Building, faster, until he was slamming into her, his skin slapping hers, using his whole body to take her. He couldn't believe he'd bent her over the bed like this. Couldn't believe each time with her was more pleasurable than the last.
The headboard was banging against the wall, and still she demanded more.
With a brutal yell, he gave it to her. He held nothing back, f**king her with all his strength as her cries grew louder.
When he reared back, he could see her face turned to the side, her lips parted, her eyes silver. Her arms were stretched out, tensed in front of her. "Bastian," she cried softly, stunned as well. Her reactions and the lightning outside were his permission.
"I'm going to be inside you all night. Drink you all night."
"Yes!" she cried. "Anything, Bastian... "
Anything. No constraints. Utter freedom. He gave himself up to it. Years of doubt evaporated. The past grew dim against a future with her. "You need this?" he grated.
"Yes!"
"You need me?"
"Oh, yes, yes!" She stretched her arm back, offering her wrist to drink from as he continued to buck against her. When he pierced her flesh again, she instantly came with an anguished cry. He could no longer resist the pressure welling inside him, so he took as he gave, drawing her blood from her body as he emptied his seed hotly into it.
Once he could come no more, he stretched over her, still thrusting slowly.
His breaths ragged, he rasped at her ear, "You're mine now, Katja. And I will never let you go."
40
T he first Lore battle Sebastian would ever experience would be a clash that had occurred a millennium in the past, and was one of the most notoriously brutal ever seen.
Tonight he and Kaderin would retrieve her sisters, fully expecting to land in the middle of that war.
They'd strategized about where to use the key, deciding on the flat, mainly because the coven would try to kill him at Val Hall. She wasn't too keen on being in the city, though, in case the two didn't "travel forward well."
Kaderin was nervous about seeing them after so long and had endeavored for an hour to find clothing that didn't look too modern. As he'd waited, he'd sat back against the headboard, watching her dress, thinking over the last two days while his arm had healed.
"We're going to need more time," she'd told him after the first night.
He'd grinned. "I trust my nurse."
During that time, when he hadn't been inside her, they'd talked about everything. She'd told him what her sisters had been like, and he'd revealed what had happened with his family. He felt he could tell her anything, and that she had completely opened up to him as well.
He was learning all about her - and learning how satisfying it was simply to live with her. At his leisure, he got to kiss her ears just to make them twitch. He could study her delicate hands for what seemed like hours, enclosing them completely with his own and running the pads of his fingers over them. He got to watch her sleep - that is, when he wasn't exhausted beside her. His Bride was as insatiable as he was.
She was abandoned, free with her body, and gave him anything he wanted, anything he'd ever fantasized about. When he'd admitted how little experience he had, she'd seemed determined to give him everything he'd missed.
In the end, their time together confirmed what he'd known from the beginning. He never wanted to part from her.
The only obstacle to his happiness was the knowledge that the key did, in fact, work.
Of course, he was relieved that Kaderin would have her sisters, but he couldn't help thinking about what it would have been like to go back for his own family and see them once more. Maybe if he had done things differently, he and Kaderin both could have had the opportunity...
"Are you ready?" she asked, finally dressed in jeans and a longer jacket, with her sword strapped over her shoulder.
He nodded and rose to collect his own sword. When he crossed to her, she held up the key with raised eyebrows. "You sure you want to go? It's going to be intense."
He put his shoulders back. "I was on a battlefront for a decade, remember?" He tucked her braid behind her ear.
She didn't look convinced. "Don't trace in front of my sisters, please. And try not to open your mouth much." When he raised his brows, she said, "Your fangs. I don't want them to see your fangs. They really will try to kill you."
"You're beautiful when you're nervous." He gave her a brief, deep kiss.
In a breathy voice, she said, "You've got your sword ready?"
His lips curled into a grin.
"Just... just don't get killed, Bastian." She swallowed. "Okay?"
He took her free hand, pressed his lips to her palm. "I'll endeavor not to."
As he'd done before, she offered up the key. A portal opened. They met eyes, then stepped through, hand in hand.
Into hell.
As though in a quaking black dome, thunder like cannon fire shook the earth. He'd seen it in her dreams, but nothing could prepare him for the reality. Lightning slashed across the sky. All around them, Valkyrie shrieked and pried heads from vampires. Vampires ripped the throats out of any they could overpower.
He'd never seen a Horde vampire in person. They were worse than her dreams. Red-eyed, insane.
"I see them!" she yelled, starting for them in the valley below.
But he was aching to save a Valkyrie from a vampire twice her size who had beaten her down. Kaderin must have seen the look in his eyes. "I know, Bastian! But it won't change a single thing - except that you can die. Or we won't make it back to the door with them both."
He nodded. "I'm right behind you." He still traced and beheaded the vampire from behind. Kaderin frowned at him, but he knew she wasn't displeased. Then they hurried to the flatlands where her two sisters clashed with vampires, battling with long swords, blood splashing up their legs.
When Kaderin stopped and stared at them, swallowing, Sebastian recognized that they were similar versions of her, though one was taller and one shorter. And their coloring was different. One had reddish blond hair, while the other's was darker brown.
Kaderin's eyes were glinting, her breaths shallow. He curled his fingers under her chin, coaxing her to face him. "Let's get them back."
Kaderin nodded, caressing the side of her cheek against his fingers. Then she turned to them and called in their mother's tongue, "Rika, Dasha, come!"
They both looked to her, then back at the fray. "We cannot leave!"
"Come now!"
Rika's eyes widened at her command, and Dasha's narrowed, but they did hurry to her. Kaderin had to remember that she had been sweet to them, gentle with them -