“Chiara,” he murmured, sweeping his tongue over her wound to seal it closed. He looked up at her and found her watching him with infinite tenderness. With so much soft regard, it staggered him. “My angel.”
She swallowed, nodding shakily. “I’m yours,” she whispered, reaching out to caress the side of his face. “And you’re mine.”
“Yes.” He was too far gone to pretend otherwise.
He’d been an idiot to think he could push her away right now, even if it was the safest, kindest thing he could do for her. She was his—not because of the blood bond he’d so selfishly taken, but because she was the only woman he’d ever truly wanted.
The Breedmate he’d never dreamed he could deserve.
He wouldn’t deserve her—not until her safety and Pietro’s was secured.
But he wanted her. Christ, how he wanted her.
“Come here, love.” His fangs crowded his mouth, but he took great care to kiss her gently, determined to show her that he did have some capacity for control, even if it was threadbare when it came to her.
He gathered her against him, and soon the warmth of her body, the softness of her curves, incinerated all of his good intentions. Need resonated through his whole body, heating his blood, settling in his bones. If he thought his craving for her had been torture before, he knew better now.
Spearing his hand into her hair, he wrapped the silky mass around his fist, once, twice, and then tugged her head back to take his kiss deeper.
Somewhere distant, in the back of his mind, a warning bell jangled, urging him to slow down, to leash the overwhelming spike of his hunger for her. But he was drowning in Chiara... the taste of her, the scent of her skin, and soon, that warning bell was nothing more than a memory.
He plunged his tongue into her mouth to tangle with hers as she whimpered and squirmed against him. For one terrifying second, he thought she was trying to escape him, but then her arms slid around his waist and pulled him closer still. She was so petite, her breasts pressed against his stomach, her legs twining with his.
He drew back, desperate for more.
“I need to be inside you,” he muttered, his voice no more than a growl as he slid his hand free of her silky locks and skimmed it down her neck, pausing to trace her delicate collarbone.
She shivered, goose bumps breaking out on her skin as he drew her shirt over her head and bared her lovely body to his gaze. No panties beneath her pajama bottoms, which she shimmied out of as he watched, fevered and vibrating with arousal.
He'd never been a man inclined toward poetry. Hell, he'd never been inclined to wax rhapsodically on anything, but Chiara made him wish he had the words to express just how beautiful she was to him. Speech failed him as he stared down into her face now.
He had no words, but inside, every fiber of his being sang with emotion.
“Mine,” he said simply, possessively. Reverently.
He didn’t feel the pain of his injuries or the limitation of his missing hand as he lifted her into his arms. He carried her into her bedroom and placed her beneath him on the mattress. She helped him shed his clothing, her fingers as light as butterflies as they skimmed over his bandages.
Her brow knit with concern. “Are you sure, Scythe? Your injuries—”
“My injuries are nothing. Your blood is already mending me.” It was true. He could feel his bullet-torn muscles and bones healing just moments after he took the first sip of her blood. He smiled down at her, blatantly carnal. “As for the rest of me?”
He laced his fingers with hers and dragged her hand lower to cup his heavy erection. Her gasp tangled with his low hiss as she closed her fingers around his cock. He was harder than he’d ever been before, and so large his girth exceeded her petite grasp.
He thrust into her firm, silken hold. “Your blood has made all of me stronger.”
“Let me feel it, Scythe. I need you inside me now.” Her plea was breathless, but filled with demand. She shifted beneath him, wrapping her leg around the back of his thighs and arching her hips in sultry invitation.
Scythe couldn’t have denied her if he were bound and chained under the full blaze of a noonday sun. He had to have her. His need swamped him, pushed everything else to the furthest corners of his mind.
He and Chiara would be safe until night fell again. For now, there was just the two of them. Just this hunger for each other that owned them both.
With his weight braced on his right arm, he slid his hand under her and tilted her hips to meet his invading thrust. He sank in deep, swallowing her cry in a kiss that matched the ferocity of his passion. He plunged hard and wild, unable to take it slowly when every primal instinct within him was pounding with the urge to claim her.
As his woman.
As his mate.
As the future he never knew he wanted until her.
“You’re so hard,” she murmured, her rich voice husky with wonder and unabashed feminine desire. Her sensuality laid him low and he swallowed a snarl. She moved, taking him deeper, until stars began to burst behind his closed eyelids. “Oh, God... you feel so good inside me, Scythe.”
He agreed, although good was too paltry a word for what he felt when he was inside Chiara’s heat. She fit him as though she were made for him, as if there were no delineation between the point where he ended and she began.
He was bound to her, but these chains were a shackle he had no desire to escape.
It only made him want more of her.
He wanted her bound to him too.
On a growl, he threw his head back and tried to think of anything but that. Anything but how good her skin smelled and how sweet her blood still tasted on his tongue. How right it would be to seal his mouth to her neck and feel her delectable blood pulse into his mouth in hot, glorious bursts.
As for that other temptation, it refused to let him go. The dangerous whisper of his Breed genetics urged him to complete the circle of their bond by sinking his fangs into his own flesh and feeding Chiara from his opened vein.
