He kissed her, a deep passionate kiss that bled like lifeblood into him, powerful, passionate, yet oh so sweet. But he didn’t want sweet. He wanted the heat, the fierceness of what they felt when they were together, what he’d been without for so very long.
Kel deepened the kiss, drinking her in, thirsting for her as he had never thirsted. He wanted the lifebond mark that would show on her neck if they bonded to appear, knowing that it would, because lifebonds weren’t created from science, but from love. It was the one thing they knew of the bond, and the one thing he knew existed between him and Sonia. He craved that bond, justifying his actions, even as he swore he would not bond with her. As long as he didn’t exchange blood she would not be bound to him in life and death. But if he was forced to erase her memories, some part of him would stay with her with that marking.
He touched her, everywhere and anywhere. She clung to him, arched against him, responding with such utter passion that there was no way she wasn’t his lifebond. No way he could stop needing, and wanting, and caressing. His lips caressed her neck, and she tilted her head, giving him more, but not enough. Never enough. There was too much time to make up for, too many ways he wanted to know her again. Too much possibility that this was it, all he would ever have of her. “You’re beautiful,” he whispered in her ear, before he was kissing her again, ravenous with need. “You have no idea how much I missed you.”
“I know how empty I was without you,” she said, her breath heavy, her voice a whisper. There was real pain beneath those words that hurt him. Without the ability to wipe away memories he had now, he’d hurt her.
He kissed her again, desperate to make her forget the pain, to give her pleasure. His mouth trailed downward, over her breasts, and he pushed her shirt upward, removing the barriers between them. They’d had too many of those. They still did. She quickly rid herself of her sweatshirt and tank top. Impatient to see her, to feel her, he unhooked her bra while her arms were still over her head, filling his hands with her naked breasts before she’d even tossed away the garment.
He lapped at her nipples, suckling and licking, knowing how it turned her on. He knew her. He knew what she liked. The thought that some other man might know almost destroyed him. It’s why he’d had Sterling watching out for her, why he never asked if she was dating. He had no right to know, to ask. He’d lost her.
The thought was lost to the gentle twine of her fingers into his hair, the way her back arched forward, and the soft little purring sounds coming from her mouth. He missed those sounds more than he’d realized. He missed every inch of her and he set out to kiss every spot he should have been kissing for the past few years.
Kel barely remembered undressing, or how her pants and shoes came off. Impatiently, he ripped the tiny piece of black lace panties she wore away, removing everything that separated her from him. He was hot and hard, and he burned wickedly to be inside her, to feel her tight around him. To claim her as his again.
But he wanted this memory to last, he wanted it to be powerful enough to become her dreams, to defeat his power to erase her memories. It was a ridiculous thought, and an impossible idea, but it was the one that drove him, pushed him, made him have the power to pull back, to go slow when he wanted everything she was and ever would be now.
His hands were all over her body, her soft skin like a drug. He kissed her stomach, caressing her hips with his palms and then trailing his lips over the curve of one of them, traveling a path down her thigh and then back up. Tension coiled in her body beneath his hands and mouth. He could feel her stomach quiver under his palm where he rested it.
By the time his slid his shoulders between her legs and stroked the slick wet heat of her body with his tongue, they were both on edge, both shaking with need. He lapped at her, the salty feminine taste of her seeping into his senses, driving him wild. Somehow, he restrained himself, going slowly, licking and suckling as he slid two fingers inside her until she was on edge. Until she wanted harder and faster and he gave it to her, his reward being her gasp and then the spasm of her body around his fingers. Then she did what she always did. She turned her head and hid her face, embarrassed by the intensity of her orgasm. God, he loved that side of her, the woman who could be so vulnerable no matter how many times or ways, they made love.
He slid up her body, pulled her mouth to his and kissed her. Her shyness slipped away as they faced each other. Her gaze slid over the tattoo of angel wings on his left shoulder and arm. He’d gotten them when he was in a dark moment, in need of some faith.
Her beautiful green eyes lifted to his, filled with mischief. “Sexy. I like.”
“Do you now?” he asked, his blood heating as he pulled her on top of him and repeated her earlier words. “Show me.”
She smiled and kissed him, reaching behind her to stroke his cock and shifting to guide him inside her. The instant he felt the wet heat of her body, his lashes lowered, sensations roaring through him as she took him fully.
Together they sighed in pleasure and relief. “I love you,” he whispered, threading his fingers in the soft honey-colored strands of her hair. “I love you so much, Sonia. I was only trying to protect you.”
“Don’t protect me like that again,” she ordered.
He couldn’t promise that, and he didn’t promise that. He kissed her instead, thrusting into her at the same time, losing the question to the heat, the burn, the joining of their bodies. A slow sensual rhythm emerged, the two of them moving as one, kissing and swaying.
Sonia lifted her upper body away from him, sitting up to ride him, and he held her hips as she started to move, watched as her gaze swept his body and settled on one of the many tattoos he’d gotten in the past two years.
