Chapter 28
VALENTIN
For a suspended stretch of time, I lie with Eira pinned beneath me and discover that restraint is a far crueller discipline after satisfaction than before it.
Her skin is damp where it meets mine, her warmth threaded through the cooling air, the scent of her release clinging to my sheets and body with an intimacy so complete it borders on possession. I breathe her in and the word rises again, unwelcome and precise.
Unique.
Before today, I would have called it a cliché. A lazy descriptor for men too unimaginative to name what they wanted.
Yet applied to her, it fits with humiliating accuracy.
She met pleasure the way she meets danger, half suspicious, half furious at how much she wants it, and every startled sound she made as I pushed her further only tightened something in me I no longer trust.
Gods, the smell of her. Her skin. Her kiss. The taste of her.
Everything about Eira Cross is beginning to border on an obsession I barely control.
What kind of vampire does that make me when I have not thought of my fated mate in hours?
The answer is not one I care to inspect too closely.
The Twelve press at the edge of my mind, a restless hum of unease in the wake of what I scented in the alley. I should rise. I should call for Malachi. Contact Rafael Navarro before rumour outruns strategy.
Instead, I want to remain here and replay every second of what just occurred.
Certainly, some of the intensity could be blamed on abstinence. A male who has gone years without release is unlikely to emerge entirely objective.
That is the rational explanation.
My bones, and my cock, already know it is a lie.
It is this woman.
This hunter.
Sire.
Malachi’s voice enters my mind with practised calm, firm enough to be heard, restrained enough not to provoke my temper.
I ignore him, tilt Eira’s chin up and kiss her again, slower this time, tasting the soft, drowsy heat of her mouth. She makes a sleepy little sound that turns dangerous in me at once. My body answers with instant readiness, my shaft thickening against her thigh.
The slick evidence of what we have done is still drying against my skin.
But Gods, what I would not give to sink into her.
I felt her tight little hole beneath my fingers and mouth, learned enough to know I would have to move slowly or risk hurting her, and the image strikes so sharply that I close my hand over her hip to stop myself from abandoning sense altogether.
Sire? May we have a discussion?
The second summons carries weight Malachi does not often use.
I tense.
Duty returns like a blade against the throat.
I lift my mouth from Eira’s, and she looks at me through heavy lashes, dazedness clearing by degrees into that maddeningly perceptive focus.
‘The world knocking again?’ she asks, voice husky, lips kiss-swollen and impossibly compelling.
A thread of dry amusement cuts through my frustration. ‘You are developing irritating instincts.’
She smiles, lazy and smug in a way that does not suit her nearly as well as it should. ‘You’re welcome.’
I brush a thumb over her mouth once, then force myself to sit up, bringing her with me before I set her gently aside. The bed is a war zone of dark linen, tangled limbs and poor decisions.
I do not permit myself to admire it.
‘Malachi?’ she guesses, gathering the sheet around herself with all the modesty of a woman who has thoroughly lost a battle and enjoyed every second.
‘Yes.’
‘The murder squad getting twitchy?’
‘They are not a murder squad.’
She raises a brow. ‘That is exactly what a murder squad manager would say.’
Despite myself, a breath that is almost a laugh leaves me. ‘Dress, Eira.’
‘Bossy after orgasm. Noted.’
‘Incorrigible after orgasm. Also noted.’
We dress in a silence that is not truly silence, threaded with glances, half-formed thoughts and the charged awareness of what still hangs in the room.
As I button my shirt, I catch her looking towards the Heartshard Glass, then to my chest, to the place beneath the fabric where the mark lies.
The mark pulses.
A distinct, answering throb, as if it remembers her touch, her mouth, the way her fingers traced it into a flare. The way she marked it with her slick essence.
Essence I do not plan on washing off for a while yet.
I shake the sensation off with effort and, in the same breath, promise myself I will have her touch it again.
Soon.
When we step out of the bedroom proper, I catch her by the wrist and draw her in for one last kiss. Brief. Hard. Enough to make her exhale sharply against my mouth.
‘Do not leave the Tower,’ I growl.
Her eyes flash at once. ‘You really know how to end a lovely afternoon, don’t you?’
‘Eira.’ The warning throbs with something I haven’t felt in a very long time.
Concern.
‘Correct me if I’m wrong, but I have an apartment here. Not a cell.’
I catch her by the throat – itching to tear off the infernal collar – before the next line leaves her, hard enough to remind her what I am and who is giving the order. Her pulse jumps under my hand, and my own blood answers.
My voice drops. ‘I despise repeating myself, little hunter. But I will, just this once. Do not leave the Tower.’