He squeezed his eyes shut, clamping down on that part of him that wanted to pretend he was anything close to the kind of mate Chiara deserved.
He wanted to be the man she seemed to believe he was.
Right now, he only wanted to give her pleasure enough to forget what awaited them once night fell again. He focused on her body’s responses, pushing her closer to the edge and reveling in her moans and sighs and shuddering gasps.
“Oh, God, Scythe... It’s so good. Tell me you feel this too.”
“I feel everything,” he rasped, astonishment pouring over him.
His own sensation was doubled by the link he had to her now through her blood. Her passion was his. Her mounting climax was a current of electricity that amplified his own building release. She angled to meet his savage thrusts, her plush walls rippling along his length as the first tremors of orgasm vibrated against him. He couldn’t stop the rush of heat that rocketed through him. Chiara’s orgasm broke at the same time, her cry entwined with his harsh shout.
He’d never felt anything so powerful, so miraculous, as his woman’s pleasure spiraling through his senses while his own body quaked with the aftershocks of the most staggering release of his life.
On a low groan, he finally rolled away from her, propping himself against the headboard. Chiara carefully moved onto his lap, her breath still coming in rapid pants as she tenderly ran her fingers over the skewed bandages on his chest. He draped his arms over her, idly stroking her as they both came back down to earth.
She lifted her head, placing a soft kiss to his abdomen. “Are you feeling all right?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” He chuckled, shifting his hips so she could feel the already hardening shaft of his erection.
Her brown eyes smoldered with her sexy smile. “I was talking about your injuries. Do they feel any better?”
“After what we just did, I don’t feel them at all.” He grinned. “But if you’re wondering if they’re healing, t
hat’s an improvement too.”
“May I look?”
He nodded, more than willing to have her hands on him. She gingerly peeled away one of the bandages. It came away stained with blood, but the hole in his body was already mending. “Your blood did that, Chiara.”
She nodded, glancing back at him with regret in her eyes.
No, not just regret. Fear too.
He felt it streak through her like a chill in the air. He studied her quiet contemplation, dreading the words she seemed to struggle to say.
“You’re afraid of this means?” he asked her. “If you’re worried that I’ll expect anything after all of this is over—”
“What?” Her face collapsed into a confused frown. “No. Scythe, I’m not worried about that at all. How could you think that?”
“But you are worried about something. I can feel your fear, Chiara.” He swallowed past the cold knot that was settling behind his sternum. “You regret something. Are you sorry for giving me your bond?”
“Never.” Her answer was full of conviction, her brows furrowed as she shook her head in firm denial. “I’ll never regret that. Not as long as I live, Scythe.”
He reached out to caress her silky cheek. “Then tell me.”
“What I regret is that it took this long for us to meet.” She released a quiet sigh. “I regret that it was Sal who had me first, not you. And I’m always going to regret that I gave my son such a terrible example of a father.”
Moved by her honesty, Scythe collected her against him and placed a kiss to the top of her head. “If we’d met any sooner, you wouldn’t have liked me. That much I can promise you. Do I wish you’d been spared the pain Sal caused you? More than you know. As for Pietro, he’s got the best mother a child could hope for. None of Sal’s failings as a mate or a father can ever diminish that.”
She embraced him tighter, resting her cheek against his chest. But that acrid streak of fear still clung to her. On a low curse, he gently drew her up, forcing her to meet his searching gaze.
“Tell me the rest, love. What has you so afraid?”
“I can’t stop thinking about what he said—the monster who broke in here last night. I don’t know what I ever did to him to earn his hatred.”
“With a madman, there’s no telling what drives them.”
“He said it was vengeance, Scythe. He said he’s going to make me pay, either with my own life or...” She swallowed, a shudder coursing over her. “I won’t let him take me alive. Not when living means being forced into a blood bond with a deranged lunatic who plans to rape me and make me bear his sons. I’d never survive that kind of hell.”
Christ, neither would he. Just the thought of her suffering something so heinous turned his veins to ice. Now that her blood was inside him, Scythe would always have a one-way link to her as long as either of them lived. But that wouldn’t prevent another male from activating his own blood connection to Chiara.
Only she could complete the circle. She could not be bound to any male if she had already shared a bond with another.
Scythe’s gums tingled with the sudden prickling of his fangs.
He meant what he said—that he would not permit her to fall into enemy hands. He would guard her safety with his life, and he was damned hard to kill. If she were taken, he would hack his way to hell and back to save her.
But if they were separated, the only certain way to protect her in that unimaginable interim was to shield her with his blood.
With his bond.
He lifted her face, needing her to see his eyes and the determination that lit them. The vow he was about to give her. “He’s not going to touch you, love. Not so long as I’m breathing. I won’t let it happen.” He stroked her cheek. “He won’t have your blood or your bond. You can entrust both to me now... if you’ll have me.”
Her lips parted on an indrawn breath. He felt the spike of her heartbeat, the hope that was now eclipsing her fear. “Scythe, are you saying—”
“You’ve given me your strength and protection, Chiara. By some miracle of fate, you’ve given me your love. Now, let me give you mine.”
