Chapter Fifteen
Briar
Annie was their wife. Someone they all loved and shared. Two hundred years before, they’d met a woman and married her, and then what? “Annie was human.” There was only one thing that would make her leave them, and it was inevitable.
“She was when we met her.” Hudson took the story over from Valen. “She may have been younger than you, I’m not sure. She seemed younger, looking back, but she was probably in her early twenties when we came into town.”
She was when we met her. “She became a vampire.” How?
“Yes,” Hudson answered. “We made her a vampire.”
“You did?” Of course they did, but for some reason, it surprised her. They’d hinted at her humanity bothering them.
“Yes,” Hudson answered. “We met her. Courted her. Fell in love. Married her.”
“How did you manage that?” she asked. “Two hundred years ago…”
“It was easier back then,” Hudson said, and then seeing her disbelief, chuckled. “It was. Sylvain, Marcus, and I were Valen’s brothers. It was enough that he married her, officially, and then we all lived together on a farm, way out in the wilderness. It wasn’t unheard of for families to stay together, especially bachelor farmers who shared land.”
“Oh.” What he described made sense, and she didn’t know enough about history to disagree. She tried to remember her classic literature. Hadn’t Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights lived with his son and Catherine’s brother for years? That would have been three males and one woman, so maybe it wasn’t shocking for a woman to live with her husband and three bachelor brother-in-laws. And if they were far away from town, no one would notice they were all in love with Annie.
“Even now, we can live together as roommates, and it doesn’t raise eyebrows,” Hudson said.
True enough. Their situation was a bit like a romantic comedy, but on the surface, it certainly looked like she was merely a lucky grad student who’d won the roommate lottery.
So Annie was a human they’d turned into a vampire. But the way they spoke of her… she was dead. “Did Asher kill her?” she asked, immediately wishing she’d kept the question to herself. Sylvain glanced away, unable to hold her eyes. Valen frowned and shook his head slowly.
“No.” Hudson’s voice was quiet. He sat on the edge of the couch and smoothed his hand down Briar’s hair. “No. She stepped into the sunlight.”
Why? Her mind was whirling with questions. To be given eternal life, and then give it all up. To give up the guys? The guys talked about how good she smelled, and she saw them struggle with their hunger, but there were times when she forgot they were vampires. Today, strolling to class with Sylvain, all she could think about was how lucky she was. What had happened to Annie, what had she experienced, that made her want to give up everything?
“She didn’t want to be a vampire,” Sylvain said. “We never asked her. Valen married her, and we changed her.”
“What?” Tiny bits of information she’d caught in the past fell into place. Sylvain’s protectiveness and unwillingness to discuss his past until recently. Marcus—when he’d lost it and reminded her he wasn’t human.
This was why.
What would she do if they changed her without asking? What if they changed her by mistake? Perhaps… “Did you change her on purpose?”
“Yes,” Hudson answered. “We’d found her, and we were truly a family. I never wanted it to end.”
“You all discussed it ahead of time?” she asked.
“Yes,” Marcus answered. “While we were courting her. She was so innocent, but when we told her we all loved her…” He smiled, green eyes lighting up. “She loved us, too. All of us. We thought we’d finally found everything we were looking for.”
“But we never told her what we were,” Valen said.
“You never…” Briar lifted one eyebrow. She didn’t want to think ill about Annie, but how would she not notice? “You were courting her. At night. Only at night.”
“That’s when most people courted, Briar,” Hudson answered, dryly. “They worked from sunup to sundown.”
Okay. “So it came as a surprise when you told her what you were.”
Marcus laughed. “Yeah. You could say so.”
“Two hundred years ago… she didn’t think you were demons?” Briar tried to imagine a woman, a product of her society, but one who could buck tradition and settle down with four men like hers.
Hers. They were hers now.
“No,” Hudson answered. “Though, catch Sylvain at the right moment, and you’d swear hell had kicked him out for being too mean.”
“So you… revealed you were vampires and then bit her?” Briar asked.
“No.” Marcus cut in. He settled into a leather armchair, keeping his gaze on the floor. He held out his hands, frowning at them before turning them over to stare at his palms. “No. We married her. Fell into a vampiric sleep that left her believing we were dead. Awoke. Told her what we were.” He sucked in a breath before he went on. “Days passed, and she… she wouldn’t eat. I don’t think she slept. Until that point, she’d accepted everything about us.” Now he raised his eyes to hers, studying her reaction. Whatever he saw on her face caused him to glance away. She was shocked, yes, but she ached for them. They’d revealed their secret to Annie, and she’d rejected them.
“With each passing day, she faded a little more,” Valen said when it was clear that was all Marcus was going to say. “I thought she was dying, so ill she could no longer care for herself, and as her husbands, it was our duty to care for her. Protect her. Ensure her survival. I thought she loved us enough to do that—survive. And after we turned her, she tried. God. She tried so hard for so long. But feeding… losing the sun. It was too much for her. One day, we woke up before sunset, and she was gone.”
Grief clogged Briar’s throat. They’d made mistake after mistake, but how they’d paid for those mistakes. Paid, dearly.
“I tried to stop her,” Sylvain choked. His hands grazed his arms, like he’d reached into the daylight for her. “You held me back.”
“I couldn’t lose you, too,” Valen answered. “There was no way to save her. She was too far out. By the time—I’d have lost you, too.”
“It tore us apart,” Hudson said. “I left. That very night, I was gone.”
