Tendra

With every step we took, the pain in my lip intensified from a dull burn to a piercing torment.

This was ridiculous. It was a tiny cut, which had bled for about a minute. Yet an echo of pain from that tiny tear in my skin spread throughout my whole body.

Athan pointed down a dark tunnel and I snapped at him. Which wasn’t fair, but I hurt, and I was tired.

And I still had no idea what awaited me at our destination.

We walked up a set of stairs and entered a small drain. I ignored whatever liquid splashed up onto my boots. Up ahead was a solid brick wall. I stopped. “Is there a port there?”

He nodded. “That leads outside to Mission Woods.”

I inhaled deeply and kept walking. This was it. We were leaving Mission. We’d no longer have the protection of the underground. We’d be outside, exposed. Goodbye Ruby and my apartment and the last place I ever talked to my mother. My heart was pounding, and I clenched and unclenched my sweaty fists. When we were about twenty yards from the wall, a hand closed around my biceps and turned me around.

I set my jaw as I stared up into Athan’s eyes.

He was kinda pissed. That much was clear. His teeth were bared, the veins in his neck protruding. “Stop,” he ordered. “I can hear your heart racing, and I can smell your fear. Talk to me.”

“Talk to you?” I said. “What exactly do you want me to discuss with you? I can still hear your vampire friends as they talked about selling me out. I can still feel that Quellen’s hand in my hair.” I sucked in a shaky breath. “What do you want me to say other than I’m trying to be strong, I’m trying to do my duty, but I’m terrified as hell?”

He pulled me into his arms without hesitation, crushing me to his chest. My tears were all dried up, but I clung to him, grateful that he seemed to know this was what I needed. I wondered if vampires hugged like this, or if he was making the exception for me—a human.

He moved us, so he sat on a patch of dry ground with his back against the wall, me in his lap. His big hand rubbed my back. “Can you tell me what happened?”

I did. With long pauses for me to catch my breath, I told him about Brex, and how I hid, then ran from the vampires and Quellen. How I barely made it out, then how I visited Ruby and chopped off my hair.

“I know you said the threat was real, and I didn’t take it seriously enough.” I exhaled roughly as I ran my finger down his jacket zipper. “I take it seriously now.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I never should have left you.”

“I needed food.”

“I know, but I should have called Zeb, or…something.” His body shuddered beneath mine. “She’s dead now.”

“What?”

“Para. The female vampire who led them. I knew who she was by scent. I went to visit her and she surely won’t be collecting anything now. Zeb is taking care of the other two.”

I wasn’t sure what to think about that, but this was vampire culture. Those assholes were going to sentence me to a life as a zombie blood donor. So yeah, fuck them.

He gripped my face and turned it so he could meet my eyes. “I’m proud of you. I’m still not sure how you got away from them, but I’m so proud of you.”

I smiled, but winced as the action tweaked the pain in my lip. His brows immediately furrowed. “What was that?”

I gestured toward my mouth. “My lip. Where you…yeah. It hurts.”

He made to touch it, then halted his hand. “It does?”

“Yeah. A lot.”

He studied my face. “How much?”

I squirmed. “Like, on a pain scale of one to ten, it’s a seven and getting worse.”

He cursed under his breath. “Do you trust me?”

“Of course.”

His lips twitched. “You didn’t hesitate.”

“Because I didn’t have to. I trust you.”

“Right,” he said quietly. He leaned forward. “I’ll make it stop hurting. Is that okay?”

His face was inches from mine, his dark eyes piercing. The heat of his breath coated my lips, the pain already receding. I could only nod as he closed the distance. His full lips closed around mine, right over the cut, and then his tongue swiped it.

I clung to his shoulders as my body jolted, that mere touch sending a flash of pleasure through me, pooling in my belly. That kiss had been…unlike any kiss I’d ever had, and as his tongue lapped at my lip again, I couldn’t stop a moan from escaping my lips. I shifted in his lap, rubbing my thighs together, as the hardness in his pants nudged my hip.

I needed…oh, God, I needed to come. With every swipe of his tongue, the pain in my body was replaced by an unquenched hunger to be touched. This was a whole other fire raging inside me now, an uncontrollable urge like I’d never felt before. Did he have some powerful vampire saliva?

I moaned again, and when I spoke, my voice broke. “Athan.”

“Fuck,” he murmured. He pulled off my lips as I continued to squirm while the ache intensified.

I followed his mouth, needing more, needing him. “Athan,” I said again, frustrated he didn’t understand. That he wasn’t helping me or making this ache go away. “I need you.”

He cursed again, as I sought to straddle his hips, wanting that hardness between my legs, right where the ache was the worst. “Tendra, we can’t—”

“Please,” I said, licking a stripe up his neck and sucking on the skin below his ear. I knew what I was feeling had been somehow prompted by him soothing my wound. I’d also been fighting my attraction to him, this magnetic pull, since we first met. I wanted him. “You started this. You have to finish it.”

He didn’t let me, though. With a frustrated curse, he turned me so I sat on his lap, my back to his front, my legs spread on either side of his thighs. He ran a big hand over the front of my jeans, and I arched into his touch. “Fuck, you’re killing me here, Ten.”

