Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
VIVI
I feel full.
Replete.
Sexually satisfied.
But there’s something between my legs that’s making me want more. It’s… it’s strange. I’m not even sure where I am or when I fell asleep. But I know I’ve been dreaming of sex.
Of him.
God, I always dream of Count Negru. I’m obsessed with a figment. A vampire. A—
“I’m a Strigoi, Viviana,” a deep voice murmurs, the rumble of it next to my ear. “Stop thinking of me as a vampire. We’re different creatures. And I already told you that the title of Count is beneath me, too. It’s King, pet. Or Ciprian… with you.”
I forget how to breathe as reality comes crashing down around me.
Memories of… I’m not sure if they’re from yesterday or earlier today… assault my mind.
Sucking Ciprian’s cock. Being on my knees for what felt like hours. Talking about mating bonds. Trials. Breeding.
My insides clench, and a moan escapes me at how good it feels. There’s something inside me. His tail, I realize, my hand clenching the root.
I dreamt about this—about putting him inside me and riding his triangle tip.
It was real.
Oh God… I pleasured myself with his appendage… while I slept.
Opening my eyes, I find myself curled into his chest, his soft dress shirt pillowing my face.
My interior muscles pulse again, drawing another sound from my lips. It’s needy. It’s intense. It’s… it’s shameless.
He used my mouth. Why can’t I use his tail? It only seems fair.
“You can use whatever part of me you desire, my queen,” he tells me softly. “That includes my tongue… if you prefer it.”
Every part of me spasms in response, my body instantly craving his.
He’s bewitched me somehow. Seduced me. Possessed me.
But I don’t have enough activated brain cells to care.
I pull back and reach for him, needing to kiss him. He’s there before I even finish the thought, his tongue spearing into my mouth with a dominant stroke I feel all the way to my toes.
Then his tail begins to move, and my grasp on reality fades. All I can do is feel. Experience. Survive.
His palm finds my breast, his thumb teasing my nipple and sending sparks through my system. I’m on fire. Burning away to ash. Needing him to help me fly.
“Please,” I whisper against his mouth, not sure what I desire, but knowing I need more. “Please, Ciprian.”
He kisses a path down my neck as his fingers unfasten the buttons of my shirt. I almost forgot I was wearing it since my lower half is so openly exposed. But now I feel the fabric bunched around my hips. However, it lessens as he pulls the material apart to expose my breasts.
I shiver, then gasp as he seals his mouth around one stiff peak. Two sharp points press against my sensitive skin but don’t break the surface. It’s a tease. A request. An insane need.
All I can do is say “Yes.” I want to feel him bite me. Mark me. Drink from me…
He takes hold of my nipple and sinks his fangs into my flesh.
I scream, the pinch sending me spiraling into a whirlwind of dark oblivion, one that refuses to end as he feasts.
I can’t tell if I’m awake or dreaming. It feels too fantastic to be real. But as he releases my breast to move to the other, I catch glimpses of his room, the setting grounding me for a blink before he bites my opposite peak and begins to drink again.
He’s marking me. Feeding from me. Making me his…
And his tail is moving inside me, forcing me to take more, going deeper, thickening, preparing me for his cock. I can sense the intention, and I’m not mad about it.
I should be.
God, our last conversation… I was too exhausted by my mental state to consider everything he was saying. I asked for a moment of space and fell asleep. In his bed. I barely remember it.
How long was I asleep?
Almost fifteen hours, he replies into my thoughts, reminding me that we’re mentally linked.
We’re bound together by blood, fated to possibly become mates.
If I can pass the trials.
He explained Strigoi culture and expectations to me, telling me how they test potential candidates for the Strigoi King.
I’m the first potential candidate.
The first human he’s ever desired.
“What about a Strigoi female? Can she become a Strigoi Queen?” I asked him yesterday.
“Only if she’s born royal.” He cupped my cheek then as he added, “If our firstborn is female, then she will one day become a Strigoi Queen, and she will take a human as a mate. That mortal would go through trials, too.”
I shiver, recalling other things he told me.
Like how Strigoi only take humans as mates. And pairings are not always male-female, either.
“I’ve tested men,” he informed me. “There’s something about their scent, though, that never appealed to me. So I primarily focused on women in my hunt for an intended. However, no one intrigued me… until you.”
It’s romantic in a way. Scary in another.
Because I’m the first and only mortal in over a thousand years that he’s wanted more than blood from.
The way he’s drinking from me now confirms how starved he is for companionship. His tail is so deep in me that I swear I feel the tip in my stomach.
I don’t, but… but it’s… it’s intense.
“Ciprian,” I whisper, trying to ground myself. To focus. To… to… I don’t know. Regain a semblance of control? “I…”
He lifts his mouth from my breast, my blood painting his lower lip.
At least until he licks it clean.
His eyes are a glowing crimson, his hair a wild mane of dark colors that hides his pointed ears. But he’s not human. That much is very clear. And not just because of the wings at his back or the tail inside me.
Yet all I want is to be held by him. Kissed by him. Penetrated by him.
I feel drugged. Pent-up. Needy.
He crawls back up my form, his bat-like wings splaying across the bed as his size becomes incredibly evident. He’s so much bigger than me. So much stronger. But all of that just makes me want him more, not less.
“Did you decide on a safe word?” he asks, his question nearly undoing me.
Because this ancient monster is actually trying to understand me. He’s listening to what I have to say. He may have been rough. He may have hurt me. But on some level, he obviously cares… because he’s attempting to do right by me.
And that knowledge has me grabbing him and kissing him.
He lets me, his tongue gliding with mine in a passionate embrace that almost allows me to feel like his equal. Almost. However, his massive form and the strength of it have me feeling very petite beneath him.
