D. Reynolds - Aden

Aden’s eyes grew wide. “Vampire,” he whispered. He’d heard tales of such things, but had thought them only that, children’s stories meant to frighten.

The woman smiled up at him, proudly, as if he’d done something clever, something marvelous.

“I am Vampire,” she agreed. “And it is wondrous. I would share it with you, Aden, if you will have it.”

“What would it mean?”

“You and I would go far away. We would want for nothing.”

Aden looked around the opulence of his dead mistress’s rooms, the silk and gold, the fine porcelain dishes. And he thought of his own tiny room, with its cheap wooden box hiding his few treasures, the dim light concealing the threadbare state of his linens, the gaudy gifts his women brought him as if he was an animal to be blinded by their shiny surface and too stupid to know their true value.

He thought of little Sana and the others. He would miss them. He would have given his life to protect them. But he discovered he would not sacrifice this future for them.

“What is your name, mistress?” he asked.

The woman’s smile grew. “I am Leticia.”

Aden repeated the strange syllables silently, tasting them on his tongue. “Leticia,” he said out loud. “I will go with you.”

Chicago, IL, present day

“WHAT HAPPENED after that?”

Sidonie’s voice jerked Aden back to the present, to the elegant rooms of his Chicago headquarters and the warm woman lying naked next to him and smelling of sex. He rolled her beneath him, savoring her easy surrender, the way she spread her legs to accommodate him, her silky thighs cradling his hips.

“We traveled the world,” he said, answering her question.

“Did you . . . I mean . . . were you a couple?”

Aden raised an inquisitive eyebrow. “You mean did we have sex?”

Sidonie scowled up at him, and he leaned down to kiss her soft lips, smoothing away the frown.

“Of course we did. She was my Mistress. She made me a vampire. We were lovers for half a century.”

“Why’d you stop?”

He shrugged one shoulder dismissively. “One night I saved her life, and she released me.”

“Did you . . .” Sidonie drew a deep breath, as if gathering her courage. “Did you love her?”

He stroked his fingers gently over her forehead, along her cheekbones, memorizing her face. “A vampire always loves the one who turns him,” he said thoughtfully. “It’s as if our blood cells recognize where we came from, who created us.” He held her gaze, wanting her to understand. “But I never loved her the way you mean. She was a willing lover and an intelligent woman. I enjoyed her.”

“But why would she send you away when you’d saved her life?”

“She had other vampire children by that time, and I’d grown too powerful. She was afraid of me. She called it a gift when she released me, but really, she was just sending me away. I was alone for half a century after that. I had no one until I found Bastien and made him my own.”

“But how could you be lovers if she was afraid of you?”

“Sex between us had grown infrequent by then. She said I was cold. That while I knew where to touch, where to put my tongue, how to deliver pleasure, there was no passion in my lovemaking. When she released me, she kissed me good-bye and said she hoped I’d find my passion someday.”

“And did you?”

Aden looked down at Sidonie, at her crystal blue eyes gazing up at him with such honesty, at the wild copper curls tangled on the pillow beneath her. He brushed a length of hair away from her bruised cheek, marveling at the contrast between them—his hands seeming so big and rough next to her delicate features, so dark against her pale skin.

“You tell me, Sidonie. Am I cold?”

She blinked up at him for a puzzled instant, then her arms looped around his neck, and her fingers stroked his nape. “No,” she whispered. “You’re the sapphire heart of the hottest flame. When I’m with you, I feel like the sexiest woman in the whole world. I feel cherished and safe.” She swallowed. “I feel loved.”

Aden froze. Did he love Sidonie? Had more than two and half centuries of life brought him to this place and time so that he could finally know what it meant to love someone? To love this woman? He kissed her again, a tender brush of his lips that became a lingering kiss, a seduction of her mouth. Sidonie met his kiss with eager passion, her mouth opening beneath his, her tongue darting out to taste him, to weave around his until he felt the hunger rising in him, the need to possess her again, to claim her as his own.

He lifted his hips, letting his already-hard shaft drag in the wetness between her thighs. Sidonie made a greedy little noise and spread her legs wider, thrusting against him.

“Am I cold, Sidonie?” he whispered again.

“No,” she insisted fiercely. She reached between their bodies, taking his cock in her slender fingers and stroking him lovingly before tightening her grip and placing his tip between the swollen folds of her sex, letting him feel her heat.

There was nothing cold about his Sidonie, he thought as he as plunged deep into her silky warmth, her sheath clasping and releasing his cock as he drove in and out. He groaned at the satin slickness of her pussy, at the sensual fullness of her breasts, the hard pearls of her nipples.

The slow seduction became a demand as his pace quickened. He slammed his hips between her thighs, his cock burying itself deep inside her, then pulling out and doing it again. Her sheath squeezed him with every thrust, a thousand fingers caressing his length, stroking him, urging him to come, to go over that edge with her, to tumble into the unknown of ecstasy, to take the chance.

“I love you,” she whispered against the sweat-slick skin of his neck, her fingers digging into the muscles of his back, her legs crossed over his back, trapping him inside her. “You’re my passion, Aden. I love you.”

A rush of emotion answered her whispered vow, a fire that spread to every inch of his body, lighting up his nerves and warming his cold heart until it slammed against his ribs, feeling as if it was beating willingly for the first time in two centuries. As if until now, this moment, it had pumped only because it had to, because it kept him alive. He felt it pounding in his chest, felt Sidonie’s heat surrounding him, welcoming him, loving him.

The climax came from nowhere, roaring over his body, every muscle taut with desire, every nerve thrumming with electricity. His balls tightened and his cock swelled, growing harder and thicker inside Sidonie, filling her so completely he could barely move. She moaned, a sound full of heat and desire, and it was his name on her lips.

“Aden.” She repeated it like a prayer, her head thrown back, her nails digging into his shoulders.

Aden growled, his fangs splitting his gums eagerly, hungry for her blood, for the fever that was Sidonie. His Sidonie.

He lowered his mouth to her neck, slicing through her velvet skin, piercing the thin wall of her vein and drinking down the smooth, honeyed flow of her blood, feeling it speeding to every cell of his body, giving him life, giving him her .

She bucked beneath him, crying out as his bite brought euphoria instead of pain, her mouth closing on his shoulder as she tried to muffle her scream. He felt his skin tear beneath her teeth, felt the pull as she swallowed his blood. He tightened his grip, lowering his full weight onto her body, holding her in place as she thrashed against the double assault of his bite and his blood. She’d never tasted that much of his blood before, never had that connection. Aden knew what could be forged if she drank more, if he permitted her to do it again in the future. A powerful link would be created, the kind of link humans could only try to replicate with their vows and their protestations of love.