vein. Her blood surged into his body,
nourishing his cells as it wrapped silken
bonds around his soul.
She was his. Even if his mind and
will were reluctant to accept that fact,
his body knew it with a ferocity he could
hardly contain now. And where his
desire for her had been consuming
nearly from the moment he first laid eyes
on her two nights ago, now it was a
raging inferno that demanded its own
satisfaction.
He wanted her savagely.
Needed her with a fury that left him
shaking.
He realized in that moment that it
wasn’t only the blood bond that lashed
her to him. Melena would have owned
him even if he hadn’t given in to his
thirst for her tonight.
As unwelcome as that thought was
—as unnerving as he found it, to think
that she had obliterated his long-
standing, iron resolve—it was a truth
Lazaro could not deny.
And right now, he could not get
enough of her.
* * * *
Oh, God, she was lost to this man.
She’d never known what it would
be like to have a Breed male drink from
her. Like so much where he was
concerned,
Melena
hadn’t
been
prepared.
With her head dropped back and
Lazaro suckling with long, hard tugs at
her carotid, she dissolved into a state of
pure, boneless bliss. She held him as he
drank from her, cushioning his big body
as he thrust against her where they stood.
Her veins were on fire. The core of
her had gone molten as well. Each
demanding pull at her throat sent arrows
of pleasure and need shooting through
every cell of her being.
When Lazaro suddenly stopped
suckling her and swept his tongue over
the wounds he’d made, Melena groaned
in protest. “I need you naked now,” he
muttered thickly against her throat. “I
can’t wait much longer.”
Neither could she. “Yes,” she
gasped, her hands still clutching at him
as he began to sink down before her into
a crouch. He made quick work of her
slacks and panties, baring her to him
with the clothing pooled at her feet. On a
low growl, he moved in and kissed each
hipbone, then descended farther, burying
his face between her thighs. “Oh, God...”
His tongue cleaved her folds, hot
and wet and hungry. In long, knee-
weakening strokes, he lapped and
suckled, then kissed and nipped,
wringing a moan from her as he drew
her clit into his mouth and teased it
toward a frenzy. She felt his teeth graze
her sensitive flesh, felt the sharp tips of
his fangs getting larger as he feasted on
her with ruthless abandon.
She was quivering with hard need,
on the verge of orgasm already, as he
slowly kissed his way back up her body.
With a deep, rolling growl, he stripped
off her sweater and bra, then tossed them
aside to gaze on her nakedness with
burning amber eyes. Her blood stained
his sensual lips a duskier hue, making
his diamond-white fangs stand out in
stark contrast.
He
had
never
looked
more
dangerous
or
inhuman...nor
more
preternaturally beautiful.
“Lazaro,” she sighed, her voice
feathery, as unsteady as her legs. That
sigh became a moan as he lavished her
breasts and nipples with his hands and
mouth, tongue and teeth.
He muttered her name in a fevered,
animal-like rasp that sent her blood
surging with even greater pleasure and
arousal. He needed her now, as much as
she needed him. On a curse he released
her nipple and drew back to shuck his
pants and shirt. He stood before her like
an otherworldly god.
Melena reached down between
their bodies to grasp the jutting length of
his cock. His shaft more than filled her
hand, thick and warm and pulsing with
strength. He purred deep in the back of
his throat as she stroked him, then seized
her mouth in a wild kiss. She could taste
herself on his tongue, her blood and
juices an erotic sweetness that only
made her burn even more for him. She
stroked him harder, craved him with a
desperate ache that demanded to be
filled.
“I can feel your need in your blood,
Melena,” he rasped against her lips.
“It’s alive in me now. So fucking
intense.
Everything you feel this
strongly, I will feel too.” He flexed his
hips, his shaft surging even more
powerfully within the tight circle of her fingers. “I need to be inside you. Put me
there.”
She obeyed, guiding him into the
slick cleft of her body. He drove home
on a savage groan, the fierce thrust
making her cry out in pleasure. He gave
her more, slamming in hard and urgently,
his lack of restraint sending her own
control spiraling away. She clawed at
him as he fucked her against the wall,
orgasm roaring up on her in a shocking
wave of sensation.
