Chapter Twelve
Xander
“Thinking of you keeps me awake. Dreaming of you keeps me asleep. Being with you keeps me alive.”
- Unknown
If anyone had told me that feelings like this existed, I would have laughed in their fucking face. Still not any soft emotions, but raw, primitive desire and lust. I was consumed by it. Annihilated by so much need it felt as though I was constantly on the precipice of finally claiming my mate.
I resisted with everything in me. No way would I follow the path of my brothers. Fuck no.
If I gave in to my lust and claimed my mate, we would be irrevocably tied. She would be stuck in this life. Yeah, I would be physically unable to be with another woman, and she would be physically unable to be with another man. While that wasn’t important to me, it was another limitation I would be forcing on Alexandra.
Despite my determination to not give in to the irrevocable act of tying Alexandra to me for eternity, it didn’t stop me from fantasizing multiple ways of losing that particular battle.
Every time I saw her, every time I smelled her, hell, every time I even heard her voice, I was hard as nails within seconds. And immediately I started thinking of ways to fuck her. Against the wall, draped over the nearest furniture, in the shower, or on the damn floor, I simply wanted in her.
It didn’t help that she seemed to always know what I was thinking, because her beautiful dark eyes would cloud with a knowing. Her nipples would be taut and prominent under her clothes, her breath shaky and rapid, and her face wore a slight flush. Her every response telegraphed to me more clearly than words that she wanted me with the same voracity as I wanted her.
It has been two nights since her lunatic great-grandfather came for a visit, and I’d had no reprieve from her constant presence. I was thirsty and horny. Never a good situation for a dhampir.
I’d never felt more volatile, on edge, and out of control. Everything in me clamored to claim her. I’d never taken more useless cold showers in my life. They didn’t work. Nothing worked.
It also didn’t help that Papa kept trying to throw us together, taking every opportunity to remind us how closely linked we were.
“You complement each other,” Papa insisted. “You make each other stronger. Have you not realized yet that your powers are enhanced by her? And her powers are more potent because of you?” Papa was disappointed when neither Alexandra nor I acknowledged his claim.
He didn’t understand why I was so reluctant to claim my mate. My family thought that this should be easy for me. After all, it could only make us stronger. But it was not about us. We didn’t need extra strength or added security. Despite the Sorceress’ ability to smash through our shields, which we still hadn’t found a response to yet, the Petrov family was going to be fine.
I had no idea why Alexandra didn’t own our connection, however. It wasn’t as if either of us could escape the gnawing desire between us. Ever since I got her taste on my tongue, I’d been addicted. And every night since, I’d invaded her dreams to get my fix.
Alexandra seemed to be just as eager as I was to indulge our subconscious desires.
At first, I let her run the show and ate her out as she wanted. She loved my tongue on and in her. But I’d had too many fantasies about her pouty lips to not want their lushness on me. The thought of it had me hard and pulsing every time I looked at her.
When I eased her to her knees before me, it helped that we were so in sync with each other. She leaned forward without protest or hesitation and swallowed my cock with the same eagerness to taste me as I had been to taste her.
Initially, it was more enthusiasm than skill, but she had a direct link to my mind and to my senses. She tapped into my wants, my erotic desires for her lips and throat. We were synced. I groaned deep as she tried again and wrapped her soft rosebud lips around my shaft and slid her tongue along the hard length.
Alexandra pulled me in deep, provocatively swiveled her tongue around my thick cock, and sucked with sensual enjoyment. God, this woman! My tip was ready to erupt, but I wanted more and didn’t want to miss an opportunity to experience more of the pleasure she could inflict.
She gave me more, and I couldn’t suppress another guttural, agonized groan.
She held my gaze as she released my cock with a wet pop. The wicked gleam in her eyes told me that she was hardwired to my needs. I was so fucking turned on by how perfect she was for me. She wasted no time in palming my length and swallowed the tip again, wringing another tortured groan from me.
I had never felt pleasure so incredibly intense.
I continued to send her mental instructions, and she literally blew my damn mind.
Our chemistry was combustible, and I took advantage of that in our dream state as many times as I could. And she blew my mind every time. Somehow, it just kept getting better and better.
She had become a drug that I couldn’t kick.
“I don’t understand why I can’t sneak into the hospital and get my personal stuff,” Alexandra complained, bringing me back to the present discussion. She had been bugging us, Papa and me, to visit the hospital since yesterday, even though she had agreed to send in her resignation letter. Her many safe houses were already being taken over by a management team from Petrov Enterprises. She at least had no complaints or worries there.
