him?

“Shh.” His arm curled closer, and he gave me a gentle squeeze.

“What?”

“You’re thinking so loud I can’t sleep. If you aren’t enjoying yourself, I can remedy that.” He cupped my breast and my nipple pebbled in his palm. “Any position or technique you’d like, name it and we’ll do it.”

“Oh, I’m fine.” I wasn’t sure my body could take anymore, although I suspected that theory would be tested shortly. Uncertain how people normally behaved in the aftermath, I said, “I came out here for a dose of the stars.” I pressed a kiss to his jaw and slipped out of the bed.

“Not alone,” He moved faster than I expected, facing me across the bed. “Damien is worried about you. The Lehara are nearby.”

“I know,” I stated with the absolute calm I’d felt since my return.

He gave me such a strange glance as I dressed I wondered if something else had changed about me. Maybe I’d sprouted horns or another head to go with the new-found radiance and superb, in-person sex. At this point nothing seemed too farfetched.

“You still want to go out walking?”

“I must.”

He wasn’t pleased and he insisted that we each carry a sword from the armory.

“How did you find me here?” I asked as we left the safety of castle for the rugged beauty of the cliffs under a sky filled with stars. The glow from my skin made it easy to see his handsome features, to read his expressions.

“I will always find you anywhere.” He took my hand, as if he simply enjoyed touching me.

“You’re the best,” I said, recalling stories Damien and others had told me through the years.

“Don’t sell yourself short,” he said.

I peered up at him from under my eyelashes. “Meaning?” The wind lifted my hair and the breeze blew across my skin. It was a glorious night to revel in the newness of physical contact.

“Tracking you is unique.” His hand squeezed mine. “Nothing about tracking you comes close to what happens when I’m tracking others. I feel you here.” He raised our joined hand to his heart.

Since my arrival, I was starting to understand that many things were unique about me, beyond my odd coloring. As I’d slept, memories had flashed into my dreams, affirming instincts I’d long forgotten.

We reached the edge of the peninsula and I reluctantly released his hand to stretch both arms high, as I’d done as a child, reaching for the stars.

Beside me Yuri tipped his head back and sighed. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen so many stars,” he said, his low voice nearly lost in the sound of the sea crashing into the cliff below.

For several minutes I stood there remembering the feeling of freedom, savoring all I’d missed behind the shelter of precautions and safety measures. Someday soon I would make love to him right here. “I’m never hiding again. Not after tonight.”

I felt Yuri tense, but I trusted that he would always do whatever he could to be supportive of my needs. “I spoke with Damien,” he said. “He was so worried about the nearby hunters he didn’t press me when I dodged the question of how your change happened.”

“Our erotic stunt in the hallway wasn’t the catalyst for my change,” I said quietly, my gaze on the distant point where the dark sky met the darker water at the horizon.

“You’re sure?”

“I am. I suspected the truth at the club and being back home has reinforced my intuition. Confirms so much I’d been ignoring,” I mused.

“Didn’t you escape to this place because you were scared of me? Of what I offered?”

The man knew me too well. There was such a delicious comfort in that and chasing that comfort was a sweet anticipation of all we might enjoy in days and years to come. As long as we both survived the next few hours.

“Your attempt to make that pledge scared me, yes.”

“Because you’re not ready.”

I stroked my hand over his whisker-roughened cheek. “Because I love you.”

He stilled, as if he was afraid he might wake up. I knew just how he felt.

“You love me?”

“Yes. For as long as I can remember I’ve wanted you, cared for you, dreamed of you holding me. Somewhere in there, it turned deeper than friendship. Loving you, I wanted to be sure I could offer you more than pain and frustration.” I glared at him, or tried to. It was impossible to stay mad after the pleasure he’d poured all over me. “You took one hell of a risk, testing your theory while I was sleeping.”

“It worked.” His satisfied smirk undid me. Giggling like a smitten teenager, I pressed to my toes and kissed him, reveling in the sensation as his arms came around me, held me fast. “Why did you come here?”

Breathless, I sank against his chest for a moment. “I teleported to the roof first.”

He scowled. “I didn’t sense that.”

“I didn’t stay more than a split-second. The night air touched my face and I knew it was time to come home. I sensed a Lehara hunter in New Orleans, but a full force of them will be on us any minute.”

He turned, squinting inland at the way we’d come. “Let me take you to safety.” Yuri gripped my hand, preparing to teleport.

I pressed my hand to his chest, stopping him. “There’s no such place now that I’m like this. The Lehara have been perfecting their seeking spells since they found out the star children were more than rumor.”

“We can wait out an attack in the castle.” He cradled my face. “Damien can be here soon with reinforcements.”

I smiled and gave him another soul-searing kiss. “There’s an easier answer.” My smile grew as he scowled at me. “If you taste me here, under the stars, you’ll take a little of what I am into you and we will be enough.”

