"Where are you right now? We'll come get you, guard you in the coven."
"Nïx could be mistaken," Kaderin offered, surprised to find her eyes had watered in a rush. "Or she read the premonition wrong." But she said that only for Regin's benefit. Kaderin knew Nïx was never wrong. And she'd never seen the death of a Valkyrie before.
"Nïx is presently rolling on the floor. Something is happening."
"Oh." How brave Furie had been to go meet her destiny, how stoic.
Kaderin could aspire to that.
"Damn it, Kad, tell us where you are!"
"Regin, only cowards don't meet their fate. If I'm to die in this competition, then that's the hand I was dealt. I'll play it out."
"You're talking crazy. You shouldn't be alone right now, not with this news."
She tilted her head, staring out the window. "I... won't be." Because dusk was in a couple of hours. "I'll be fine, Regin. I'll check in later," she added, then hung up, turning off the ringer.
Kaderin knew that in the days leading up to the full moon, her coven would fight to find her, calling incessantly, trying to track her movements through her phone and credit-card use, as well as through the Accord's network. But Kaderin knew all the tricks, and if she didn't want to be found, then she wouldn't be.
She shook. The sun continued to set, and she had a vampire coming over.
Chapter 16
24
"Did you dress for me?" Sebastian visibly swallowed when Kaderin stood at his arrival.
He'd been doing that tentative-step thing as he entered, but after his gaze raked her from head to toe, he strode forward as though pushed. There was no mistaking his appreciation of her tight black sweater, short skirt, and strappy heels.
She was glad when his avid gaze strayed again to her br**sts, or he might have seen her dropped jaw.
The vampire was undeniably hot.
He was so tall that the highest point of the plane's seven-foot ceiling barely cleared his height. He wore dark jeans that highlighted his narrow h*ps and a dark shirt that molded to his muscles. Everything was tasteful and seriously expensive. His face was completely healed, and his longish black hair was damp at his collar from a recent shower.
Sexy. He has too much of a biological advantage. What female could be expected to turn him away when he wanted to be inside her?
When he met her eyes again, he had such a ravenous look that she grew flustered, feeling a blush creeping over her cheekbones. Blushing. Now the vampire has me blushing. "This is how I usually dress." After nervously trying on thirty combinations of clothing. "That is, when I'm not fighting, running, or climbing."
He reached forward to brush his hand at her nape. "Or diving from cliffs to tackle unwitting sirens," he said with a half grin.
So, he was going to be charming tonight? Little did he know that she was a-sure-thing. He didn't have to unleash an arsenal of devastating good looks and that quiet, unstudied charm.
She was his tonight.
Before he'd arrived, she had been miserable. She'd felt so alone and so, well, doomed. After much soul searching, Kaderin had made a decision.
In the young, immortal words of Regin: Fuck it. If she was going to die, Kaderin was going to have one night of passion before her dirt nap. And she couldn't think of anyone she wanted to be with more than him - for this one night.
She'd told him this was how she usually dressed, and that was true, but she didn't want him to suspect that she'd tried on everything in her bag twice. She'd stared in the mirror, considering her appearance for the first time in ages, wondering what he would find attractive about her - or was it merely the blooding that made him fancy her? She'd been so anxious about being intimate with a man after so long, she could scarcely close the tiny fastenings on her heels.
Sad but true, she was grateful to him for his company. If he weren't here, she would have done nothing but mull her death, but now he was with her, and there was something in his eyes, something a bit alarming that thrilled her.
She bit her bottom lip. Call her Betty Fucking Crocker, because the cake was so going to be worth the bake.
"You look beautiful." Such simple words, but the way he said them, his eyes so compelling, gave her shivers.
She glanced down at herself and back up. "Not too small?"
That gorgeous grin again. Gazing at his chiseled, masculine face changing expressions was a decadent pleasure. "I love how you are made. Even as I'd worried about hurting you when I touched you." Listening to the low timbre of his voice was just as blissful. She knew she shouldn't enjoy these things so much, and yet she couldn't help it.
"Hurting me?" She gave a light laugh. "Losing limbs hurts. Boiling oil hurts. Whatever you can dish out, I can take - if I wish to."
He closed in, all hot, massive male, towering over her. Gods, he smelled good.
"And do you wish to, Kaderin?"
Yes! She wanted him to kiss her, to lick her body. Him, a vampire. When she nodded breathlessly, his hand cupped her face, drawing her in so he could take her lips.
His kiss was gentle at first - though she could tell he struggled to make it so. Then he groaned, and it turned desperate, that gallows kiss. Tonight she shared the sentiment completely.
The lights blinked twice, and she finally forced herself to break away. "We're about to take off. It's, uh, customary to sit."
He dropped into the closest seat, seizing her waist, then dragged her across his lap. When he settled her ass over his rampant erection, he hissed in a breath, and she gasped, reminded of his size.
In an awkward attempt at conversation, she asked, "H-have you ever been on a plane before?"
"No." He brushed her hair from her neck to press a sizzling kiss to the bared skin. "And I doubt that I'll remember much of flying this time."
When he nuzzled her neck, she stiffened and pulled away. "No biting?"
"No, I promise," he said. "I am sorry it happened that night."
As her uncontrollable emotions continued to do, unbidden words bubbled up from nowhere. "Sebastian, no matter what happens in the future, I want you to know that I'm... " She glanced down and murmured, "I'm glad you're here now."
But he curled his finger under her chin and caught her eyes. He looked proud of her. "Thank you for telling me this."
"I just felt I should."
"These feelings are confusing, are they not? Mine are, too. But we'll muddle our way through."
She wouldn't be around long enough to...
With that thought in her mind, she turned to straddle him. Her hands trembled as she cradled his face. She leaned in to press her lips against the corner of his mouth, his cheek, and lower to his neck, then returned to brush her lips fully against his. As before, the mere contact of his lips with hers made her breathy and abandoned. She tilted her head to deepen the kiss, setting in to him, licking his lips, his tongue.