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  “You,” she growled, rising on her knees above him and tearing at his belt. “I need you, I only need you. Get these off right now!”

  And then the belt was off and she rubbed against him like a cat. He groaned with pleasure at the full-body caress and desperately unbuttoned his fly, his own desire firing at the heady scent of hers. As soon as his jeans were unfastened she shoved them down his thighs, and then caught them with her toes to push them down his legs. They caught on his boots and he didn’t care, because at that moment she nipped his throat and took a single hot sip of his blood. “So good,” she whispered. “You’re so damn good. Taste me now.”

  His own bloodlust rose sharply, bringing his cock and his fangs to their fullest, throbbing length. Her shoulder was close and he sank his fangs into her, too impatient to find a vein, not caring where he bit her in his desperation to taste her. Her blood was hot and spicy and he groaned, loving the bond they reinforced, loving the taste of her.

  Her hand closed around his cock and he broke away from her shoulder with a cry, and when she kissed him he caught her breasts in his hands and rolled and pinched her nipples. Her cries were muffled by his tongue as they devoured each other. He tasted his blood on her lips, savored the trace of hers on his tongue, but more than that, he gloried in the fact that her skin smelled only of clean, hot lust and the faint remains of his own sex.

  “Mine,” he gasped, trying to roll her onto her back, wanting to claim every inch of her all over again, to erase the images that had tortured him while she’d been locked in here with another man, but she wouldn’t have it.

  “No, mine,” she growled. She moaned aloud when he lifted his head and sucked one tight nipple deep in his mouth, flicking it with his tongue. “God, Orion, please, I can’t wait, I need you!”

  He broke away only long enough to murmur, “What do you need from me?” Then he subjected her other nipple to the same, hot treatment, worshiping her flesh with lips and tongue and teeth.

  “Love me!” she cried, reaching down and tearing the red lace panties away with one hard pull, baring her entire body to him.

  He caught her face in his hands and forced her to meet his eyes. “I always have,” he said, willing her to understand, to believe.

  The wild lust in her eyes cleared for just a moment, just long enough for him to see her answer there. Then she sank down on him, taking his entire thick length in one hot thrust, and there were no more coherent words spoken. She rode him hard and fast, her head thrown back and her breasts thrust out, and Orion had never seen anything so beautiful in all his four hundred years.

  And when she came, he couldn’t look away from the ecstasy on her face, the pleasure and abandon she’d saved only for him. Mine, he thought again, knowing it was true, and that thought was enough to trigger his own orgasm. He came hard as her body convulsed around him, milking his cock for every last drop.

  She collapsed on top of him, both of them breathing as if they’d run a marathon. He cradled her close and stroked her hair until she stopped trembling. The silence was warm, not strained. He held her and closed his eyes, content to stay here forever.

  “Did you mean it?”

  Her whisper tickled his chest, soft as a caress. He didn’t need to ask what she referred to, didn’t need to touch her mind to know. “I meant it,” he answered. “All of it. I have loved you since the first day you walked into my office and turned me upside down.”

  She trembled and tightened her grip on him. “You should’ve told me sooner,” she whispered. “Damn it, Orion, do you have any idea how many times I almost reached out and touched you, almost said something suggestive to see how you’d react, almost snuck into your room to lie beside you during the day and find out what you’d do if you woke to find me there?”

  Just the thought revived hot memories of the first time he’d awakened with her in his bed. “I’d have screwed your brains out,” he assured her. “Repeatedly, if you’d done any of those things.”

  She laughed softly and shifted so she could look up at him. “I suppose you’d probably like me to tell you if I love you now?”

  “It’d be nice, yes.”

  She smiled. “What if I decide to make you wait as long as you made me wait?”

  Orion lunged, tumbling her onto her back and pinning her before she could so much as gasp. “Then I’m afraid I’d have to screw your brains out,” he growled. “Repeatedly.”

  “Oh, there’s a wicked threat,” she laughed, wiggling beneath him. “I’d hate that.”

  He glowered at her. “Kira…” he growled warningly.

  She reached up and cupped his face in her hands. “I love you,” she said, letting him see it in her eyes. “And I don’t ever want to have to feed from another man, do you hear me? I don’t care what happens. I’m not biting anyone but you and if you don’t like it --”

  He silenced her with a kiss. It started soft and sweet but when she sighed and tightened her thighs around his hips, it became progressively wilder until he finally had to break away for air. “I like that idea just fine,” he panted, already wanting her again. “There’s only one problem.”

  Her warm smile faded a little. “What’s that?”

  “You’re still a fledgling, sweetheart. You need more than I can provide on my own.” He kissed her forehead. “We’ll work around it. You can always bite women. If I have to, I’ll feed for both of us.”

  She relaxed. “I thought you were going to say something about the Nighthawks.”

  The word was like a splash of cold water, robbing him of his peace. What was he thinking, making plans for a life with her while Gregori and Barrett and the rest of the Clan were still hunting him? He took a deep breath and blew it out as he rolled to the side, no longer pinning her down. “We do need to talk about them, actually,” he said reluctantly.

  Kira sat up and made a face. “I knew I shouldn’t have said that,” she sighed. “You always go all serious and cranky when they come up.”

  “It’s because it’s a serious subject, and I’m not cranky.” She stuck her tongue out at him in a gesture that reminded him strongly of how she used to tease him until she got a reaction before Barrett’s attack. He pinched her, smiling when she jumped, before reaching down to pull up his jeans. “Kira, we need to decide what to do. You need to decide what you want to do.”

