Reap the Wind (Cassandra Palmer 7)

I smiled and saw Mircea’s expression change. But he didn’t get up, and he could have. Because that would mean admitting there was something he couldn’t handle, wouldn’t it?

And we both knew that would never happen.

I smiled again and bent to lick up the water I’d been thoughtlessly shedding onto his chest.

“Close enough portals and it will start to matter,” Mircea said, ignoring me. “Kill off enough of the dark mages they’re working with, and it will hurt even more. The fey don’t know this world, can’t walk in it easily—”

“Some can.”

“Not enough. And even those who can, don’t like to try it. Their magic is weak here; it leaves them vulnerable.”

His voice changed slightly on that last word, maybe because he was feeling a little vulnerable himself suddenly. Because I’d just reached his neck. A human male would have been more affected if I’d gone in the other direction, but Mircea wasn’t human. And I’d recently discovered an Achilles’ heel I should have suspected before.

But it was always nice to learn something new, I thought, scraping the edge of my teeth over the strong cords in his throat.

“Then why do I feel like we’re sitting ducks?” Kit groused.

Mircea didn’t answer him that time, maybe because his throat was already busy, working under my lips. Like his pulse was pounding, pounding, pounding beneath my tongue. I was right above the jugular now, right above the source of a vampire’s life and power, his virility and strength. Right above his most vulnerable area, even for a master.

I wouldn’t take his blood, of course; didn’t want it, couldn’t use it. But it was still heady, having him like this. That big, hard body spread out under mine, the hands clenching on the chair arms because they couldn’t on me, the heartbeat under my mouth jumping when I closed my lips over the pulse point.

And began to suck.

And felt more than one thing leap against me.

“Mircea?” Kit prompted.

“Perhaps you need a drink,” Mircea told him, sounding a little strangled.

Marlowe looked down in confusion at his glass, which was still almost full. “I have a drink. What I don’t have is information—especially about the so-called light fey!”

Kit jumped up again and began to pace, but I barely noticed.

My god, it was good, the salty-sweet taste of his skin, the little shivers of his body beneath mine, the way he reacted to every draw of my lips. I squirmed on top of him, knowing I was playing with fire, but I couldn’t help it, didn’t care. Even when I pulled back enough to see his eyes, filled with heat and fire and the promise that I would pay—and pay dearly—for this, just as soon as Kit left.

But he hadn’t yet, had he?

He was pacing, still running on about the fey, gesturing and bitching—

And not paying any attention to the man behind the desk.

Who watched me as I slowly sat up, raising the stakes. Mircea could have asked his friend to leave, could have left himself, could have done a hundred things he wasn’t doing because he still didn’t believe it. He didn’t think I’d do it.

And why should he? I’d let him get away with a ton of crap these last months, things I wouldn’t have put up with from anybody else. I’d backed down every time he challenged me because he was Mircea and I loved him and he was Mircea.

But I’d just reached tilt.

He didn’t get to wander around inside my head. He didn’t get to decide who my friends were. He didn’t get to keep me in the dark even more than Jonas did, and tell me not to bother my pretty little head about it because the big, strong men would protect me. Because the big, strong men didn’t understand what we were facing any more than I did.

We were all stumbling around in the dark, even Kit, even the Senate’s chief spy-who-knew-everything—except about the fey, apparently. And the demons. And the crazy creatures from another world we’d been fighting, who called themselves gods and thought about humans the same way we thought about bugs. And killed us just as easily.

If we were going to survive, we needed to at least start stumbling around together. But we weren’t, because Jonas didn’t trust me, Mircea didn’t respect me, and nobody believed in me. And as long as I kept backing down, they were never going to.

I sat up slightly, pulled down those damned sleep pants, grasped him gently.

And then sat back down, taking him inside me.

“The dark fey aren’t as much of a problem,” Kit said, oblivious. “We’ve had so many refugees from them, especially lately, that my people have managed to build up at least a basic image of their power structure and main players. But the light worries me.”