Drink of Me

  He’d never been faced with this situation before. He wondered if any Sánge ever had. The one good thing about having a reputation was everyone already knew about the Sánge “depravities.” Since this isolated them from outsiders, what were the odds of having to explain the needs of sexual culmination to a partner?

  But Mystique had no preparation, no rumors, and no prejudices. Though he couldn’t decide if she had more information than he suspected, he knew he could make no assumptions. It would be wrong to let her face the intensity of Sánge lovemaking without making very certain there was a clear understanding of the details between them.

  Reule watched her as she arched her back and swung her hair through the water, her beautiful breasts thrusting up in exaggeration, the tempting tips drawn into taut crests that had him curling his free hand into a brutal fist as he tried to maintain control of himself. By the Lord, he wanted to taste her there, to suck her between the fangs pricking at the inside of his lips, pulling her nipple against his craving tongue.

  “To hell,” he breathed, turning his head aside and closing his eyes as he tried to control his fevered blood and breathing. It certainly didn’t help that her swaying body caused her bottom to wriggle against his already raging erection. Reule had half a mind to read the little tease’s thoughts to see if she was doing it on purpose. She was too sophisticated about her sexuality not to know better.

  “Reule? How is Chayne?”

  The question snapped his head around and he looked at her with a numb sense of surprise. He hadn’t thought of Chayne once since he’d walked in the door. It wasn’t like him to ignore his sense of an injured Packmate. He absently reached out and swept her straggling hair off of her forehead, his fingers threading into the floating sea of red.

  “I think you saved his life, kébé. No. I know you saved his life.” He cupped the back of her head and drew her torso up out of the water, holding her against himself once again as he gazed into her eyes. “For that, I will be forever grateful to you. My Packmates are pieces of me. Pieces of my spirit, if you will. I’ve never lost one, but I expected to lose Chayne. I even expected to hurry him on his way. When you channeled him, you felt what it feels like to be Pack. When you saved him, you spared the Pack a pain beyond outside understanding. Even Sánge don’t always understand what it feels like to be Pack.”

  “I know what it feels like to be Chayne,” she corrected him, giving a delicate shudder.

  “Chayne at his most desperate, kébé,” he reminded her, touching his lips to her cheek.

  “I know. Trust that.” She slid forward and rested her cheek against his shoulder. He felt the reflexive twinge of sympathy radiating out of her as she recalled the experience of unexpectedly becoming Chayne’s voice. “Why did you ignore him, Reule? He will want to know that.”

  Reule stiffened even though he heard no accusation in her voice. “I’m not sure I understand your question, Mystique,” he hedged warily.

  “He understands why you all couldn’t enter the room once the decay began. You trusted the apothecary to care for him and you couldn’t bear to watch him suffer. But you were the one in his mind, Reule. You were the one he was asking for release. He knew Delano wouldn’t be able to do it, but he believed you wouldn’t refuse him. How did it go so far without your intervention?”

  The uncanny understanding in her observations told him that she wasn’t speaking from a half-realized concept. For those few minutes in the dining hall, she’d known Chayne’s heart, and certainly his mind. But in all fairness, it was the first time Chayne’s wishes for euthanasia had been clearly voiced. Up until that moment, all any of them had known was what instinct told them he’d want. Instinct and ages of friendship. But it was true that it would have come down to Reule in the end. As a Packmate, Chayne’s life was Reule’s to give or take as he saw fit. It was part of the oath all of his Pack had taken when each had committed himself wholly to their Packleader.

  “In truth, I have no answer to that. Certainly no excuses. It is difficult to know the mind of a suffering man, kébé. You aren’t a telepath or empath, so you don’t understand how hard it is to filter out what’s truly desired from what the mind cries when it’s being tortured by things like pain and fever. In time I’d have come to understand Chayne’s needs. In a very short amount of time,” he added. “I knew it was coming time to make a stand for him. Chayne will know that as well. I wouldn’t have let him down. But neither would I have let him go too soon if there was the slightest hope in his favor. As it turns out, hope existed after all.” Reule flicked a thumb across the rise of her cheek. “Perhaps on some level I knew there was a reason for waiting. Maybe I was—”

  Reule broke off and Mystique cocked her head in curiosity as his warm eyes grew distant for a moment, as though he’d left her alone. She reached up to cradle his face against one of her small hands as she leaned closer to him, her flushed lips brushing his gently.