She came fast and hard, convulsing
in tremors that racked her from head to
toe. As she shattered around him,
Lazaro’s tempo became a storm. He
crashed into her with abandon, his
immense body taut and shaking, so
deliciously wild. He cursed against the
side of her neck as his own release
roared up on him. She felt him go rigid,
driving deeper with every stroke, until a
wordless shout tore out of him and he
released.
Melena registered the hot blast of
his orgasm, a heat she felt in her core
and in every tingling particle of her
being. She was drained and completed
all at once, awash in a pleasure that
rocked her to her soul.
But Lazaro wasn’t finished with her
yet, apparently.
Instead of pulling out, he guided her
legs up around him, lifting her against
him, their bodies still joined and
vibrating with the aftershocks of release.
He brought her into the bedroom, placed
her beneath him on the big bed.
Then he began to drive her mad
with desire and pleasure all over again.
* * * *
The temptation to stay with her in
his bed had been all but irresistible, but
after hours of making love to Melena,
Lazaro finally let her sleep. No easy
thing, for how much he still cra
ved her.
His desire for her soft curves and
addicting heat was rivaled only by his
newer thirst for her.
He didn’t want to think about how
strong those urges were, now that he’d
indulged so recklessly—selfishly—in
both.
He didn’t want to think about how
right it felt to lie next to her, inside of
her, to hear her soft cries of pleasure or
the quiet puffs of her breath as she slept
so sweetly—trustingly—in his arms.
He didn’t want to think about any of
that when reality waited for them in D.C.
in just a few short hours.
Lazaro
slipped
away
from
Melena’s side to shower and get
dressed, the predawn morning a prickle
in his ancient Breed veins as he headed
down to the command center to meet
with his team. The warriors were just
coming in from the night’s patrol.
Trygg
said
nothing
as
he
approached with the others from the far
end of the corridor. The brutal warrior
merely strode into the team’s meeting
room for the mission review. Jehan and
Sav both slowed as their path met
Lazaro’s in the passageway. They
greeted him with measured nods and
sober, suspicious gazes.
“How did it go out there?” Lazaro
asked them. “Any rumblings on the street
about the explosion on Turati’s yacht?”
Jehan answered first. “Nothing that
we found. It was just a typical night in
the Eternal City. A couple of club
brawls to break up before they got too
bloody and created a bigger problem.
Handful of Breed youths feeding past
curfew near the train station.”
“No unusual activity at all?”
Sav glanced down, trying to
suppress a grin. “Seemed like the only
unusual activity going on last night was
in here.”
Lazaro glared, but he couldn’t take
offense at the truth.
“Is
everything
all
right,
Commander?” Jehan asked, ever the
diplomatic professional, despite being
one of the most dangerous warriors
Lazaro had ever seen. “The situation
with Melena seemed...difficult.”
Now, it was only more difficult.
Not to mention complicated. If she had
cause to despise him last night after he’d
seduced her then fled to find a blood
Host, she had every reason in the world
to loathe him for what he did a few
hours ago.
And for what he had yet to do, after
he saw her safely home to the States.
“Melena Walsh’s welfare is no
one’s concern here but mine,” he said,
eager to shut down the topic of
discussion, even though it weighed
heavily on him. “The Order has
difficulties of its own to worry about.
For instance, does it bother anyone else
that no one is stepping forward to claim
responsibility for the assassinations of
Turati and Byron Walsh the other night?
The attack smacks of Opus Nostrum, yet
the group hasn’t formally declared it
was their doing.”
“Maybe they’re waiting for the
right time to own up to it,” Savage
suggested.
Jehan grunted, not quite convinced,
if the shrewd look in his sky-blue eyes
was any indication. “If it is Opus, maybe
it wasn’t a sanctioned attack. Maybe it
was an over-zealous member looking to
make a name for himself among his
comrades. Or maybe it was done for
more personal reasons than that. Turati
was a high-profile businessman with
political connections as well. He
could’ve had any number of enemies.
The same could be said of Walsh.”
