Chapter Thirteen
Rykaur had never known anything as delectable as Mary’s blood. It tasted of innocence and purity. Two things that Mary was not.
Ah, but he couldn’t seem to pull away. The feel of her writhing in his arms, her legs wrapped tightly around his back, and her intoxicating blood coursing through his veins was enough to unman him.
It took a moment for him to realize she’d gone still and that her legs now hung limply at his sides.
Slipping his fangs gently from her neck, Rykaur dropped his head to her shoulder. He couldn’t seem to let her go. “Are you hurt?”
She didn’t answer, only shook her head.
Her sweet, wet heat still rested against his throbbing erection. He wanted to rip her clothes off and bury his aching shaft deep inside her body.
Mary’s anxiety suddenly washed over him, overwhelming him in its intensity. She fears me?
“I don’t fear you.”
Rykaur suddenly realized she’d read his thought and answered him without speaking.
He carefully lowered her to the floor and backed up enough to peer into her stunned gray eyes.
“Wh-what was that?” she nervously blurted.
Rykaur answered with a thought. “We are communicating with our minds.”
Mary’s eyes grew huge and her face paled. “It’s not possible,” she spoke aloud.
“Yet you know it to be true.”
Slipping out from the enclosure he had her in, Mary circled around to the foot of the bed. “But how?”
Rykaur turned to face her. “Your blood now courses through my veins.”
He intentionally left out the part where she was now bonded to him. And frankly, he didn’t understand why he’d taken her blood either. He told himself that he’d done it for his people, to get the answers from Mary that he sought. But that wasn’t entirely the truth and he knew it.
“I can hear your thoughts because you drank my blood?”
Rykaur took an unsteady breath. “I did not drink from you. Your blood flows through my veins, Mary. Not my stomach. But to answer your question? Yes. Your blood has opened a door between us that can never be closed.”
Her face grew even more pale. “Never?”
Shaking his head, Rykaur trailed to the end of the bed and rested his hands on her shoulders. “It is not as…” His voice trailed off as more of her emotions swirled inside him, fairly choking him. “Mary?”
She tried to pull back, panic replacing her fear. But Rykaur only held on tighter.
His hands slid up to cup the sides of her face.
Images of a child began flashing through his mind in distorted colors, only to clear up the longer he held Mary’s face.
The child was her, he realized, watching as she sat alone in a room, hungry and afraid.
The images shifted to a man holding a belt, his voice raised in anger.
Rykaur stood frozen, unable to breathe as he watched the man take the belt to a young Mary’s back.
The scene changed again, this time to darkness. He could hear the thundering of a heart, but no images could be seen.
Light abruptly spilled in to reveal a little girl, hovering in a small space, blinking up in terror as a dark-haired woman stood above her.
On and on, the nightmare went until Rykaur thought his heart would explode from the pain.
The scene changed once more to a teenage Mary, hovering over four small, terrified children. She’s protecting them, Rykaur realized, lowering his head until his forehead lay against hers.
A moan slipped past his lips as Jefferies’s face flashed before him, manic and obsessed.
The fear that Jefferies evoked in Mary was tangible. Rykaur felt more than heard the threats, the promise of horrific things to come.
Mary’s beautiful face floated before him as she lay in a bloodied heap on the floor of a house Rykaur had seen before. Jefferies stood over her, sneering, laughing in the face of her pain.
Rykaur saw the tent he’d lived in at the Marines’ camp. Saw Mary taking his small bag of jewels. She knelt over him and undressed him. She hadn’t given herself to him as she’d led him to believe.
“No…” he groaned, Mary’s torment seeping inside him as Maulkryth lashed her tender flesh again and again.
Jerking his hands free of her face, Rykaur staggered back, the wetness of his tears lining his lashes. “Mary…”
“Now you know,” she whispered, tears sparkling in her own eyes. “You can’t tell the others, Rykaur. They will rush in there and get the children killed.”
Rykaur spoke around the lump in his throat. “Jefferies has the children that I saw you protecting?”
“Yes.”
“Where are their parents?”
Mary snatched up her shoes from the floor and slipped them on. “I don’t even know who their parents were. But our foster parents died from Incola. Thank God.”
Rykaur couldn’t agree more, if they were the ones he’d witnessed through their connection, abusing Mary. “You are the children’s caretaker?”
“I’m all they have. They’re my family, now.”
Running a hand down his face, Rykaur snagged the rubber band from his wrist and pulled his hair back into a ponytail. “Very well. If we are to safely retrieve the children from Jefferies’s possession, we will need help.”
He held up a hand when Mary would have interrupted. “We are warriors, Mary. The Bracadytes have been trained to handle these types of situations. We will not allow the children to be harmed.”
“This is not an ordinary situation, Rykaur. Jefferies is the most cunning and dangerous man I’ve ever witnessed. He has spies everywhere. Probably even down here.”
Rykaur narrowed his eyes. “We are more than familiar with Jefferies. This will not be the first time we have gone to battle with him.”
“Yet he’s still alive,” Mary pointed out. “I’m beginning to wonder if he even can be killed.”
A protective feeling overtook Rykaur. He understood that a bond had been formed between them from her blood, but she’d been taking up far too much of his thoughts even before he’d sunk his fangs into her.
“I will not allow Jefferies to harm you or the children ever again, Mary. You have my word.”