“Final Embrace? You mean death?”
“The end of mortal life. Yes.”
“Do you have to bite me three times or something?”
“No, that’s legend and Hollywood stupidity,” he murmured distractedly. Despite the darkness, Christina sensed he watched her hand with a tight
focus as she stroked his cock. His fingertips continued to massage her scalp in a motion she found both relaxing and arousing. A troublesome thought suddenly wriggled its way into her awareness.
“We didn’t use anything.”
His fingers didn’t pause in their delicious massage. “I can’t get a female pregnant. I don’t have a soul.”
“Yes, you do.”
He grunted in irritation.
“Believe what you want, it doesn’t change the fact. Both the Sevliss and their Scourge clones are sterile. We cannot create, unless you consider what happens with those who survive the Final Embrace, and that’s a twisted, unnatural creation,” he mumbled bitterly.
“But—”
“Don’t you think if one of us could impregnate a human female, it would have happened at least once after half a dozen centuries?” he asked sharply.
Christina scowled at him in the darkness. If the Sevliss couldn’t impregnate a woman, there must be some genetic reason for it, but the cause certainly wasn’t because Saint didn’t possess a soul. She didn’t want to argue with him right now, of all moments, so she leaned forward and pressed her nose into a hard pectoral muscle, inhaling his scent, never ceasing her stroking of his cock.
When her lips touched his chest, his hand tightened in her hair, pushing her closer against him. For a few seconds, she nibbled at smooth, thick skin.
“Saint?” she asked huskily, her lips hovering over a flat, stiff nipple.
He grunted in response.
“You were wrong about losing control if you made love to me.”
She immediately wished she hadn’t spoken when his fingers froze in her hair.
“I didn’t this time.”
“You’d never harm me. You yourself said you didn’t take anywhere near enough of my blood for the Final Embrace.”
“You don’t get it, Christina. I didn’t just take some of your blood. Vitessence is concentrated in your blood, sweat and sex juices—yes—but it surrounds you as well. I let down my guard. I absorbed enough of the powerful energy that exudes from you to make me drunk.” He grasped her wrist and roughly jerked her hand off his erect penis. Christina cried out in protest when he stood abruptly, pausing by the bed.
“Drunk and stupid,” he added.
“Saint—”
She stared in rising disbelief as he stalked toward the balcony doors. He opened them and disappeared. Christina realized with a jolt that she was alone.
“Saint?” she called. She hurried out of the bed and rushed to the open patio doors. The rain had slowed to a steady downpour. Lightning struck, and Christina caught a fleeting image of a wolf running through the yard.
Chapter Nine
The earth muffled his howls of torment, but the planet’s powerful soul could offer him no solace. Kavya watched dispassionately as his charge writhed, his agony so intense, it was as though a frantic serpent twisted inside of him in the midst of a death agony, contorting his body. When Kavya saw the blood-tears that stained his face, he finally stepped forward and touched a bunching, rigid shoulder muscle.
Saint collapsed on the luxurious carpet of his bedroom, panting wildly. He squinted up at Kavya through eyes veiled by misery.
“Why do you make me suffer?” he rasped when he’d caught his breath sufficiently to speak.
“No one makes you suffer but yourself, Saint.”