Papa left a few hours ago to ensure the security of our castle in St. Petersburg. The entire family was in the process of being moved there. The castle was the best place for the family to be sequestered until this latest threat was dealt with.
Drako and Tristan, who had arrived to add to our security until Papa gave us the all clear for the castle, looked on in amusement.
I ignored them.
“You know that your presence would put everyone in that hospital in danger from Malachi, Adam, and the rest of his goons,” I said quietly, not even bothering to look up from the document I was pretending to review.
My mate was too damn beautiful and tempting for words. It was taking everything in me to not sink my fangs into her succulent skin.
“Well, that is just a chance I must take,” she said impatiently. “I also need to feed. I can get blood at the blood bank there.”
I was still trying to come to terms with the revelation that she was a dhampir. A dhampir from the original vampire Catholic Cardinals. And given what we now suspected of Malachi, a vampire who had been imprisoned by demons, Alexandra was more than a vampire-human hybrid. Whatever fuckery the demons infused him with had survived several generations. And then there was a possibility that Alexandra’s Haitian grandmother had been a descendant of witches.
Yeah, it was a struggle coming to grips with the fact that my mate was something more than a dhampir. Hell, it was hard enough just dealing with the fact that she was a dhampir at all.
“I’ve always wanted to know what a dhampir’s blood tastes like,” Tristan piped up.
“Ah hell,” Drako groaned.
I narrowed my eyes and growled low and deep in my throat. Something dark and possessive gripped me at the thought of Tristan anywhere near my mate. I couldn’t get any words past my fury. I wanted to go all Hulk on his ass.
“I wouldn’t be opposed to some quid pro quo.” Tristan smirked. He had eyes only for Alexandra, completely ignoring the warning snarls I sent his way. “My blood would sustain you much longer than human blood,” he continued, undeterred.
“Not going to fucking happen,” I finally got out, sounding as though I was chewing on nails.
Tristan looked at me then, his irreverent smirk telling me that I would not like what he said next.
“Last I checked, there is no ring on her finger or any mark of claiming,” he said silkily. “I think Xandra will find her lips on my skin and my rich blood on her tongue quite fulfilling.”
“Her name is Alexandra, and she doesn’t need your fucking vampire blood!” I stood, using my inches over him and my much bulkier body to send him a clear message. I could squash him like a bug!
Being the pain in the ass that he usually was, Tristan tilted his head to look around me to address Alexandra. “Did I tell you that one taste of my blood will instantly heal any ailment or eliminate any pain you have? Not to mention the instant orgasm!”
I didn’t think about it. I simply reacted with an iron fist to his face. A loud crunch marked the deep imprint of my fist into his nose and mouth, making a grotesque displacement of flesh and bone in his face. Tristan’s blood spewed out like a sprinkler, and his body crashed across the room, cracked the cement wall, and shook the other walls on impact.
“Xander!” Alexandra yelled with indignance. She immediately fell to her knees next to Tristan.
“What?” I still wanted to pummel the asshole some more as Alexandra started to examine him. “It’s not as if he won’t heal,” I muttered.
And sure enough, Tristan’s wounds healed within seconds.
Owen burst into the room with two other wolves in his wake. From their scowls, they’d heard the noise and thought we were under attack.
“Aww, sweetheart, I love your healing touch,” Tristan said softly, giving Alexandra his smoldering, cocky smirk.
I was on him instantly.
It took both Drako and Owen to pull me off him. This time the injuries to his face and body were more substantial and required some agonizing minutes to heal. I knew those minutes were agonizing because Tristan hissed and cussed the entire time. Every cry from his lips was music to my ears.
As soon as the idiot healed, he grinned. “So, is that a yes?”
Drako sighed. “Papa has several concubines that he uses for a food source,” he told Alexandra.
Before I could even think about it, I was glowering at my brother and wanted to level him too. Possessiveness of my mate was riding me hard. I was even possessive of who she fed from. She was mine, and I wasn’t willing to share any part of her. It wasn’t as if we hadn’t been using concubines for centuries to feed. However, just the thought of her feeding from anyone set my teeth on edge. I also had emotions, which I’d long thought I was incapable of, churning and boiling in my veins. So much damn emotion when, for almost a century, I had none. It was unnerving and irritating as fuck.
“There is no need for you to endanger yourself or others, Alexandra.” Drako didn’t try to hide his irritation with me. “Before Luka and I were mated, we used concubines as well.”
He tried giving me a hard look, but I was immune to shit like that when it came to my mate. “And certainly, there is no need to rely on a reluctant mate,” Drako drawled.
