And then it happened again, that strange connection we’d always had, clicking into place even though this wasn’t that sort of wine. But right now, I didn’t seem to need it. Maybe because I was already in his mind, or he was already in mine? Didn’t know. Didn’t care, caught in the floating, surreal feeling of feeding and being fed, all at the same time.

I felt soft lips part, brushing fingers that were both mine and his at the same time. Felt the heat of my own tongue as it curled around a finger, saw myself in a flash—dark eyes shining, face flushed, lips full and red-stained and opening hungrily again.

“More,” someone said. And I wasn’t sure if it was him or me.

But he was the one who sat back, showing me the whole long line of his body, almost every inch displaying signs of my possession. A bite mark on his left shoulder, which he deliberately wasn’t healing. Twin outlines of my hands, like the ochre-colored impressions found in cave paintings, on his pecs. A perfect imprint of my lips, caught in the middle of an openmouthed kiss, on his lower stomach.

Mine, I thought, but didn’t say. Because he wasn’t. Except for tonight. And if this was all I had, all I would ever have, then I needed to touch—

My fingers flexed under his knees, but he didn’t let up. It should have infuriated me, but instead I felt something in me twist, uncoil, release. I felt drunk on more than wine, as his thumb ran along the curve of my mouth, chasing some wayward juice, and received a nip of teeth instead. A silent order for more.

And more there was, more fruit, more wine, more strange double vision, showing me my own face superimposed over the flames dancing in blue, blue eyes. More emotions, most of which I couldn’t, or wouldn’t, name. But behind the heat was a strange vulnerability that was all too familiar, and a terrible sympathy that raked my soul, without stirring up the sharp-edged pride I carried like a shield.

Because he understood. What it was like to be unwanted, to be abandoned, to be shunned. Our isolation might have been caused by separate things, prejudice on my side, politics on his.

But the result…the result had been the same.

And it was suddenly too much, like something was cracking open inside. I let my eyes flutter closed, but I could still see through his, although I almost wished I couldn’t. Because my lids might have been shut, but my face was open, too open. He cupped my jaw, and I turned into his palm. And when he leaned close enough to lick the wine from my cheeks, I tasted it right along with him, and the faint edge of salt beneath the sweetness.

My voice sounded strange when I spoke, harsh and raw, and so low I could feel it in my belly. “More.”

He took a handful of fruit, bringing it to his mouth, before bending over me, one fat, wine-soaked strawberry held between hard white teeth, dripping a trail of bloody drops across my torso, my throat, my—

I took it from his lips although it wasn’t what I wanted. Not anymore. But the kiss that followed—yes. Yes.

It was slow, sweet from more than wine, and gentle, but not careful. I licked the taste of crushed berries from his mouth, finding Louis-Cesare beneath the wine. I wanted to kiss him until what passed for morning, to lick away every taste but my own. I moaned around his tongue and the sound made him kiss me harder. And I discovered that when he lost control, Louis-Cesare kissed the same way he fought, wild and passionately, and with his entire body. He kissed like he was never going to stop—

Until he suddenly did, leaving me gasping for air, while smooth lips and rough hands and soft hair trailed down my body. I could feel my heartbeat loud in my ears, at my groin, fluttering in the bottom of the foot I’d pressed against his thigh. He was marking me now, too, leaving prints and streaks on my skin as he worked downward, as he parted my legs, as he…

I breathed his name as he settled between my thighs, stroked his cheek, buried my hands in cool, silky hair as a warm tongue went to work. And I could swear his strokes matched the pulse of the stars, the beat of the drums, the sounds of the night. All of which became louder, brighter, more real as I was ravished by hard hands and soft lips and wet tongue.

I let my hands grip his head to steady myself, rather than to guide him where he needed to go. Because he already seemed to get that, judging from the way my breath was coming faster and my body was quivering and my thighs were clenching uncontrollably. And my fingers were digging into the muscles of his shoulders where they’d dropped when the hillside started to shake and the stars to spin.

To the point that I barely noticed when a storm spread across the horizon, blotting out half the sky.

It was sweeping this way, on wide, tattered wings of night, but it didn’t seem to matter. Not in comparison to the fingers digging into my hips, or the sounds Louis-Cesare was making in his throat, or the warm tongue dragging over me. And then I threw my head back and—

And saw the sky crack open.

Not with lightning, or thunder, or anything else that would have made sense. But slashed. As if a giant talon had caught the edge and ripped its way across the stars.

It was about the time the storm swept over the landscape, gobbling up the hill, the dancers and the bonfire. And then heading straight for us.

