Incubus Dreams (Vampire Hunter 12)

"That is not our hunger," he said.

"Who is it?"

"She is the Dragon." He spoke in my head, and there was urgency there.

"She made Primo," I said, and it was only then that I realized I wasn't talking out loud.

"She's using him as a conduit for her own power."

"How do we stop it?"

Byron suddenly drew back and thrust himself inside me again, and did something with his h*ps and legs at the same time. It blew my concentration all to hell, and all I could do was stare down at him. "A man likes to know he's not boring a girl," he said, but there was no smile to go with the light-hearted comment.

Jean-Claude echoed through my head. "We stop her as we did Moroven, by sending her something she does not understand."

"Let me guess," I said, and again it wasn't aloud.

"Sex, or love, ma petite, what else is there for us?"

I don't know what I would have said, because Byron rolled me. He rolled us over in a sudden amazingly fast, fluid movement, and never fell out of me, which is harder to do than it sounds. I was suddenly on the floor staring up at him, my hands on his shoulders as if I'd grabbed the nearest thing to prevent me from falling. He grinned at the surprised look on my face and said, "You're not moving enough, luv, let me show you how it's done."

He did two quick thrusts that left me breathless, then he raised up on his hands like he was trying to do a bad push-up with his groin pressed tight against mine. His smile faded, and he frowned. "You're bleeding, luv."

I'd forgotten about my wrist again. I followed his glance and found that blood was seeping out from it. There was blood spattered across my blue top.

"Some gauze, please," he said.

I think it took both Nathaniel and me a second to realize who he was talking about, and why. Nathaniel fumbled a package open and handed it to him. It was acutely uncomfortable to be trapped under the body of a strange man while Nathaniel knelt beside us. It was more embarrassing than having Richard watch with Damian. It just felt worse, as if I should apologize.

I think I would have done just that, but Byron pressed the gauze to my wounded wrist, pinning it to the floor. It hurt, sharp and immediate, and I was left gasping and staring up at his face. He pinned my other wrist, so that he was pressed above me, and I was very, very pinned.

I might have complained, but Jean-Claude roared through my head. "Ma petite, I need to feed. You are not moving fast enough with Byron."

"You're a big vampire, feed yourself," I said, and that was out loud.

"Do you understand what you're giving permission for, ma petite?"

"Tonight, yes, help me, Jean-Claude. Feed, for God's sake, feed."

Byron hesitated, poised above me. "Something wrong?"

"We're not moving fast enough for him, apparently."

A nearly evil grin crossed Byron's face. "Oh, we can fix that, luver, we can fix that," And he fixed it. He moved himself in and out of me in long writhing waves of his body. It was as if the thrust started at his shoulders and danced its way down his body until he thrust himself inside me. Once inside me, he did something with his h*ps that seemed almost to make him roll inside me. It was as if that writhing dancelike movement went all the way down his body and inside mine. It wasn't fast, as in speed, but it was fast in other ways.

My breathing had sped up, and my body had figured out at what point in his writhing that he plunged inside me, so that my h*ps thrust upward to meet him. It began to be like a dance, except we were both flat on the floor, but when he realized that I wanted to move, he changed how his lower body pinned me, so that mostly only him sliding in and out of me pinned my lower body, and the rest of me was left to rise and fall against his body.

He kept my wrists pinned, and I kept thinking I should say something about that, but I kept forgetting, and I finally realized I didn't want to say anything.

Another British voice came from behind us. "Jean-Claude said I was needed in here, but it looks like you've got a queue."

I said his name, "Requiem," just that and nothing more, but he came to me. He knelt in a fall of black-hooded cloak. He pushed the hood back to reveal hair as straight and black as the cloak itself. His eyes were a deep, rich blue like startled cornflowers in the white skin and black hair of his face. The thin mustache and Vandyke beard were as raven dark as his hair and the eyebrows that framed those startling blue eyes. He'd once told me that Belle had wanted to buy him from his old master. She'd wanted a third blue-eyed lover. Asher had the palest blue, Jean-Claude the darkest, and Requiem had the brightest. His master had refused, and they had fled France.

He knelt by my head, kneeling over us on his knees like some dark angel in the cloak he would not give up for any modern coat. "What would you have of me, my lady?"

My voice came breathy, but clear. Good for me. "If you take blood at the same time I feed on him, then I'll feed on both of you."

He didn't argue. He simply laid down behind us, so that his face was close to mine. "As my lady wills it, so shall it be done."

"Well if it's to be done, do it fast," Byron said, and his voice sounded more strained than mine.

Requiem looked up at him, propped on his elbows by my head. "Are you implying that you won't last much longer?"

"Yes," and his voice sounded half-strangled.

"You're out of training," Requiem said.

"You haven't f**ked her. Don't criticize until you've tried."

"Are you implying that she's such a good shag that she's going to bring you early?"

"Stop bickering," I said, and my body still rose and fell with Byron's. He was still fighting to keep the rhythm even and pretty, but he was beginning to lose that smooth glide, and I knew when he stopped dancing above me, that that would be it. "Hurry, or you'll miss us."

"As my lady bids." Requiem dropped to his chest, his stomach, and ran his hands through my hair. "Bad angle," he whispered, "may I improve the angle, m'lady?"

"Yes," and it was a strangled sound.

He dug his fingers through my curls and pulled my head sharply to one side, exposing a long line of my neck. He balled his fist in my hair and pulled it sharp. I gasped, and it wasn't a pain sound.

I found myself staring not into Byron's gray eyes, but at Nathaniel. He was still there huddled near, but not too near. He looked both afraid and eager, and I didn't understand the look. I wanted to, and I had an instant to feel how he saw this. One lover pinned my wrists to the floor, grinding his hand into a fresh bite, plunging himself into me over and over, while I writhed underneath him. Now another man had jerked my hair tight and painful, exposed my neck, and when I orgasmed, he would plunge his fangs into my neck. Both vampires would plunge inside me at the same time, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. It didn't matter to Nathaniel that I'd given permission. It mattered that I was trapped and helpless and at their mercy, and the entire scene did it for him. It just flat did it for him. He was enjoying watching, because this was the closest he'd come to what he'd wanted in months.

I felt his need like a weight in my mind, and I knew that he would have given almost anything to be the one on the bottom.

Byron's body began to lose its smooth gliding rhythm, and he seemed to be fighting not to simply plunge in and out as fast as he could. "Close, very close," he whispered.

I started to turn my head back so I could see his face, but Requiem's hand tightened, and I couldn't move. His breath was hot on my throat, and I knew that he'd borrowed that warmth from someone else. "Are you close, m'lady, are you close?" His voice spread like heat down my skin.

Byron leaned heavier on my wrists, grinding them into the floor, and his body took on a more urgent rhythm. I felt that weight in my groin, that grew and grew and would spill out, would spill out. I whispered, "Close, almost."

Requiem's lips touched my neck, just his lips, as if he kissed me. Byron fought for something smoother, more controlled, but his voice was hoarse, breathless, "Almost, almost, almost."

That heavy warmth inside me burst outward, and I screamed. Fangs plunged into my throat, and Byron's body bucked over me, convulsed against me, inside me. Requiem's mouth sealed over the kiss of his fangs, and he began to feed. And it was as if every suck of his mouth brought a new orgasm.

Byron cried out above me, and his body rocked with mine. Requiem's hand convulsed in my hair, and his hand gripped my shoulder, dug nails into me, and I felt his body jerking, rocking with us.