She stopped moving, her hand sweeping over the design. “You had my name tattooed on your chest?”
He gently pulled her to him, holding her close. “Because if this day ever came I didn’t want you to have any doubt you were always on my mind.”
She made a soft sound of surprise. “I love you,” she whispered and pressed her lips to his. He parted her lips, and tasted the salt of her tears, the emotion they represented. The slow raw need between them turned to wild, hot passion. They exploded in a frenzy of touching and thrusting until they were shaking again, this time with release. And when he held her in his arms, expecting the burn of the mating mark to cause her to react and she didn’t, he understood her tears, understood what she feared. That this was the end not the beginning. She wasn’t his lifebond. It was the one thing in the back of his mind that he now knew he hadn’t wanted to discover, but he had to know. She was destined for someone else. He had to set her free and it was going to destroy him.
Chapter Six
Sonia lay beside Kel, her head to his chest, the soft rhythm of his heart music to her ears. “Tell me about your dreams,” he said, stroking her hair. “When did they come back?”
Her mind tracked back to the torment of the past few years, of losing him, of what followed. Awake and asleep she’d been in hell.
“They started about a year after you left, and they got...more graphic. I saw people die. I saw the blood. I felt pain and fear that was theirs but felt like mine. I wanted an escape and I didn’t want to know they were real. I stopped watching the news or reading the internet and papers. I went to the doctor. She told me it was from the trauma of losing you and gave me pills.”
“What?” he asked, shifting her so that they were side by side, still on top of the blankets they’d never pulled down. “They drugged you?”
“I was desperate,” she argued. “I dreamed of a young girl in a car accident. I was in a store and they had the televisions on and I saw the news. It was her, but Kel she’d died the night before. I couldn’t have stopped it, or that’s what I believed at the time because she was dead when I woke up. I was hysterical, and even my faith was tested. You were dead. I was seeing other people die and I couldn’t stop it. I needed help and this doctor, a dream specialist, said I was using real life to build my d
reams.”
“She convinced you that you somehow saw these stories and then recreated them in your dreams?”
“That’s right and at first, Kel, I thought she was right. The medicine stopped the dreams and I was okay. Only I wasn’t. The dreams came back and more powerfully. They adjusted my meds. They came back again. Finally, I said no more.”
She watched relief wash over his face. “Good. You don’t need medicine. You just need to learn how to deal with the dreams. If anyone has learned that unique abilities are possible, it’s me and there are people here who can help you do that.” Regret etched his brow. “We could have helped you long before now. I made so many wrong choices with you, Sonia. I’m so sorry.”
She kissed him. “You were trying to protect me. Don’t do it again, but I know that. Besides, I did a lot of research and decided to stop fighting the dreams. I began writing a journal of all I remembered the minute I woke up. It took a year, but I finally realized that I dreamed about the people involved in the accidents for weeks but only remembering the tragic events because they woke me up. Still, I didn’t know how to find the people and help them. Until recently, that is. Now, I can pick up landmarks and hone in on the places and people. I’m getting better and better at it. I even see flashes of the dreams when I’m awake. It’s what I’m meant to do, Kel. I’m supposed to save these people.” She held her fist to her chest.”I feel it in my very soul.”
“It’s dangerous,” he said. “You can’t go playing cop when you aren’t one.”
“I applied for the FBI,” she said. ”I’m close to getting in. I should have stayed on that path in the first place.” A sudden pain ripped down her spine and then blasted into her neck. “Oh god.” She sat up and held her nape. “Ah. Ouch. Something is biting me, Kel.” She turned around and grabbed her hair, feeling panic rise inside her. ”Get it off. Get it off my neck.”
He brushed aside her hair and kissed her neck, then tried to pull her against his body.
“Kel!” she shouted. “Stop. Get it off. What is it?” she demanded, rotating to face him and shoving her hair out of her eyes. She was appalled to discover he was smiling. “You’re smiling at my pain?”
“No, I-”
“You’re grinning now!” She scooted off the bed away from him. “I can’t believe you would laugh at this. It hurts.” Only, the pain was fading and she barely felt anything now. Still – he was smiling. Her gaze found the bathroom and she ran for it, uncaring of her nudity. Kel knew her body. He was about to know her wrath, too.
She used the mirror of the medicine cabinet beside the sink to try and see her neck, but she couldn’t get her hair out of the way. Kel appeared in front of her, looking sexy as sin, and damn him for making her notice. She was furious with him, even though the pain was completely gone.
He framed her body with his and there was no missing returned arousal, but as her gaze lifted she gasped, the now absent pain in her neck, forgotten.
“Your eyes are black. Oh God. So very black. What’s wrong? Were you bitten too?”
His lips curved, those dark dark eyes dancing with mischief. “It’s part of the GTECH change.”
“Why are you smiling again?”
