Chapter 29 Francois
Francois
Iopened my eyes as the arrow my precious Maeve had thrown—thrown, without the aid of a bow—hurtled toward me. It would have been easy to close my eyes again, and ignore certain death, but I’d caused so much death in my time that I needed to face my own.
But pain only pierced my shoulder, radiating outward as the arrow pinned me to Clémence.
“Francois, what have you done?” Her words were a groan in my ear as she slumped against me.
Her unexpected weight took us both to the floor, and I twisted as I fell, watching Maeve rush at me from an unusual angle.
The Ancients began screaming as one, an unearthly wail echoing through the nightclub, and Maeve yanked at the arrow, snapping both ends off before withdrawing the shaft from my shoulder.
I winced before scrambling away from Clémence, who continued to wail, eyes wide open.
“Sorry,” Maeve whispered to me as she helped drag me away from the Ancients.
On the stage, Kayla lifted her arms like she was making some kind of sacrifice to the ceiling, and she delivered her last words in a booming roar that vibrated through the whole space.
The wails stopped abruptly and each of the Ancients crumbled to ash, littering the floor with piles of the pale gray powder.
Sam whooped! “Yeah! Although you stole all of my fun, Kay. I thought we were going to take them out by more…traditional means.” She squeezed her fist as she mimed extracting a heart from a chest.
Kayla grinned. “I found a spell that looked much more fun, and now I’m definitely burning that page of my grimoire.”
Sebastian chuckled as she leaned against him as the pair approached Maeve and me. “Definitely sounds like a spell that shouldn’t be out there doing the rounds if it could reduce us to ash.”
Her grin widened. “Oh, I did modify it a little. The results wouldn’t usually be quite this dramatic.”
Sebastian glanced at her, the pride in his eyes obvious. When they came to a stop in front of me, I looked up at them. I was resting against Maeve, but something was wrong inside me.
I’d never felt like this before, but I’d also never been pierced by a magical arrowhead before. I probably just needed to wait for my healing to kick in.
“How are you doing, Francois?” Kayla’s brow creased with concern. “You don’t look so hot.”
Maeve glanced down. Pushing my hair back from my face, she gasped. “What’s happening to you? You look old.”
“It’s the arrow,” Kayla said. “It entered his body, and he’s of Ancient bloodline. The magic has affected him, too. He needs to feed to heal—from his soulmate. Your blood heals him, remember?”
I shook my head. “No, time heals me. I just need rest.”
“Not this time, buddy.” Nic stood above me now. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
A sense of dread settled in my stomach at Nic’s words, its weight like nothing I’d known before. I was immortal. Vampires healed. I’d found my soulmate. I wasn’t ready.
I’d changed.
I didn’t want to die.
“You need to feed to heal,” Kayla repeated.
Above me, Maeve sighed, and she stroked her soft hands over my face. “I have the power to save you, Francois. Let me.”
“But not… Not like this.” There was a desperation inside me to keep our connection private. “Non.”
“Exactly like this. However it needs to be.” As she spoke, she moved my head from her lap until I was lying flat on the floor.
My shoulder throbbed, the pain radiating out from where Maeve’s arrow had penetrated my body. She positioned herself beside me, an arm wrapped over my chest, and lowered her mouth to mine, placing the softest of kisses on my lips.
“I love you,” she whispered. “Now take what you need.” Then she moved upward until her neck was positioned over my mouth instead. “Is this right?”
Instinct took over, and I angled her head as I needed it, trailing the tip of my tongue over her skin. She shivered and her pulse beat stronger. I could almost smell the blood coursing through her veins. I wanted that blood inside me too.
My fangs descended from my gums, and I touched her neck with the tip of one.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes.”
She pressed her body closer to mine and as her warmth seeped into me, I bit down, my fangs gliding into her with an ease that almost surprised me. Her blood filled my mouth, coating my tongue, and I drew deeply, taking the nourishment I needed, connecting with my mate on the deepest level possible.
Power rushed through me, my strength returning, and Maeve moaned as I drew on her blood again.
She moaned and my cock hardened at the sound. I wanted to roll us over and pound into her… But we were in public. Way too public, even if everyone had moved away and were distracting themselves clearing up the aftermath of the fight.
Even if the club had emptied out, I didn’t want to fuck my mate on the floor of Sebastian’s nightclub.
She deserved far more than that. And she deserved far more than a quick fuck.
She’d just saved my life.
I wrapped my arms around her and stood up, my movements smooth again, my lips still at her neck. She sighed, her contentment clear.
Relying mostly on muscle memory, I sped from the club floor and down the stairs, reaching my bedroom in record speed. I let go of her neck as I lay her on the bed, and I lapped my tongue over the puncture marks to start their healing.
She whimpered and I smoothed my hands over her breasts, feeling her nipples harden beneath the fabric of her top.
“Do you want me?” I whispered, even though the answer was obvious. I slipped my hand inside the front of her pants.
“What are you doing?” she whispered back, even though that answer was obvious, too.
I chewed my bottom lip like I needed to think. “Well, I’ve heard that going in dry hurts, oui?” I tried to keep the crude words seductive and low, then chuckled as I continued to touch her.