Marcus nodded as Hudson spoke, then leaned back in his chair. He drew one long leg up as he studied his brothers. “It destroyed us.”
Annie had walked into the sunlight, and she’d been consumed. Briar’s skin itched and pebbled with the remembered pain of a thousand burns. How much worse was it? For a moment, she could almost smell the scent of burning.
Briar thought about her own injuries. Right before they happened, everything came into focus, and then, afterward, things sharpened to a pinprick. There was only Briar and the pain. Everything outside of that disappeared.
She and Annie had more in common than falling in love with the same men. Shaking her head of the memories of her own time in the sun, Briar realized something—Marcus had said Annie’s death destroyed them, and from what Hudson alluded to, it split them apart. “But when I met you—” Their story didn’t make sense. She’d met Marcus at Hudson’s lecture, and the very first time she met Sylvain, Valen was with him. What had brought them together?
“It was another two hundred years before we could stand to be together for more than the time it took for Hudson to dose us with the medicine that let us walk in the sun.” Marcus rubbed his hands over his head. Even though Briar knew none of them slept anymore, not with the medicine, he looked exhausted. His normal golden-brown skin was drawn tight over his cheekbones, and there seemed to be shadows under his eyes.
“It was you,” Valen stated baldly. He leaned forward again, having never left his spot on the table. “You brought us together. But for real. As a family.”
As a family. Like they had when they’d found Annie. But she wasn’t Annie. They didn’t frighten her, even if she was afraid of what they could do to her heart.
Especially if she lost them.
“Have you thought about…” Briar wondered if she should ask the question that had been at the edge of her thoughts since her time with Sylvain.
“Thought about what?” Hudson asked when she struggled to go on. “Thought about what, Briar? About you being part of our family? You are. I’d hope that was clear after tonight. We’ve laid our hearts bare.”
“I mean.” She took a deep breath and rushed the next part. “Thought about making me a vampire, too. I’m already almost one… our DNA is so similar… what if you just turned me?”
“Just turned you?” Sylvain drew his brows together and shook his head. “Just turned you. Like it’s so easy.”
“No.” Marcus edged toward the end of the chair. He pinned her with an angry stare, his mouth drawn down in a frown. “Absolutely not, Briar.”
“But you said it yourself,” Briar argued. Hudson and Valen were silent, neither one meeting her eyes. “You said I was too fragile. You’re afraid of hurting me and of Asher hurting me. Of the sun hurting me. What if you didn’t have to worry?”
“Is that what you want?” Marcus asked. “To live forever? To fill yourself full of blood like a tick?”
Yes? “I want to be with you.”
“You can’t know what you want,” Sylvain said. “You’re too young. Jesus, Briar. You’re twenty-two years old. Do you know how old Hudson is? Two thousand years old. If he had a choice, do you think he’d have chosen this life?”
“Would you?” she asked Sylvain.
“No!” His answer was immediate, and it sucked the air from her lungs. “I should be with my human wife and son. No one should remember me. I should be nothing. I should be dust.”
She shook her head. A world without Sylvain was too painful to contemplate. A world without any of them hurt. They were hers. Why else had they existed all this time?
“You were made for me.” Briar turned so she could face Sylvain. When he scoffed and tried to look away, she crawled onto her knees and caught his chin between her thumb and forefinger. “You were. You’ve said it before. I smell like home. I brought you all back together.”
“We don’t deserve you, Briar,” Marcus said. “No matter how we feel about you. I won’t be so selfish as to keep you forever.”
Briar glanced up at Sylvain. He agreed with Marcus. There was a set to his jaw and a hardness to his eyes that said he was firmly in the Marcus-camp.
“But I deserve you,” she said quietly. “I’ve already been burned up in the sun, Marcus. You don’t have to be afraid of it happening again.”
“Unless you reach into a sunbeam without your gloves…” Sylvain muttered. His words were mushed because she still held his chin, so she released him.
“Right.” She mashed her lips together to keep from smiling. “Unless I do that. But you could change me, and then I could take Hudson’s medicine and never burn again.”
Hudson stood. No. He erupted from his place on the edge of the couch. He was a blur of motion, pacing from one side of the room to the other. Once, he stopped, and his face… He was in agony. His upper lip was swollen, like his fangs had descended, and he covered it with his hand.
“Hudson,” she whispered.
He shook his head, holding up his free hand. Stay back. She’d awakened the beast. Perhaps Hudson’s struggle wasn’t telling her he didn’t want her forever, but telling her he did.
“Think about what this would mean, Briar,” Valen said quietly. He lifted her into his arms and took her place on the couch. “Think about what it would mean to give up everything. Your family. Your life.”
“I wouldn’t be giving up my family,” Briar answered. “Not for a long time.”
Valen’s voice vibrated against her ear. “No, little one. You’d have to give them up before they noticed you’d stopped aging. In ten years, twenty maybe. And you want to be a scientist. Think about Hudson. Every twenty years, he has to disappear and start all over again. And it’s only going to get harder. Pretty soon, he won’t be able to do what he loves at all. The world is so interconnected. It is much harder to hide.”
“And that’s if it even works,” Marcus burst out. His knee bounced as if he couldn’t contain his nervous energy. “You saw what happens when it doesn’t work.”
Crawlers. The oozing, slithering creature that had pulled itself by its clawed fingers up her body. She could end up like one of those.
It would be worth the risk.