“Touch me,” I moaned, grabbing his wrist and shoving it beneath the waistband of my jeans.

His thumb caught against the button on my jeans, and he exhaled a shaky breath. “Do you still trust me, Ten?”

I reached back and fisted his hair. “Yes!”

His breath rushed out in harsh pants along my ear and down my neck. The sound of my fly being pulled down was a zrip echo in the tunnel. “I’ll make you feel better, okay? I’ll make you feel so good.”

I arched my back, my voice keening. “Please, just fucking do it.”

Long fingers slipped down my stomach, beneath my underwear, and then right over my swollen clit. I cried out, and he groaned in my ear. “You’re soaked, Ten. Fucking soaked.”

I sobbed out something, which probably wasn’t a word, because fingers were slipping inside me now, and a thumb was passing over my clit. My hips bucked as I sought more, more, more. I gripped his wrist, digging my fingernails into his skin, while my other hand held on to his hair in a death grip.

“That’s it. Ride my hand, Tendra.” He plunged his fingers in and out of me, the obscene wet sounds only turning me on more. His voice was harsh, guttural, telling me he was as affected as me. “If I had more time, if you were mine, I’d be on my knees between your legs right now, my face buried in you. Fuck!” he rasped out, his hips rotating as his giant erection pressed between us. “I’d eat you so good, Tendra. You’d come so hard, you’d black out. Then when you came to, I’d fuck you for hours, till you were addicted to me and my tongue and my cock.”

His dirty words, plus his hand working me had me right on the edge, and yet I was terrified. I’d never felt like this before, where every single cell was focused on pleasure, where I worried that an orgasm would make me physically fly apart.

But of course Athan knew. He always knew.

“It’s okay, Ten,” he said, plunging a third finger inside me, that thumb still swirling over my clit. “You can let go. I got you. I’m right here. Just let go, baby. Come for me. I want to see it.”

I choked out a sob, and then I was there. Coming hard. For a moment I thought I was floating, leaving this earth, but Athan’s strong arm across my chest kept me grounded. I wasn’t sure how much time had passed before my hips stopped jerking, before I could open my eyes and catch my breath.

But when I did, Athan was there. With soft murmurs in my ear, a big hand rubbing my hip. My pants zipped and buttoned like nothing had happened.

But oh, it happened all right, and there was no way I was forgetting this.

Athan

I held Tendra in my arms, cursing myself for going too far and willing my dick to calm the hell down. How many more mistakes would I make? That kiss never should have happened, but the only way to stop the pain in her lip was to heal it with my saliva.

That had gone…spectacularly bad.

Well, I couldn’t deny that getting the chance to touch Tendra, to watch her as she came apart in my arms, was a goddamn honor. But it wasn’t my honor to have. She wasn’t mine.

I’d meant everything I’d whispered in her ear, but none of those fantasies would come true. She was promised to someone else, and my own selfish desires had to be pushed aside. Still, the scent of her was in my skin, infecting my brain. All I could think about was the sound of her moans, the way her body shuddered against mine, the way she’d begged me to…

Fuck.

I’d trained all my life for this. I hadn’t failed yet, and I didn’t intend to.

Keep your hands off, and keep her alive, Athan. Simple, really. I could do this. I helped her up, and she stood on shaky legs to drink some water and shove a granola bar in her mouth. After we fed Brex, we continued on our way.

Tendra walked at my side, her footsteps nearly silent. When we reached the port, which would lead us outside the city proper, I paused and glanced at her. “I need to call home. Okay?”

She nodded, and I noted her face was still flushed from her orgasm. Athan, I need you. I ignored the echo of her voice in my head.

“Yeah.” Her eyes darted toward the wall. “Sure.”

I pulled out my cell and although I didn’t have a strong signal, it was enough to call Idris. The phone rang twice before he picked up. “Athan.”

“Idris, Tendra and I are about to leave Mission.”

There was a beat of silence. “How long until you reach the compound?”

“Maybe two or three days.”

“I’d send out a guard to meet you, but the king has us on lockdown.”

I’d pushed aside the alarm bells that Para had tripped in favor of dealing with Tendra. But now they were blaring again full stop. “What? Why?”

Idris was silent for a moment, and then he sighed heavily. “I’m not sure. Our alarm detected an attempted break-in. I want to send out a search party, but the king is being conservative.”

My lip curled. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. I wanted you to send some backup to help me guard Ten.” There was a scratching sound over the line, which was most likely him running his knuckles over his short beard, a nervous habit. Idris nervous was never a good thing. “Idris, what’s going on there? Is it safe to bring Ten?”

The scratching stopped, and when Idris spoke again, his voice was firmer. “You’ll be here in what, two to three days? I’ll have this taken care of by then.”

His confidence relieved me a bit, but as I watched Tendra pet Brex, my protective instincts were screaming. “I’m already on edge because of some betrayals we had here in Mission.”

“What happened?”

