if to himself. His left hand planted itself on her thigh and he turned his head, striking with the speed of a true predator.
His fangs sliced deep into her thigh, and pain erupted through her lower half. She cried out, crashing both hands down on the bedspread and digging deep with her nails, her mouth opening in shock. Her body froze and then drifted into a warm numbness, followed by acute pleasure, sharp and direct, right to her core.
Oh, God. It was too much.
He drank her blood, and she felt the demanding pull deep in her sex.
Live wires uncoiled and sparked out, throwing her into an orgasm that had her crying out his name this time. In one smooth motion, he retracted his fangs and turned his head, sucking her clit into his heated mouth. The orgasm built in intensity, shooting sparks of pure white light behind her closed eyelids.
She whimpered, swelling and surging through a cyclone of battering pleasure that he increased by sliding one finger through her wetness and curling up, somehow caressing her clit from inside her. Her mind shut down as the ecstasy became too much, and she let it take her, until finally she came down and went limp.
Her breath panted, hard and fast.
He released her and gently pulled her panties back up, kissing her once right above her clit. His rough tongue then scraped over the wound in her thigh. To heal it? She remembered something about how that worked.
Then he looked up and licked a spot of blood off his lip.
She couldn’t speak. Her body was satiated and on fire at the same time, and no words would come. What had just happened?
He reached for her discarded shirt and handed it to her, sliding back on the bed to stand. An obvious erection showed behind his jeans.
“Wh—what about you?” she asked, her voice barely coming out.
His smile was as gentle as it was rueful. “I’m fine—will take a quick run. It has to be this way.” He turned, still shirtless, showing the black shield beneath the skin of his back where his torso had been made impenetrable during the Seven ritual. The words he spoke as he left were quiet but clear. “Thank you, Grace.”
Then he was gone.
Chapter 11
Adare ran shirtless through the softly falling snow, his boots heavy and his head light. The taste of Grace, of her blood, would stay with him forever. Much like her scent, her blood tasted like a combination of sweet and good and pure sassiness. What in the hell had he been thinking to touch her? He was more than likely going to die, leaving her alone in this world, and he shouldn’t have given in to his needs.
The sound of her climaxing, sweet and honest, drummed around in his head until he thought his ears would explode.
Finally, as dawn began to arrive, he ran back to the house. Maybe he could get some planning done in the situation room. Yeah. That was a good idea. He slipped inside quietly and kicked off his boots, brushing snow from his hair.
“You’re a moron,” Benny said, kicking back on the sofa, his boots on the marble coffee table, a protein bar half-eaten in his hands.
Adare wiped snow from his torso and down his jeans, striding in wet socks to stand by the fire. “Why?”
“I heard you earlier. Your lady isn’t exactly quiet.” Ben shoved the rest of the bar in his mouth and chewed with a sense of contentment most immortals never found, even at their happiest times. “Then you leave and go run for hours in the snow. Like I said, moron.”
Adare flicked his temper off as easily as he’d gotten rid of the snow. “All right. How about you calculate our odds of surviving the raid we’re planning?”
Benny steepled his hands together, watching the firelight play between his fingers. “I’d say we’re halfway between screwed and fucked.”
Yeah. That summed up the situation.
Benny looked up, his multi-colored metallic eyes narrowing. “Are you changing your mind?”
“No. We have to get what information we can, and we need to take out as much of their force as possible.” The Cysts were becoming too insistent on gathering enhanced females, and the kidnappings of innocent women had to at least be slowed, if not stopped. “We might find prisoners to save. I still believe the risk is worth the reward on this one, Ben. You?”
Benny clasped his hands behind his head and stretched. “Yep. But I’m not mated, brother. You are.”
“Not