Vampire In Her Mysts

Yuri looked down at his inked forearm, studying his own marks. The intricate design rippled as he flexed his grip on one of the weapons of his trade. Yeah, he knew all about those tattoos. But why did she have so many? Kalu were said to be marked as such, but he couldn’t imagine so heavily. Whatever her tattoos spoke about her, Yuri had the clawing urge to read, to learn, to know.

Curious to see if his keen eyesight could make out any symbols or patterns in the darkness, Yuri glanced toward the woman again. His mouth slackened at the sight of her. The female had undone the ties around her neck and now bathed topless by the water. Even in the dim light, Yuri had no problem making out the perfect shape of her bosom. A small tattoo sat nestled in the valley of her chest. However, the flesh of her breasts remained unmarked. Crimped and tight, her nipples looked succulent, two raspberries ripe for the taking.

A hammer of lust began pounding in his veins. A dangerous undercurrent of hunger rippled through him in its wake. The need to feed, to heal, overwhelmed him. His canines throbbed, lengthening on their own volition. A haze of red blanketed his vision. Yuri pinched his eyes shut, trying to get himself under control. He swallowed, groaning at the raw slide of his throat.

A loud female gasp filled his ears.

Yuri cursed beneath his breath. He’d been discovered. If the girl ran, in the state he was in, he’d never catch her before she reached help. Goddess knew what would happen if she sounded the alarm and let the entire Mysts know he was here.

Out of options, Yuri grudgingly utilized the last resource he owned and readied to overtake the girl’s mind.

Zeroing his gaze on the female, he focused on her eyes. Heat bored into his skull and within seconds, his medji self bombarded her mind and took control.

Being one of the last psychic vampires in existence had its perks. But wounded as he was, he knew he couldn’t hold her still for long. He was already getting a sense of this woman and she did not like his mental invasion at all.

Bracing his hands, Yuri pushed up to his knees, feeling pain crawl through him anew. Weak and wounded, Yuri forced himself to appear anything but to the female as he approached her. If the vibrations he picked up from her thoughts were even remotely accurate, she was skittish as a feral cat and had claws just as sharp. Yuri held his back ramrod straight as he neared her, even though his shoulder burned in protest and the unbearable need to vomit rolled through his gut.

After two more steps, he stood in front of her. As his telepathic powers instructed, she remained motionless. Yuri wrapped his fingers around her upper arms, holding her physically as he prepared to release her mentally. But he stared into her face and hesitated.

Dewdrop-shaped eyes of a color he’d never seen before locked on his, a flicker of willful intelligence sparking in their depths. Her eyes seemed almost iridescent obsidian with flecks of color that shifted with each play of light, very unlike a vampire’s flat black eye color. Her slender arching brows matched her high cheekbones. The sultry curve of her mouth instantly recalled the palace courtesans, lush, curvy and willing.

However, her mind intrigued him most. He’d entered her psyche easily enough. She had not been expecting his attack and he’d slipped her mental defenses without difficulty. Yet, the moment he’d gained access to her thoughts, he’d felt her mentally pushing him back. Hard. It had taken all of his concentration to keep her immobile until he could reach her.

Tightening the grip on her he’d let slacken, Yuri pulled out of her thoughts and released her mind.

Like a deer sensing a lion, she instantly moved away from him, trying to run in the opposite direction. However, Yuri held her tightly. Undeterred, she swung, her elbow nearly smashing his nose. Yuri used his years of combat training to efficiently immobilize her upper arms and pin her back flush against his body. When she fought to get away once more, he flashed the dagger he still held in his hand, covering her mouth with the other. She finally quit struggling.

“Don’t make a sound,” he said, fighting to keep his voice controlled and even. “Cooperate, do as I say and I will not hurt you. Do you understand me?”

The female glanced back at him and nodded. Those eyes of hers were big and yet calm, almost assessing in their stare as if she dissected everything about him. Yuri suddenly felt thankful for the darkness. Had this one seen the extent of his wounds, she might have tried to get away again and succeeded this time. And for the next few hours, he needed her.

It was all making sense. Why he’d journeyed to the Samostan in the first place. Why he’d been lurking just outside its outer walls.

Yuri hauled the Kalu to him. The sweet scent of her curled around him, enticing him, making his mouth water. He closed his eyes and dipped his chin to the space between her neck and shoulders, breathing her in. The beast within him responded, his nature sensing a way to heal. Yuri didn’t fight it this time. Instead, he willed his fangs to lengthen, invited the blanket of red to drape over his vision. Yuri closed his eyes, a plan forming in some dark recess of his mind.

