Part 13 (1/2)

He rolled them to their sides, Tori's body pressed once more between his and Eli's. She felt the hard pressure of Eli's c.o.c.k at her back and she flushed, realizing just how aware part of him really was. Vaguely, she grew aware of something, a dull pounding ache between her thighs. When Declan eased his semi erect shaft out of her, tears flooded her eyes and she gasped in pain.

Soothing kisses dried the tears from her eyes while Declan murmured in her ear, ”I'm sorry, baby. So sorry.”

She felt the rising tide of guilt and self anger that rose in Declan and she arched up to press her lips to his mouth. ”Shh,” she whispered. ”I'm fine, just not going to be up to much playing for a while.”

He wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly.

”I want you so much,” he muttered as shame and anger flooded his gut. Sympathy pains, or echoes of the pain Tori was feeling had his lower abdomen and groin throbbing and aching and he could only imagine how badly she was hurting now. ”I've been told the need does lessen, in time.” ”Need?” she repeated, curling her knee up slightly, stroking one hand down his stiff side.

”Aye. You're my mate, you see. The s.h.i.+fters, inherents or otherwise, have a driving need for a mate. Once you find it, you want it, always and forever and you're overtaken by an urge to mark your mate,” he said quietly. ”I've known you were mine since I first saw you, and I've controlled the urges. I'm afraid I am losing control now. All I have to do is think of you and I get hard. The need to mark you and ride you and f.u.c.k you constantly is driving me insane. I can't control it.” He didn't speak of how the urge to f.u.c.k had been augmented by his need to do everything to protect, until the need had near driven him insane.

But she knew.

With a smile, she kissed his chest, nipping gently at one flat nipple before she said, ”I think of you and I get wet.

Stop feeling bad. I heal quick, right? That's part of this.

And it was worth it.” She closed her eyes in remembered ecstasy- the feel of his c.o.c.k inside her, the feel of being pressed between their two bodies. The feel of Eli thrusting that thick c.o.c.k of his in her a.s.s while Declan pummeled her v.a.g.i.n.a. Even the thought of it had tight little spirals of need spiraling through her belly, even though her aching p.u.s.s.y begged for a respite.

Oh, yeah. Worth it.

Declan's shame at his lack of control faded as he felt that deep satisfaction that radiated from her. ”You're not angry, are you?”

”For what?”

”I bound us together last night. And I never gave you a chance to say no,” he said, lifting her chin and staring into her eyes. ”You understand, don't you, that ya canna go walkin' away from me, from us. Not now, likely not ever.”

”Can you force this bond on somebody who doesn't want it?” she asked, a frown furrowing her brows. Part of her rebelled at anybody taking a choice from her, but another part, something inside her heart she had barely even known existed, rebelled at anything that could separate her from Declan-even her own anger. And it wasn't like she had ever had a true choice anyway.

They were m e ant for each o ther.

”No. It cannot be forced,” he said, his accent thickening into that rough brogue that had s.h.i.+vers running down her spine. ”The bond goes both ways. It's not a marriage, but a union, our hearts and minds and souls melding to one. That cannot be done to one who isn't willing. But that doesn't mean I had the right to let it happen, if I could have stopped it. Or let you know it was likely.

”I knew it would happen, if I let it. I could have stopped it, simply by not touching you.”

With a brush of her fingers against his mouth, she asked, ”Is not touching me a simple thing?”

He seized her hand, pressing a kiss to her sensitive palm, stroking it with his tongue before taking one finger into the wet cave of his mouth and sucking it, his rough tongue caressing and stroking before he drew it out and said flatly, ”No. It's the hardest f.u.c.king thing I've ever done, to not touch you. But-”

”No buts. Declan, I love you. I think I always have and while I don't like having choices taken from me, this isn't a choice. It would have happened, it was meant to happen. And I can't think of being without you, when you are so much a part of me now,” she said, staring into his face, caressing his roughened cheek as she kissed his chin. ”I love you.”

CHAPTER NINE.

It was later in the day that she grew aware of the malevolent force that was battering at her mind. It was like a battering ram that was trying to get in, and the longer it fought and failed, the more the anger grew.

”He's here, isn't he?” she asked quietly, braving the sunlight at four in the afternoon to stare briefly out the window. The blinding light hurt her eyes, and as moments pa.s.sed, it started to sting her skin, but she stared into the woods beyond the wood and gla.s.s houses, beyond the small guesthouses, wondering where he had gone to ground.

”I do not think he is on Eli's territory yet,” Declan said, taking her hand and guiding her from the window, letting the heavy, light blocking drapes fall back down. He had carried Eli into a middle room, his bedchamber, a windowless room that was protected from any and all sunlight. It wasn't a bas.e.m.e.nt room, though. Eli had a dislike of such things, a remnant from his human days.

”He is,” she whispered, her eyes closing while her mind went drifting down a dark mental path.

”He is close,” the wise old woman whispered. ”He had his slave bring him while he slept. He must hate you very much, to have traveled in his sleep to get to you. He is certain you will run, and he doesn't want you to have the chance.”

”I'm not running,” Tori said softly, pacing the room.

”What?”

Tori ignored Declan's voice while the old woman murmured, ”I know you will not run. That is why I chose you. I need your help. Until Manuel is gone, I cannot rest.”

”Can you tell me your name? Why would you help me? I will see him dead-you know that, don't you? Why help me when you know I will kill your son?” ”My name is Rosa, and I help you because I do know you will see him stopped, I know Manuel better than all others, and his evil, foul deeds. I help you because he must be stopped.”

”Why me?”

The old woman laughed and replied, ”Why not you? You threw off his compulsions. You fought against him. You hurt him. Manuel hasn't been hurt by a human since before he was changed.”

”How long has he been a vampire?”

Tori stumbled in her tracks and came to rest against the wall as Rosa said sadly,” More than five hundred years.

Manuel was an Inquisitor before he was changed.”

” Inquisitor?” Tori thought, her mind whirling.

”The Spanish Inquisition, when Isabelle sought to purify all of Spain. Her purifying was the most foul and evil deed I had ever seen done...at the time. So much evil in the world, so many evil, terrible things I have seen. I am weary and long to rest.”

Death toll in the hundreds of thousands, people pulled from their homes and cast into fires. Tori's mind stumbled to a halt and stared unseeingly out the window. ”He was alive then?”

”He was. It was how he met the man who changed him. He took pleasure in what he did, in the suffering that he caused.” Her sad, mournful sigh brushed through Tori's mind like a cold wind. ”He was always evil, from the time he left my body.” ”Oh, G.o.d.”

”G.o.d had nothing to do with it. He was just...evil.

Always evil. Five hundred years he has traveled this world, inflicting his evil and malice on others. It is time he be stopped.”

”Five hundred years? Vampires get stronger with age, don't they?”

”They do. But you are not just a vampire. And you are not alone.”

Declan's hands landed on her shoulders as another voice joined in. Declan's mind was troubled and in turmoil but his mental voice was strong and clear. ”She will never be alone, old woman.”

”Old woman, handsome wolf?” Rosa asked, her voice light with amus.e.m.e.nt. ”Hmm. Go, Tori McAdams. Go be with your mate, but be ready. Manuel is too foolish to fear the wolf.”

Her mental touch faded and Tori fell back against Declan.

”She was his mother,” she murmured a few moments later. ”I don't know much, but I know he sought out the vampire and wanted to be changed. And then he fed from his own mother and killed her.”

”Five hundred years,” Declan whispered. ”He was born about the time the Spaniards settled in Florida.