“Will you think about it?” Briar asked. She scanned the room and stopped at Hudson, who finally lifted his gaze to hers. “Will you think about it?”
“There’s little else I’ve thought about since I met you.” His voice was still distorted by his fangs. “But you will as well. You will weigh your request with everything that could go wrong. Everything you’d give up.”
Valen stood, hands on her waist as she got her feet under her. He kept his hands there, silently supporting her as she faced Hudson. Each of them approached her until the four of them surrounded her. She’d put them in a difficult position, but it was one that needed to be considered.
For all they loved her, each one of these men harbored a creature inside him who thirsted for her blood.
“I will,” she promised. It was enough for them. For now.
Briar left them in the living room, her mind on a million things but focused on the two very real ways she could meet her end. Asher wanted to kill her. One mistake in the sun could kill her.
Oh gosh, and she had so much homework left to do.
Briar snorted, but it wasn’t funny, because she was considering which of two possible really bad ends she could meet.
But life didn’t stop just because death threatened. Her homework would pile up if she didn’t get a few chapters of reading done. Not even a run-in with the cops, and a near fatal altercation with Asher, meant a night off from homework. Briar chuckled to herself and trudged upstairs a few minutes later. Someone would follow behind her in a second. They always did. It was just a question of whether they’d come into her room or hang out in theirs, ear to the wall and ready to pounce.
Briar walked into her room and shut the door, and suddenly, everything hit her at once.
Holy shi—moly.
The things she’d learned tonight… there was too much for her to process. She tried to picture diving into the work she had to do for classes, the work that could swiftly build into an unmanageable avalanche if she began to let it go.
But she had to.
Tonight, she had to. Because aside from Valen, Sylvain, Marcus, and Hudson’s past, Briar had to start thinking about her future.
The future she would have with them.
And whether or not it would last a human lifetime, or an eternal one.
With a sigh, she flopped onto her bed, body bouncing a little before settling into the mattress. Could she do it? Could she give up her life to be with them?
What life?
Ummm, the one I worked very hard for, thank you very much. The one with a master’s degree and then a doctorate in biology. The one where I solve the mystery of my syndrome, and as a result, no one else has to suffer the way I had to.
Briar shut her eyes. Except—it wasn’t really her syndrome was it. What she had wasn’t EPP. It was genetic mutation that mimicked the mutation on Valen, Sylvain, Hudson, and Marcus’s genes.
Mimic.
Biology was full of examples of species, which had evolved to be similar to each other. There were butterflies and moths with spots on their wings that resembled the eyes of a larger animal to scare off predators.
There were mimics that resembled predators, for example, but were completely harmless. Briar could remember photographs of snakes, one of which was toxic, and the other, which was harmless.
In biology, there were so many avenues to pursue, she couldn’t help wishing she’d paid better attention to evolutionary biology. Teasing the edges of her mind was a memory of another sort of species, one that evolved to resemble other species it lived alongside. If she remembered correctly, this was something bugs did, evolving to look like ants or bees.
What had been the purpose of her mutation? It couldn’t be to frighten off other predators; her scent was too appealing to the guys for this to work. And she was too weak to fight them off. Briar ran her tongue over her canines, they were sharp, but not like a vampire’s. No, her mimicry was purely at the cellular level.
So what about the type of evolution that allowed one species to resemble another species? Like the ants? Humans were like ants, there were so many of them. They swarmed, and could potentially be harmful to a vampire if they knew vampires existed. All humans needed to do was arm themselves with machine guns or daylight.
Daylight. Scent. Her scent made the guys want to bite her, but they didn’t. Why was that? Did it confound them? Cause them to hesitate instead of act? In an evolutionary sense, when a predator hesitated in its attack, the prey had an opportunity to escape. Was this what her mutation did—confuse the vampires long enough to give her a fighting chance at escape? Or perhaps there was another reason. Did her scent create protective instincts in a predator, thereby safeguarding her from attack?
It could all be much simpler than she was making this out to be. It could be a random mutation, which by chance, was similar to the guys’ mutation. They may not bite her because her vampires were good at heart and had come to care about her. There may be nothing evolutionary about it.
Briar grabbed the pillow from under her head and pressed it over her face, screeching in frustration. Her door burst open, and the pillow snatched from her grasp. “Briar!” Sylvain loomed over her, alternately examining her and studying her room for attackers.
“I’m sorry,” she said quickly, pushing to sit. “I was frustrated. I thought you wouldn’t hear me.”
“I heard you,” Sylvain said.
“In all fairness, he was standing outside the door debating whether or not to come in,” Valen called from the hall. “He was looking for an excuse.”
Sylvain shrugged, a half smile on his lips. “Maybe. Don’t care. I’m in here, and you’re out there.”
There was a rush of wind, tossing Briar’s hair into her face. Managing to scrape it back out of her face revealed only Valen remained. “Sometimes, little one, my brother must be taught a lesson in humility.” Someone kicked or threw something at the wall, because the sconces rattled. “It is good for Sylvain to be put in his place.”
A roar shook the window frames before the door down the hall slammed shut.
“That wasn’t very kind, Valen,” Briar said. “He’s worried.”
It was Valen’s turn to shrug his shoulders. “He will be fine as long as one of us remains with you. He knows you are as safe with me as you are with him.” He began to ease onto the bed next to her, but paused. “Is it okay if I sit?”
Briar lurched for him, grabbing his arm to pull him next to her. “You don’t have to ask, Valen. It’s always okay for you to hang out with me.”
