Blood & Steel Read online

  “Oh, he’s dead, all right,” Blade told her with grim certainty. “I’d show you a memage, except I don’t think you need to see that much gore right now.”

  Well, that would be proof—a memory image taken directly from Blade’s recollection of the incident. Faint hope rose through her fear. “No, please, show me. If he’s dead, I need to see it.”

  “All right.” He sighed. “Here, look.”

  The next instant, a three-dimensional image filled the air beside the bunk. The corpse sprawled across a ship’s deck, covered in blood, its decapitated head lying nearby. Crimson splashed Kruz’s broad, brutal face and hatchet nose. His icy eyes were wide with astonished fury, while his narrow lips lay open over his fangs.

  Elyn was no stranger to violence, so despite the blood, she could make out the deep wounds across the corpse’s chest, arms and legs that looked as if they’d been hacked with a nanoknife. The quantity of blood was consistent with his wounds. It splashed the bulkhead and puddled on the deck around him in wide red pools.

  “It’s him,” she whispered, astonished. “You really did it. You killed Kruz.”

  “And I find myself very glad I took my time.” He stroked a hand through her hair again. “You don’t have to be afraid anymore.”

  “The newsies all said he was dead.” Elyn sank against Blade’s side as she stared at the image. “And I didn’t feel him in my mind. He’d always been there, ever since he’d turned me. I had hoped he was dead, but deep down I was afraid it might be some kind of elaborate trick. He knew you were hunting him, so maybe he—.”

  “He didn’t. He’s definitely dead.” Blade studied the image with grim satisfaction. “Really, really dead.”

  “Thank God.” She gave him a blazing grin. “Thank you.”

  * * * *

  That radiant joy in that grin was in stark contrast to the white terror on her face when Blade had walked into his cabin. The mental damage she’d suffered at Kruz’s hands was obviously far greater than he’d realized. In his defense, she’d showed no sign of rape trauma during that night six months ago. Just the opposite. She’d made love to him with a hungry passion that suggested she wanted him just as much as he wanted her.

  So he’d tied her up tonight, intending a teasing display of dominance that would frighten her, but not terrorize. But the minute Blade had walked back into his quarters, he’d realized his mistake. She’d been pale as frost, her green eyes huge and helpless, her body racked by rolling shivers of animal panic.

  Blade was shocked by the contrast between this terrified woman and the tough, competent warrior who had eluded him for the last three months. Her irrational conviction that Kruz was still alive told him everything he needed to know about her treatment at the vampire’s hands.

  For weeks now, he’d been wrestling with what to do about her role in the death of his team. Before tonight, he thought that since she’d been able to warn him of Kruz’s intention to enslave him, she could have also warned him his people were in danger. But now he was beginning to realize how astonishing it was that she’d been able to warn him about anything at all.

  Suddenly a slender hand cupped his head, curled into a fist in his hair, and dragged his head down. Elyn’s hungry mouth covered his, licking and biting with delicate greed and feral hunger.

  He drew in a startled breath that reemerged as a moan. He’d never had anyone kiss him with such ravenous need, like a drowning woman gulping air. Her tongue thrust between his lips in hot demand, and she slid across his lap, straddling him. He was instantly aware that she was gloriously naked, her bare breasts full and warm against his chest. All that lay between his cock and her cunt was the thin fabric of his skinpants.

  Her free hand moved to cradle his face, her fingers warm and tender as her tongue swirled around his. She rolled her hips, pressing her weight deliciously against his hardening shaft, brushing her hard nipples back and forth across his chest. The friction was exquisite, perfectly calculated to drive him out of his mind.

  Arousal hit him like a storm, despite his bewildered confusion. What had happened to the panic-stricken woman who’d greeted him when he’d walked in?

  “Wait, I’m getting psychic whiplash,” Blade panted when she broke away from his mouth to begin nibbling her way to his ear. “Weren’t you scared out of your mind a minute ago?”

  “He’s dead,” Elyn growled against his mouth, her hands moving to fist in his shirt. She ripped it off his shoulders with one hard, twisting jerk. “I’d have been his slave for decades more, but you killed him. You freed me. I don’t have to murder any more. I don’t have to crawl to him. I don’t have to suffer. And I want to fuck.”

