Chapter 15 #2
A tear clung to his thick bottom lashes. It slipped free. He swiped angrily at it, then stared at his glistening finger with something akin to horror. Another tear fell. He whispered brokenly in a language she didn’t understand. When his gaze met hers, Lindsay saw shock. And fear.
She wondered if he knew that he’d cried the first time they’d made love.
“Neshama,” she breathed, hugging him tightly. “It’s okay. Let it out.”
“I—” He swallowed hard.
“You miss them. I know. You miss them, and it hurts.”
“I failed her.”
“No. No, you didn’t. The system failed. The stupid rules and laws. And your Creator, who’s left you all on your own down here for too long without any guidance or reinforcements.”
A drop of hot rain splattered on her cheek, another sign of his breaking control.
He pressed his face into her throat. “Hold on to me, Lindsay.”
“Always,” she vowed. “Forever.”
Adrian’s wings snapped open, and they surged into the air, his powerful body flexing against hers as he forced their combined weight into a steep vertical ascent.
The effort was nothing for him, no strain at all for muscles he religiously honed for battle.
From the cloudless sky, fat drops of sizzling rain struck her like tiny needles, drenching her in seconds.
Terrified of heights, she buried her face in his chest and hung on, clinging to him so tightly she couldn’t miss that he was sobbing silently. Her heart broke for him, even though she knew he needed to purge in this way. His grief had been pent up inside him, festering, weakening him.
She twined her legs with his, clutching at his back beneath his wings and licking the raindrops from his throat and jaw. She murmured nonsensical words of comfort, soothing him as best she could.
“Lindsay.” His mouth sought hers; his lips sealed firmly over hers. His taste was salty from grief, the faint tinge of tears blended with the wet of the rain. The wind whipped through their hair and her heavy, soaked robe.
They lifted higher and higher.
Her returning kiss was meant to console, but he wanted more.
Needed it. Took it. He ravaged her mouth, his tongue thrusting swift and deep.
The clothes between them disappeared, willed away by his incredible power.
She should have been cold, but he was feverishly hot.
And when his hand cupped her breast, her hunger rose to match his, perversely spurred by her terror of heights and her pain over his torment.
They spun as they rose, twirling in the air. Adrian’s chest heaved from the surfeit of emotion pouring out of him; his lips across her throat were desperate and greedy. He shifted her, positioned her, slid inside her.
She cried out, the pleasure so sharp and unexpected. The rain stopped instantly. His head fell back, their ascent slowed until they hovered for a moment, gently turning in the soft light of dawn.
“She’s mine!” he roared to the heavens, his gaze trained skyward. “My heart. My soul.”
Her eyes stung, her vision blurred. Then he twisted and turned, aiming them downward.
They plummeted.
She screamed and locked her legs around his waist. They fell with dizzying speed, spiraling madly, his wings tucked against his back to give no resistance. Her torso was plastered to his, his steely embrace keeping her immobile.
But he wasn’t. His hips were circling, grinding, screwing his cock into her. Fucking her.
The orgasm slammed into her, the shock of it rippling through her body from head to toe. “Adrian!”
He groaned, coming hard and deep. Purging his pain and sorrow with hot, wrenching spurts.
He’s mine, she thought fiercely, as they plunged to the earth in the most intimate of embraces. My heart. My soul. I won’t let you break him.
Adrian spread his wings, and they soared.
“Grace. It’s good to hear from you.” Syre leaned back in the motel’s vastly uncomfortable desk chair and managed a smile at his tablet. He was sorry to see, via his video call with the doctor, that she looked haggard and weary—a rare feat for a vampire.
“That may actually be true this time,” she said with a quick flashing smile and a hand shoved through her poorly hacked blond hair. Syre suspected it was a haircut done without a mirror, just to get it out of her face while she worked.
Through her camera’s lens, he saw the rows of hospital beds behind her. “I’m always appreciative of good news.”
“Well, how’s this? The blood you sent is a breakthrough.” Her amber eyes brightened. Haircut aside, she was an attractive woman, petite and delicate in feature. “I blended it with samples of wraith-tainted blood, and there was a short period of reversal.”
“Reversal?” From Lindsay’s blood. No, he corrected himself. Adrian’s blood, filtered through Lindsay.
“Temporary,” she qualified, “but that’s the first ray of sunshine to pierce the doom and gloom around here. We could use more—more sunshine, more blood. We got just enough to get excited and not nearly enough to test properly.”
“That may prove difficult.”
“I’ll leave that end to you. As for my end, we’re going balls to the wall. But we’d do a hell of a lot better with an epidemiologist or virologist on board. Got any of those hanging around anywhere?”
“I’m looking into it.”
She nodded. “Vash already hit you up, didn’t she?”
“Of course.” There were very few tricks his second-in-command missed—when she was on her game. “And the lycan blood?”
“Twelve subjects’ vials. Brilliant, by the way. One or two wouldn’t have been enough.”
“I’ll pass along the kudos to Vash.”
“Of course. Quick as a whip, that one. She’s a credit to you.”
“Yes, she is.” He’d trained her well, having seen the kernel of greatness in her from the very beginning. She was bright and thorough and filled with a restless energy that fooled many into thinking she was reckless. She had never been…until the Alpha came along.
Syre was watching that situation closely.
He wouldn’t tolerate Vash’s upheaval for long.
A day or two more, and if the lycan didn’t rectify what he was doing to her, Syre would kill him.
It would be a waste of a prime hunter, but the Alpha was less valuable if he wasn’t firmly beneath Vashti’s thumb.
There was also the possibility that now that the lycans were settled in the warehouse and most were already out in the field, they could turn to vampires for leadership and protection if they lost their Alpha. If not for Vashti’s turmoil, the death of Elijah Reynolds might be ideal…
“The majority of the samples had no effect whatsoever,” Grace went on. “However, Subject E is another matter altogether. Whose idea was it to anonymize the samples? Vashti’s?”
“Of course.” He slid his phone over and tapped into the cloud, finding the document linking the donor to their sample. But he knew who Subject E was before it was confirmed—the Alpha.
“Well, Subject E is known as FUBAR around here. You want to knock out the wraith population for good, FUBAR’s your man. Or woman. His or her blood is like a nuclear bomb to wraiths. Boom, game over.”
“Why? How?”
Grace snorted out a laugh. “I’m good, but I’m not that good. I got these blood samples yesterday evening. I’ve had just a little over fourteen hours with them. I can give you a what, but it’s going to take more time to work on the rest.”
“Vashti ran across a wraith with enough brain function to speak coherently. He appeared to be leading a group of other wraiths.”
“What?” All levity left her face. “Every wraith I’ve seen has cotton for brains.”
“I need more than that, Grace.”