“I have to tell you something.” He stayed perched where he was, as if he was unmovable, even as she attempted to drag him next to her. Valen’s words were quiet, and the muscles beneath her palms trembled.
She let her hand fall away. “And you’re afraid I’ll feel differently after you do.”
He didn’t speak, merely nodded. He drew in a breath, and held it, like he was holding onto her scent in case it was the last time he’d have the chance to do so. And with that, she knew what it was he wanted to tell her.
“You changed Annie.”
He shot off the bed so fast, Briar couldn’t track him. One moment he was at the foot of the bed, the next near the window, and then she blinked and he was at the door. She sought him out at each brief stop, hoping each time he paused that he’d return to her. Finally, he knelt next to the bed. Swinging her legs around the side, she pushed herself between his arms where he rested them on the comforter.
“Valen,” she said. His eyes were wide and frightened, and for just a second, she could see what he’d have looked like as a tow-headed boy. She smoothed her hand across his forehead and down his face, trying to erase the lines that bracketed his eyes and mouth. “Don’t be scared. I—” It made sense to her it would have been Valen who changed Annie. Sylvain acted impulsively, but Valen, he acted out of compassion and kindness. And he must have thought what he did was best for Annie, and his brothers.
“She would never get sick. Never get old. And she was leaving us; I knew it. I saw the worry on my brothers’ faces, in their eyes. I saw Hudson struggle each time he embraced her and buried his face in her neck that he struggled not to bite her. To change her. Hudson…” Valen placed his hand on top of hers, linking their fingers before bringing it to his mouth. He trailed kisses along the back of her hand, down her fingers and to her wrist. “Hudson had enough guilt. But still—Briar—it doesn’t make what I did right. Because in the end, it was my actions that led to Annie’s death.”
“When all you wanted was for her to live.” Briar twisted her hand in his and lifted his massive paw to her face. She flipped it over to place a kiss in the center of his palm. “I know, Valen. I know.”
Slowly, like a bud rising from the earth, Valen stood, uncurling his lanky body. Briar had to tilt her head back to see the face of the giant who stood before her. The worried look was gone from his eyes, replaced with a heat that made her stomach clench in anticipation. Each movement he made was telegraphed before he made it. Like Hudson, he watched her for any indication she was uncertain, nervous.
She wasn’t.
And he was too far away.
The soft mattress made her off balance as she stood, but at least this way she was eye-to-eye with the man. It was unlike Valen not to smile, especially to keep her at ease, but she knew the feeling. Her lips wouldn’t obey her when she tried to lift them. Instead, they trembled, because Briar had made a decision.
She reached out and gripped his shoulders, then trailed her hands down his arms to his waist. Perhaps he thought she meant to steady herself, but that wasn’t her purpose. Sliding her fingers around his sides, she curled her fingers in his shirt and lifted.
Valen’s body was nothing like she expected. Yes, she expected muscles. Valen was huge. But wrapped around his body were tattoos, some of them so faded they were a trace of blue, like rivers viewed from an airplane window. She’d never see him naked below the neck, though she’d seen the tendrils of color snaking from beneath his collar. It hadn’t hinted at the intricacies of images she’d find decorating his chest.
“Valen.” Eager to touch him, she traced the path of ink. Beneath her fingertips, he shivered and gooseflesh erupted. “They’re beautiful. Even now…”
“Twelve hundred years later…” he interrupted. Her eyes must have bugged out of her head, because his chest vibrated with a deep chuckle. “Give or take a century.”
“Who are they?” she asked. Embedded in the swirls and knots were creatures. One was wolf-like, teeth sharp in an open muzzle. His ears stood up, alert.
“He’s my namesake,” Valen said, stopping Briar’s hand where it traced the wolf’s teeth. “Vali. Son of Loki. He was murdered by Odin’s son, who then bound Loki to a giant stone with his entrails.”
“Vali’s entrails?” Briar grimaced.
“Yes,” he answered, but smiled. “My people’s stories never ended well for any of the gods.”
“Another topic to research,” she muttered. “I want to know everything.” Briar glanced up. Valen’s smile was back, and it was both amused and indulgent. “I want to know you better, to know everything about your people and your history. But I don’t want you to be irritated with my million questions.”
“Do you hesitate when you ask Hudson about science?” he asked quietly.
Briar shook her head. Never. She never hesitated to bring up a topic or question to Hudson when it involved science.
“Why do you think I would feel any less joy explaining things to you? Telling you stories? It would give me great pleasure to revisit my history, to make you part of it. It would keep it alive if you knew a piece of it as well.”
He didn’t just mean where he came from; he meant all of it. A long-dead mother and father. Aunts and uncles. Tribespeople. Adventures.
“I want to know it all.” Really and truly.
Valen squeezed her hand and wrapped another around her waist. She had to catch herself on his chest, but immediately let her hand drop to the waistband of his jeans. Hovering, waiting, for a sign she could explore him beneath his clothes.
With one finger, she hooked a belt loop and tugged his hips against her own.
“Briar,” he whispered, eyes fluttering shut. She felt him, confined in his jeans, growing and lengthening. “What do you want? I need to know how far to go. What to do. I’m at sea. Anchor me.”
Her face heated as the words she wanted to say ran through her mind. She would be brave and leave him no option of misunderstanding her desires.
“Valen.”
He squeezed his eyes tighter briefly before opening them.
