Winterly (Dark Creatures Book 1), стр. 92
In this position she was at liberty to bury her fingers in his wings, savoring each luxuriant blade. She was soon lost to another maelstrom of deep and fervid kisses, his arms and torso were locked around her like unyielding marble.
The painful sting of white hot heat snatched the breath from her lungs. It ripped her from the celestial beauty of his embrace. She gave a hiss of surprise, her fingers becoming claws.
Markus brushed her damp hair out of her face and soothed her with soft kisses. “And now,” he said against her throat, “I make you mine…” And then he struck like an adder.
Emma made no sound—it was that swift—as his fangs plunged deep. Near as deep, she was sure, as that painful shaft embedded below. But as he drew from her vein, the pain of the bite seemed to flow out of her through that sharp, dark kiss. With it the throbbing between her thighs subsided.
That she could find even a drop of ecstasy in such savagery was unexpected. She clung to him, reveling in the intimacy. Perhaps she would have drawn blood also, but her nails, long and honed as they were, indented his flesh not even a little. They were no match for granite. Still, he gave an appreciative growl as she raked his back with hearty, feline sighs and rhapsodies.
He began guiding her hips back and forth in long strokes that only indurated his flesh all the more and spiked her own fever to ever higher peaks. The lusty rhythm of her heart, neither exhausted nor depleted by his ravening vampyre kiss, seemed only to arouse his formidable appetence still more. In that moment she would have died the happiest of women if he’d drank every last drop of blood gushing hotly from her vein. A ferocious and forbidden coupling it was.
She was glutted on pleasure, her flesh once more coiling like a spring. The thunderous beats of her heart, the sound of his greedy breaths, and the fervent gale of his wings served as a beatific concert of their earthly union. Not even the storm that had battered the castle earlier had raged with such passion as passed betwixt she and her vampyre.
With a mighty roar, the denouement came. He snapped his head back, releasing her throat. She fell against him, violently unraveled. Obliteration shook her so fiercely it shattered her very soul.
Trembling with after-ripples, she felt herself lowered back down to the mattress, her body wonderfully and indescribably limp as his weight settled beside her. Beneath closed lids, she felt him nuzzle her neck from behind with lapping kisses. So tender was her inamorato that she uttered a contented sigh, enjoying the feel of his finger gently tracing her grimalkin smile. To have surrendered that which can be lost only once, that most sanguinary of jewels, Emma ought to have felt bereft. But she didn’t. Not in the least. Her virtue was gladly cast aside forever. There was a sort of freedom here in his arms and she relished it.
“There is no question now to whom you belong,” he said.
She opened one scowling eye at him, but his wolfish grin was too catching. “I should be outraged at your audacity, but I find I cannot summon the will just now.”
“Then I ought to keep you always naked in my bed.”
She yawned. “I fear I do not have enough essence in my heart to sustain that whim, vampyre.”
In one swift movement he had her trapped beneath him, his arms either side of her. “You persist in calling me what I am not. Perhaps now is the time to prove that I am so much more than a vampyre.”
“That does sound foreboding,” she said, her eyes shifting pointedly to his wings. “Have you not already done so?”
“Not by half,” he replied, moving from the bed with the graceful celerity of a giant wolf. “Have you the fortitude to see me without my aegis?”
“Show me.” Her bottom lip was trapped precariously between her teeth.
He waited only a moment before he finally nodded. “All right.”
Emma drew the coverlet almost to her chin, watching with grim fascination. His body became opaline as it shimmered and grew. An instant later he stood before her a veritable giant. His wings, proportionately, had grown too, but the spurs were longer and sharper. The tips of his ears had also protracted into tapered points that peeked out from beneath unruly black locks like devilish horns.
It was indeed an alarming creature that pinned her with its gaze, eyes filled completely with glittering obsidian. Even without the wings he was clearly not of this world. He was both magnificent and terrible to behold. He no longer possessed the lethal beauty of a vampyre but the fearsome eminence of a god.
And yet he was till Markus. His features, though proportionate to his colossal body, had not been transfigured beyond recognition. They were still that of the Markus she knew…and loved.
“Good Heavens,” she whispered, peculiarly unafraid.
“Decidedly not of heaven, I’m afraid.” His lips quirked over long ivory fangs. Even his voice sounded far deeper, it filled the room like a rumble of distant thunder.
“No,” she agreed, releasing the sheets and climbing from the mattress. She paused as her vision filled with stars, it felt as though her head might float away from her body. When the dizziness subsided, she approached him with caution, searching the black vastness of his preternatural eyes. He was so still, it was unsettling. She was a tall woman, but the top of her head barely reached his chest. Her hand explored the powerful thews of his abdomen, marveling at the feel of him. Like cool rock beneath her palm.
He touched a finger gently to her cheek. “What a strange creature thou art.”
“This from you?” She said, smiling. His beauty had