The taste of her pleasure broke his control.
He surged back over her. When she reached for him, Alerac grabbed her wrists and pinned her hands to the bed. He could see the edge of her fangs peeking out behind her red lips. Her eyes were shining with pleasure.
Mine.
He drove into her, plunging as deep as he could go, lost to everything but her. The bed heaved beneath them. The slats groaned as he thrust. Faster. Harder.
A growl built in his throat. The wolf was pushing through his control, demanding that he mark the mate he’d lost so long ago.
He wanted to put his teeth on her, right there where her neck curved into her shoulder. The bite would claim her. Show all others that Jane belonged only to him.
And it would give him her blood. The powerful, intoxicating blood that had first addicted him.
His canines were burning in his mouth. Stretching. Sharpening. He parted his lips. Put his mouth right over that sweet spot. He sucked the flesh.
A choked scream came from Jane as she bucked beneath him. Another release. Pleasure that shuddered through her—through him.
Don’t bite her. Not yet. Not. Yet.
He yanked his mouth away from her and erupted into the core of her body. The pleasure was more than he remembered. Stronger. Consuming. Obliterating all that had come before.
Linking them.
Bonding them.
His heartbeat thundered in his ears, a mad drumbeat that wouldn’t slow. Sweat slickened his back as he slowly lifted his head.
He stared down at Jane, lost.
“Y-you’re still doing it,” she whispered, her words a husky tremble.
His brows lifted. His c**k was in her body, sated, but…I want more of her. “Doing what?”
“L-looking at me…like you could devour me…”
He smiled. That was exactly what he wanted to do.
Alerac began to thrust again.
Her legs curled around his.
She met him.
The pleasure rose once more.
***
She didn’t dream of darkness.
For the first time since she’d crawled out of that swamp, Jane dreamed of blood.
Rivers of blood, enough to choke her. To drown her.
She saw men in an old chamber, a room made of stone. A fire flickered in a hearth. Voices were shouting.
Don’t kill him!
The voice that made that desperate plea…that voice sounds like me.
The chamber vanished. She never saw who was being killed there. Jane was too busy staring at a new scene.
A dungeon. Two men were chained to the walls. When their heads turned, she realized that they weren’t men.
Vampires.
“You can’t do this…” One hissed.
“Watch me,” Alerac said and—
Wait, Alerac? In that instant, Jane realized that she was seeing these images from Alerac’s point of view. She almost seemed to be inside of Alerac and looking out at the world from his eyes.
Even as Jane made that realization, the river of blood deepened. Alerac sank his teeth into the vampire’s throat and he fed.
The vampire died moments later, horror and shock still on his face.
Then Alerac turned to the next vampire.
“Don’t!” The vampire shouted, fear making his eyes flare wide. “I wasn’t there! I don’t know where she is!”
“Of course, you were there,” Alerac’s voice seemed to boom all around her. “I saw you.”
His claws reached for the vampire.
That vision—that dream—vanished. Turned into another. More vampires. Being tortured by Alerac. Being drained by him. He took their blood. Liam was with him, watching his alpha. Smiling with a sick and cold grin as the vampires died.
“I’ll find her,” Alerac promised. “Even if I have to kill every one of you.”
“No!” Jane jerked up in bed, the scream breaking from her lips.
Her heart drummed, shaking her chest, and the sheets were tangled around her naked body.
In the next instant, the bedroom door flew open. Alerac stood there, dressed in his jeans, nothing else. “Jane? What’s happening?”
I saw you kill—you killed my kind.
She’d been told that Alerac was a master when it came to killing vampires. She’d just seen the master up close and personal on his kills.
He rushed toward her. His claws were out.
She flinched.
Alerac stilled. His eyes narrowed. Those bright eyes. Too bright. That gaze swept over her. Then his lips tightened. “Been dreaming, have you?”
She jumped from the bed. Wrapped the sheet around her body. She’d been moaning in that bed beneath him just hours before. Moaning beneath a man who killed so easily. “I don’t dream.”
He went back and closed the door behind him. Blocked that one wonderful exit. “No, I guess memories aren’t dreams, are they?”
She could still feel him on her body. “M-memories?”
“When you took my blood, I knew it would happen.” He shook his head. His claws vanished. “Just a matter of time. With my luck, I should’ve known the visions would come the first time you slept.”
She just stared back at him.
His hands fisted. “Right. You don’t remember that part, do you?”
“No,” she gritted out. “I don’t.”
“When a vampire takes blood from live prey, the vamp can tap into that person’s memories.”
So she didn’t have her own memories, but she had his?
“I’m not sure which highlights you saw,” he said, and she was glad that he didn’t try to come any closer to her. She wasn’t sure what she would have done. “But I’m guessing from the scream that just shook this place, they weren’t good ones, huh?”
She gazed into those glowing eyes. “Do you have good ones?”
His fisted hand rose and pressed over his chest. Right over that dark tattoo that covered his heart. “I do.”
“I didn’t see them.”
“What did you see?”
“You.” Her breath felt cold in her lungs. “Killing vampires.”
He nodded. “I’ve done that.” A long pause. “A lot.”
“But you weren’t just…killing them. You were—you were drinking from them.”
All emotion left his face. “Saw that, did you?”
“Do werewolves do that?” She hated being so lost. “You drink from your prey?” She’d thought that blood-drinking was something that only vampires had to do for survival.
Alerac began walking toward her. She backed up, instinctively, and her shoulders pushed into the heavy wood of the bedroom’s wall.