  He blinked at the rough demand and swallowed hard, his mouth suddenly full of saliva. She slid off his lap, grabbed the heel of his boot, and hauled. Fasteners popped and the boot fell away from his calf.

  Elyn went to work on its gleaming mate, her eyes fierce as a hawk’s. When the second boot thumped to the floor, she grabbed the waistband of his skinpants. They tore away in her ruthless grip, leaving him resting on his elbows with his cock lying hard and heavy against his belly. He blinked up at her.

  Elyn stared at his shaft as she slid onto the mattress until she crouched over him like a feline predator. Her blonde hair tumbled across his thighs as she lowered her head in a cascade of cool silken curls, and her long fingers felt warm when she wrapped them around him.

  And her mouth—Oh, Stellar Gods, her mouth was hot and wet, lips sealing hard, tongue sliding back and forth around his shaft. Every time she sucked, pleasure spiked in his blood, a hot thrum that followed every flick of her tongue and stroke of her fingers.

  His eyes tracked the swing of her breasts and he sat up to cup them. They filled his hands, the skin impossibly smooth and warm, nipples flushed a delicate rose. He teased one with thumb and forefinger, pinching and stroking. She purred around his cock, a soft feline rumble of hunger and pleasure.

  He reached with his other hand to stroke down her back, enjoying the contours of delicate shoulder blades, the dip of her waist, the curve of her ass, at once strong and deliciously feminine. He didn’t think he’d ever felt anything as smooth as her skin, so ripe and soft beneath his fingertips.

  He explored her lovely backside, dipping between her thighs until he found the tight, wet opening of her sex. He caught his breath in anticipation as he slid two fingers inside her.

  She growled in delight even as she sucked him so hard, his feet twitched in helpless pleasure.

  “If you keep that up,” he managed despite his dry mouth, “I’m going to come way too soon.”

  Elyn pulled off him so abruptly he blinked and bit back a moan of disappointment, that died as she planted one hand in the center of his chest and pushed him onto his back with a shove. She was astride him before he had time to register her intentions, one delicate hand aiming his cock upward as she rose above it. Her green eyes glinted at him, cat hungry, and then she sank, impaling herself in a breathless swoop that ripped his breath from his lungs.

  “Stellar gods. . . ,” he wheezed.

  She growled at him, showing fangs. He blinked. They looked very sharp, and white enough to glow.

  And then Elyn began to ride him. Slowly at first, as if to savor the sweet sensation of his cock buried so deep in her slick depths. Rising as his head spun at the feeling of wet silk heat rubbing the length of his shaft, then down, down, down, every last millimeter a glorious exploration of delight. And up again, and down again, until her breasts bounced in a sweet rhythm that drew his hands up to cup them. God, they felt amazing, so soft and tempting, a sensual feast to his fingertips. He caressed them and moaned as she fucked him.

  Gloriously ruthless.

  Chapter 3

  Blade felt huge inside Elyn. She shouldn't be surprised, because she already knew his girth, a luscious length of hard male heat. She wondered if a woman had conferred his nickname, referring to something other than a knife.

  Gods, the sight of
him lying sprawled beneath her. His dark eyes looked stunned, his mouth flushed and swollen from her hunger. A big vein pulsed hard in the strong column of his neck, and she eyed it with predatory intent, fangs aching.

  Not yet. Not until she’d made him come. Not until she’d come. She rolled her hips and shuttered her eyes. Ahhhhhh, he felt incredible.

  His fingers stroked her nipples, adding to her pleasure with each teasing pluck and twist. Elyn let her head roll back, closing her eyes as she savored each velvety sensation—cock in cunt, fingers on breasts, sweet rolling waves of pleasure.

  He released his gentle grip on one breast. She opened her eyes, about to protest, only to suck in a breath as he slid a thumb between her inner lips. He captured hot juice on his fingers and began to circle her clit. The instant raw jolt of pleasure startled a scream from her lips.

  Blade grinned up at her. “Like that?”

  “Whatever gave you that idea?” she managed, vaguely amazed she had the brainpower to joke.

