y of my desire to have you.”
It was the wrong thing to say. In implying threat to the vampires, he’d reminded her of the repercussions to her family. Sajia grew still.
Not wanting to lose what he already had with her, he said, “They’ll free you from your oath in a bargain that will satisfy all of us. You’re my wife. Your place is with me.”
Her eyes flashed with fire. She sat, taking the heat of her skin and her soft curves from him. “Maybe the woman you once knew was content to let you order her life as you saw fit, but I am not that woman. If you think otherwise, then you love a memory, not who I am. My place is wherever I choose it to be.”
Pride and masculine arrogance demanded he prove the truth of his claim. He acted on it, tumbling her backward and lying on top of her, pinning her to the mattress. A quick thrust and he was inside her. “Tell me you’d choose to be apart from me. Tell me your soul calls out for any other but mine.”
The soft yielding of her body and the heated, tight clasp of her channel on his cock made it impossible for her to lie. His wings settled against her thighs, brushed in sensuous reminder of how erotic she found them when they made love.
Sajia shivered. Her eyes closed as she gathered strength. Opened as she said, “I won’t exchange one type of servitude for another, despite our games of dominance and submission. Despite what we once had. If I’m to love you as deeply as I did then, it will be because you treat me as an equal in our relationship. Not as your prize or your reward, but as a wife who is both joined to you and separate from you.”
He wanted to rail against her demands, against hearing her say out loud what he already knew, that she didn’t yet love him in the way he so desperately craved. He wanted to tie her to the bed again until she was mindless with pleasure, her will bent so thoroughly to his that they were one person, bound so intimately together that they wouldn’t exist apart. But some small, rational part of him accepted an irrevocable truth: she wasn’t the same woman he’d loved before, though he loved her no less for it. Her soul was more thoroughly Scorpion, honed in the fiery birthplace of the Djinn so she could survive in a world that had been changed forever by what the humans had done to it.
He could put none of his thoughts into words. Could do nothing to change their immediate future. That left him with only the moment, and the pervasive need to have her clinging to him, crying out his name in sobbed release.
If anything could ease him, it was how readily she gave him those things, even as she wrung out his surrender in equal measure. Making his buttocks clench and his breathing become labored, his skin grow slick and his thoughts scatter as he came in a lava-hot rush of semen.
They left the bed a short time later, remaining in the cabin only long enough to wash and eat a breakfast of bread and fruit. Then they resumed their search, using the Constellation’s powerful engines instead of its sails.
Lunch was eaten on the deck, with the vastness of the ocean spread out around them. In the distance several cargo ships were visible, two leaving the bay and three heading toward it.
Dotting the blue were fishing boats, large and small, populated with men working their nets or using poles and lines. It had been time-consuming getting close enough to each of them in order to eliminate it from their search.
Sunset was approaching when Sajia spotted a boat with a red lantern to the right of the cabin doorway and a blue on the left. Addai slowed the Constellation. He’d not thought it possible to feel what a human would feel, the knotting of his stomach that came with fear.
He couldn’t be in two places at once. Couldn’t will himself to the boat and guard her at the same time.
Free her from the bindings, the internal voice advised. And he denied it once again.
“Get in the cabin, Sajia, while I take the Constellation closer.”
Resistance flared in her. A refusal he saw her fight to suppress as she remembered her earlier promise. She obeyed, though she left the door open and hovered just out of sight beyond it.
Three men were visible. All three rested their hands on their knives when he changed the Constellation’s course and headed directly toward them.
He kept the speed steady, calculating the distance and the point at which he would be close enough to use his voice as a weapon. And when it arrived, he said, “Lie down on the deck and you will be spared.”
They lay down as ordered, docile in the promise of death and damnation he carried with him.
Truth or trap?
The doorway leading to the cabin was open. Addai reached beyond the three men and found terror and hope in the cabin, entreaties for rescue, not from only one human, but from two.
He sensed none of his kind. Sensed nothing other than the five humans onboard.
“I believe the scion is here,” he said, drawing Sajia out with his words.
It took only a few moments to guide the Constellation alongside the other boat and secure them so they couldn’t drift apart. Addai kept himself positioned between Sajia and the prone men, looking away from them only long enough to glance in and see the cabin’s occupants: a homely girl, her wrists bleeding from the ropes securing them, and a boy, perhaps only a year older than the girl, his face badly bruised and his clothing dirty and torn.
Sajia drew her knives and entered to free the scions. A moment later, Addai heard Corinne’s heartfelt sob, then her babbled apologies for not confiding in Sajia, followed by her identifying the boy as Sebastian, a scion of the Tassone family.
