Page 50 of The Vampire Queen's Servant (Vampire Queen 1)

He put a hand under him, began to rise as she held onto him. Slowly he turned, tumbling her to her back, completing a full circle so he was lying on top of her. She was curiously docile through it all, watching him. Reaching down between them, he found her clit and teased it, making her shudder as his cock hardened at her reaction. Shifting, he moved down her body to frame her petite breasts with tender reverence before he began to suckle, creating a blush on her fair skin with the stubble of his jaw. Her legs rose, holding him around the hips as his stiffening member found her, eased its way naturally in as it grew harder and he continued laving her breasts. The soft nipples were not so soft now, the plump weight of her swelling in his hand. He felt the press of her body all along his. He wanted her to tremble in his arms, climax over his cock. He wanted to feel her small pussy grip him tightly like the illusion of a fulfilled promise. It would not sate the longing in his heart, but maybe it would ease the yearning for a moment or two.

He wasn't afraid of her sending him away. He was afraid of losing her altogether. The thought of it built in his mind and he couldn't bear it, the knowledge that it would become reality. So he kissed and suckled her fiercely, trying to serve her even as tears gathered in his eyes and he couldn't blink them back.

Something shuddered through her mind as if the thoughts running through his mind had found a resounding echo in her own.

This is as close as I can get to what I truly desire. . . Still only a shallow substitute for what I miss so keenly. But how can I miss something so much that I've never had. . .

When he raised his head, her eyes were full of pain, so torn that they'd almost transformed back to the eyes of the creature hidden within herself, the pupils dark and taking over all the lighter areas. Her hand touched his face, giving him comfort even as her other hand clutched his arm, holding on as if he was her only hope to keep her from falling over the edge of an abyss.

He moved within her, keeping his gaze on her. He would seduce her with his body even as he told her with his tears he loved her. More than anything. More than his own life.

She tried to turn her face away, press her cheek to the earth, but he caught her chin. "No. Don't you pull back. Mark me, my lady. Give me the third mark, and I'll never leave you alone. Not ever. It's what I want. Have mercy, my lady. Please. . . Don't leave me alone to grieve you. "

Lyssa stared up at him, at the implacable resolve in his blue eyes. She wondered how her heart could hurt so much and not crack into a hundred pieces.

There had been a postscript to Thomas's note, put in as an afterthought. Neither the sentence structure nor the writing had been smooth, as if he'd been about to suffer an attack right before he completed the letter and feared he might not emerge from the other side of it to complete the correspondence. You have been together before. . . Let him make his own decision. . . He will seem impossibly young to you, and he is, in so many charming ways. It will help keep you young, but he is also an old, old soul. Don't deny him his own wisdom, unique and separate from yours.

"I shouldn't. It's wrong. "

"Yes, you should. Please. "

He'd moved his hand so now it cupped the side of her face, cradling the weight of her skull. It made her remember the days she was so weary from her battles with Rex she couldn't even raise her head to acknowledge the presence of the moon, greet the night, see the petals of her roses gleam. All she'd wanted as she'd sat there, head bowed, was to feel his touch on her face. When a man touched your face first, lingered there, studying you--as Jacob was studying her now, as if he wanted to look at her just that way forever--it meant he loved you. Or at least it made a woman think he loved her. Enough that she was willing to give anything. Sacrifice anything.

Only this time, Jacob was the one willing to give it all. Sacrifice everything. In the depths of his love for her, he considered it a gift, not a sacrifice at all.

When she curled her arm around his neck, he understood, using the tension in his fine stomach muscles to lift them up so she straddled him, his body still linked to hers. Holding her hand on his neck, she knew her whole world had become his blue eyes. Steady. Pure.

"You'll need to bite my throat, here. Over the artery. " She brought his hand to it, and hers was shaking. He squeezed her, reassuring, even as he trembled, too. "Try to use your canines.

It helps with the puncturing. But don't hesitate and worry about hurting me. Bite down as hard as you can, and drink my blood. I'll let you know when to stop. "

He stared at her, barely breathing, and yet she couldn't deny she felt almost the same way, swept with paralyzing shock by what she was about to do, no matter all the reasons not to do it. The only words or actions she seemed capable of were those that would put them on a course where there was no turning back.

