The Jackal (Black Dagger Brotherhood - Prison Camp 1)

He was too busy wondering what it was going to feel like. Her bite. Her suck. Her taking him inside of herself—

Her strike was everything he had anticipated. Sharp. Decisive. Greedy.

Jack gasped and jerked. Then his head fell back and he groaned. “Fuck . . . yes, fuck . . .”

The cursing exploded out of him—and his erection kicked and bucked at his hips. But she had to get the nutrients she needed first. As much as he wanted her, this was about her survival.

This was his strength amplifying her own.

As she nursed against him, swallowing in a rhythmic fashion that made him think of his penetrations into her sex, he felt the urge to orgasm, to come inside of her, to fill her up as she drained him. There was also an overriding sense of very masculine satisfaction, that he was taking care of her.

What he did not feel? For even a moment? Even one single heartbeat?

Was any confusion about who he was with. There was no question that Nyx’s lips were the ones at his throat, that her fangs were what had punctured his vein, that her mouth was drawing at his blood. He knew exactly who he was with, and even as he absorbed all of the sensations, his body taking in the pleasure and the purpose like dry earth under a warm spring rain, he thought about her single candle, her need for a grounding.

She was what shone through his darkness. She was the light that he had been drawn to, and now followed readily.

Sweeping his hand up Nyx’s waist, he cupped her breast over her T-shirt and was rewarded with a moan from her that went straight into his arousal. As he caressed the rise, and focused his attention on the hard nipple, his hips began to roll, jerk, punch out.

His body was seeking hers.

And he worried he wasn’t going to be able to deny the impulse even though he needed to focus on her feeding—

Nyx solved his internal debate by shifting herself about and straddling him. Then, without breaking the seal on his throat, she wriggled around, shucking her pants. How she managed to do it, he didn’t know. He was not in a position to argue, though. He sprung his erection, and—

The sound that came out of his mouth as he slid into the hot, slick hold of her was like nothing he’d ever vocalized before. And as she continued to nurse at his vein, drinking deeply, he opened his mind and his soul to the feel of her as she rocked on top of his hips, his arousal penetrating and retreating, penetrating and retreating, all due to her movements. He wanted to help her somehow, but he couldn’t risk getting in the way of her feeding. She was the one in control, her mouth and her sex milking him, taking from him, using him . . .

And he was consenting to all of it.

He was not trapped. He was not being forced. He was not tied down and taken against his will, used for the pleasure of another without regard to what he wanted.

This was his choice, and all the more sweeter, freer, better, for that. He was choosing her. He was choosing this.

Nyx was his beacon in the darkness and he would give her all he could.

No panic. No regrets. Nothing but . . . his female.

This was the unexpected blessing that he had unknowingly been waiting his whole life for. And even though he was going to give her up, he would at least know he’d had such a connection once.

He had known . . . love . . . once.

As the word came to his mind, as the definition of the warmth in the center of his chest was made manifest, it shocked him so much that his eyes flew open.

Love.

As he focused on the ceiling of the pool’s cave, he was aware of his eyes getting watery, of his vision blurring. He was confused at first, and wondered whether water from up above had somehow dripped down onto his face.

But that was not it.

With his hands on her hips and Nyx riding him, with the pleasure overtaking him, so unexpected and so raw . . . what called the pain from him was not the now. It was the inevitable that he couldn’t avoid:

When the Command came to take him once again.

The leverage they had over him, and the control it gave them, was such that he could not say no, and he would be called into service soon— and this beautiful moment, this cleansing, affirming passion, would be replaced by the very thing that was worse than the false accusation that had landed him in the prison, and the loss of ten decades of his life, and the darkness that he had lived in and would continue to do so.