Chapter 6
Raine heard the sound. It was like a breath; hardly a stir of the air…but he recognized it as a quiet flutter of wings.
Sensation prickled over the back of his neck and shoulders, warring with the agonizing throb of Lucifer’s Mark searing his skin like an angry, evil root system.
Luce wasn’t pleased with him at the moment, for Raine had ignored his personal desires and the need to touch and taste and take Arial Bonny, and had, instead, done what she asked.
He was mildly surprised over her confession that she’d never transformed in front of anyone before. That information suggested what he’d expected—that her crew wasn’t aware of her other form.
“May I turn around?” he asked the wall in front of him.
“I’d…I really want to see you.” He heard how husky and low his voice was and realized she was right: it was rather like getting undressed in front of someone—and from his perspective, it was the intense desire to see her undressed.
Or, as the case might be, otherwise exposed.
Raine was shocked at how aroused he’d become, just thinking about seeing her like that. Even being in the room with her, feeling the stir of the air over his skin and knowing it was from this wild, powerful, magnificent woman-hawk, made him weak with desire.
He thought he felt another shift in the air, a quiet churning, and then he knew he had, for he smelled her again. Arial. Ambrosia: woman, spice, musk, wild.
His belly dipped with disappointment—she hadn’t allowed him to look. She didn’t yet trust him.
Not that he blamed her, he supposed, ruefully acknowledging that his behavior had been slightly overbearing.
“May I turn around now?” he asked. He’d have to prove to her that he was trustworthy—even though he thought he’d already done so previously, by not driving his fangs into her sweet skin when he could have done.
When he’d wanted to. When she was soft and lush and malleable in his arms, her mouth greedy and hot against his, her curves plastered—
“Yes. Thank you.”
Raine jolted back to the moment, and it took him an instant to register what she’d said. “Are you all…is everything rather—well, put aright?” he asked as he turned.
Then he had his answer. Yes, indeed: everything was put aright. Very aright.
He was staggered by the sight of her—the sight, the scent, the pure awareness of who she was.
Her long, wildly curling hair that, with its multiple shades had the look of dark, white-flecked feathers.
The sharp, bright eyes that even now held the fierce expression of a raptor.
The delicate features of her face that were nevertheless strong and confident.
And two hands, fully formed with five fingers each and not a feather in sight.
By the Fates, Raine had never seen a woman he’d wanted so badly.
“St. Albans,” she said, her eyes fixed on his. “If you keep looking at me like that, I’ll—”
“I’m not trying to enthrall you, Arial,” he said, then gave a self-deprecating laugh. “I’ve learned my lesson on that. Though I still don’t know how the likes of Lorimar could have done so when I couldn’t,” he added bitterly.
But even as he said so, a niggling in the back of his mind rushed to the forefront.
There was something…he’d heard something about it from the Earl of Corvindale—or Dimitri, as he was known among the Dracule.
Raine frowned as he pulled the conversation from the depths of his mind.
No, it wasn’t a conversation. It had been a ranting and brooding and grousing coming from Dimitri about being unable to enthrall one of the Woodmore sisters.
And Dimitri, as Raine recalled with a sudden horrible start, had ended up marrying the woman.
“Lorimar didn’t actually do it, but he tried to enthrall me. And was, in fact, more successful than you,” Arial replied tartly.
Then she softened: her expression, her stance, her mouth. Raine trembled a little, his fangs and another part of his body ready to come to attention. He planted his feet firmly on the floor and curled his fingers into fists. Don’t press your luck, Norringford.
“Thank you,” she said. “For…well, you saved my life, first, from Lorimar. And then you didn’t argue with me when I sent you off the deck—I didn’t need to be watching over an inexperienced sailor during that storm, you know. And for—for doing as I asked. Just now.”
“Arial,” he breathed, his entire body hot and ready and barely held still.
His pulse pounded, his cock was more than interested, his nose was filled with her scent…
a scent that had become slightly more musky and welcoming and arousing as they stared at each other in a chamber that had become, suddenly, very, very small.
When she stepped toward him, up to him, onto his boots to lift her so she could meet his mouth, then wrapped her arms around his neck, Raine exhaled with relief and dragged her as close as possible.
He crushed his mouth to hers, tasting the soft sweet warmth of her lips, sampling the sleek, wild thrust of her tongue.
He drank from her in the old, innocent way: mouth devouring mouth, tongue dancing with tongue, while he kept his fangs carefully in check.
But she was hot and curvy, and she smelled delicious, and he knew who she was, and what she was, and the next thing he knew, he was dragging those damned criss-crossing leather straps off her shoulders and yanking at the tie of her shirt to bare her throat and skin to him.
Arial writhed and sighed against him as he trailed his hot mouth along her neck, beneath the warm, sensitive place behind her ear and along the taut, smooth skin that led to her shoulders.
His fangs were outthrust now, fighting to slide into what would be Heaven—and even the thought of Heaven didn’t cause his Mark to pulse with a warning, for Raine was on the way to doing precisely what Lucifer wanted of him: he was taking.
He would feed. He would plunge and drink and fuck and force her to arch and cry beneath him—
Raine whipped his face from her golden skin, where the blue, delicate vein pounded beneath his lips, taunting and teasing him, and he thrust her away from him.
He stepped back, breath heaving, fingers trembling, body pulsing with desire. A searing pain erupted over the back of his shoulder as Lucifer reacted to this selfless move, and he felt the Mark there fill and writhe like a wild, twisting, tangling thing.