  Still she rode him, watching his handsome face as he hunched up to meet her, his hard abdomen flexing as he drove his cock deep. Her orgasm pulsed closer with every circle of his thumb on clit, pinch of fingers on nipple, stroke of velvet shaft in creamy cunt. Elyn shivered at the waves of molten pleasure, enhanced by the sight of the pounding vein in his throat.

  Then he threw his head back and arched beneath her with a roar as his orgasm seized him and threw him high. The abrupt drive of his dick in her depths catapulted her into climax, and she gasped, coming in thrumming waves.

  Falling forward, Elyn caught his hair in both her hands, tipping his head up so she could find that tormenting vein. She bit him, and he jerked, half in pain, half in pleasure, and then she was drinking, hot swallows of distilled delight.

  His arms closed around her, and he held her tenderly as she drank. “Yesssss,” he hissed. “God, that feels good. Take it. Take me.”

  So she did. His blood was a crimson spill of raw male strength flavored with a fizzing rasp of nanotek. Elyn had dreamed of his blood, of his cock, of his strong, skilled hands since that night they’d made love. Sometimes, true, she’d dreamed he’d killed her afterward—she still wasn’t entirely convinced he meant her no harm. But she’d still dreamed.

  Now he filled her in reality, his cock pumping his orgasm, his heart pulsing his blood into her mouth.

  And she was lost in him.

  * * * *

  Stellar Gods, the feel of her, fine inner muscles rippling around his cock, drawing deep the last pulses of his climax, her mouth sharp and busy on his throat. Her teeth inflicted a delicate sting of pain that somehow drove his delight higher, like a hot spice in sweet cream.

  Until at last she collapsed atop him, sweating, silken limbs and soft breasts pressed against him, and slid her fangs from his throat. He panted with her, listening to the hard thump of her heart echoing his own.

  “I dreamed of you,” she murmured, lips warm against his throat. “But it was never as delicious as this.”

  “I dreamed of you, too.” Some of those dreams had been as violent as they were erotic, and they’d troubled him on waking. But he had no desire to hurt her now.

  She’d been hurt enough. He’d seen the scars in her eyes as she’d lain stretched across the bed in his stupidly cruel restraints. His wounded, broken Elyn.

  His?

  Now, wait. As delicious as she was—and he’d never had better—he didn’t think he wanted to take on the shattered mess he’d glimpsed behind her tritanium facade. Her soul all but rattled.

  He wanted a woman in fewer pieces, thank you. Not that he didn’t have cracks of his own. Kruz had inflicted some of them when he’d killed every friend Blade had.

  He had to remember that, even now, even as he held Elyn again. Blade had failed all his friends. He hadn’t been there when Kruz and his vampire team had attacked. He’d been in bed with Elyn. That was why Kruz had ordered her to seduce him at that particular time.

  Joval, Borin, Ulo Mada, Adelia, and Charan. His comrades, all dead. Joval, who’d had such a way with a knife and a joke. Borin, slim as a rapier and loyal to the death. Ulo, the team’s muscle, big and clever. Charan, braver than any man he’d ever met. And Adelia, sweet Adelia, who’d once held his heart before she and Charan found love.

  And then there’d been Arden Galen, the man he’d sworn to protect. Arden’s only sin had been to offer the winning bid on a space station construction contract worth billions. Winning bids had been a specialty of Arden’s, which was what had gotten him killed. One of his rivals had decided to invest in Kruz’s skills in order to discourage Arden's nasty habit.

  After the massacre, Blade had slain the rival first. That was part of the service he offered. If he failed to protect you, he avenged you. Interplanetary law was a patchwork thing at best. Sometimes one had to buy justice. And Blade provided it.

  But he found that vengeance meant absolutely nothing in the end. Arden had left a widow and three small children to grieve for him. All so Kruz could add to his pile of blood money.

  Assassination had apparently been a lucrative career for the vampire. All in all, no one Blade had ever killed deserved it more.

  * * * *

  “So,” Elyn said into his sated, somewhat dazed silence. “What now?” She had slipped off his body to regard him with a wary intensity, her body still, ready for defense or attack.