  “Maybe you were what?” she coaxed, watching his eyes carefully as he slowly returned to awareness of the moment.

  Reule didn’t answer her. He was too lost in the tenderness glittering in her faceted eyes. He was speechless at the realization flooding through him that something integral had changed in his sphere the day she’d entered it. He always maneuvered within his life with a sense of waiting. Waiting to declare life and commerce in Jeth a success. Waiting to find a proper time to take a mate and produce heirs. Waiting for the next adversity to challenge them. Waiting for Sánge acceptance in the outer world. These were milestones that he held in high priority, and so it was important for him to time everything accordingly.

  Anyone who had ever walked up a steep hill would have known the feeling well. An endless pushing of oneself, a slowing of one’s natural speed and agility to conquer the steepness and combat one’s own weight. This was what the Prime of Jeth felt every single day of his life as he traveled a precipitous road for his people. It was honor. It was necessity. It was even love. All motivators that drove a man of his essence.

  But suddenly, in this very instant, it was as though the angle of his path had tilted to a smoother and more manageable degree. He hadn’t been aware of it at first because so much was happening simultaneously.

  But, oh, he felt it now. Like the ring of a crystal bell around his head, he felt the resonance of it. Something had changed. Something had exhaled, relaxed, and now lay with palms spread wide in gentle welcome. It wasn’t a guarantee, nor was it a submission. It was something he was very aware he had to earn and, once earned, value highly. A gift. Priceless and beautiful.

  Sitting literally in his lap.

  Reule knew in that very instant that she had no mate. No children. The clarity was irrefutable in his mind, though he had no proof to support it one way or another. He simply knew she would belong to no one.

  No one but him.

  Mystique’s breath caught when Reule’s curiously thoughtful expression was replaced suddenly by the look of a proprietary predator. He smiled at her, the quick gleam of even white teeth flashing in such a way that she shivered in spite of being mostly submerged in very hot water.

  “I think,” he said, his tone pitched low and intent, “that I ought to carry you to bed. I’m told that rest will best help you heal.”

  “Reule, I’m nude. You can’t very well carry me through the keep like this,” she laughed.

  “I think I’d enjoy the trip very much. Especially if it sparked a bashful streak in you at last.” His hazel gaze swept down her torso in a way that finally, after all this time with him, made her feel as naked as she actually was. Her breath caught in a soundless gasp as he reached out to run his spread fingertips down her chest and slowly along the slope of her breast. “I want to see this perfect paleness flush rosy pink with blushing. Or perhaps…yes, better yet…”

  Before she could even draw breath, his hands were against the ribs of her back and he was dragging her up out of the water until her nipple brushed against his lips. She clutched his rock-
hard biceps in startled hands as his lips parted to allow the flick of his tongue. Mystique gasped, the delicate sound strangling off halfway through when the tongue was quickly followed by his entire mouth closing over her. Fire rushed over her skin, stabbed deep inside her chest and belly until her body writhed with flame as he very gently suckled her.

  With nothing to brace against, her legs floated around until her knees hugged his ribs just under his powerful arms. It was obvious he thought nothing of her weight as he supported it in the palms of his hands without so much as a sign of effort. Just that potent flex of muscle sent excitement rushing through her, colliding with the sunburst of sensation his mouth caused as he toyed with her nipple. There was the soft flick of his tongue, the gentle rub of his teeth, and the tease of his lips. She squirmed helplessly, unable to maneuver, trapped where she was, stimulated and frustrated all at once. She wanted…

  “What, kébé? What do you want?” His voice was arrogant as it ran through her mind and she flushed when she realized he’d been purposely monitoring her thoughts. “Of course I have, sweetheart. I want to know what you want. What excites you. Telepaths make the best lovers because they can follow the thoughts of pleasure of their partners. Now tell me what you want, sweet.”