Satisfaction surged through Addai at learning who the boy was. Wariness followed as he thought of the message that accompanied the one sending him to Sajia. This had all the markings of something arranged by the Djinn. He wondered if the witch lied about Caphriel’s involvement, then shook off his misgivings, telling himself that regardless of intent, finding Sebastian Tassone here gave him a bargaining tool to free Sajia from her oath and ensure her family could be made safe.
“Let’s go,” he said, moving as it became unbearable to have Sajia out of his sight, suddenly anxious to be done with vampire business and begin their life together.
“We need to get Corinne and Sebastian home,” Sajia said, guessing at his intention to let the scions take the Constellation. “I need to speak with the Tucci master about my oath and my family.”
He chafed at the necessary delay, but said to the Tassone scion, “Take off the charm hiding you from your family so they’ll come for you.”
The boy’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down before he gathered his courage and stood taller. “I won’t let Corinne be sent to Los Angeles.” A blush crept up his face. “She might already carry a Tassone scion.”
Sajia was torn between laughing and crying and raging. “Was that your plan? To run away and hide until she got pregnant?”
Sebastian’s chin lifted. “If Corinne is sent to the Gairdens, she’ll die. Their scions survive the transition less often than the Tucci do.”
Tears spilled down Corinne’s cheeks. “It was the only way we could think of to be together.”
Sajia felt herself soften with pity and sympathy. She didn’t need to ask why the teens hadn’t petitioned Draven Tassone. There was nothing the Tucci could offer that would be worth weakening the Tassone bloodline for, no reason to form an alliance with a family so far beneath the Tassone in power.
“Take off the token,” Addai told Sebastian again. “And when your family arrives to collect you, allow me to bargain on your behalf.”
Sebastian’s eyes met Corinne’s in silent communication first, then he nodded, accepting Addai’s offer, though he fumbled as he removed a coinlike token from his pocket and handed it to Corinne for safekeeping. She did the same, handing him the token she carried.
Sajia smiled at that. They might be scions, but they were still teens who thought they’d somehow manage to use the tokens to sneak away again.
“Where did you get them?” she asked.
“Maliq,” Sebastian answered, naming the man the Wain
wright witch had. “I met him in the occult shop. It’s one of the places I visit every day as part of my schooling.”
And probably how he’d met Corinne, Sajia guessed, or at least how they managed to slip messages back and forth without anyone becoming aware of the relationship.
“And the fishermen?” she asked, thinking not just of the ones who lay in peaceful surrender onboard the boat, but of the one who’d been drained of blood by the Tucci.
Sebastian looked out through the cabin door, and his expression hardened beyond his years. “Maliq arranged for a man to take us to Oakland and for a hiding place, but he must have sold us out. These three jumped us in the red zone.”
Impatience rubbed over Addai’s skin like an unpleasant breeze. The ocean grated on his nerves with its endless lap of water and its ever-present danger.
“Come out on deck,” he said, anticipating the swift arrival of the Tassone and wanting them to see that their scion was safe.
Sajia left the cabin first. Corinne next.
The Tassone scion came last, and as he stepped through the doorway, Addai felt the release of a spell. Trap!
In an instant the men lying on the deck were freed from their fear. They rose, drawing their knives and rushing forward.
A thought and Addai’s sword came to him. With the sweep of his arm, it sliced through the first of the men, measuring the darkness of his soul. Drinking in memories of rape, and the intention to do the same to the scions before delivering them to someone else.
The second and third men died just as quickly. Their evil measured as their spirits were cast into the ghostlands to be enjoyed by those who hunted and tormented there.
Pawns, Addai thought, anticipating the appearance of his brother.
Caphriel didn’t disappoint. He arrived in a flash of glory, his wings the same snowy white of Addai’s.
His attention went immediately to Sajia, and his smile held equal measures of amusement and cruelty. “When last we met, I wondered what drew you to lost causes, brother. Now it seems I’ve found your motivation, and a way to save you from yourself. Shall we keep this fight between us, or should we summon others and add to the fun?”
“Does your most recent defeat in the Were lands leave you needing to call for reinforcements?”
Caphriel laughed, slicing through the air with his sword in a playful manner. “She is sweet, but knowing you grieve her loss will be sweeter.”
“I’ll kill you first.”
Caphriel smiled an instant before he lunged, his sword connecting with Addai’s in a series of blows meant to drive Addai to the right and leave an opening to Sajia.
One touch, one bite of the blade could deliver death, instant to her human form and slow, like an icy poison, to her Djinn one.
