Scorched Ice (Fire and Ice #3)(79)

He gently clasped hold of her chin, drawing her eyes to his when she couldn’t get any more words out. “Tell me.”

“The fire was everywhere, all around me. I felt it burning away my skin, searing down to my muscle and bone, stripping it all away from me even… even as it all reformed,” she choked out around the growing lump in her throat. “Without drawing air, the smoke was in my lungs and within my body. The woman I’d latched onto was a Hunter, her life force kept rebuilding me while the fire kept devouring me.”

Julian remained unmoving before her. Red shimmered around the pale blue band encircling his pupil.

“There was so much pain that I couldn’t think about trying to escape from the fire in the beginning. It felt like I was in there for years before coherent thought returned, but it may have only been seconds,” she said.

She didn’t realize she was crying until a tear dripped off her chin to fall onto her clasped hands. Her eyes fell on the bead of water on her hand. “Then, when I felt as if I’d already died and entered Hell, I heard you yelling for me. The sound of your voice made it so I could get it together enough to know that I had to escape the flames. For you.”

He settled beside her on the bed. Draping his arm around her shoulders, he pulled her against his side. He didn’t speak, didn’t tell her it would all be better with time. They both knew time made someone better capable of dealing with sorrow and pain, but it never made either emotion go away entirely. With the pad of his thumb, he wiped away the tears spilling down her face and lifted her into his lap.

He pressed her head against his chest, cradling her there as he rocked her back and forth until her sobs slowly subsided and her tears dried.

“I would take it all from you if I could,” he said as he kissed her forehead and then her cheek.

“I know.”

“I have something for you.”

He adjusted his hold on her to dig into his pocket. Tugging something free, he lifted it before her. She squealed when she saw her golden heart locket dangling before her. It had some soot on it and a dent on the backside, but it was one of the most beautiful things she’d ever seen.

She closed her hand around it as fresh tears slid down her face. “I thought it was lost forever.”

“It was lying by what remained of the woman.”

He took it from her and slid it around her neck to clasp it into place. Her fingers brushed over the gold as she lifted her eyes to his. “Thank you.”

The sexy smile that she could never resist curved his mouth before he bent to kiss the tip of her nose. “I’d buy you every piece of jewelry in the world if it made you look at me like that every time.”

“Nope, just this one,” she said.

“No wedding ring?” he asked.

She gazed down at her hands. “Do you think we need one? Aren’t we already bound for eternity?”

“I want the humans to also know you’re taken.”

She lifted her head to gaze at him and smiled. “No ceremony?”

“Do you want one?”

She bit her bottom lip as she pondered this. “No,” she finally said. “I wouldn’t even have anyone to give me away.”

“I’m sure Clint would do it.”

“Maybe not, if it’s to you,” she teased.

“You’re probably right,” Julian agreed.

“Even when I was mostly human, I never really considered having a wedding. I had no illusions of finding a man who would understand what I was and what our children would be. For all I knew, I may have been enough of a vampire that I could never have children, so I never dreamed of them either. We’re bound deeper than any vows could ever make us, but I would wear your rings. Remember it goes both ways though. You’d have to wear my ring to keep all those human women away from you too.”

He grinned at her as he embraced her tighter. “I’ll proudly wear your brand.”

“Damn right you will.”

She rested her head against his chest and lifted her face to kiss his jaw. Turning her mouth into his throat, she pressed her lips against the vein running through there. His fingers stroked her cheek as her lips skimmed back and she sank her fangs into his flesh.

The powerful wash of his blood flooded her system, causing her fingers to curl into his shoulders. He held her closer as he bent his head to kiss her shoulder. She felt his fangs a second before he pierced her skin.

He growled against her flesh while he fed from her. Quinn bit deeper, needing him in a desperate, almost savage way that she’d never experienced before. Her fingers tore at him, pulling him closer as he shifted her in his lap so she straddled him.

His fingers tugged at the button of his jeans before he somehow managed to shift her and kick them off. Still only in Chris’s shirt, she felt him against her before he entered her. The shirt fell away from her as he tore it down the backside and threw it away.

Instead of setting her on fire like it normally did, his touch was like ice flowing through her veins as it doused the heat of the flames that had consumed her. She craved and welcomed the way it eased the pain of her memories. She forgot all about the searing fire, forgot all about the death and rebirth she’d experienced within its flames, as she became consumed by him.

The bond between them swirled around her as she felt what he’d experienced within those tunnels. She lived his terror while he watched her fall into those flames and then his intense relief when she emerged from them.