  He already knew what she wanted, damn him. Mystique knew it without any doubt. He was teasing her senses on purpose, holding back, just to gauge her. Stubbornly, she lifted her hands to his hair, sinking her fingers into the black, shaggy softness of it until she had hold enough to pull his head back from her breast. Her wet nipple slipped free and his brows arched to match the superior little grin twitching at half of his mouth as he lifted amused eyes to her.

  Stroking a hard hand through his hair for a moment, she studied him. Then, very decisively, she turned off her thoughts and turned herself over to impulse. Closing her eyes, she drew him forward just as she locked her legs tight against his ribs. She dragged him against her and rubbed his face over her, from breast to breast, covering him with her softness and surrounding him with the scent she knew rocked his senses. Her nipples prodded his lips, but slipped away just as they parted to taste her again. She settled him briefly in the valley between them, his nose against her breastbone and his face surrounded by her warm flesh. Her lips stroked his forehead in sensual little kisses.

  His fingers around her back tightened so savagely that she had to work to take in a breath, but she smiled at the reaction. She added to the allure by drawing herself up against his chest with her legs, rubbing her heat against him shamelessly. She knew the scent of her aroused sex rose up to surround him, teased him mercilessly with his own sharp senses. She had learned one thing with clarity in her time with the Sánge, and that was that they had the potent nature of predators in the wild, and that they gave themselves over to that side of themselves with pride and frequency. In a sense, she knew very well that she was a form of prey to him. In fact, she was counting on it.

  “Reule…” she whispered in a sensual hum. “What do you want?”

  His response was rough and dizzying. Everything spun, water splashed, and suddenly she was on her back on slippery tiles that, though they were warmed, were still astonishingly cold in comparison to her body. She gasped with the shock, her back arching sharply as Reule settled possessively over her. He lay along the center of her body, his hips caught intimately against hers and her breasts flattened beneath the weight of his chest. His hand hit the tiles near her head, the startling slap purposeful as he ground himself forward against her, fitting himself tight between her thighs and letting her feel the effect she had on his body. He was hard and hot through the wet fabric of his pants, the tight garment once again having been left on for propriety’s sake. Propriety definitely wouldn’t be satisfied if it could feel the state he was in.

  Mystique caught her breath at the magnificent heat and solidity of him, as hard as marble but oh, nowhere near as cold. His hand reached down to grip one of her thighs as she grasped at his hips with them, moaned from her soul, and arched her pelvis to meet his blatant thrust.

  Reule hissed out a fevered curse as he buried his face against her neck.

  “I want to taste every part of you. Touch every part of you. Lord damn me, I want to be inside you,” he growled. “I want to feel you surrounding me so tightly that I feel strangled by you. I want to make you come until I’m drenched with you and you’re screaming my name. That is what I want!”

  “Oh!” she gasped as she felt him rock and tease her body with his. “I want that, too.” She sighed gustily against his hair. “I want to feel you all over. Your hands, your mouth, but not always like you are afraid I will break. I’m small but I’m strong. I want to know your body,” she breathed. “I want to feel you pushing inside me until I can’t bear to be filled any more.”

  “Lord, help me,” Reule ground out almost savagely as his entire body tensed into a taut mountain of muscle above her. He shook with the effort he was using and she tried to see his face but he had purposely turned away from her.

  “Reule? Did I say something wrong?” she asked anxiously.

  “Shh,” he said softly, turning to press a tender kiss against the skin of her shoulder before lifting most of his weight off her and onto his hands and knees. She felt the loss of the warmth and pressure of him as though half her body had been stolen away. She shivered at the terrible deficit, and he noticed when she withdrew her arms and crossed them protectively over her breasts. He studied her only briefly with hazel irises that were nearly invisible around passion-dilated pupils. Then he lowered himself to kiss her cheek before pressing lips just beneath her ear.

