Love Me to Death (Underveil, #1)(46)

Arm tight around her waist, careful not to get the cord tangled on anything, he rolled her under him. She planted her feet and pushed up. Yes. She wanted more. He pulled out, then slid back in. Almost there. “Okay?”

She opened her blood-red eyes, and it was all he could do to not lose it. So hot. So…

He thrust hard and she gasped. Then she smiled. So he did it again and again and again. He was fully seated now, and she met him thrust for thrust—harder and harder until he was mindless from the feel of her, wet and tight around him. His body slammed against hers in a fast and steady rhythm until he thought he couldn’t hold on anymore, and then she pulled him down and bit him on the other side of his neck.

And that was it. The minute she pierced his skin, she came. He stilled as she clenched around him, squeezing him while she drew from his neck. The pain was so right. Everything about her was exactly right. He thrust into her one last time, and in a resplendent burst of light, he found the release he’d longed for since he met her. Complete, total, and absolute release.

Once he came back down to earth, he rolled to his side and pulled her against him. The cord had been right. She was his. For the first time ever, he could envision spending his life with someone. She was powerful, and smart…and his.

Still breathing hard, she shifted and held up her right arm. “It worked. The cord is gone.”

“Not really.” He buried his face in her hair and pulled a blanket over them. “We’re bound, you and I. I won’t ever let you go. You’re mine.”

A pained expression crossed her face and a tear slipped from the corner of her eye. “Step six,” she whispered.

And just like that, Nikolai found himself alone in the wagon with nothing in his arms but the empty air.





Chapter Sixteen


Nikolai shot bolt upright. What the hell had just happened? He shouted Elena’s name as he yanked his jeans on. It was as if she had just disappeared. No. Not as if. She had disappeared. He picked up his shirt from off of her parka. Shit. She was still naked, wherever she was.

Fully dressed, he bounded from the back of the cart. “Elena!” he shouted. He put his arms through the straps of his sword sheath and called her name again. Nothing answered but the wind through the snow-laden trees.

She could teleport in her immortal form, dammit.

A sickening churn filled his gut as Aleksandra’s words slapped him in the face. Elena had followed them to a tee. She’d used him to turn, f*cked him, and gotten rid of him.

She was gone.

He leaned back against the wagon and closed his eyes. She’d left him and he might never see her again. No more of her smartass comebacks, no exquisite come-ons. Nothing.

The snow coated his lashes and stung on his bare arms. A few of the men, awakened by his calls, emerged from their tents to see what was going on.

“It’s nothing,” he told them. “Go back to bed. I’m sorry I disturbed you. Everything is fine.”

One by one, they disappeared, except for the old woman. She poked him in the chest as she passed to climb the steps back into her wagon. “You don’t strike me as one who just gives up. Sometimes you have to make fate bend to your will.” And with that, she lifted the flap and disappeared inside her home.

Nikolai stood shivering for several moments. The woman was right. He’d just had mind-blowing sex with a woman who made him think of forever. No way in hell was he just going to let her leave him. He wouldn’t. She couldn’t. She was his.

He had to find her.



Wow. It had worked. After she’d bitten Nik the second time, Elena had known she could teleport. She’d even seen images of herself standing right here, like a premonition, so she gave it a try. She’d pictured where she wanted to be, and then, poof, there she was. After a few disoriented moments where her body felt like it was shrink-wrapped a little too tightly, she grabbed a bath towel from the bar next to Stefan’s enormous tub and wrapped it around herself. Her body still thrummed with Nik’s blood and felt as if it were stretching from the inside out, probably as a result of her changing into a whatever-the-hell-she-was. Not painful, but not comfortable, either.

“You’re mine,” she repeated out loud. “What kind of misogynistic crap is that?”

She wiped the tears from her cheek and grabbed the remote that operated the tub and pushed the red button to call Stefan. He’d told her she was welcome anytime. Hopefully, he meant it. She pushed a green button, and the lights came on full. She squinted and cursed, pushing a different button that caused the exhaust fan to whir to life.

“Technical difficulties?” Stefan asked from the doorway.

“Oh. Hi. Sorry to just burst in like this. I, uh…was just going to…”

He took the remote from her. “I assume you want a bath. You smell like it’s been quite an adventure.” He pushed several buttons, and the water poured from the tub spout, the lights dimmed, and light classical music piped in from the ceiling. “Dirt, blood, vodka, and sex, yes?”

That pretty much summed it up.

He tilted his head in that odd manner he had. “And look at you all grown up and immortal. How do you feel?”

She turned and gazed at her reflection in the mirror. A total stranger stared back. Her hair was a tangled mess, her skin pale, and though more muscled than she had been, she looked thin. And her eyes—they were tinged with red like the blood she’d consumed. She was real monster now. “I feel like crap.”