Her quiet sob and the sudden well of joyful tears that filled her eyes was all the answer he needed.
He brought his wrist to his mouth and sank his fangs into the vein that throbbed there. Then he guided her lips to the wound and held her close as she drank.
Chapter 12
Night was arriving much too quickly.
Scythe could have lain with Chiara in his arms all day, but there had been important work to do in preparation for the battle ahead. He had secured all portals inside the villa hours ago, but as the afternoon waned toward sunset, he couldn’t keep from making another tactical inspection of the house that would need to serve as his bunker.
And there was still one more critical area of his defense that needed to be addressed as well.
Chiara.
Even before they shared their blood, his mind had been made up as to the best means of keeping her out of her assailant’s reach. Now that he and Chiara were mated, his resolve had only gotten firmer.
She wasn’t going to like his decision, but he would fight that battle when it came too.
As he checked and rechecked the assault rifle he’d stowed outside the panic room of the villa’s wine cellar, his veins began to tingle with the awareness of her approach behind him.
“The sun is going down now,” she murmured soberly. “How long do you think we’ll have before...?”
As her voice trailed off, he set the Kalashnikov and extra 30-round magazines back into their hiding spots on one of the floor-to-ceiling wine racks, then turned to face her.
“Not long, sweetheart.”
“The Order’s not going to make it in time to help us, are they?”
“I doubt it.” He wasn’t going to lie to her. She deserved his honesty, especially when they were about to face this incoming threat together.
A few hours ago, Scythe had phoned Trygg to call off the blood Host and to inform his brother that he and Chiara had mated. The newsflash hadn’t earned him any congratulations from Trygg or the Rome commander, Lazaro Archer. And although Scythe had never been one to ask for favors or backup, he had requested both from the Order.
They weren’t able to make any promises. There had been a Rogue outbreak in Florence last night. The emergency mission had demanded the work of the entire team from Rome, and the warriors were grounded in that northern city until nightfall.
“Even if they start heading our way now,” Scythe told her, “they’re still hours away from Potenza.”
“I see.” She nodded in grave understanding, but he could feel the subtle spike of his brave mate’s apprehension. The deep hum that had become a welcome presence since he’d taken his first sip of her blood intensified as a shudder swept over her.
Scythe frowned as he drew her into his arms. “I wish I had sent you away like I wanted to. Keeping you here with me—taking your blood—was the most selfish thing I’ve ever done.”
She shook her head. “No more selfish than me offering it to you. Or me wanting to stay wherever you are. I love you, Scythe.”
He could feel her conviction through their bond, but hearing her say the words leveled him. It humbled him. “You honor me too much. But I love you too. More than you can ever know.”
A beautiful smile spread over her face. “I do know. I feel it. I feel it like a growing vibration in my bones. I feel it thrumming all the way into my marrow.”
Was that what it was? Merely the manifestation of their bond?
He was certain she was the source of the strange undercurrent of power he felt since they had mated, but he didn’t get a chance to say the words.
Like a switch being flipped, his internal alarm lit up with warning. Danger was closing in on the vineyard property. They likely had only minutes before the worst of it would be upon them.
He couldn’t hide his visceral reaction from Chiara now. His blood told her everyt
hing.
He braced himself to feel her terror arc through him, but the sensation didn’t come. The strongest emotion he felt from her was resolve. Courage he could hardly reconcile.
“I’m ready,” she said, her voice a fierce little snarl as she stepped out of his embrace. She had never been more beautiful than in that moment, her dark eyes glittering with determination. “Let’s do this.”
“Not us, Chiara. Me.” He gestured to the open door of the panic room.
Confusion and outrage spiked her blood. She took a breath as if she meant to argue and he shook his head harshly.
“I need you to stay here. Do it for me, so I know where to find you once this is over. When I go out there now, I need to know you’re safe.”
“And I need to be with you! Dammit, Scythe, we stay together.”
“We are together,” he said, taking her fisted hand and opening it over the center of his chest, where his heart hammered in time with hers. “You’ll feel me with you every second. And I’ll feel you.”
She swallowed, some of her resistance leaching away. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
“Then help me do my job. Let me focus on killing this bastard so I can come back for you.”
A broken cry wrenched from her throat, but she nodded. He guided her into the panic room, his hand on the heavy vault door. As soon as she was inside, she turned and threw her arms around him, kissing him as if she feared it might be the last time.
“I hate this,” she whispered against his mouth. “Don’t you dare die on me, Hunter.”
“I won’t,” he promised. “Not when everything I’ve got to live for is waiting for me right here.”
Stepping out of her embrace was the hardest thing he’d ever done.
Her eyes stayed locked on his as he pushed the concealed panel closed, sealing her inside.
And not a moment too soon.
His internal warning system was lit up like a fucking Christmas tree. The tap, tap, tapping inside his skull became a deafening drum. Inside the pocket of his black combat vest, his phone was buzzing with the triggered alarms of virtually every tripwire on the property.