Page 55 of Blood Red Rage

“Fuck off, she needs me.”

Draugr’s mouth twitched. “Ah.”

“Drive,” I snarled.

The SUV surged forward. Ceasar had chosen his timing poorly because I would never leave my mate to go and look for him, but I knew that the others would be out there hunting him. The SUV hadn’t fully stopped before I was out. Draugr’s low chuckle followed me. “Easy, don’t trip in your hurry.”

I growl, showing him the finger. The mansion doors opened before I reached them. My boots hit marble, then carpet, then stairs, taking them two at a time. Every sense was lit like a war zone. Her scent hit me halfway down the hall. Bryn… Warm, sharp, sweet blood. My vision darkened at the edges. I rounded the corner and nearly collided with Kosta, who stood like a statue outside our door.

“Move,” I growled.

He straightened automatically. “She’s inside, she’s safe.”

“I said,” I snapped, fangs sliding free, “move.”

Kosta didn’t argue. He vanished down the hall knowing how volatile a male is when his mate is on her cycle.

I knocked once, already losing patience. “Bryn.” I hear her footsteps, a pause and then the door opened and my world narrowed to her. She stood there in soft clothes, hair loose, eyes wary and warm and already affected by the bond pulling tight between us. Her pulse sang to me, her scent wrapped around my skull like smoke.

My blood roared, every nerve in my body ignited at once. She barely had time to say my name before I was on her, hauling her into my arms, the door slamming shut behind us as I crushed my mouth to hers. The kiss was brutal, hungry, months of restraint snapping in a single second. She gasped against my lips. I swallowed the sound.

I lifted her clean off the floor, carrying her straight to the bed, laying her down like she was something precious and inevitable all at once. My hands were everywhere, shaking with control I was barely holding onto, stripping fabric away, mouth dragging over skin, breathing her in like oxygen.

“Viking,” she whispered, fingers digging into my shoulders. I growled low in my chest.

“You called me,” I said against her throat. “You don’t get to be surprised when I come.” Her body arched into mine like it recognized me on a level she didn’t have words for yet.

I peeled her clothes away with ruthless efficiency, my mouth following, tasting every inch I could reach, marking her with kisses and teeth and promise. She was warm and responsive and unbearably soft beneath my hands.

I stripped out of my own clothes without breaking eye contact, letting her see exactly what she did to me, how hard my restraint was fracturing, how badly I wanted her. Her eyes darkened.

“God,” she breathed.

I leaned over her, caging her in, foreheads touching. “You feel it,” I murmured. “This pull. This fire. This is why I told you to stay in the room.”

Her fingers curled into my hair. “I didn’t leave.” Good answer or I would have had to kill everyone that looked at her when she was like this. I kissed her again, slower this time but deeper, pouring everything I was into the contact. Possession. Devotion. Hunger. Relief.

She wrapped around me instinctively, legs drawing me closer, breath breaking. I pressed my mouth to her ear. “You’re safe,” I said. “You’re mine. Let me take care of you.”

Her answer was a soft, broken sound that went straight through my spine. After that, words didn’t matter. There was only heat and movement and the way she fit against me like she’d been built there. I took her the way vampires take their mates, with patience threaded through dominance, with control layered over desperation, with my entire world focused on making her feel claimed and cherished and undone all at once.

She clung to me like a second skin. I held her like she would disappear at any moment. My body throbbing like it never throbbed before, my cock pulsing with need. My muscles straining for her touch, her lips, her heat.

“I’m so fucking hard for you,” I growl as I take her nipple deep in my mouth.

“Viking,” a low whisper escapes her lips, the sound pounding through my blood stream. The sweet taste of her skin an aphrodisiac that keeps me hooked like a fish speared. My hand moves over her ribs and around to her perfect ass pulling her body closer to my throbbing one.

My other hand slides around her neck as I raise my lips from her nipple to her juicy lips. I deepen the kiss into a scorching inferno that has both of us panting with unrestrained lust.

Every part of me burned for her. The scent of her surrounded me, richer now, different because of her cycle, and every ancient instinct inside me recognized exactly what it meant.

Mate, and she was fertile. Something that was impossible for any vampire to ignore, and when that person was my mate there was no possibility that it could be ignored.

“Do you have any idea what you’re doing to me?” I growled against her skin.

“Viking…”

All the restraint I’d fought to maintain on the drive home disappearing beneath the taste of her. Her fingers buried themselves in my hair pulling it slightly which has me groaning against her mouth.