Darkness Revealed (Guardians of Eternity #4)(41)

Her hazel gaze turned toward him, a hint of puzzlement in the golden green depths.

“What does that mean?”

He trailed the back of his fingers down her cheek. “Your blood is more potent than the average human. You’re capable of losing far more without being affected, and perhaps more importantly, I need only take a small amount to satisfy my needs.”

“So you’re…satisfied?”

Cezar choked as he tried to swallow his burst of laughter. Couldn’t she feel his sated pleasure? It filled the entire room.

Then he realized that she was thinking of her ridiculous assumption that he would join the other vampires in the building to relieve his hunger with the waiting fairies.

Hell, he would rather wait another two hundred years than soil himself with anyone but Anna Randal.

“Utterly, blissfully, completely satisfied,” he murmured, his fingers touching the tiny puncture marks on her neck. The sight of them made something deep inside him growl with possessive approval. This was how she was supposed to look. Tousled, well-loved, and carrying his mark for all to see. “Although I’m a vampire, so I’m always ready for another round of satisfaction whenever you want.” The hazel eyes briefly darkened with an answering heat before she abruptly ducked her head to allow her heavy honey hair to form a curtain between them. A sudden chill marred his sense of absolute peace. “Anna?”

“What?”

“Do you regret what happened between us?”

There was the sort of silence that could never be good. “I suppose not.”

“Hardly a ringing endorsement,” he said harshly, trying to squelch his flare of anger. Dios, what they had just shared had been earth-shattering. It was the sort of thing that could tremble through universes and alter destiny. And she supposed she didn’t regret it? “In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever been so damned by such faint praise.”

She attempted to scoot away from him. “What do you want?”

His arms tightened, keeping her firmly anchored to his side. “A bit of honesty would be nice.”

“Fine.” Her head lifted and she stabbed him with a glittering gaze. “The truth is that a part of me thinks that I should regret what happened, but the rest is utterly, blissfully, completely satisfied. Happy now?”

A slow, wicked smile curved his lips. “I’m getting there.”

She blew out a disgruntled sigh. “You don’t have to look so smug.”

Cezar allowed his fingers to drift beneath the bubbling water, his mind already filled with images of Anna straddling him as she rode him into bliss.

“I would look a lot more smug if you would…”

Before Cezar could finish his delicious suggestion, his head was slammed into the edge of the hot tub. His eyes squeezed shut as darkness surrounded him and then the sound of a familiar, rasping voice echoed through his mind.

Chapter 10

Anna felt as if she were floating.

Okay, she actually was floating in the deep, deliciously warm water. But it was more than that. It was as if her entire body had become a boneless mass of sated pleasure.

It was a sensation she hadn’t felt for two centuries and while she hadn’t lied to Cezar when she said that she should regret what had just happened between them, she just couldn’t stir up the least hint of remorse.

God…it had been fantastic.

The feel of him moving deep inside her at the same time he was taking her blood was an experience that went way beyond mere sex.

They had been connected so deeply that it had been as if they had been as one. Two halves that were only complete when they were together.

A terrifying thought.

But not as terrifying as the sight of the powerful vampire suddenly bowing backwards, his head smacking against the edge of the hot tub and his eyes squeezing shut as if he were in acute pain.

“Cezar?” She gripped his beautiful face in her hands, her heart halting in fear. Was he under some kind of attack? Some vampire thing that she couldn’t see or sense? Or could he be sick? “Dear God…Cezar.” She crawled onto his lap, her powers swirling through the room. Not that she noticed the heavy statues that tumbled and shattered beneath the force, or the pictures that crashed to the floor. Her attention was focused on Cezar as his face contorted with a flare of agony. “What’s wrong?”

After what seemed to be an eternity, Cezar slowly relaxed, his eyes fluttering open to regard her with a blank gaze.

“Anna?”

“Yes. Are you hurt? Do you need Viper?”

He lifted a hand to touch the back of his head, the dark eyes clearing as he surfaced from the strange power that had held him in thrall.

“Nothing more than a cracked skull and a raging frustration,” he muttered, his dark gaze skimming down her naked body still straddling his waist. “Typical of the Oracles.”

She stiffened, a very bad feeling replacing her fear. “The Oracles?”

“Si.” He grimaced, his hand shifting to push the damp strands of his hair from his face. “They have yet to catch on to the whole cell phone thing. Not that I could use one even if they did.”

Despite the heat of the water, Anna felt chilled as she slid off his lap and wrapped her arms around her waist.

“What did they say?”

His expression became shuttered. “I must leave you for a short time.”