I summed up the incident with Para, including everything she’d told me. When I was finished, Idris cursed. When he spoke, I knew his teeth were clenched. “I don’t like this. As soon as you get here, and I’m free to leave, I’m forming a team to infiltrate the Valarian camp.”

It took me a minute to figure out why that thought settled like lead in my stomach. “What about Tendra?”

“What about her?”

I flared my nostrils, not wanting to get into it with him, not while Ten was watching me, her brow furrowed as she nibbled her lip. “Never mind.”

“Be safe, Athan. Do your duty, and deliver us the Sanguivita. I’ll do my duty here, okay?”

Right, my duty as blood guard to the Sanguivita. No names. We weren’t names. We were duties. “Yes.”

The phone clicked in my ear.

I took about ten seconds to get my emotions under control before facing a worried Tendra. She wrapped her arms around herself, looking vulnerable. “Is everything okay?”

No, everything was most decidedly not okay. This job wasn’t what I had trained for. I knew how to fight and kill and protect. This tunnel smelled like sex, and even now I wanted to kiss her swollen lips again. I hadn’t been trained on what to do when I fell in love with my brother’s future wife.

I resisted touching Ten’s new short hair. “It’s fine. I was hoping for some help, but we’re on our own. Probably better anyway. The more people, the more noise, and the more room for error.” That was kind of a lie, but I needed to convince Tendra and myself. “The Quellen know where we’re trying to go, but they don’t know when.”

“Okay.” Her voice shook.

“Once I open this port, we make the rest of the way on foot. How much do you know about the area around Mission?”

“Um, it’s heavily wooded. Not much reason to venture out here.”

“Both those are true. Unless you’re a vampire.” I heaved a breath. “So it’s important to stay with me at all times. Please understand that I know this terrain. I know places we can hide, because the Gregorie installed ports in solid rock long ago. I know these woods better than any Quellen or any Valarian. Understand?”

She swallowed and nodded.

When I held up my wrist and opened the port, moonlight greeted us, the eerie glow casting a greenish tint over the landscape. I gripped Tendra’s hand and we walked out together. When we were standing on a bed of leaves, Brex swirling around our legs, I waved my hand in front of the door, rendering it invisible.

I squared my shoulders and stared straight ahead down the overgrown path. Now that we were outside Mission, this was the final leg of our journey. This was when everything I was taught would matter. This was where I would be tested. Tendra, too.

I cracked my neck and pulled my hair back at my nape with a rubber band. I gripped Ten’s hand, and she shot me a tentative smile. The sight of it made my heart ache. “How’re you doing? Tired?”

She shook her head. “I went to Ruby’s. It was the only place I could think to go, and I slept a little there. I figured we’d be traveling tonight.”

I smiled. “Smart girl. We’ll go as long as we can. When it’s close to morning, we’ll hide in a cave. You can sleep then until the sun sets.”

“Don’t worry about me,” she said. “I can do anything for two or three days.” She patted the duffel bag. “We have enough food to last us now, thanks to you.”

She was brave, and I wasn’t so sure at that moment that us vampires deserved her. “Let’s go.”

We didn’t follow a path, more of a zigzag pattern. Tendra muttered something about feeling like we were walking in circles, but I had the entire area mapped out in my head. I knew where we were, where we were going, and the areas we could hide. Without help from my brother’s guard, this was going to take longer than I expected, which was my main source of anxiety. I needed to feed. Soon. And while I had some provisions, I needed fresh blood.

At this point I shoved the worry aside, because there wasn’t anything I could do about it.

The moon lit our way, and while I could see in the dark, Tendra stumbled often. I worried about her rolling an ankle, but when I offered to carry her, she glared at me. We let Brex walk ahead of us, since he could detect our enemies faster than we could.

We talked in low tones, barely above a whisper, mostly because Tendra seemed to be flagging, her eyes drooping, and I wanted to keep her awake. “Where’d you get Brex?” I asked.

She smiled as Brex jogged ahead of us, his ears forward. “One of the places we lived was a small farm out west. A barn cat just had kittens. A coyote got inside, killed the mom and all the kittens except one. Brex. Not sure how he was spared, but he was. Owners said I could have him, since I was the one who chased the coyote away before it killed any livestock.”

“Ah, so you two go way back.”

“Yeah, he’s six now.”

“How long have you been in Mission?”

She yawned. “Five years.”

I pulled the water out of our pack and handed her an energy bar. While she ate, we kept walking. I knew we didn’t have much time before her human body would need sleep. After a couple more hours, her stumbles grew more frequent. She hadn’t complained one bit, and I was sure she’d hike for a few more hours, but I knew a cave that would give us shelter, so I directed us to it. The sun would rise soon, too. The sliver of dawn was just starting to appear on the horizon.

I opened up the port on the side of the rock and directed Ten inside, where a pocket my clan had dug out waited for us.

Once I closed the port, I turned to see Ten stumble to the side of the cave among a pile of leaves and collapse. I checked on her immediately, alarmed at the way she crumpled, but she was okay, already falling asleep, her lips moving restlessly.

I covered her with a blanket from the pack, and Brex curled up at her side. I sat down beside her, my hands on my lap, and I waited.