She barked out a shocked laugh. “Such a charmer.”
“Oui?” I took her words as a challenge, already thinking of my next dirty words.
I tugged her shirt higher with my spare hand then flicked the button at the top of her fly and undid it. “I’m going to be inside you so hard and fast. I’ll be balls-deep before you know it.”
She arched toward me, pressing her clit harder against the tip of my finger. I sought more of her slick wetness then found the small, swollen piece of flesh again. Female anatomy would ever be a mystery.
Why did their bodies insist on hiding the parts that brought them the most pleasure?
“You want me to tell you what I’m going to do to you, mon ange?”
Her eyes flickered open briefly as she looked at me, meeting my gaze before she closed her eyes again, hiding her feelings from me. “Yes.” The word was little more than a gasp.
“I’m going to fuck you until you see stars.”
“Until I can’t even remember your name?”
I chuckled again as I rolled her clit under my finger. “Until you only know my name.”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“You’re overdressed again,” I said, and she shimmied her hips as I stripped her pants and panties.
“Touch me some more.”
I removed her shirt and she lay naked before me. “No ‘please’? I’m going to have to tell your mom that you demanded I touch you and didn’t say please.” My tone was lightly chastising as I flicked her right nipple then leaned over and took it in my mouth.
“S’il te-plait.” She crooned her plea in French and my cock jerked.
“You get me so hard.” I nuzzled her neck again, and she fumbled between us.
“So hard,” she agreed.
I rested my finger back against her then withdrew it and she moaned.
“Don’t stop.”
“I want to taste you. I love the sounds you make.”
She parted her lips on a small gasp, her hips already moving, ready for me. “Please.”
The small word brought a smile to my lips. “That’s better.”
I moved down her body before I lifted her legs and parted her thighs, making room for my head between them. Her hands were already in my hair, her fingertips pressed against my scalp when I flicked my tongue over her then repeated the motion.
Then I sat back and inserted a finger inside her. She pushed against me as I started to press it in and out of her, nudging her clit with my knuckle on every return. Her breathing changed, becoming more irregular and she buried her face in the pillow to her left, muffling the noises she made.
I stroked her most tender spots until her breaths became rapid, one running into the next and the next until she sucked in a final one and pressed against me as her body shuddered and her inner walls gripped me in waves.
I waited for her pleasure to pass before I lowered myself over her. “Bien. Now I just need you to do that again. Come on my cock.”
She exhaled slowly and met my gaze for the first time. “Is that a challenge for you or for me?”
“Both.” I grinned. “I never leave a job half done.”
I pushed my cock inside her, stretching her body for me as I always did, before sliding smoothly back out. She whimpered as I glided against her all over again.
“Don’t stop.” Then she bit her lip like she hadn’t intended to speak, but her words spurred me on.
I sped up my movements, chasing my own orgasm as I remembered hers, and she gasped her pleasure beneath me, offering me her neck again as I reached under her head to bury my hand in her hair.
“Bite me.” I pressed the underside of my forearm to her mouth and excitement took hold of me as she licked the skin there, her tongue soft.
Then she clamped her teeth around me, claiming me as her soulmate again as I slid my fangs back into her, drawing her blood in a matching rhythm to the thrusting of my cock deep into her body.
She was mine. Completely mine.
And I was hers.
My balls tightened, drawing up against me, and I sucked in breaths I didn’t need. Without warning, she released my arm and moaned as she contracted in more waves around me, and I held still above her as she brought my orgasm too.
I thrust inside her a couple more times and she giggled. “That was nice.”
“Just nice?” I pushed back in again, and she giggled harder, the force of the movement evicting me from inside her.
“Sorry. I just laughed you out.”
I shrugged. “I’ll be back.”
She laughed harder. “So charming.” Then she grew more serious. “But I hope you’ll be back. I like this.”
I nodded. “I know.”
I kissed her, the soft kisses she always enjoyed best before I rolled to her left and gathered her against me.
Her breathing was still rapid and her heart beat fast. “I can still feel you here.” She touched her chest above her heart, where her skin still gleamed from our exertions.
I ran my fingers down the side of her body and she stiffened slightly under my touch. “Ticklish?”
“Nope. Not ever.” She sounded so definite that I laughed.
“Really. Another challenge?” I was going to like spending my life with my mate.
My life…I glanced at the woman in my arms. A mere human mated to a vampire. “Maeve?”
She moved her head so she was looking at me. “Mm?”
“Would you like…Would you like to get married? I know it’s what humans do…” I stopped talking. It wasn’t what vampires did. What was I suggesting and why was I suggesting it?
But impulse drove me to bind this human to me for our entire lives, and immortality was a long time. I wanted it to be a celebration as she knew that binding. We weren’t only true mates.
We were soulmates, and that was different.
We could be different than the others.
We didn’t simply have to be mated. We could be married.
She nodded, her hair teasing against my skin as she did. “Yes.”
“Yes?” I behaved like I’d never heard the word before.
“Oui,” she said, smiling now.
“Oui!” Now that I definitely understood. I drew her up over me, and she laughed before lowering her head to mine and pressing our lips together in a kiss.