In a fury of desperation Addai thrust and parried, wielding his sword like a fencer’s blade. He scored a hit on Caphriel and received one in return across his belly.
Blood escaped in streams and pain streaked through him. Unlike punishment delivered by an earthly weapon, the damage done by Caphriel’s couldn’t be healed instantly by will alone. Wouldn’t be healed at all if they fought to true death.
Fear drenched Addai, choice arriving once again. If he set Sajia free, then she would know he’d kept her imprisoned in form when she might have found Corinne earlier. She’d know he could have eased her mind, eradicated the terror of what happened in those times when she blacked out.
Learning the truth would crush the love just starting to blossom in her heart, leaving distrust and hate in its place—forever if he defeated Caphriel, or for the last moments of her life if he failed her once again.
He’d loved her once but not been willing to risk everything. A moment of indecision had led to thousands of years of regret.
Trust in what was beyond his control didn’t come easily to him. But arrogance did.
He’d win her heart again if necessary.
Addai spoke the word to unravel the spell written in angelic script on her body.
Behind him Sajia gasped, but he couldn’t afford to turn his attention from his brother, because in that instant, Caphriel launched an attack meant to make good on his threat to end Sajia’s life.
Sajia remained standing by force of will alone as the scorpion-shaped pendant she’d worn all her life burned against her flesh, delivering knowledge in a molten pour that scorched through her like melted rock and creation fire, revealing a heritage nearly beyond comprehension. Djinn.
Daughter of Earth. Scorpion-souled. Protector of her people and the world that gave birth to her. Enemy to those not of this world: the angels who battled in front of her as well as the vampires the scions behind her would one day become.
The need to slay her enemies blossomed like a black rose in her chest, thorns of hate piercing her, as if they’d anchor themselves in her soul. But almost immediately came thoughts of Addai, the memories they’d created in the short time they were together. Tenderness and sacrifice. Pleasure and pain.
Those memories were followed by equally powerful ones. Of the humans who’d made her part of their family, though now she understood there was no true genetic link to them. Of the still-human Corinne, in ways like a younger sister.
The thorns of hate found no place to reside in Sajia’s spirit. Fiery, elemental passion filled her, hot and intense, like a sandstorm sweeping across the desert and bringing with it the need to protect, to love, to live.
She thought to turn long enough to place the knives in the scions’ hands so they could protect themselves and she could change form and join Addai. But before she could do it, he cut his brother so deeply that Caphriel’s sword hand hung from cleaved muscle and severed bone, blood gushing as his free hand gripped the near stump, fingers clamping down like a tourniquet.
The tip of Addai’s sword lodged itself in Caphriel’s chest, piercing skin but not yet ending life. And even then, Caphriel laughed, taunted, “Do you dare, brother? My death might just turn our father’s gaze back to this forsaken world. Will you risk it? Are you ready for his wrath? Are your allies ready? Peace, brother. For today. And tomorrow. For thirty days and then we will begin our games again.”
Sajia went to Addai’s side, her own blades sheathed. With the illusion of being human stripped away, her doubts about him fled. For a being whose existence spanned eternity, only the essence of who someone was mattered, the soul without regard to form, and hers called out to his just as his did to hers.
She placed her hand on Addai’s arm. “Let him go.”
“And have him make a game of trying to kill you?”
In his voice she heard a willingness to damn them all because of his love for her. And despite the threat of it, tenderness welled inside her, bringing with it an understanding that delivering death came far easier to him than trusting in life.
Stroking her hand along the edge of Addai’s wing, she said, “I believe I’ve told you several times now that I am not the same woman I once was. I won’t be so easy to kill this time.”
Emotion clogged Addai’s throat. So intense it would have taken him to his knees had they been alone.
The desire to return to the chalet with Sajia overpowered him, pushing him to hurry and be done with Caphriel and his games. “Ninety days,” he said, bargaining as he had with Rimmon.
“Sixty. Beyond that, death would be a sweet release from the ennui.”
“Sixty,” Addai agreed, pulling his sword from Caphriel’s chest.
Caphriel’s form faded away in a weak shimmer, but his voice was strong in Addai’s mind. Enjoy her for the time she’s yours. The next victory will be mine, brother.
Addai sheathed his sword, and with its disappearance his wings also vanished. He turned, hardly daring to believe what he saw in Sajia’s eyes, what he’d heard in her voice moments earlier. Acceptance rather than repudiation. Love rather than hate.
I have never desired another as I do you. There has been no other for me since that day we first met. “I feared—”
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She touched her fingertips to his lips, silencing him. “You should if you intend to keep secrets from me or treat me as a prisoner.”
