Lord of the Vampires (Royal House of Shadows #1)(60)
Author: Gena Showalter

I’m not plastic. Oh, God. Jane pictured her destination, trying to use Nicolai’s ability alongside the man-made appliance. Several seconds ticked by. Seconds that felt like separate eternities. Finally she felt her body begin to heat…heard the buzzing increase in volume…felt the bed disappear from beneath her… Heat…more heat…

Buzzing, gone. Nothing. She was nothing.

“JANE. SWEETHEART.”

Nicolai. There was his voice, so close. Panting, she pried her eyelids open, and she saw that she was lying on the floor of the tent, Nicolai looming over her, his hands wrapped around her arms as he shook her.

She’d done it. She’d crossed over. Traveled to him, her mind the guide.

“Jane,” he said on a sigh of relief. There was no need for more words. Not yet.

An instant later they were kissing and pulling at each other’s clothes. In seconds, they were naked and falling to the floor. No preliminaries. Nicolai shoved open her legs and thrust deep. Thrust home.

Jane cried out, already wet for him, needing him like she needed air to breathe. He pounded in and out, pushing her to heights she’d only dreamed about these past two weeks.

Her ni**les rasped his chest, sparking a fire. An inferno. Spreading through her, consuming her, and she erupted, screaming, screaming, clutching at him, scratching his back. And then his fangs were in her neck, and he was drinking, and she was climaxing again, angling her head and biting into his neck.

He roared as she drank him down, bucking against her, going even deeper, and soon shooting inside her. Glorious, necessary, life affirming.

When he collapsed against her, she held on tight. She didn’t think she’d ever been happier. She was with her man, her love, the future bright.

“You got the book,” he said, planting little kisses along her jaw.

“Oh, yes. Thank you for sending it. I couldn’t get here. I wanted so badly to come back to you, but I couldn’t move from one location to another in a blink anymore.”

He propped his weight on his elbows and peered down at her. “Thank you. Thank you for coming back.”

“My pleasure.” She cupped his cheeks. “You’ll be happy to know Laila is now in the same position she placed you in.” She’d watched the news. Laila had been found, her image flashed, calling for anyone who might know her. And until someone claimed her, she’d been locked in a mental institution for the violently insane.

“I don’t care about her. How are you?”

“Good.” Now. “I have something to tell you.”

He lost a little of his good humor. “You look worried. Jane, you can tell me anything. I will never hate you. Never turn away from you.”

“I… Do you remember when I told you I couldn’t have children?”

He nodded, his brow furrowed.

“Well, I can.” A smile grew. “And I’m going to. I found out a few days ago. We’re going to be parents.”

His mouth fell open, snapped closed. Fell open again. “Jane…I… Jane!” With a whoop, he leaned down and kissed her again. “You are sure?”

“Yes.”

Another kiss. “Are you happy?”

“Yes.”

“Me, too.” His smile was radiant. “Oh, Jane.” He kissed her again and again, his hand constantly rubbing over her still-flat belly. “I love you, and want you with me. Tell me you’ll stay. Tell me you’ll live with me. Marry me.”

“Yes, yes, yes!” She laughed, hugging him tight. “In case you don’t understand, yes means yes.”

He chuckled against her lips. “I must still return to Elden.”

“And so you will. With me. I adore you, Prince or King or whatever you are!”

“As I adore you, Jane. My heart and my queen.”

“Good.” She cupped his cheeks, loving him more with every minute that passed. “Now let’s go to Elden and kick some ass.”

THE DARKEST ANGEL

CHAPTER ONE

FROM HIGH IN THE HEAVENS, Lysander spotted his prey. At last. Finally, I will end this. His jaw clenched and his skin pulled tight. With tension. With relief. Determined, he jumped from the cloud he stood upon, falling quickly…wind whipping through his hair…

When he neared ground, he allowed his wings, long and feathered and golden, to unfold from his back and catch in the current, slowing his progress.

He was a soldier for the One True Deity. One of the Elite Seven, created before time itself. With as many millennia as he’d lived, he’d come to learn that each of the Elite Seven had one temptation. One potential downfall. Like Eve with her apple. When they found this…thing, this abomination, they happily destroyed it before it could destroy them.

Lysander had finally found his.

Bianka Skyhawk.

She was the daughter of a Harpy and a phoenix shape-shifter. She was a thief, a liar and a killer who found joy in the vilest of tasks. Worse, the blood of Lucifer—his greatest enemy and the sire of most demon hordes—flowed through her veins. Which meant Bianka was his enemy.

He lived to destroy his enemies.

However, he could only act against them when they broke a heavenly law. For demons, that involved escaping their fiery prison to walk the earth. For Bianka, who had never been condemned to hell, that would have to involve something else. What, he didn’t know. All he knew was that he’d never experienced what mortals referred to as “desire.”

Until Bianka.

And he didn’t like it.

He’d seen her for the first time several weeks ago, long black hair flowing down her back, amber eyes bright and lips bloodred. Watching her, unable to turn away, a single question had drifted through his mind: Was her pearl-like skin as soft as it appeared?

Forget desire. He’d never wondered such a thing about anyone before. He’d never cared. But the question was becoming an obsession, discovering the truth a need. And it had to end. Now. This day.

He landed just in front of her, but she couldn’t see him. No one could. He existed on another plane, invisible to mortal and immortal alike. He could scream, and she would not hear him. He could walk through her, and she would not feel him. For that matter, she would not smell or sense him in any way.

Until it was too late.

He could have formed a fiery sword from air and cleaved her head from her body, but didn’t. As he’d already realized and accepted, he could not kill her. Yet. But he could not allow her to roam unfettered, tempting him, a plague to his good sense, either. Which meant he would have to settle for imprisoning her in his home in the sky.