“I love you,” she said and was rewarded with a smile so large it reached his eyes. “I love you, and I want to be with you.” He continued to smile, fingers tightening on hers. But he didn’t say anything, and she was starting to get nervous. “Biblically.”
Valen threw his head back and laughed. The sound was so loud and so joyous her anxiety disappeared immediately. “Little one…” He shook his head and slid his hands beneath her shirt. Without another word, he unsnapped her bra. Then he moved fast. Her shirt was off, followed by her bra.
Then she was on her back, staring up at the man whose kindness and love was not only evident in his touch, but in every action, every decision, and every mistake he’d ever made.
“Briar. I love you, too. And I want to be with you. I would marry you first if you wished. Whatever you want from me—let me give it to you.”
Her throat tightened. “Just you, Valen. Just every part of you, for forever.”
“You have me.” He pressed his lips to hers, finally. His kiss was the embodiment of who Valen was—sweet, careful, honest. He didn’t hold himself back, but he still managed to make her feel adored.
Briar parted her legs to wrap around his hips and cradle him even closer. He kept his weight off her, but she wanted it. With a squeeze, she encouraged him closer, and he acquiesced. His hips flexed between hers, but they weren’t close enough. The denim of their jeans kept them from truly feeling each other.
“Jeans,” she whispered, and Valen moved to make them disappear. He was quick with his, so fast his fingers smudged, but he lingered over hers. “Valen.” She giggled, as he unzipped her. Each tine released its mate with a snick. He fisted the material at her hips, but before he pulled her pants off, he buried his face against her pelvis.
Briar gasped. He’d pulled her underwear tight, but it had inched lower so his nose pressed into her skin. The sensation was incredible, and when his lips touched her a second later, she nearly rocketed off the bed. “Valen!”
He peeked up at her before he went back to removing her clothes, over her hips, past her thighs, her knees, until she was completely bare to him.
Her legs trembled with anticipation. Should she open them, encourage him back to her, or… “Feel, Briar.” His words sent his breath fluttering across her legs, and she squirmed. “No worrying.”
She nodded, her hair making a soft rustle against the pillow, and then he was back. He kissed her again, not deeply, not at first. At first he explored her lips, sucking her lower lip into his mouth, tracing the curve of each one with his tongue. He pecked at them, sipped at them. Briar mimicked him, action for action. Maybe he was showing her what he liked, so she did the same, but when she nibbled on his lower lip with a quick, teasing bite, he moaned and she slipped her tongue into his mouth.
Briar wanted to taste him. She wanted to absorb him. Her heart swelled with love for him until it was almost painful. She must have sucked in a breath, because he immediately drew back and studied her. “Are you okay?”
“Yes.” She nodded and reached for him, pulling his head back to hers so she could taste him again. Their tongues tangled, licking, sucking. His breath was her breath, and it may have all been in her head, but when she touched his chest, tracing the muscles, his heart seemed to be beating as fast as hers.
Warm fingers slipped between her legs, teasing at her folds, and Briar’s legs fell open like a book. Valen drew away, gaze going between their bodies, watching as he slowly penetrated her with one finger.
She didn’t think anything had felt so good as his strong hand covering her mound, one long finger dipping inside. Briar wanted him to feel as good as he made her feel, so she reached for him. She’d closed her fist around him when he added a second finger, scissoring them inside her, stretching and arousing her even further.
“Valen.” She tried to stay quiet, to keep anything she said to a whisper, but she couldn’t be sure she had. Everything inside her was screaming to beg him to get inside her, to continue filling her up until they were as close as two people could be. “Valen. Please.”
He withdrew his fingers, and then, eyes on hers, he inserted them into his mouth. Briar’s cheeks flushed; it was such an earthy, sensual move. Pink lips pursed around his fingers, and his cheeks hollowed out as he drew the flavor of her off his skin. “You taste like home,” he said. “The sea. Winter. Snow.”
“I taste like snow?” she whispered, and he nodded. She continued to move her hands over him, exploring his length and girth. His skin was so soft, and she opened her hand to feel it against her palm. Gently, she closed her hand around him again, pointing him toward her core.
Valen shifted, lifting himself onto his forearms before trailing his fingers over her temples and cheekbones. “Are you certain?”
Briar nodded, hips lifting, searching for him. “Yes. Completely. Valen, I love you.” He closed his eyes and kissed her. His tongue stroked hers while he circled her entrance. Briar opened herself wider and touched his lower back, pressing to encourage him inside her. “It’s okay. Please.”
With a smooth thrust, he pushed inside her, just a little and withdrew. The next time he thrust, he pushed a little deeper, giving her time to adjust. But he was moving too slow, and the next time he pumped, Briar met him. Flexing her hips toward him, she encouraged him to slide inside her even deeper, so deep he touched something inside her that had her crying out.
Valen caught her cry with his mouth, swallowing the sound before he withdrew. He drove inside her again and again. Briar’s body undulated beneath him, like he was the moon and she was the sea, drawn higher and higher like the tide.
He was everywhere. His taste was on her lips, his breath in her lungs. She was going to fly away, spin and crash if he didn’t anchor her. As if he felt it, Valen linked his fingers with hers, pinning her hands above her head while he changed his angle. He went deeper now, dragging across a place inside her that sent frissons of sensation from her core to her spine.
It was all too much, too heady and electric for her to contain.
“Briar,” Valen whispered. “Briar, I can’t hold back.”
