Part 10 (1/2)

”You can. You must. If you don't take me, you will die here and now. Your dragon will drink your blood and slay you to be fed.” She locked her black eyes on his. I cannot let that happen.” A flash of blue lightning blazed in their depths, swallowing him whole.

Ravenous with need, the War Duke reached for her. He hooked his gore-coated clawed hands into her hip plates and pulled. The Wyvrn tumbled into his arms and he rolled her easily beneath him. Her hair spilled in a bright skein of crimson silk across the dark maroon lake was.h.i.+ng across the floor.

His lips captured hers, tasting blood. His tongue speared her mouth hungrily. His spine writhed as he mindlessly sought to work his hips between her thighs, spattering still-warm carmine red over them both. A sibilant growl rumbled from his chest.

His clawed fingers pawed frantically at her suit. It split and s.h.i.+mmered apart under his palm, his fingers scoring her white skin even as his own blood-spattered suit split down his chest, releasing him. With a snarl he pulled her thigh over his, opening her wide. His shaft was agonizingly swollen and inhumanly hard, and his mind enslaved by ravenous l.u.s.t as he worked to penetrate her softness. Her spurred heel dug into the floor, raising her hips. He found her, then plunged within without gentleness, practically screaming with voracious need.

With both clawed hands he cupped her a.s.s and brutally pulled her up to meet his thrusts. She was tight, but wet and ready for him. He buried himself repeatedly to the hilt, then pulled back to slam back into her damp warmth. He pounded savagely into her heat as fast and as hard as he was able. The loud slaps of wet flesh against wet flesh defined every lunge of his hips as he tried to go deeper, to hammer himself through her, into her core.

Around him, he could feel her flesh gripping him in a welcoming velvet fist. She shuddered hard below him, her body climbing to violent surrender. There was a flare at the base of his spine and suddenly he was dancing on the raw edge of climax.

There was a tightening of her body under and around him then she froze, her mouth open. He stilled in awe as he felt a blaze of white-hot flame scorch up from the woman below him. She shrieked, and he felt himself tighten painfully in reaction, then let go in an unbearable fire-fall of release. He pumped fiercely into her as he strove to empty himself into her completely.

A white heat flared at his throat, stealing his breath then searing him through the heart. The room filled with ruby light as their pleasure cascaded into each other's mind and soul, consuming them both. He barely heard her cries of insane joy as he howled in glorious sated rapture, the copper-sweet taste of blood fading from his lips.

As the light from their pleasure dimmed, a light dusting of ash settled where the scattered remains of the sorcerer and the Boar had been, leaving not a drop of scarlet anywhere for anyone to find on either of them.

He opened his eyes to her smiling onyx gaze, and sobbed with joy, hugging her tightly.

”Remind me never to doubt you,” he whispered, chuckling.

”Oh, I will beloved, I will indeed.”

The Wyvrn, beautiful and sleek, rose from her candle-lit bath. Her long silky mane of blood-red hair fell below her b.u.t.tocks as she waited for him. Firelight gleamed across the water droplets that coated her.

”Welcome to my home, wife,” the War Duke said with tenderness. He wrapped a warm towel around her alabaster and human skin planting a gentle kiss, then a not-so-gentle nip on her shoulder.

She turned her onyx eyes to his topaz gaze. With soft fingers she slid her hand through his waist-length raven tresses. Her finger traced the ruby that glowed at the base of his throat, the fiery light throbbing in time to his heartbeat.

”Husband,” she whispered to him. ”Never would I have dreamed that I would find you. I believed that I was destined to live alone, slaying all who would love me.”

”Beloved,” he whispered to her, brus.h.i.+ng his lips across her brow. ”I will be here to share your battles and guard you always. For we are bound, heart to heart and soul to soul. Forever.” His lips touched hers, and her mouth opened beneath his in welcome.

Across the fire-lit room a dragon's scale suit of armor sat on a mahogany frame, gleaming clean and silver in the sunlight that poured through the castle window of their home. A ruby-pommeled sword of blue steel lay in its own stand before it. Beside the silver armor, a second stand of mahogany held a similar suit of dragon's skin, dark and black with newness.

In time the second suit would gleam silver also.

A second blue steel sword completed the set. Side by side they rested.

Waiting for the next battle.

The Story of Josephine.

A Tale of Possession.

The bright fluorescent lights of the bank vault glared down on me, much like my heretofore unknown French relatives had when I was seated in her lawyer's office to hear my great-aunt's will. I had been the only American to inherit, and I had never even met my deceased great-aunt. Oddly enough, the lawyer turned out to be a relative as well, a rather distant Uncle Rene.

”As your great-aunt's lawyer, I am here to witness the delivery of her most prized possession to her inheritor.”