His heart was light, filled with such joy that he smiled against her fingers, teased, Not a prisoner, but a love slave.
He accompanied the words with an image projected into her mind, the recent past overlaid onto a far more distant one, of her naked on her knees before him, eyes pleading and hands placed in supplication on his thighs as she both waited for his command to pleasure him and pleaded for him to give it.
Sajia laughed, a sultry sound that had him hardening regardless of the blood pouring from his wounds. But then she grew somber, “You’re not healing.”
“I will with our return to the chalet.”
In her need to get to Addai’s side, concern for the teens had fled Sajia’s thoughts completely. They remained near the cabin doorway.
Neither seemed shocked or awed at having witnessed a battle between angels. They knew of the existence of such beings, she realized, guessing it was part of the history lessons reserved for scions.
The vampires of this world are the pale remains of beings fought elsewhere by my kind, Addai said, a shadow in her mind or anticipating her thoughts.
The noise of fast, powerful engines had them all looking toward San Francisco. And within minutes a swarm of speedboats had surrounded them.
Guards armed with machine guns boarded, efficiently clearing it of danger, their last duties to search the dead men then flip the bodies into the water.
A man who could only be a Tassone High Servant joined them on the deck of the fishing boat then. He was lethal beauty and deadly charm, his graceful movements making Sajia think of a cobra.
She suppressed a shiver when storm gray eyes became smooth steel, the change in them pronounced, arriving with the alien presence of the Tassone master as he took possession of his servant’s body. This was a vampire’s ultimate escape—if they were willing to sacrifice power for continued life—to be able to completely abandon their own body, leaving it behind to burn or rot or sink to the depths of the ocean while they lived on in another’s.
His gaze flickered over her, taking note of the Tucci marks on her arm before settling on Addai. “Apparently I am in your debt. What do you require to discharge it?”
“It can be accomplished easily enough. Arrange a betrothal between Sebastian and Corinne, and as part of your terms to the Tucci, Sajia is to be freed from her oath.”
“And why would I want to do that, when apparently her service would also bring me yours?”
A trap neatly laid and neatly sprung, Addai thought, the message Irial carried, reminding him that Sajia’s return was part of the weave creating alliance, now just another part of the pattern. And yet with Sajia beside him, he could muster no rage at the maneuverings that would result in him being tethered to vampires.
“For you to call on me as an ally, then you would also have to offer protection to Sajia’s family and safe harbor for the Constellation .”
“Done. Thane will see to matters until sunset, then I’ll send for the Tucci master and make arrangements.”
A blink and the vampire’s presence vanished, allowing his servant’s soul to escape whatever dark prison it’d been banished to.
Addai led Sajia into the cabin and closed the door. The wings he’d hidden after defeating Caphriel materialized as he took her into his arms.
“Home now,” he said, willing his clothes away in the same thought that took them to the chalet.
He unbound her hair as she stood in his embrace. Its silky length trailed down her back and the enticing curve of her buttocks.
“I could command you to disrobe,” he murmured. “And return to your lessons of submission.”
“Or you could make love to me,” she countered. “And we could continue creating new memories together.”
He laughed and quickly tugged her clothing from her body, a flash of possessiveness making him say, “Shift. Rid yourself of the Tucci marks.”
Sajia changed, taking the scorpion’s form in reminder and warning that he’d feel the sting of her ire if he thought to make her into something she wasn’t. Returning to his arms when she became woman again, her skin free of scarring.
Be mine, he said, giving her a choice.
I already am.
Say the words.
She touched her lips to his, sharing breath and soul. My spirit to yours.
Always, beloved. And as Djinn fire coursed through Addai’s veins and a tattoolike scorpion appeared above his heart, he lifted her, joining their bodies, evoking the incantation and forever binding his existence to hers.
Primal Kiss
LORA LEIGH
They draw us in.
They fire our blood, make us dream.
They give us comfort when the world turns dark.
They warm us when we’re cold.
They begin our fantasies, they end them,
and when we dream, when we reach for the perfect
fantasy, they’re always there.
This book is for that ideal, that comfort, that
fantasy, and that dream.
This book is for,
that perfect kiss.
PROLOGUE
FELINE BREED HOME BASE
SANCTUARY
BUFFALO GAP, VIRGINIA
The secured communications and defense bunker sat inside the base of a mountain less than a quarter of a mile from the main family residence in the valley now known as Sanctuary.
The main level was mission control, outfitted with the most technologically advanced electronics, satellite tracking equipment, and mission communications ava