blood, but once I knew what I was tasting I started swimming up through the mind games.
I pushed at Asher, trying to stop the kiss, but the blood that had made me want to stop had him pulling me tighter, his mouth locked on mine, as he kissed me deeply, thoroughly. If his fangs hadn't been bleeding me, it would have been a great kiss.
I pushed harder, trying to pull away from his painful, sensuous kiss, trying to unlock his arms from behind me. I was making protest noises as if his mouth were a gag, keeping me from telling him, Stop, don't. One of the reasons I didn't like gags during bondage sex was that it stole your safe word away. You couldn't tell whoever was topping you, No. A gag meant you trusted the person to behave themselves, or, you wanted your no taken away. You wanted to leap off the cliff and let the dominant do whatever they wanted to you. Nathaniel found that relaxing somehow; I didn't.
If he'd been human I could have struggled free without hurting him. I was more than human-strong, but if he'd been only human, there wouldn't have been dainty fangs to cut my mouth. If he'd been human I wouldn't have loved him, because he wouldn't have been Asher.
He was holding me too close, too tight, so the only options I had to get away were things that would injure him permanently, or injure parts of him that I might want to play with afterward. He tightened his arm against my back and moved one hand to the back of my head, grabbing my curls tight. In the right head space, the right moment, it was enough to switch me to a submissive mind-set, but this wasn't the right anything. Asher deepened his kiss and drove those dainty fangs into my lips again. I made a pain sound, yelling against the tender gag of his mouth on mine. I stopped trying to push farther away from him, and pushed my body closer to him. He seemed to think that meant I was enjoying myself, because his hands loosened on me, not so much trapping me as holding me. I put my leg behind his, hooked his knees, and drove him toward the floor, but he didn't let go, so we both fell, but if I was falling, and he was going to keep kissing, I should have made sure my knee went into parts of him he wouldn't enjoy, but I liked those parts of him. I didn't want to hurt Asher. It's hard to get away from someone who's stronger than you are, if you don't want to hurt them. Shit!
I felt a trickle of warm energy before a hand grabbed my shoulder, and Asher's. I had a moment to smell the hot, burned-grass smell that meant lion; a second to know it was Nicky, and then Asher's power swatted outward like a slap, but it wasn't aimed at Nicky, or me.
Other hands were on Nicky, and I saw a flash of blond hair and summer-tanned skin, enough to know that it was Ares, and then the fight rolled away from us. Asher's animal to call was hyena. He'd reached out to the nearest one, and Ares's loyalty of paycheck or preference hadn't been enough to overcome the magic of Asher's power over him.
I was still armed to the teeth, had more hand-to-hand training than Asher, but if I wasn't willing to hurt or kill him, it was all useless. The sounds of snarling, snapping, and grunts of effort let me know that Nicky was fighting to get back to my side.
Then different hands grabbed a handful of Asher's hair, and my shoulder. I felt the energy rise and knew it was Cynric before I smelled the scent of his skin.
Asher tightened his hands on my back and hair. I felt him laugh into the kiss. He didn't think Cynric would know what to do next. He was wrong.
Cynric let go of my shoulder, but jerked the vampire's hair tight and hit him in the side of the face hard enough that it jarred me. I tasted fresh blood, but it wasn't mine. Asher stopped kissing me, stopped biting me, and one moment he was underneath me on the floor, and the next I was rolled to one side. I had time to spit blood, and then Asher came up off the floor, swinging. Cynric was strong and athletic, and