Lazaro gave a grim nod. The
warrior could be right about any of those
scenarios. And the only thing more
troubling than Opus making such a bold
move was the thought of a renegade
agent operating from his own agenda.
Walking into the meeting room with
Sav and Jehan, Lazaro couldn’t help but
relive the shock and horror of the
rocket’s destruction. And the fact that
Melena might have been part of the
carnage? That she had been mere
seconds
away
from
complete
obliteration along with the others on that
yacht?
Christ. What had shaken him that
night—what had outraged him as a man
and as the one entrusted with the security
of those dead men—now put a cold knot
of dread in his chest.
It put real, marrow-chilling fear in
his bones.
Now more than ever, he needed to
ensure she would be kept far out of
harm’s reach. And as bitter as the taste
was on his tongue, he knew that anyone
in the Order’s orbit, or in that of the
ever-expanding number of enemies
seeking to incite true war between man
and Breed, would always be at risk.
Like Ellie had been.
Like their sons and the dozen other
family members living in Lazaro’s
Darkhaven who were killed on his
watch.
He couldn’t bear to have anything
happen to Melena. She’d been through
enough pain and loss already.
And so had he.
As Lazaro took his seat at the head
of the conference table in the room with
his men, Trygg palmed a slip of paper
and slid it toward him. “What’s this?”
Trygg nodded his shaved head at
the note he’d scrawled. “Located her
brother, like you asked.” Lazaro glanced
at the Baltimore, Maryland, address.
“Derek Walsh is on a plane out of
London as we speak. Booked the flight
yesterday, after his father’s death aboard
Turati’s
yacht
made
international
headlines.”
Lazaro
nodded
gravely.
He
would’ve rather Melena’s brother—
Byron Walsh’s only blood kin—had
heard the news another way, but there
was no fixing that now. At least her
brother would be there for her. She
would be home again, with family and
familiar things. God knew, she had
needed someplace soft to fall these past
days, Lazaro thought grimly. And she
hadn’t exactly found that with him.
No, she’d found tears and anger and
hurt.
She’d found a man ill-prepared to
give her what she needed, what an
extraordinary, tender-hearted woman
like Melena deserved i
n life...and in
love.
Instead of offering her comfort
during her most vulnerable state, he’d
growled and snapped at her. When he
wasn’t busy seducing her, that is.
When he wasn’t selfishly slaking
all of his needs on her as if he would
ever be worthy of her heart or her blood.
He had no business giving in to
those urges when war was still brewing
all around him. So long as there were
enemies killing innocents, his duty was,
and always would be, to the Order. How
could he have let himself slip so
egregiously when it came to Melena?
How could he be letting himself fall in
love when he knew all too well how
easily it could be ripped from his arms
at any moment?
Love...
Fuck. Of all the rash impulses he
had been unable to resist when it came
to Melena, that would be the most
foolish of them all.
Loving her would be even more
selfish than the blood bond he had no
right to claim and no intention of
completing.
CHAPTER 10
Lazaro was gone when she woke up
that morning.
He had stayed away most of the
day, vanished to his command center
until the time came for Melena and him
to leave for the flight to D.C. that
afternoon. Even on board the Order’s
private jet, Lazaro had remained distant,
his comm unit to his ear most of the time,
or his attention rooted to his work and
his computer. She would have called
him preoccupied, but his smoky aura had
conveyed a deliberate resistance.
Hours later and thousands of miles
away from everything they’d shared in
Rome, Melena had sat beside him in the
debriefing with Lucan Thorne and a few
other members of the Order at the
Washington, D.C., headquarters, feeling
almost as though she were seated next to
a polite, detached stranger. He’d
introduced
her
graciously,
almost
formally, giving no one cause to suspect
she was anything more to him than a
civilian temporarily placed in his
safekeeping following the attack on
Turati’s yacht.
He was careful not to touch her,
even though heat crackled between them
at the slightest brush of contact. He was
careful not to let his gaze linger too long,
even though his indigo eyes smoldered
with awareness every time he glanced
her way. He was coolly, determinedly
remote.
It had made her want to scream.
She still felt that swamping urge,