, He threaded his hand through her hair. As she helped, pulling the thick strands of it to the opposite shoulder, he leaned in. But before he went to her neck, he pressed his lips to hers, keeping his eyes open, the two of them watching each other, the moment so heavy with intent and change, she couldn't speak.

No. She wouldn't do this to him.

His cognitive ability denied her the change of heart. He sensed it a moment before she had the thought, because even as she had it, he'd wrapped his hand in her hair, yanked her head to the side and clamped down on her with the savage clumsiness of a young wolf making his first kill. But on a vampire, the blood exchange of a third mark was far from the terror a deer might feel beneath the jaws of a predator.

Every time he'd nipped at her or let her feel the pressure of his teeth she'd felt a surge of intense erotic reaction for just this reason. It set off an explosive sensation that rocketed through her the moment his teeth punctured through, finding her blood.

He stilled as her blood filled his mouth, getting used to it, and then his throat worked as he swallowed. Once. . . Twice. . . Three times. Before the second mark, it would not have gone down with such eager ease, but those two marks gave him the intuitive desire, the hunger for it.

Drawing his hand from the side of her face, she dipped her head. Not to dislodge him, just giving her better access to his wrist. In comparison to the other times she'd bitten him she pricked him almost delicately, letting her grip sink in rather than forcing it in among the strands of veins and arteries. Her jaw trembled, her body on the pinnacle of decision. His cock was deeply embedded in her body, holding her there. I love you, my lady. Do it. No regrets. Not now, not ever. If you die tomorrow, I will follow you with only gratitude for the honor of being your servant forever. . . Your slave, if it's your pleasure to call me that.

She'd held a drop of it on her finger once, the fluid that made the third mark possible. Gleaming silver, reminding her of a ribbon of lightning with the way it glowed. As she released it now and let it flow into his wrist vein, she closed her eyes and let the reaction unfold and enfold the both of them, spinning out the energy that would link them. She would not feel alone or be alone again. For some reason it felt like the first time in her life she could feel that way, believe it for certain.

It was like it had been with Thomas, but so diffe

rent as well, as if the soul merging itself into hers was one she'd always known as intimately as her own. He'd just committed everything to her, so how could she not give him the same? For this moment at least, as the third mark bound them, she let everything be open, her heart, soul and mind where he could read and see anything. Feel how very significant this was to her, the fulfillment she'd missed so much and yet felt as if she was experiencing it in an amazing new way.

He cried out hoarsely against her skin as the quicksilver ribbon manifested itself another way, a way she hadn't warned him about, for of course she'd never expected to do this. Her hands slipped to his back, feeling the change in the skin, the burning of the individual design that would display to all that he carried the third mark. Her mark specifically.

When we first met, you said a tattoo is something you get when you're sure you'll stand by that belief or commitment forever.

So I did. . . Gods, my lady. . .

She was crying and moving on him at once, riding him again, going up through a spiraling tunnel, charging into a star-strewn universe that contained just the two of them, nothing to fear, nothing else but this moment.

She saw the knight in her mind. The quicksilver flash of a samurai's blade against the gleam of chain mail, the tunic of the Crusades. Lotus blossoms and red roses. Hard muscles pressed against her woman's body. Gentle hands on her face when she'd been a child, his dark hair loose and curling in her small fingers. He'd sung to comfort her then, too, only in a Japanese tongue.

He's served you twice before. He will not bear being parted from you a third time. . .

As she began to feel lightheaded, she pulled out of the swirling depths of the memories. Putting her fingers to his lips, she reached out to him with her mind.

Enough, love. That's plenty. Though even to her, it felt like it would never be enough.

Jacob withdrew slowly, licking her, holding his mouth over her, feeling the way the wound slowly closed beneath his tongue. His hands slipped to her hips, anchoring her, and she dropped her head on her shoulders, emitting a wild, low cry as the first crest of the climax hit her like an unexpected rainstorm. His mouth was on her breasts, and she saw a smear of her blood there. Catching his jaw, she sealed her own mouth over his, pulling deep and hard, the same as he was doing to her. Their minds revolved together as if dancing, all the pieces of one another mixing up until she wasn't sure which memories were his and which ones were hers.