  And there was fear in her dark emerald eyes. Fear of him, because she knew as well as he did that her vampire strength was no match for a nanotekker’s raw power.

  Blade found her fear stung. It was far too similar to what he’d seen in her eyes when she’d thought Kruz was about to walk in. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he snapped, irritated. “You’ve suffered enough.”

  “But I seduced you,” Elyn observed, her tone quiet in its logic. And her eyes were just as darkly wary. “I made sure you weren’t at Arden Galen’s mansion to defend him and your fellow bodyguards. I kept you away until it was too late.”

  “I was the one who took the night off, Elyn,” Blade said, his anger draining into weariness. “If it hadn’t been you, it would have been somebody else at that bar. I’d been on duty for two weeks straight protecting Arden, working eighteen hour days. I wanted a drink and a woman, in that order. So I wouldn’t have been there regardless.”

  Kruz had jammed his team’s distress calls to make sure Blade had no idea what had happened until the moment he walked in on the gory scene. He shuddered at the memory of gleaming white marble splattered with blood, smears of brain crushed beneath a boot heel, bits of flesh and gore scattered here and there like confetti at some horrific celebration.

  Stellar Gods.

  Elyn studied him, her gaze level and sharp. “You thought I was guilty enough to chase me all these weeks.”

  “I was wrong.”

  “What about Urthar and Daven?”

  He stiffened, wondering if she was going to argue that they, too, were Kruz’s slaves. “They’ll get no mercy from me.” Blade had seen the postmortem recording from Adelia’s internal computer, the only one Kruz hadn’t found and erased. He’d heard the vampires laugh at Adelia’s screams as Urthar used his knife.

  No, they didn’t deserve mercy.

  “Good.” Elyn’s gaze went feral and flat. “I want to help you hunt them.”

  He blinked, not sure this broken creature was up to revenge. Or that it would be good for her even if she was. “I don’t think—”

  “I need this.” Her lips shaped the next word with an obvious effort. “Please.”

  Stellar Gods help him, he couldn’t resist those eyes. They slid right past all his psychic defenses, neat as a blade. He sighed. “Very well.”

  “Good.” She sat up and scraped her blonde hair out of her face. “I’d have gone after them regardless. Now we won’t be getting in one another’s way.”

  He snorted. “We wouldn’t want that.”

  * * * *

  They headed for his ship
’s galley to get something to eat while they discussed their next move. The Stiletto had been built for a crew of six—him and his team—and the galley was comfortably roomy, with a long dark blue table and eight chairs. The walls were a soft blue, while the food dispenser and freeze cooker flashed rows of green indicator lights. Blade got a couple of steaming plates of lasagna out of the freeze cooker and carried them to the table where Elyn waited. She’d set the table, finding the flatware and glasses without being told where to look. There were advantages to sensors.

  As they talked, Blade soon realized there were real advantages of teaming with her, broken or not. Elyn knew the two vampires’ habits, their strengths and weaknesses, the way they fought and the way they thought.

  “Urthar is the older of the two, which makes him the most dangerous,” she told him, forking up a bite.

  “Why?” Blade asked, looking up from his plate with interest. “He looks like a featherweight.” Urthar was thin as a dagger blade, especially compared to his hulking partner. Stig Daven was a cyborg mercenary who weighed in at two hundred kilos, half of it tech and reinforced bone. Blade wasn’t looking forward to tangling with him, given that his tech was now enhanced by a vampire’s strength.

  “Age brings power to vampires,” Elyn explained, between sips of her tea. “That’s what made Kruz such a nightmare; he was over three hundred years old. Urthar is two hundred and twenty. By all rights he should have escaped Kruz a century ago, but he stayed because he and Kruz have the same revolting tastes. He’s quick and experienced, and far, far stronger than he looks. He’s going to be damned near as hard to take down as Kruz.”

  “Fighting style?”

  “Likes blades. A lot. His favorite weapon is the sonic ripper, and he likes to take his time using it.” She savored a bite of lasagna. “He’s quick as a snakecat. If you’re not careful, he’ll slip that blade right past your reinforced ribs.”