Her lips part. The snark trembles there, then sharpens into something practical. ‘If this is work, say that. I don’t need any version of your protection. I can very adequately protect myself.’
I want to kiss the insolence out of her with a need so feral I feel it in my bones. ‘It is work,’ I snarl. ‘And I may need your hunting skills after I speak to Navarro.’
That gets her attention. ‘Rafe Navarro?’
‘Yes.’
She studies my face, then nods once. ‘Fine. Since it’s work, I’ll stay in the Tower.’
I release her.
We leave the suite together and find Malachi and Aaron waiting in the outer corridor, both as still as carved stone, though the current beneath Malachi’s composure is easy enough to feel.
He inclines his head and stands aside with a respectful nod. I begin walking, expecting them to follow.
Aaron falls into place at Eira’s side, then hangs back a step as Malachi and I move ahead.
‘Hunter,’ he says. ‘A package arrived for you.’
Eira’s answer is sharp with suspicion. ‘From who?’
‘No return mark on the outer wrapping,’ Aaron replies. ‘Tower security marked it safe.’
I stop. Turn just enough to look back.
Aaron holds out a slim black parcel no larger than a broad jewellery case. She takes it with the wary expression of a woman accepting a snake she fully expects to bite her.
I catch the faint scent bleeding through the seal.
Herbs. Flowers. A hint of metal.
Nothing harmful.
And yet…
‘Do you know who sent it?’
Eira glances at me, package in hand, suspicion and curiosity flashing in quick succession. But there is a furtiveness to it that makes my gut clench.
‘One of my many secret admirers? One who doesn’t know I hate mysteries or surprises?’
Aaron’s mouth almost moves. ‘Perhaps they enjoy the look of annoyance on your face when they surprise you.’
She glares at him. ‘Careful. You’re becoming likeable.’
‘Don’t spread that around.’
A growl builds in my chest at the ease with which she addresses Aaron.
Malachi clears his throat, the sound mild and pointed. Warning his brother before I do something irrational, like tear out his throat.
I turn forward again because if I do not, I will be tempted to take the package from her, inspect it myself, and begin another argument I currently do not have time to enjoy.
‘Do not open it alone,’ I say over my shoulder.
Her reply is immediate. ‘That sounded dangerously close to concern.’
‘It was an order.’
‘Mm-hm.’
I hear the grin in it.
At the lift, she peels away towards her apartment with Aaron lingering long enough to ensure she reaches the private corridor, while Malachi and I continue towards the war room levels.
The restless energy of the Twelve rises the lower we go.
Questions. Demands. Unease.
And beneath all of it, a second urgency waits for me like a blade laid neatly on a table.
Rafael Navarro.
My blood brother.
If he is the scent I caught in that alley, then whatever game has begun in New York is no longer confined to shadows and hired knives.
It is family.
And family, in our world, has always been the bloodiest kind of war.
The remaining Twelve are waiting when I enter the meeting chamber below the Tower.
Malachi stands at the head, severe elegance and controlled displeasure, a watchful Aaron to his right.
Luca Vieri, broad-shouldered and spoiling for sanctioned violence, looks ready to start a war on principle.
The others hold their silence, but the room hums with sharpened questions.
Malachi speaks first. ‘Sire, this task you’re handing to the hunter. Is that wise?’
My jaw clenches at the jealousy beneath the discipline. Old familiarity sharpened by resentment. Malachi has never forgotten where the line once blurred, the thunder-tossed night I took him to my bed centuries ago. I have never forgotten why it could not remain so.
‘Watch your tongue,’ I say softly.
The chamber stills.
Aaron intervenes before I decide whether to make an example of him. ‘We all sensed it in the alley. Old blood. Navarro.’
Every gaze shifts to me.
I do not insult them with denial. ‘Yes. That is what I scented too.’
Luca curses. ‘Then permit me to take a team to Chicago and tear his head off.’
Despite myself, my mouth almost curves. ‘Calm down, pup. All in good time.’
Luca bows his head, but barely. ‘As you command.’
Malachi’s eyes remain on mine. ‘Why would Navarro breach sacred agreement? And why is any of this connected to Lyra Hannigan?’
I look at them, my Twelve, my blood, the men who built the shadowed spine of my city, and recognise with belated irritation that delay now will cost me trust.
I unbutton my shirt.
The mark pulses under the chamber lights.
Shock ripples through them in cold waves as they take it in.
‘This mark is a curse I hoped would never come into being,’ I say. ‘But it not insurmountable. It will be neutralised when I find and bond with Lyra Hannigan. If I fail, my life is forfeit. That is why she must be found. Soon.’
Silence.