Archangel’s Enigma (Guild Hunter #8)(131)
Author: Nalini Singh

Gripping his biceps with one hand, she tried to glare at him but pleasure kept rippling over her. “Beast.”

He grinned. “Your beast.” Nipping at her lower lip, he used his teeth to tug at the soft flesh while he moved his fingers with a playful dexterity that made her give a startled moan and orgasm in sweet little flutters he wanted to lick up with his tongue.

His mouth watered.

Putting his lips to her ear, he said, “You’re going to be my dessert after dinner tonight. I’m going to lick you up like honey, sink my fangs into the delicate, plump flesh between your thighs.”

Her body jerked, her thighs clenching on his hand. She didn’t startle when his claws released, though he was holding flesh so soft and fragile. No surprise. His mate was as wild as him and she knew he would never hurt her.

Trembling fingers wove into his hair but her teeth on his jaw were sharp. “Not if I get my mouth on you first.”

He growled and tore off her jeans and ten minutes later, Andromeda lay sweat-drenched and naked on his chest, while his heart pounded, his entire self stretched out under the sunshine in sated bliss.

When Andromeda finally pushed up on his chest to face him, she looked deliciously used, marked by his bite and by his kiss. And the affection in her eyes . . . He basked in it. “How long till we have to go in?” he asked.

“Hours yet.” She pushed back his sweat-damp hair as his eyelids lowered. “Don’t go to sleep yet. I do have one question.”

Lazy, he didn’t bother to open his eyes. “Hmm?”

“The fact you’re a chimera doesn’t explain your vampirism.”

Naasir yawned. “Osiris was afraid I wasn’t a true, immortal chimera, that I’d die before he’d unearthed his answers. He also wanted to keep me a child so I’d be easier to control.” Especially after Naasir’s last attack had left him with claw marks shredding his face.

“Not that it would’ve saved him had I stayed a child. The day Raphael found me—after hearing about what Osiris was doing from a courier who’d seen more than he should—I’d jumped on Osiris from the ceiling, clawed out his eyes and made him slip on the stairs. His skull cracked hard enough against the stone to leave him unconscious.” At which point, Naasir had ripped out his throat and clawed open his chest cavity. “But that was Osiris’s rationalization for Making me.”

Horror and rage had his mate going stiff above him. “Making a child is strictly forbidden. Children go mad if Made. They die.”

“I came close to death, but perhaps because I was a chimera, I survived no more mad than when he began the process.”

“You were never mad.”

“I was feral.”

“That’s not madness.” Kisses on his jaw.

He turned into them, shamelessly asking for more. Andromeda gave him what he wanted, her lips as gentle as her love was fierce.

Opening his eyes so he could see that fierce love in hers, he picked up her hand to nip and kiss at her fingertips. “Those who know I ate Osiris’s heart say that perhaps I’m so strong, so immortal, because I ate the heart of an Ancient while I wasn’t yet full-grown.”

“Does that bother you?”

“No.” Naasir bared his teeth. “I like the idea of having consumed my enemy and made his power my own.”

“Me, too,” said his smart, wild mate, her eyes glinting. “You grew despite the Making.”

“Yes.” No one had expected that, those who knew of him readying themselves to deal with the distress and pain of a child who never grew, but whose understanding might get steadily older. “My growth patterns mimicked those of angelic children.”

No one knew why, but the prevailing theory was that as a chimera, he was already naturally immortal and as such, his body had fought the toxins of the Making. However, because he’d been small and weak, he hadn’t totally won the fight and thus gained certain vampiric characteristics. “Like angelkind, I haven’t measurably aged since I became an adult. We can be together for eternity.”

Andromeda’s face blanched, all happiness wiped away.

Growling, he tumbled her over onto her back and braced himself above her. “Enough, mate,” he said in a tone that wasn’t wholly human. “What are you hiding from me?”

Her throat moved, the words she spoke a harsh rasp. “Tomorrow, I must go to Charisemnon’s court.”

Naasir curled his lip over his teeth. “You must do a tribute to your archangel? I will go with you to protect you.”

“No.” Andromeda’s breathing turned labored, as if she was finding it hard to draw air into her lungs. “I’m bound to serve five hundred years in his court.”