“I’m not. Okay, maybe I am. I’ll explain after you look at your neck.” He lifted her hair. It took her a moment to tear her gaze from the deep, dark depths of his stare, only to gasp again at what she found in the mirror.
She touched the double circle etched into her skin with a intricate woven design around the edges, as if someone had taken great time and caution to tattoo her. “How is this possible? Was it when I was passed out?”
“No. I wouldn’t let that happen.” He framed her face with his hands. “It’s a lifebond circle. GTECHs are another race, Sonia. We are faster and stronger than humans. We are immune to human illness. We do not age and we heal rapidly. Some of us have other abilities as well. And we can only reproduce with one female, in one season of the year. If the two people are meant to bond, it happens after the first act of sex.”
He was speaking another language, making no sense. Or she was dreaming and kept convincing herself she wasn’t. “This isn’t our first time having sex, though.”
“It’s the first time since I fully transitioned,” he said. “The lifebonding process didn’t develop until we began to evolve as GTECHs. And by the way, I can mask the color of my eyes to anyone but you, my lifebond.”
She was stunned and confused. All this talk of GTECHs felt unreal, but yet he wasn’t. Kel not only felt very real but being with him made her feel complete in a way she’d never thought she would again. “Lifebond,” she repeated, trying to get her mind around the word and the idea it represented.
“A biological mating,” he explained. “Marriage of the bodies. And that’s why I was smiling when your neck hurt, because I knew what it was. ” He lowered his head, brushing his lips over hers. “It means you belong to me and I belong to you and nothing but death can take that from us. And now, unless you have a problem with it, I’m going to make love to my lifebond.”
There was something she could understand and embrace and embrace it she would.
***
A long time later, Sonia collapsed on the mattress beside Kel, sated and happier than she had been in a very long time. He lay on his back beside her and they both stared up at the ceiling in a comfortable, wonderful silence until her thoughts found a voice.
“So do the GTECHs work for the Army?”
“No,” he said. “The Army tried to kill off and destroy their mistake, meaning us.”
She rolled over to look at him and found him staring at her. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“I wish I was,” he said. “We’ve made a truce of sorts. We’re all working to stop the Zodius from gaining more power, but they’d slit our throats in a heartbeat.”
“So this operation you have is completely private?”
“It is,” he said. “A couple of the men, Damion included, come from filthy rich families and we have enough private donations to make up what they can’t.”
She rolled back over and thought about that. “This is all so incredible.” She eased to her side again with another thought. “I don’t really understand wind walking or GTECHs or much of anything you’ve told me, just so you know.”
“Neither do I,” he laughed, “and I’ve been living it for years now.”
“So you travel in the wind how?”
“It’s like becoming the wind,” he said. “No physical presence but complete awareness.”
“Can I wind walk with you?”
“Humans can’t wind walk without the risk of death.”
“Oh, well then,” she said. “That doesn’t sound so intriguing anymore. Wind walking sounds impossible.”
“So does someone dreaming about the future.” He ran his hand over her hair. “You should sleep. I’ll take you to see Sunrise City tomorrow and you’ll be able to answer all of your questions there.”
“Sunrise City?”
“It’s the Renegades’ underground headquarters,” he said. “And when I say city, I mean city. We have restaurants and stores, and about anything a normal city would have. Our population is nearly a thousand now. Only a few hundred of those are GTECHs. The rest are humans helping to fight the Zodius or women rescued from Adam’s testing facilities.”
Her brows furrowed. ”Why would you take them there?”
“There are GTECHs that we call ‘trackers’ who can locate certain people if they aren’t beneath the ground.”
“Certain people as in who?”
“A GTECH who doesn’t have his mental shield up. That only happens when we’re injured. Or,” he hesitated, “this is where the grim part of this war comes into play.”
“Tell me,” she urged.
“Any women who has had sex with a GTECH can be tracked by another GTECH. It creates a different kind of energy. It’s impossible to explain.”
Her eye went wide. “Meaning me?” br />
“No,” he said. “I’d never put you in danger like that. You are my lifebond and I have the ability to shield you. Again, it’s hard to explain, but I can shield you just as I do myself.”
“You didn’t know I was your lifebond.”
“Yes,” he said with absoluteness, pulling her close and kissing her. “I did.”
“You said it’s rare.”
“So are we.” He brushed his lips over hers. “There are things you need to know, about me, and about our bond. But you need rest. We have a good two hour drive tomorrow.” He kissed her forehead. “So sleep before I don’t let you.”
She smiled and caressed his cheek. “What about you?”
“GTECHs don’t need much sleep, but I’ll be right here with you. I’m not going anywhere.”
She wanted to believe that more than she’d ever wanted to believe anything, but she sensed there was something he wasn’t telling her. Something she feared but she wasn’t going to think about it now. She curled up to him, letting the warmth of his body seep into hers and she let herself dream that this would be the first night of the rest of their lives together.