I like it.
I like him.
I like this.
“Vampire,” I breathe.
He growls in response. “Strigoi.”
“No,” I whisper, shaking my head. “Vampire is my safe word. If I say it, you stop.”
He stares down at me. “What if you think it?”
My lips twist. Because he has a point. I woke up thinking about him being a vampire. “I have to say it out loud.”
“And if your beautiful mouth is otherwise occupied?” he asks silkily, one of his eyebrows arching.
I swallow, which draws his attention to my throat. It doesn’t take a blood-bond or mind reading to determine what he’s thinking. “If I… can’t speak, then I’ll hold up two fingers in a V shape?” I suggest awkwardly.
His lips twitch. “What if your hands are bound?”
An image flashes through my head, one of me on my knees with my wrists tied behind my back and his cock deep in my throat.
“If you incapacitate me, then you need to be focused on my mind and what I’m thinking,” I tell him.
“If I think vampire on repeat while we’re in the middle of, um, things, that should be enough, right? ”
He cups my jaw, his thumb tracing the hollow beneath my eye as he holds my gaze. “Yes, regina mea. I believe that would be a sufficient way to ensnare my attention.”
“Okay. Then vampire is my safe word.”
His tail stops moving between my legs. “Are you using it right now?”
“No.”
“Then I may continue?”
My cheeks warm. “Yes, please.”
“Hmm,” he hums, his focus slipping down to my mouth. “I think you were right before, Ms. Dalca. I rather like hearing you consent.”
“Then you’re going to love it when I beg,” I whisper, my hips pushing into his and driving his tail deeper. “Make me come again, King Negru. Please.”
A rumble ignites in his chest, part growl and part purr. “With my tail or my tongue?”
“Both?” I ask, feeling hot all over.
“Call me Ciprian again, and I’ll do whatever you desire, Viviana.”
The heat from my cheeks spreads down to my neck. “Can you pleasure me with your tongue and your tail, Ciprian?”
His gaze narrows to a smolder, the crimson flecks overtaking the obsidian color. “Do you promise not to move?”
I nod. “Yes.”
“Then I shall… learn.” The tip of his tail expands inside me, nearly making me jump. But his weight holds me down. “Breaking promises already?”
“Not intentionally,” I breathe, fighting the urge to writhe as his appendage moves inside me.
His dark eyebrow wings upward. “Do I need to hold you down, sweet queen of mine?”
My throat works and I nod again. “I think so, yes.”
“Hmm,” he hums, then begins kissing a path downward. Goose bumps pebble down my arms as he nears my mound, my mind recalling how it felt to be bitten down there.
I’m not sure I’m ready for that again. It was so intense. And he… he didn’t stop. What if he does it again? What if he accidentally takes too much this time?
Shh, he hushes into my mind. I’m not going to bite you again until you ask me to. He presses a kiss to my clit just as his hands grab my hips to hold me down. It’s a good thing he caught me, or I would have jolted again.
It seems that staying still is impossible.
Especially with his tail doing… doing whatever it’s doing inside me.
And, oh God, his mouth…
His tongue is against my…
“Ciprian,” I moan, fisting the covers as my legs strain beneath him. I want to shift my hips. To ride his face. His tail. Him. He’s only just begun, and I’m nearly out of my mind with lust. Nothing like this has ever happened to me. It’s like I’m insatiable.
Didn’t I just come a few minutes ago?
God, have I been coming all night?
My insides feel overheated, like I’ve recently climaxed… a lot more than once.
Five times throughout the fifteen hours, he says into my mind. So not too many times.
Five times while I was asleep is a lot of times, I say, moaning out loud as he sucks on my sensitive nub. God, don’t stop.
Then call me Ciprian, not God. Or, if you must use a formality, then “mate” would be nice.
The possession underlying his tone has me shuddering, my heart racing in my chest. I feel possessed.
Me too, regina mea. Me too. He punctuates the words by tonguing my clit as he strokes my G-spot with his tail.
I’m a slave to the sensations. A slave to his touch. A slave to his mouth.
I don’t inch closer to the edge—I soar right off of it, his name leaving me on a scream as I experience what might just be the most intense orgasm of my life.
I black out.
Return to reality.
Only to fall into a spiral of oblivion so overwhelming that I forget how to breathe.
He must notice or be concerned, because in a blink, he’s forcing air into my mouth as he continues to drive me deeper into my rapturous cyclone.
It’s a delirium of passion, one I feel may kill me. But I don’t care. Not when I feel like this. Not when I have his strong body around me, holding me while I fall apart.
I breathe him in.
Exhale.
And inhale his scent again.
Vanilla and lavender.
Monster and man.
I’m drunk on him. Lost to our embrace. Loving every second.
Until finally, the world begins to tilt into view again. The canopy over his bed. The dark silks and mahogany wood. The chandelier in the center of the room.
“Your bedroom is a Gothic wet dream,” I tell him on a sigh. “I like it here.”
“That’s good to hear,” he murmurs, his chest to my back as he holds me on the bed. I don’t know when I rolled to my side or how he ended up spooning me, but I don’t mind. It feels nice. “The Strigoi Kingdom is similar to this.”
“It is?”
“Yes.” He presses a kiss to my neck. “I’ve not been back often, but I’ve seen it evolve. The technology of your realm is behind, and there are parts of this world that are vastly different from my home. However, I think you’ll find some similarities to help you adjust.”
My brow furrows. We discussed some of the trials and what they meant, but not me agreeing to partake… or go to the Strigoi Realm. “You’re speaking as though a decision has been made.”
“Because it has,” he says, his voice stoic… stern. “Marius informed me last night that the trials have already begun. He was the first test. Congratulations, you passed.”