She was giving him too much of herself. The bad as well as the good were swirling in this cycle of energy, but his mind reached through it all to reassure her.

I want it all, my lady. Don't fear I can't handle it.

Thomas's words resounded in her head. Your soul mate.

Catching two handfuls of her hair, Jacob pressed his face into it, tangled her wrists in it, then his fingers with hers, rolling them over so she was on her back again, staring at the sky and the silhouette of his face over hers. His body pressed her to the earth, stroking her even more deeply so she tilted up, opened to him even more. Her body was shuddering with every wave of the orgasm and needing more, more, more. . . His eyes were taking in everything, within and without them, trying to hold onto this moment forever. But she knew its temporal nature was what gave it so much sweetness. How could it become a memory to sustain her heart if it never ended?

"Let go with me, " she rasped against his ear as she squeezed him within. And he did, holding closer to her, his hips suddenly jerking, his thighs flexing, drawing her up with him into another shuddering peak.

She felt everything he felt, the sense of release on so many levels. And one of those levels startled her with its intensity, so deep it clogged her throat with tears.

All of the worry and fears he'd had, his doubts. . . He let them all go, his heart easing to the point the climax was a true release, a purging. She felt a wave of relief from him as powerful as exhaustion. She would not shut him out, would let him offer her every resource he had to serve her.

Like a multidimensional collage, she saw an ocean of overlapping memories, his lifelong quest to find his sense of purpose, his resting place. The home where he was always meant to be. Her.

So worried about taking from him what she shouldn't ask, she hadn't realized how much it would mean to him to have her take the gift he'd been freely offering from the beginning.

There would be no more questions for him, no matter where they went or what they had to do. And because she felt the truth of that flood her with the power of his jetting seed, she felt her heart ease as well. At least for now.

Damn if you weren't right in the end, you wily old monk.

Reaching up, she touched her servant's face in wonder. I love you, Jacob Green. Then she said it to him, to prolong her joy in the fierce reaction that filled his expression. "I love you. " She managed a smile through tears. "But don't expect that to change anything. Who you are, who I am. I won't be any easier to live with. "

He kissed the curve of her mouth. Holding his lips there motionless for a long moment, he pressed his forehead to hers, his eyes closed, hands framing her face. The night moved around them and there was just this moment, the beat of his heart, the mingling of their breaths.

When at last he raised his head, he'd regained his composure. His blue eyes held a trace of the mischief she knew so well, though his voice trembled. "My lady, I just received the miracle of a lifetime. It's a greedy and unwise man that would ask for two, particularly on the very same night. "

As she thumped his chest with a light fist, he caught her hand, but she sobered.

"I'm dying, Jacob, " she said quietly, freeing herself to put her fingers to his lips so he wouldn't interrupt her. "There's nothing you can do about that. Nothing that can change it. What matters now is that I protect those who depend on me. Whenever it comes to a choice between that and my personal well-being, you must promise me you will always put the former first. Swear it. "

His eyes held hers but he did not speak. She pushed him off her. "Turn around. "

When he obeyed, her fingers traced the design, letting him feel it. From a distance, it appeared as a sinuous prehistoric snake, but also like an etching of his spine, representing his ability to move, to act, to think--all at her command.

As she held her touch there, she waited.

"Your goals shall be mine, my lady, " he said at last. "Though I will strive to protect you. "

There was the Council Gathering to face. Carnal. The end of her life and all she must do to prepare for it. Tasks she must handle, using him to help her. She would have to be ruthless to serve her duty, which meant if she had to be cruel to him, crueler than he'd yet been able to imagine, she would be.

When he turned, took her beneath him again, she saw him register her thoughts. His elbows pressed to the earth on either side of her head, keeping her gazing up into his face.

"My love for you means nothing in the world in which I must live. You understand that, Jacob?"

Jacob touched her face with his free hand. Her mind was still open to him, whether she knew it or not, so he felt her fears and worries, as well as her indomitable resolve. He matched it with his own.

"It means everything to me, my lady. That's all that matters. No matter what you need, I'll be at your side. "

---