My Uncle Rene spoke with only a slight French accent in a deep predatory voice I had originally thought was s.e.xy. He was somewhere in his mid-thirties, only a few years older than me, and wore his black hair slicked back in a tight tail emphasizing the sharpness of his widow's peak, and his eyes were black as pitch under finely arched brows. He was tall, dark, and a very handsome, well-built man simply oozing with charm. He was also an evil, manipulative, selfish man simply oozing with mental issues, but very striking physically.

I did not like my Uncle Rene. The moment I had touched his hand in greeting, his selfish personality had slithered across my heightened empathic abilities. As I continued to smile though our initial introduction, I had hastened to dig my leather gloves from my purse to keep from accidentally touching him again and repeating the experience. It took all I had not to run to the ladies' room to wash my hands.

The mental backwash I had received from him had shown me that he liked his women whimpering, and preferably bound by rope or chain. Not my kind of guy.

Unfortunately, I was the physical description of exactly his favorite kind of girl; round and full-figured, with green eyes and long red hair. In the few seconds that I had remained in contact, that message had come through loud and clear. He had the textbook profile of a control-freak with rapist tendencies. Just what I needed...

He stood very still in his expensive suit, as we shared the small room in the heart of the French bank vault. He was watching me and reminding me strongly of a hungry vampire waiting to pounce.

”Tell me again, Josephine, how long have you been considered empathic?”

”Since I was a child,” I answered as the impressions I had received from him earlier continued to wander through my mind like a bad smell that refused to dissipate. I had no idea why he continued to badger me on the subject of my ability to pick up other people's auras and personal vibrations from objects. At that moment I was more worried about whether or not I was all that safe with him. Although we were in a public location, the door had been closed behind us, and this was a vault. If I screamed, would anyone hear me?

I heard him step closer to me and he seemed to be breathing heavier. Something in the back of my mind became aware that a predator had focused its attention on me. The small hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

I turned to look at him, and found that he was standing only two steps away. ”Do you know what I do for a living, Uncle?”

He frowned. ”According to my records, your empathic abilities sent you into early retirement, without husband or family.”

I nodded and smiled. Apparently he had no idea how foolish targeting me for mischief had been. ”Unfortunately, the pension I'm receiving from the company I founded has proven to be, shall we say, inadequate? I was forced to supplement my income.”

He tilted his head to the side, seemingly concerned. ”I was unaware of this.”

I smiled. ”Oddly enough, although my sensitivity to the emotions of the people around me forced me to cut myself off from people, others have found it quite useful.” I paused for effect. I was very interested in the look on his face once I dropped this little grenade. ”I've been working with the police and the FBI for the past seven years using objects to find missing persons and criminals.”

The look on his face was precious. His mouth opened just a tiny bit as his face grew decidedly paler. Hmm, I thought to myself,guilty conscience ?

”As a matter of fact,” I continued with a speculative glance aimed his way, ”to come to the reading of the will, I left right in the middle of a case dealing with a rapist.”

Uncle Rene's eyes narrowed, his mouth snapped closed and he scowled. He took a step back.

Rethinking your actions, dear Uncle? Are you no longer inclined to prey on your American niece now that you know that she works for the police? What a pity.I didn't bother to hide my smile as I turned back to the long bank box sitting on the table before me. Carefully, I stripped off my gloves and tucked them into my jacket pocket.

With bare hands, I lifted the metal box and my mental alarms suddenly began ringing off the hook. Danger screamed across my senses, but I couldn't tell if it was coming from the box in my hands or if my uncle, standing only a few feet away, had suddenly changed his mind and intended to rape me right here, right now. I gasped and turned sharply to look at him.

His black eyes were hard and cold under his finely arched brows as he watched me handle the locked silver box. His sugary cologne rolled off of his body and smelled of over-sweet candy.

He hadn't moved.

I turned my shoulder to him, keeping him in view from the corner of my eye as I worked the tiny key in the lock. I was forced to balance the box on the counter's edge to lift the hinged top open. I pulled out a heavy over-sized manila envelope yellowed with age.

Waves of s.e.xual heat hit me in a freight train of psychic impressions, just from touching the paper. A blazing flash of empathic imagery made me realize that whoever had tucked that envelope in the box decades ago had f.u.c.ked right here in this vault. My pulse raced and I could feel a warm sensual flush surge through my body as I was suddenly inundated and forced to relive those long-ago feelings of s.e.xual heat. A thrumming began low in my belly as unbearable excitement flooded through me in reaction. My panties became damp.

I dearly regretted taking off my leather gloves. The soft kidskin would have protected me, somewhat, from the s.e.xual, psychic miasma that was so strong, it was oozing right through the envelope. Something in the envelope had a powerful s.e.xual imprint and it was profoundly affecting me. Something I did not want to touch with my bare skin.

I glanced over my shoulder at Uncle Rene who was watching me very closely. He licked his full lips in antic.i.p.ation and I suddenly felt far too under-dressed in my black silk suit. I had not counted on my aunt's lawyer being a s.e.xual predator, and there had no time between the reading of the will and the trip to the bank to change from my best suit into something less daring.