“St. Albans,” she said, looking up at him with dark, very dark eyes. They were hot pools of black velvet, and the desire she felt—desire she truly felt; not desire he’d manufactured or forced from her—rolled off her in a musky, spicy, tantalizing scent.
“Arial,” he said, holding up his trembling hands to ward her off, “if I touch you again, I’ll…I’ll not be able to stop.”
He looked toward the small silver box on the table—the one with the contents he’d concluded Corvindale had either sent her, or advised her to procure before allowing Raine on the ship—and nodded toward it.
“You can trust me, but if you have any…” he realized he was out of breath, but he forced himself to continue in a steadier voice “…any worry, just open the box.”
“Does not being able to stop include draining me dry?” she asked quietly.
“Draining you dr—what the hell do you think I am? Some green boy who can’t control himself?
In my entire immortal life, I’ve never—never—drained anyone dry, Arial.
What sort of—by the Fates, no. It does not mean I would drain you dry.
It just means…I’m mad for you. I want whatever part of you you’re willing to give—and no more. ”
Arial held him with her eyes: those dark, feral, piercing eyes he knew could see far and wide. And as she did so, she lifted her arms to pull the blousy white shirt up and over her head.
Raine caught his breath at the sight of her bare torso: pale golden skin, lovely high breasts, tight pink nipples, and a smooth, flat belly.
His knees nearly buckled, but he managed to remain upright as she bent—those lush breasts swinging gently, just begging for him to cover them with his broad palms—to remove her boots.
His mouth was dry and his heartbeat thudded wildly through him.
Even the pain from his Mark had either eased or he was no longer aware of it, for every bit of his attention was focused on her as she pulled off her stockings and trousers—revealing small white feet, shapely legs, and the wild patch of hair at the apex of her thighs.
“Don’t just stand there, St. Albans,” she ordered. “Drop your trousers. And everything else.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he breathed, and set about following her orders.
When he finished undressing, she stepped toward him. He was absurdly pleased by the satisfaction and delight in her eyes as she looked over him, and he knew that for the first time in more than a hundred years, that desire was legitimate.
Arial lifted her arms to go around his neck, her firm breasts nudging against his pectorals, his cock bumping against her thigh.
“St. Albans,” she murmured, sliding all of those lush, warm curves and sleek angles against him, “I want everything from you.”
She tossed her hair back and tipped her head, baring that lovely arch of her neck and shoulder.
Raine closed his eyes for a moment as something far hotter than lust or hunger shot through him…something softer and deeper inside. Something that made his damned Mark coil and twist because it was something more.
He bridled his desire and, instead of plunging his distended fangs into that sweet, creamy flesh, he proved to her—and to himself, and to Luce—that he was in control.
He covered that hot, silky shoulder with his mouth, dusting her skin with his lips and tracing the curve of her tendons and behind her earlobe with his tongue.
She shivered and shuddered, sighing against him as she sagged in his arms. “St. Albans,” she murmured, sliding her hands along the taut muscles of his arms.
“Raine,” he whispered against her jaw.
“Raine—oh!”
He’d slid his fingers to the hot place between her legs, to that full, wet, musk-scented treasure. She came at his first touch, shuddering violently against his hand as a new wave of pleasure perfuming the air.
His knees buckled a little, but he caught himself in time. “Arial, may I?” he murmured against her cheek, his fangs powerful and painful in their need.
“Please,” she murmured, once again angling her head so he could find the sensitive curve of throat. “Oh, Raine, please…”
That was all he needed. He plunged into her flesh, and the hot rush of blood surged into his mouth. It was beautiful: sweet, spicy, clean and fresh and very, very wild.
He couldn’t breathe. His vision swam, his body was so taut and filled with heat and lust he couldn’t even remember his name.
And when she slipped her hand between them, closing her fingers around his turgid cock, Raine moaned against her skin.
“No, Arial, no,” he managed to say around the sweet lifeblood flooding into his mouth. “Not…”
But she was insistent with those wicked digits, and he pulled away from her just long enough to disengage fang and fingers. He knew his eyes would be blazing with fire and desire, and he was coherent enough to see a very wild, fierce light in her own pupils.
Yes. They were well-matched.
Then he thought no further: he gathered her up, brought her to the bed he’d so admired, and, with one last look at her delicious body, he filled her.
They both cried out as he slid home—into the hot, wet depths of her, tight and scented with her desire for him. He barely managed two strokes before she arched up against him, crying out her release. Then she grabbed him by the hair and brought his face to her unmarked shoulder.
He could hardly form thoughts, but he managed to be easy when he slid his fangs into her. As the blood pooled in his mouth, he thrust one last, easy time inside her and his world exploded.
Tears of pleasure and release wet his face as he shuddered, lifting his head from her shoulder as he tried to regain his breath.
When he finally came back to himself, Raine looked down to find her watching him with that same hot expression. He felt a wave of relief that she wasn’t horrified or even in pain.
He grinned with delight and bent to kiss her on the mouth. The wild taste of her own blood mingled with their lips and tongues, and she shivered with pleasure.
“I’ve never met anyone like you,” he admitted, easing away to look down at her once more. “Arial.”
She shook her head, a fierce light coming into her eyes that he’d come to know very well—along with a hot, saucy smile. “That’s Captain to you, St. Albans. You might have had your way with me temporarily, but I’m still the commander of this ship. You’re required to obey my every command.”
Raine laughed. “Very well, then, Captain. I await your next command. Do make it a good one.”