“I think…I think she found us,” I gasped, only to have Louis-Cesare grip my face, turn it to his.

“No!” Blue eyes locked with mine. “See me, see me.”

And he kissed me, even as we were plunged into a torrent of slapping wind and wailing outrage. And it was a damned good kiss. My stomach did a weird, tilting cartwheel, my hands tightened reflexively on his shoulders, and one of my legs went around him, pulling him to me, in me, as what sounded like a thousand banshees wailed by overhead.

I barely heard them. If falling into the moment helped us to gray out, then we must be almost invisible, I thought, as he growled and covered me with his body. Taking me as he’d stripped off the glove earlier, smooth and sure, in one long thrust.

It hurt, to be stretched so abruptly, filled so completely. But the sheer animal satisfaction I took was greater. This was mine, the hard body above me, the sweetness on my tongue, the hands bruising my hips. And I met him stroke for stroke, arching up as he flexed into me, in deep, powerful motions that sparked coiling warmth in my gut, melted my spine.

Mine, I thought deliriously, as a shadow swept over us, like a cape had been thrown over the sky.

Mine, as my hands stroked up that strong back, velvety and warm, where every dip and line of muscle fit sweetly into my palms.

Mine, as the storm trembled in the air around us, and shook the earth beneath us.

“Mine,” I murmured, as blue eyes met mine, wide and startled. And then closed again as he took my breath in a kiss so consuming that I barely noticed when the storm continued on toward the horizon, the midnight wings showing vague starlight through in patches as it passed overhead.

As it missed us.

“Yours,” Louis-Cesare groaned, pushing his face into the crook of my neck as his movements turned erratic inside me, as my body clenched around him, as the storm banked and turned, like some great bird, somehow zeroing in on our location despite everything.

And then the hill cracked open, the earth fell away beneath us, and we were falling.

Chapter Thirty-eight

I landed on my own, Louis-Cesare being torn away in the plummet. And I landed hard. I slammed into what felt like concrete, only to hear the pop and feel the sandpaper grind of bone on bone beneath me.

It was my hand. And of course, it was the right one. Not that it mattered, since I wasn’t being given a chance to go on the attack anyway.

A blow caught me as I tried to rise, and a kick to my ribs had me retching. And then that damned boot was back, visible for a split second before making contact with my skull. The impact was hard enough to send me tumbling, and instinct had me putting out my injured hand to break my fall.

Not the best idea, I realized, as a sickening wave of pain hit me.

Come on. You’re better than this! I told myself harshly, as I stumbled trying to rise. But I didn’t appear to be listening. Maybe because something, either the crack to the head or the mental powers I was really starting to envy, was adding another layer of hell to the fight. Suddenly, even blinking took an effort, and anything more ambitious felt like I had a two-hundred-pound weight attached to every limb.

Unfortunately, my assailant didn’t seem to have that problem. She was kicking me over and over in the ribs, in almost the same spot, because I was too winded and in too much pain to move out of the way fast enough. Not good, I thought, as the stabbing pain of a broken rib suddenly cut into my side.

I snarled and kicked out with a foot, catching what felt like the softness of a stomach. But it bought me maybe a second at best, which wasn’t even enough to get back on my feet. And then another rib went, and another, and I lashed out again—blindly, because I couldn’t see a damned thing. The darkness was complete, as much as if I really had fallen into a pit in the earth, and the only things I saw were the stars exploding behind my eyes.

Until a single spear of light shot through the darkness.

It was tiny, like the glow of a very dim flashlight, but I started crawling toward it anyway. Until a hard kick to my chin had me flipping over, and another destroyed a kneecap. And if I hadn’t managed to roll to the side, the boot that stabbed down where my chest had been might have killed me.

Although that outcome was looking pretty inevitable right now anyway. Because I just plain couldn’t move fast enough to avoid the blows that were quickly beating me to a pulp. I cried out again, in pain and sheer fury—

And the pinprick of light turned into a flood.

I blinked, barely able to see past the glow, but managed to make out the figure of a man. “Louis—” I began thickly, reaching out—

But it wasn’t.

The dark silhouette was tall but not that tall, broad but not that broad, familiar…and even more familiar. Dark hair, dark suit, but eyes that were glowing even brighter than the illumination behind him. Like twin stars in the gloom, brighter than I’d ever seen them.

Mircea, I mouthed, because I couldn’t seem to draw a breath. But he started walking forward anyway, slightly off course, but in the right general direction. And every step he took parted the darkness more, like a curtain being drawn back on a stage. Until I could see again.