Briar kissed him, trailing her tongue along his teeth and felt the sharp ends of his fangs erupt from his gums. With a hiss, he jerked back, out of her body and away from her, slamming into the wall.
The absence of him shocked her back from the brink of wherever it was she’d hovered. She sat up fast, heedless of her nudity, and started toward him, but he held out a hand.
“Stay there,” he said, voice low and distorted. He kept his face angled away from her, toward the shadows.
“Don’t hide,” she whispered. “Please.”
“I can’t.” His voice was tortured. “Briar. I want to taste you so badly. I want to sink my teeth into your body while I fuck you so hard—”
Briar couldn’t remember if she’d ever heard Valen swear before, but rather than disgust her, his words made her squeeze her thighs together.
“What would happen if you did?” she asked. Would it hurt if he bit her? “Would you make me a vampire?”
His head jerked up at that. “No,” he said, decisively. “No. I would never do that without asking. You’d have to drink my blood—”
Briar knee-walked to the edge of the bed before settling back to her heels. “Come here.” Valen shook his head, but Briar held out her arms. “Please. I need you.”
He paced, a quick flash of color from one side of the room to the other before he appeared in front of her, tall, pale, and erect. Briar reached for him again, stroking his erection. He’d softened somewhat, probably because he’d frightened himself so badly, but he needed to know; she wasn’t afraid.
She released him and lay back, waiting. He stood there, staring down at her for so long she worried he’d run away again. When her hands twitched to cover herself, she fisted them in the sheets.
“I want to bite you, Briar,” he whispered and placed his knee on the bed.
“I know you do,” she answered and held out a hand.
He took it, kissing her wrist, and lowered himself to one arm. “I want to taste your blood. To drink you.” He settled on top of her, and she squeezed his hips with her knees.
“Valen.” His arm was close enough to her head she could turn her face and kiss him. She kissed his biceps, his elbow, his wrist. “Valen. You can bite me. Just don’t change me. Not yet. Not until we all talk about it again.” From her position, she could make out his throat as he swallowed. She kept her cheek against the pillow, neck exposed and kissed his arm again. “It’s okay. You have my permission.”
Valen groaned and buried his face in her neck. He breathed her in and licked the cord in her neck. She thought he’d do it right away, but he didn’t. Instead, he trailed his hand to her core again and circled her clit. The sensation was different than the one that had nearly swallowed her whole earlier. It was more of a tingle, a concentrated spark that soon had her arching and thrusting.
He gripped her hands, fingers wet, and kissed the back of her hand before sliding into her. They found their rhythm again quickly, but this time it was different. Hurried and frantic. Briar’s body was out of her control, she moved as she’d never moved before, chasing something that hovered at the edge of her being.
Valen went back to her neck, nuzzling and kissing. His smooth teeth dragged against her skin, and her body tensed, waiting for the hot bite she was sure to come.
But it didn’t.
Valen released her hand and hooked his arm under her hips before lifting her up to settle her on his knees. It gave her a measure of control she hadn’t had before. From this position, she could lift and lower herself, change her angle and force him to rub in that spot that had nearly undone her.
His breath panted against the hollow of her throat, and she threaded her hands into his hair, holding him there while she rode him wildly.
She felt his lips, above her breast, sucking the skin into his mouth hard. Briar lost her rhythm as the elusive feeling she’d been chasing suddenly washed over her like a tidal wave. Breathless, she let it tug her under, rolling her until she was witless and disoriented. All she could hear was the roar of blood in her ears, and then, the sharp pinch of pain above her breast as Valen bit her.
The wave pulled her under again, confounding pleasure and pain, but she let it toss her. There was something beautiful in surrendering to something bigger and more powerful than she was. Valen’s mouth pulled against her skin as he sipped at her, and she cradled his head to her as she slowly stopped rocking against him.
As the last shockwaves rolled through her, Valen licked at her wound and drew back. His arms were tight around her back as he rested his cheek on her chest.
But he wouldn’t look at her.
“I love you,” she whispered, hoping he would hear everything he needed to in the words.
He shuddered and held her even tighter. “I didn’t know it was possible to love someone this much,” he finally said. “How?” He drew back to glance up at her. “How did you wrap yourself so tightly around my heart?”
Pushing his golden hair away from his face, she lowered her mouth to his and kissed him deeply. She could taste herself on his tongue, copper and musk. “I was meant to be yours, Valen. It’s like I was made for you.”
He sighed, and she shivered as his cool breath blew across her overheated skin. The world spun as he tugged the sheets down the bed and slid beneath them before tucking her under his arm. They lay there, sated and happy. Briar traced Vali, the wolf god, and Valen twirled her hair.
“I think you must have been,” he whispered. It took a moment for Briar’s mind to catch up with his. “Made for me. Your taste, Briar. There’s nothing like it. I can feel it, inside me, pure and bright, like a clear midnight sky in the heart of winter.”
“I’m glad,” she whispered. “What if I was gamey?”
Beneath her cheek, she felt Valen startle. “Gamey?”
“You know.” Briar closed her fist on her chest and propped her chin on it. “Like squirrel.”
Valen laughed, and she giggled. “You most certainly did not taste like a squirrel, and I have eaten many squirrels.”
Briar giggled and lowered her face to his chest again. Her fingers tapped a rhythm on his pec, and she hummed. “Wait.”
Valen stilled, lifting his head to glance down at her. “What?”
Briar drew her eyebrows together as she tried to make out what she thought she was hearing. “Is that Led Zeppelin?”