“I am not reluctant,” I muttered. I was fighting for control. I felt wild, unable to handle the emotions coursing through me. I wanted my mate with a desperation that bordered on obsession. I wanted the taste of her blood on my tongue, wanted the feel of her soft skin on my lips and under my fingertips, and I wanted to be deep inside of her honeyed depth. My fangs, my cock… I simply wanted. I certainly didn’t need Tristan and Drako fucking with me.
“We can address your thirst after this meeting,” I told Alexandra, trying like hell to contain my own eagerness to feel her fangs in my skin.
“We?” Alexandra asked. Her displeasure in me couldn”t be clearer. “Despite what everyone around here seems to believe, you and I are not a couple. We’re not a thing. You don’t get to decide what I do or how I behave. And the use of Alexi’s food source sounds like the perfect solution.”
“She told you,” Tristan laughed.
“Shut the fuck up,” I muttered to Tristan.
Turning to Alexandra, I held her hostile gaze. “I’m glad we agree that we are not a couple, because we’re more than that. We’re fated-mates.”
“You’re not my type, Xander,” Alexandra said coolly. “When I take a mate, it will be to a dark-skinned person like me. No offense to your race, but you’re not what I want in a mate.”
“Wow!” Tristan scowled darkly, all traces of his earlier levity gone. “I can only imagine the kind of names you would have leveled on Xander if he had said the same thing to you.”
“I am not prejudiced,” she hissed.
“Is there another definition for it?” Tristan’s glower didn’t diminish. Yeah, Tristan could be accused of many things, but lack of loyalty wasn’t one of them.
“Wanting to be with someone who has the same shared culture and in the same skin as me is not being prejudiced,” Alexandra insisted.
“Say whatever you have to say to make yourself feel better,” Tristan dismissed coldly.
Alexandra huffed and peered up at me sheepishly, clearly trying to gauge how I was taking their discussion.
I didn’t need to react to Alexandra’s comments. I had access to her thoughts and feelings. Her words meant nothing when she closed her eyes at night. She and I knew that. My skin color never came up when she was begging for my touch and my tongue. I didn’t give a shit what nonsense she was trying to tell herself.
I ignored her apologetic gaze too.
Drako sighed as though he was barely holding on to his patience. I knew that his frustration had more to do with him wanting to be back with his mate than anything else. With Danika and Luna pregnant again, Drako and Luka were on edge. He had already proven that they had no intention of taking on Alexandra’s stubbornness. They were leaving that to me.
“As soon as this meeting is over, we will be able to head home for a few weeks,” Drako said quietly. “You will both find out that you don’t have to agree on anything. Your being fated-mates isn’t something that requires your cooperation. It is a state that you have absolutely no choice in.”
“Forgive me, but I don’t trust anything where I’m being chemically forced to accept my fate,” Alexandra grumbled.
“That’s not what a fated-mate is,” Drako growled. “A fated-mate is that one person in the universe who is destined for only you. He is your life partner, the person who makes your life worth living with a shared purpose, a shared goal, and shared destiny. He is your other half.”
“That may all be true, but Alexandra is also correct,” I insisted. “It’s the chemical compatibility between us that forces us together. Pheromones gone wild.”
Drako frowned. “You and Alexandra can try to fight the chemistry between you, or you can embrace and celebrate it as Luka, our mates, and I have. It will be your loss, but no one can force you to accept each other if you don’t want it.”
But we weren’t doing such a good job of fighting our attraction. I had no doubt what would happen when we closed our eyes in a few hours. We would indulge in the mutual chemistry that neither of us could ignore. Soon, we would go further than fingers, lips, and tongues.
Just the thought of it had me lost in an explicit reel of sensual images clouding my mind. Our naked bodies, hers spread out under me, my pale skin contrasting so starkly against her exotic pecan skin as she took me deep, her silky heat gloved tight around my length, a light sheen of sweat coating us, our lips sealed in a passionate kiss as desire burned hot, our need for each other unquenchable…
I couldn’t get that clear vision, complete with sound, taste, and scent, from my mind as it played like an IMAX film on repeat again and again. In my distracted state, my shield lowered, and too late, I felt Alexandra’s presence in my mind.
I slammed up my shield again, blocking her access even as I fought against the stunned, but reciprocal need I saw reflected in her dark gaze.
“Well then…” she said softly, half wonder and half moan.
The promise in those soft words almost brought me to my knees. Yeah, my skin color was not even an afterthought in her mind. I suddenly wished that we didn’t have this board meeting to get through before we were sequestered in St. Petersburg. I’d never looked forward to sleep time as much as I did at that moment.