  Her light mood, already fading, died altogether. “I already don’t like where this conversation is heading.”

  He sat beside her and took both her hands. “Gregori won’t stop hunting me while I’m within his territory,” he said. “I can’t best him in battle -- he’s over a thousand years old and his power is legendary -- and I won’t rejoin him, which means the only solution is to leave his territory. I don’t have a choice in that, but you do.”

  “Are you trying to tell me you want me to go play house with the Clan and watch you ride off into the sunset?” she demanded, incredulous.

  “No, that’s not what I want,” he said, squeezing her hands. “But it’s a choice you have. I don’t offer you an easy life, Kira. Before this, I was merely an outsider, but if I ignore this summons -- and that’s what Barrett’s attack was, a summons -- I’ll be an outcast. The Nighthawks will swear a blood feud on me and try to kill me on sight. No other Clan will want me in their territory. Should you be with me, they would attack you first, knowing that you are my weakness, the best way to destroy me. Even alone I might only escape notice for a year, or I might stay hidden for a century, but eventually I will be forced to relocate or fight, over and over.”

  He hated saying this, but he had to tell her the truth. “You will be safer here than you’d be with me, sweetheart. You could stay with the Clan for a short time, perhaps a decade, just long enough to build your strength and learn your powers. If you don’t like the life they have to offer, you could leave the right way, with the Master’s blessing. You have to consider it.”

  She watched him with narrowed eyes. “You said you don’t offer me an easy l
ife,” she said quietly. “Do you offer me any life at all, or is this just a complicated brush-off?”

  “I’m not brushing you off,” he assured her. “But I need you to understand that staying with the Clan would not make you evil. You’ve just shown that you can feed from a human without harming him. Ellyra has offered to adopt you as her own and keep you safe. All right? This is one option.”

  Kira nodded stiffly. “Give me the other one.” Even her tone was tight, hurt.

  Orion released one hand to trace the curve of her cheek. “Be my mate,” he whispered. “Come with me, despite the fact that I can offer you little besides my love. I cannot defeat Gregori, but that doesn’t mean I’m powerless. The Nighthawks don’t want to let me go because I am strong. You would be without a home, but not without protection, and I would die before I let anyone harm you. Let me help you find your strengths, teach you to use your powers. Love me and follow me. Be my weakness. That’s the other choice.”

  Her eyes filled with tears, sparkling green pools he could drown in. “You,” she whispered. “I choose you and all the danger and bullshit that comes with you. Did you really think I wouldn’t?”

  Orion grinned. He couldn’t help it. Joy rose through him, echoed in his mind along the mental pathway he shared with Kira, and spilled over into his smile. “I hoped not,” he said. “But I had to let you know everything before I asked, didn’t I?”

  “There’s such a thing as too much information,” she shot back. “Now how do we do this mate thing? Do we get to say some mystical rhyme that magically binds our souls or something?” When he laughed out loud, she blushed. “What? I read it in all the books! All vampires do this magic spell thing when they get married.”

  He bent and rested his forehead against hers, still smiling. “No spell,” he murmured. “Just a ritual promise, rather like human wedding vows. And in our case, a permanent honeymoon vacation.”

  “Do I have to wear a big white dress and smear cake on your face and all that?”

  He laughed aloud at that. “Not unless you want the big dress and cake and all the trimmings of a human wedding. We don’t even need witnesses. We speak our promises to each other and that’s it.”

  She bit her lip. “And there’s really no binding magic that keeps us faithful?”

  “No magic,” he repeated. “You won’t get soul-cramps if you break the vows or have an affair, but I warn you that vampires don’t separate and divorce like humans do -- there’s usually blood, pain, and messy death involved when the cheater’s mate discovers it. I should warn you that I’m not forgiving and I don’t share. If you want to leave me, you’ll have to kill me, because I don’t plan on ever letting you go. Can you handle that?”

  Kira smiled. “I can handle that. Let’s do it.”

  Orion kissed her, then took her right hand and placed it over his heart before placing his own over hers. “Kira Jacques, I swear to share my eternity with you, giving you my heart, body, love and life until I meet my end.”

  No matter what Orion said, Kira felt a warmth spread through her body as she savored those simple words spoken in his deep voice. How could something that made her so happy, that gave her the man she’d always wanted and never thought she could have, how could these words not be magic? She echoed them back to him, feeling his heart beating beneath her palm. When she finished and he tilted his head to kiss her, she pulled back just a fraction. “This doesn’t get you out of giving me a ring,” she whispered.

  “Anything you want,” he said, and sealed the promise with a kiss.

  *~*~*

  Other Works by Amelia Elias:

  Vampire Ties Series

  Broken Ties--Book Two

  Buried Ties--Book Three (coming soon)

  Guardians’ League Series

  Hunted--Book One

  Outcast--Book Two

  Chosen--Book Three

  Paranormal Mates Society: Volume 3

  Loving Fury

  ESCAPE! Anthology

  For A Good Time Call

  available in ebook or print wherever books are sold

  Stand-Alone Novellas

  The Peasant Queen

  Riding Lessons

  End of the Rainbow

  Pandora's Box

  Out For Christmas

  available in multiple formats wherever ebooks are sold

  Connect with Amelia online!

  http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/AmeliaElias

  https://twitter.com/_AmeliaElias_

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five