I need her. I need her. Those three words repeated in a prayer-like litany in his mind. Perhaps the Goddess had not abandoned him after all. Perhaps she’d dropped one of her servants in his lap to help him. After all, he could use this girl to escape this place. He could use her to get back home.

But first he needed her blood.

Yuri threw open his eyes. His vision zeroed in on the pulse fluttering wildly in her neck. His fangs ached, itching for that first taste of what he already knew would be sweet, hot and tangy blood.

The fingers around his arm tightened.

“Please,” she breathed. The husky sound of her voice, soft and yet strong like steel and velvet woven together, shot straight to his groin. He felt alive with a lustful urge and need he’d not sated in…Goddess, probably as long as the female in his arms had been alive.

Dueling hungers began pulling at him from both sides. However, right now he could only focus on one. “I apologize for this,” he whispered in her ear. “For what?”

Ileana Tarasova gasped, her body stiffening as razor-sharp fangs pierced the sensitive flesh of her neck. She lurched forward in an instinctive attempt to escape. However, the man grabbed her to him with a surprising amount of force for someone wounded as badly as he. His arms flexed, coiling tighter around her with each panting breath she exhaled, like a constrictor keeping its prey in place.

Trapped, Ileana’s attention shifted to the bite, to the blood flowing in a hot rush from her body. A swell of panic rose in her gut. Again she wriggled, trying to break free, and again his hold only strengthened. She panted out a breath, her body slouching.

Helpless.

Goddess be damned, she was helpless to do anything other than wait for this monster to stop drinking from her. If he stopped at all. The thought would have made her angry if she didn’t suddenly feel so woozy.

Light-headed, she felt her eyes flutter shut. With her sight cut off, her other senses took over. The intense warmth of his mouth on her throat intensified. The soft brush of the dark goatee framing his lips scraped against her skin. The heat of her blood as it rushed to feed him, and the wake of coolness it left in her veins. A massive shudder racked her body before she went limp in his arms.

Powerful and strong, his muscles held her upright, kept her clutched to his wide and muscular frame. Her chin slid to her chest. Ileana focused on the broad hand fanned across her abdomen just under her breasts. His fingers, elegant and manicured, palmed her flesh in a desperate grip with each pull of his sensual mouth. The curve of her backside heated, her softness molding against his hard build.

Beneath his hands, a deep burning ignited in her core. The seed of heat, no more than a tingling flicker at first. It began to flower and blossom until heat radiated outward in all directions, warming the limbs that had gone cold from blood loss. Her sex clenched and for a moment, Ileana could have sworn the flood of heat sluiced lower. Could have sworn she felt the stirrings of desire awakening inside her.

The man dislodged his teeth from her flesh with a heaving gasp. Ileana released a sigh of her own, one of both relief and strangely enough, of loss. Her neck ached and his warm mouth covered the throbbing skin, suckling and teasing before blazing a trail across her cheek toward her lips. She smelled blood on his mouth. Her sex pulsed, greedy, hungry.

In a daze, she became marginally aware of his long-fingered hands twisting her in his arms with ragdoll ease. Faced with his broad chest, she tilted her chin up. Ileana caught a brief glimpse of a much too gorgeous face and heated half-lidded eyes before he swooped again.

Only this time, he wasn’t after her blood.

Chapter Two

Lips, warm and smooth and utterly male, crushed against hers. Hot and slick, his tongue twined with hers again and again, his mouth sliding over hers in a dizzying glide. At the faint taste of her blood on his lips, the vampire within her sparked to life. Renewed energy perked in her veins and Ileana kissed him back with an urgency and hunger she’d never felt before.

Some part of her brain screamed at her to battle him. The fighter inside told her she should give him one swift kick to the balls and run. Do anything except respond the way her body responded, with warmth and eagerness and lust.

Unbidden, her body sank willingly into his embrace, into his kiss. Then she was falling down toward the ground, her stomach in her throat. Hundreds of stars winked down at her against the pitch-black sky above. Her lower back touched the earth first, followed by her shoulder blades and then her head, as the man laid her down and stretched out beside her.

It wasn’t until he loomed over her that she saw the panic in his eyes, the self-loathing and remorse evident in his haunted gaze. She identified with the look immediately. It was the same one she’d become accustomed to seeing in the mirror.