“A healer and a tracker? How weak are these hunters?”

I laughed merrily, soaking up the night, the power in the cliffs under my feet, and the stars overhead. “Taste me, Yuri. I dare you to prove me wrong.”

“If you’re wrong, I’m taking you far from here.”

“I won’t argue.” Now that I’d found this magnificent connection with him, I didn’t want to lose it.

His palms slid over my shoulders to my hands and he laced his fingers with mine. Taking my hands behind my back my body bowed toward his chest. His lips brushed against mine, so softly it was a sweet torture. Then he plundered my mouth until I was panting. At last his hot kisses trailed over my throat and he paused, his lips so hot against my skin, I thought I might ignite from the anticipation. One lap of his tongue had me begging and when his fangs pierced my flesh the glorious sensation turned my knees to jelly. Thank God he was holding me.

The drawing pressure was light at first, giving way to a sudden urgency as my blood hit his system. My blood, this essence of my body and soul would change us both, I could feel it.

He eased back, his hands smoothing up and down my arms as he stared at me. I decided not to mention the way his pale eyes glowed. “Well?” I could feel the hunters approaching.

“Better than the last time,” he said. Referring to when I’d worked over him with the healers. He bent his head to catch one last drop on his tongue. “I believe you,” he said, wonderingly. “I can feel you humming through me.”

We turned as the Lehara hunters emerged from the trees, stalking toward us. There were at least a dozen and I sensed more lingering out of our sight, but not quite beyond my other senses. Their strategy was clear, cutting us off from the castle. From their view we surely appeared stuck, pinned helplessly between unyielding hunters and the sharp edge of the cliffs.

I stepped forward and Yuri caught my arm. “Let me be your shield. Please.”

“Side by side,” I said. I bit my wrist and squeezed a few drops of blood onto the swords we’d brought along. The blades hummed and began to glow.

“How do you know to do all this?”

“I’ve struggled to separate fact from fiction within the star child myths,” I explained hastily, watching the hunters advance. “After I changed, it was like having my own North Star guiding me. Between that intuition and the dreams I had before you woke me, here we are.”

“Works for me,” Yuri said.

I felt a thousand times better than I had on any other day in my life, as if accepting myself and walking my path was all the affirmation I’d ever needed to claim my rightful role.

Grinning like a couple of kids at Christmas, we surged forward to engage the Lehara hunters. Yuri’s first instinct was to protect me as the two of us launched into the fight, easily dodging the first testing strikes.

An understandable reaction considering the way Yuri and the rest of the coven had been protecting me one way or another since my birth. Then my sword sliced through a hunter’s neck and the bastard disintegrated in a shower of glossy, silver sparks.

Yuri’s jaw dropped and he nearly lost his own head before he pulled himself together and started dispatching the hunters nearest him. The effect wasn’t quite as pronounced when he beheaded the enemy, but it was close.

Though I’d tried to understand the Albu coven’s outdated point of view about stealing me away to destroy or use for themselves, being a slave to their warped thinking wasn’t an option. Fully embracing the ancient mystery in my blood didn’t make killing the Lehara my first choice, but this obsessive behavior had to stop. The hunters couldn’t be allowed to plague my coven or stalk after the other star children anymore.

The bodies of hunters sparked and fell from our attacks, evaporating into nothingness until Yuri and I stood alone on the peninsula.

“Come out,” I dared, sensing more of the enemy hiding in the clouds of mists blurring the tree line. “We end this tonight!”

At the silence, I seethed. I felt as if I should be able to tap into something and reveal them, but the tactic was beyond me at the moment. “There are more of them out there.”

Yuri nodded. “Our fight is done. They understand they’re outnumbered here.” He turned, and I realized Damien and the fiercest warriors of our coven stood at our backs.

My brother strolled up, a scowl creasing his elegant features. “You’ve done well, little sister. Next time, why not leave a little something for the rest of us?”

“I’d hoped there wouldn’t be a next time.”

“I know,” he said. His gaze moved past me, focusing on a hazy figure pacing in the distance. “I doubt we will be so lucky. At least you’re free now.”

“I am?” I asked, suddenly overwhelmed. “What does that mean?”

His scowl cleared abruptly. “Anything you like. Come home or travel. Be happy, anywhere you like.” He pulled me close and kissed my forehead, muttering an oath when the touch stung his lips. “Clearly you can handle all that you are now. Go on now, both of you. With my blessing.”

He didn’t have to tell me twice.

I grabbed Yuri’s hand and ran with him toward the cliffs. Without words we knew just where we should be. Leaping over the edge, the stars wheeled overhead just before we landed softly on my big bed in the castle. I had centuries of sex, pleasure, and loving to make up for and I couldn’t wait for Yuri to teach me everything.