  “Listen to me, kébé. Firstly, I won’t do what we both desire when you’re injured. And I pray you know how hard it is for me to withdraw from you, sweetheart. All you need do is look at my body to see how badly I want to give us both all of those things we want. But not while you are hurt. I can barely stomach myself as it is for ignoring your care this much.”

  “Stop,” she whispered. “I’m fine. It almost doesn’t even hurt anymore.”

  “That’s not the point. And it’s also not the only reason. There are things…” He hesitated, drawing in a deep, shaky breath. “There are things I need to tell you first. You need to know everything before…There are things about Sánge mating that you’ll need to know. I’m afraid if I don’t prepare you, you’ll be terrified. To hell, you may be terrified anyway.”

  The shocking dawn of comprehension splashed over her like frigid water, awakening her to what she hadn’t been seeing. What she hadn’t been hearing. She suddenly sank powerful fingers into his hair and forced his head up, making him face her. She studied him sharply, then touched his sealed lips with a tentative fingertip.

  “Show me,” she said in a whisper. Then she leaned forward and dragged her lips over his, coaxing and warm. “Show me, Reule.”

  Reule parted his lips just enough to cover hers and then kissed her. He let the passion of it grow gently, listened to her exhale with the relief the contact gave them both. Then he opened his mouth and dipped for her tongue, finally exposing himself to her.

  Mystique felt the brush of deadly fangs against her lips and tongue, and it made her shiver. Her tongue touched the exaggerated canines in a curiously sensual stroke and Reule shuddered against her briefly. It made her smile and draw his mouth tighter against hers so they could enjoy the discovery of a kiss of passion with him in that state. It really wasn’t all that different, although the small pricks of sharpness were actually a little too stimulating. It sparked off her imagination about feeling the sensation elsewhere on her body. But before that happened, she would need him to tell her why he’d been so reluctant to tell her that arousal caused this to happen.

  She pulled back from his kiss, just as reluctant as he was to do so, but knowing it was needed. He met her eyes, refusing to shy away from her reaction. It was a bravery that made her heart clench hard in her chest, a sense of pride overwhelming her though she hardly understood all the
reasons why it mattered so much to her. She smoothed her fingers through his wild hair, knowing she was mostly responsible for its state of disarray. She smiled, a feeling of possession taking root inside her. She allowed it to stay.

  “Did you think that these would frighten me away?” she asked, her fingertip stroking his lips again and the pronounced fang beneath.

  “They may still,” he said, his tone a mixture of apprehension and hope. “Kébé, do you know about Sánge mating rituals?”

  “I told you that I did,” she said with a shrug of one elegant little shoulder. “You didn’t believe me?”

  “I’m…not certain. There was mixed information. Mystique, I want to be very clear about this, so I’m going to be very frank. Sánge cannot climax without taking the blood of their partner. It means a bite, usually in the throes of ultimate pleasure. There are places on our bodies where these bites, when received, can cause overwhelming gratification. We’re designed for this. You aren’t Sánge. I can’t predict how you’d respond if I…if we…” To hell, Reule thought with frustration. Even the thought of it was sending surges of hard heat into his already aching arousal. He thought of his teeth breaking past that parchment-pale skin and it was enough to nearly make a lie of his claim about Sánge release.

  “Sánge take blood in moments of extremity,” she said, her voice whisper soft as her fingertips soothed over the contours of his face and blended into his hair until he was reeling with the pleasure and sensuality of it. “In agony, passion, rage, climax, starvation, exhaustion, and the heat of battle. I know this,” she assured him, “and it’s never disturbed me. In fact, I believe there’s a part of me that craves your extreme passion, Sánge.” She lifted her head to kiss his lips and capture his soulful groan.

  “I cannot bear the idea of hurting you, kébé,” he cried against her mouth. “Mystique, what if I—”