Valen canted his head, staring sightlessly at the wall. “Yes.” He nodded, slowly. “Yes. I believe it is. Kashmir.”
Briar’s face flushed. She could imagine the purpose the other guys had playing 70’s classic rock. “I guess I wasn’t as quiet as I meant to be.”
“If you had been quiet, little one,” Valen whispered, “I would have been doing something wrong.”
“Oh my gosh!” She buried her face in his chest, covering her hot cheeks with her hand. “How loud was I?”
“Let’s just say…” He pondered his next words as if they were the most important ones he’d ever utter. “I will walk out of this room with my head held high.”
And the truth was, he should. So even though she was a little mortified about how loud she’d been, she snuggled deeper into Valen’s embrace and let the worry go.
Briar sighed, a wave of sleepiness overtaking her. “Do you think you could get them to play Stairway?” she asked.
“I’m sure I could,” he whispered and kissed the top of her head.
She was just drifting off when Valen slammed his fist on the wall behind them and yelled, “Sylvain! Stairway!”
“Fuck you!” Sylvain’s voice filtered through the door and walls.
“No thanks,” Valen murmured, but a second later, the strains of Jimmy Page’s solo came to her.
“Thank you,” she said at a normal volume.
“You’re welcome,” Sylvain yelled, but not angrily, just loud enough she could hear him. With Stairway to Heaven aptly playing the backup to Valen’s heartbeat, Briar fell asleep.
✽✽✽
“Wake up, Briar.” Valen shook her shoulder.
Briar gasped awake. “What?”
“Hudson reminded me to wake you up an hour and a half after you fell asleep,” he whispered before turning them so he could spoon her. Briar yawned and tucked her hands beneath her cheek. She remembered reading a book where the vampires were ice cold. That was not Valen. His body was warm against hers, but then again, he had a heartbeat. Briar turned in his arms so she could curl into his chest.
“Better?” he rumbled.
“Mmhmm.” Her eyelids were heavy as she snuggled closer. His heart thumped against her ear. It was slow, and she began to count the time between each beat. When she reached sixty seconds, she started again. His breathing was also reduced. One breath for every twenty she had, which was roughly a breath a minute.
“What other things do vampires do?” she asked sleepily.
“Hmm?” Valen asked. “I’m not sure I understand.”
“You can’t walk in the sun. What else?” An idea was beginning to form at the edges of her mind. When she’d considered brainwaves and genes, she began to wonder— if she searched, would she find vampiric mutations on other chromosomes? For example, vampires couldn’t walk in the sun. On the same gene which made the thing impossible for her, their chromosomes resembled hers.
“You don’t sleep,” she said as a start.
“We did,” he said. “Before Hudson discovered a way for us to walk in the sun. As the sun rose, we grew more lethargic, until it was nearly impossible to stay awake. If we forced it, we could fall asleep where we stood.”
Narcolepsy. There was a genetic marker for that.
“What else?” she asked and then began to list them, excitement making her squirm. “You need only blood to sustain yourself. You heal quickly. You’re immortal.”
And there was the kicker. As far as Briar was aware, there was no gene for immortality. But there are genes for longevity.
“I need to get up,” she said and pushed back the covers.
“What?” Valen asked. “Why?” Like a flash, he pulled on his clothes.
“I thought of something,” she said, clicking on the light next to the bed. Valen winced, and she made another mental note. Visual acuity. She had to talk to Hudson. Maybe he’d already searched the genome for these things, maybe he hadn’t. Briar tripped putting one foot into her pants, but Valen caught her before she face-planted onto the floor.
“What did you think of?” he asked. “Asher?”
Briar paused as she dragged a t-shirt out of her bureau. She held it in front of her chest. “No.” She should have been thinking about Asher. Should have been contemplating ways to destroy him instead of going gaga over genetics.
“Hey.” Valen took the shirt from her hands and, as if she was a child, slid it over her head and waited for her to thread her arms through the sleeves. “It’s okay.”
“It’s not about Asher, but I should—”
Gently, he folded his hand over her mouth before she could speak again. “No. It’s not on you to solve Asher. We, you and me, and Sylvain and Marcus and Hudson, we will solve the Asher problem. Not you. Not alone. But tell me, what was it that made you jump out of my arms in the middle of the night?”
He smiled at her, and her heart lightened. Briar bit her lip but couldn’t help smiling. “Science.”
“Then let’s tell Hudson and Marcus about your ideas,” he said, reaching past her to open the door. “I’m sure they will be as excited as you are. But I have to say, your enthusiasm is contagious. I want to know what has you popping like water in a kettle.”
Briar grabbed his hand, linking their fingers. “Okay. Come on.”
Valen let her drag him down the hall, thumb tracing circles on the outside of her hand. It made her stumble as it brought to mind the way he’d traced his hands along other parts of her body. At the bottom of the stairs, she hesitated, listening closely to hear where the other guys were, and glanced back at him.
He stared at her, blue eyes nearly black in the dimly lit stairwell. “You’re miraculous,” he said when he held her fast. “I—”
“They emerge!” Marcus called from somewhere on the first floor. She heard his footsteps, and then his dark face peered around the corner. “Come down for nourishment?”
Immediately, Briar slapped a hand over her chest, as if he could see the mark Valen had left. Marcus narrowed his eyes. He drew in a breath, and his eyes widened. “Valen?” His voice shook.
