And assuring her she belonged to him.
Belonged to him with such a terrifying singularity that she wondered if she would ever recover.
Belonged to him as she hadn’t even ever belonged to herself.
As the violence of her release began to ease, the shudders turning to ripples of sensation, she lost the strength to bite him. Releasing him, she fell back to the pillow, hands sliding down his arms as she collapsed, exhausted, both mentally and emotionally complete in a way she had never dreamed possible.
“Mine,” he growled at her ear again.
And it was all she could do to keep herself from agreeing with him.
The only thing that stopped her was the sudden fear that in this moment, she wasn’t even herself.
The fear that after this moment, she would simply live for this. For his touch. His kiss. For his possession.
For the certainty that this man, that this moment in time, had changed her in ways she would never be free of.
CHAPTER 13
Stygian was silent as he rose from the bed, moved to the bathroom and soaked a cloth in heated water before moving back to the bed to clean the proof of his release from Liza’s thighs.
She lay exhausted, nearly asleep, and only a mumbled protest left her lips as he parted her thighs and wiped the slick essence mixed with her virgin’s blood from the soft folds of her sex and her inner thighs.
His virgin mate. She had met him with a hunger and a need he could never have expected from such innocence. She had taken him, held him in a grip that had rippled over his c**k and tightened around the mating knot as though she had been made for him and him alone.
Now, as she lay more asleep than awake, he could feel something more as well. The part of her that hid so deep, refusing to completely emerge, but awakening.
The animal inside him was pacing restlessly now at the hint of suspicion rising inside him.
No, it had been there all along, he realized. Just waiting for this moment, for the proof that somewhere, someone had been deceiving not just the Breeds, but also Liza.
Finishing, he returned to the bathroom, proceeded to clean himself then returned to the bed and his mate, where it seemed she had struggled to make her way beneath the heavy quilt.
His lips quirked into an amused smile. She’d managed to pull the blanket over her shoulders, but nothing more.
“Come on, sugar.” Lifting her into his arms, he pulled the blanket, quilt and sheet back from the bed before laying her in the middle of the mattress.
Moving in beside her, he felt his chest clench as she curled herself into a little ball, and her sudden sense of uncertainty reached him.
He pulled the sheet over them both before pulling her against him.
“Do you think I’ll allow you to sleep in isolation now?” he asked as she lay stiffly beside him. “Come on, Liza, I know you need warmth. Come to me and I’ll warm you.”
She turned slowly. “So I lie against you or I can stay cold?” A hint of gray eyes showed between narrowed lashes.
“Would you prefer the quilts?” he asked as he ran his hand caressingly along her spine. “I’ll keep you much warmer.”
“I have an electric quilt, Stygian,” she told him, but she didn’t move away from him.
“You’ll need it no longer,” he promised, relishing the feel of her silken back against the palm of his hand.
At the same time, he felt her hand, so soft he was amazed at the living warmth of it, in a fleeting caress against his chest before it stilled.
“Did I hurt you?” she asked then, her fingertips glancing across the vicious bite she’d bestowed to his chest.
It wasn’t even throbbing. The bite was deep, yet there was no blood, no ache of muscle, as though the mating heat had been transferred to her saliva as well and bestowed on the wound to ensure it caused no true pain, just that slight, “it was there” ache.
The feel of that sensation was one he wouldn’t change.
“It would take a much harder bite to cause me to complain,” he assured her as he brushed his cheek against her forehead. “And the feel of it will remind me of the pleasure I gave you.”
She was silent then, but he could feel her thinking, feel the frown that creased her forehead before she tilted her head back once again to stare up at him in the dim light.
It wasn’t dark yet, though it was close. The heavy curtains were pulled over the windows, and the darkening feature on the newly installed security windows had been activated.
“English isn’t your first language, is it?” She surprised him with the question.
“I have no first language, actually,” he told her. “My training involved three language studies—English, Spanish and Russian—which began at birth and continued through my training.”
“Why Russian?” The curiosity in her tone was a far cry from the nosiness of most who questioned him whenever they had a chance.
“They believed it would be the one I picked up easiest, as my paternal and animal DNA came from Russia.”
“Really?” Drowsy interest filled her voice. “Where did your paternal genetics actually come from?”
Stygian grinned. “Attila the Hun. Straight from the source. When his burial site was found, they recovered enough DNA to actually track his descendents. They used some of that DNA to create my genetics.”
“Attila the Hun?” Surprise filled her voice now. “Damn. I think I’m impressed now.” She was actually laughing at him, and he couldn’t help but grin.
“And your maternal genetics?” she queried then, her tone suggestive, teasing. “This one has got to be good.”
No doubt she already knew, or had at least read the partial history that could have been attained if certain records had been hacked.
Moving the pillows more comfortably behind him, he lifted her against his chest until she sat comfortably against him, the sheet and quilt pulled to her br**sts now.
“Her name was Nera,” he answered. “The Genetics Council chose her for her ties to one of the greatest voodoo priestesses to have been born in the Caribbean, and she was rumored to have been quite powerful herself. They kept her twenty years but only managed to impregnate her twice. Just after her daughter was born, she disappeared from her cells and was never seen again.”
“She escaped then?” Surprise colored her voice.
Stygian glanced down at her, his lips lifting in a slight grin. “Who the hell knows. One minute she was showing up on their monitors and in the next breath she was nowhere to be found in her cell. Her infant daughter, barely six weeks old, disappeared as well. They spent years searching for them, but each time a team was sent to the area where she had originally been abducted from, every soldier and Breed sent after her disappeared.”