“I’m fine,” Briar answered quickly. “Marcus. Nothing happened I didn’t want to happen.”
From the way Marcus leveled a glare at Valen, her explanation wasn’t cutting it. He took another breath and refocused on her. “All right.”
Valen squeezed her hand, assuring her it would be fine, but Briar didn’t feel reassured. Marcus’s reaction indicated she’d crossed a line allowing Valen to taste her blood. Before she could say another word, he’d spun on his heel toward the living room, under the stairs and toward his study. He opened the door and stood aside for her to pass. Inside, the soft strains of classical music played low while Sylvain and Hudson sat in leather chairs.
“What are you doing up?” Hudson asked. He crossed the room to her side and dragged her into his arms. Burying his face against her neck, he breathed her in and froze, but unlike Marcus, he didn’t say anything. He merely set her away from him, and pinned Valen with a glare that promised death.
“Why do I smell her blood, Valen?” Sylvain asked.
“I asked him to bite me.” Briar met Sylvain’s stink-eye and gave him one of her own. “I’ll let you bite me later.”
The air inside the study seemed to thicken, but Sylvain shocked her and began to chuckle. “Okay,” he replied, edging around Hudson to grip her elbow and pull her against him. “I’ll hold you to it.” His voice was hot with promise, lifting the fine hairs at the back of her neck.
He kissed along the side of her jaw before taking a step back. “So why are you here?” Sylvain’s question seemed to put a period at the end of the Briar let Valen suck her blood sentence.
“I wanted to know, are there places on other genes that identify you as vampires?” she asked.
Hudson moved toward his desk and perched on the edge. “Other than Chromosome 18?”
“Yes,” she answered hurriedly. “What about a gene for longevity, and narcolepsy, and something about your blood. I don’t know what exactly the blood thing will be, but Marcus will know.”
“I’d be glad to offer my lab at Harvard,” Marcus interrupted.
“Not the time, Marcus,” Hudson ground out, but his brother merely crossed his arms and rested his back against the wall.
“Just saying.”
“Healing,” Briar went on, even though now she was smiling at Marcus’s joke. She was seeing more of the person she was used to, though shadows still passed in front of his eyes more often than she’d like. “Visual acuity, hearing, strength, metabolism. I want to look at genes for all those things.”
“The traits that make us vampires.” Hudson nodded. Then added, “What do you believe could make such a drastic change to a person’s genome?” He went into professor mode.
She pondered his question. “Genes reduplicate themselves all the time. And there can always be errors when they do. Substitutions, deletions. Environmentally, there are some drugs that can change genes. But those things didn’t happen to you,” Briar said. “Radiation. Inheritance. All of those things can change DNA.” She hesitated. “Viruses.”
“A bloodborne virus,” Marcus added. “Like HIV can cut into the genome, insert itself into the DNA. Then it makes a gene that should stay inactive, ‘turn on.’ ”
“It is possible that vampirism is like HIV—a bloodborne virus that cuts into your DNA? I don’t know the how or why, but if one virus can do that, why not another?” Briar asked.
“I knew my expertise would be important,” Marcus crowed. He pointed a finger at Hudson. “She’s coming to my lab now, Hud. Oh, DNA! Sunlight. It all comes back to blood, my brother.”
“That it does.” Hudson’s smile was self-deprecating. “But I still have the equipment. So unless you have something I don’t know about, we’re going to BC to start separating our DNA.”
“Can we go now?” Briar asked. “What have you already investigated? I know this must not be the first time you’ve considered vampirism a virus.”
“Vampirism?” Sylvain interrupted. “We’re vampires.”
“Vampirism,” Hudson explained, “would be the disease that makes us vampires.”
“If it’s a disease, then you could cure it.” Sylvain’s arms dropped to his sides, and he rubbed a hand over his hair.
“Or it’s like HIV, and we can merely treat the symptoms of the disease,” Marcus said. “Besides, Sylvain. What would happen if we cured it? Would we disintegrate? Age like, what’s the guy’s name?”
“Bjergtagen?” Valen asked. “Trolls?”
“Trolls?” Sylvain drew his brows together and shook his head. “Trolls? What the—fucking trolls, Valen?
“The bjergtagen steal people from the villages and keep them for hundreds of years, so when they return, they are old men,” Valen went on patiently.
Briar giggled, finally understanding who Marcus meant. “Rip Van Winkle, Marcus.”
“Yes.” He left his place on the wall to stride toward her. He kissed her temple and tucked her into his side. “Yes, you beautiful genius. Rip Van Winkle.”
Hudson tugged a bag he must have packed while the rest of them bantered onto his shoulder. “Magic and science. Belief and logic. Let’s go investigate your hypothesis.”
Briar nodded eagerly. At the front door, she shoved her feet into a pair of boots and shrugged on her coat. The guys waited, and she realized they were all going together. “Good. I can show you what I’ve been talking about,” she said to Valen and Sylvain. “And on the way there, you can tell me stories.”
“Stories about what?” Sylvain asked as they hurried out the door and into the underground parking. Briar caught the way his eyes constantly studied their surroundings, and that after speaking, he took a deep breath, as if tasting the air.
“About where you came from and what you saw,” Briar said quietly.
Sylvain paused at the car, his dark eyes serious. “Those may be stories for another day,” he said. “But for tonight, maybe I could just hold your hand.” He reached past her to open the car door, and she slid inside.
When he followed, she took his hand to hold between both of hers. “I can do that.”