47. Zane

It had been so long since he tasted the sweet flesh of his love. So long since he had known bliss in her embrace and slept the days away peacefully at her side. She had only just arrived in the valley and he was only a decade into his new life when he met her. They had spoiled him in that decade, never going far from Vulotuce to feed and never learning to become a fighter. The succubi were content with using his talents elsewhere and he knew little else.

Until he had met Kinn. Her fire and her passion put even the most skilled succubi to shame. She still clung to her human emotions while others left them behind, and her determination not to lose her humanity had been one thing missing in his undead life. The other thing being her. He had been greedy for her. Hoarding her to himself. She wanted to learn to fight with the others, but he was terrified of losing her.

So he subdued her the only way he knew how. Even to this day, he would wake up after resting with the sweet memory of her always welcoming body. He woke that way every evening needing a woman and only wanting the one he could not find. Through the countless decades since she had fled the city, and him, to pursue her own life, he had trained long and hard. He poured all of his energy into learning to hunt, fight, and kill. Though his fighting skills were still more brute strength than finesse, his tracking skills were unmatched.

He honed that one talent, always trying to find his love. She was such an elusive creature, he had always been two steps behind her... until two nights ago.

Zane had been walking through the snowstorm, bundled up in leather and fur with only his eyes peering out from below the wide brim of his hat and above the leather mask concealing his face. He had been looking for shelter when he came across their cave and heard the impassioned moans. The blood in his veins nearly froze when he recognized the sound of Kinn’s voice. He knew it anywhere, even after all this time... but she still sounded different somehow. Less herself. Less enthusiastic.

He had stood out in the storm listening until the fucking had ended, then slipped away, covering his tracks as he went and slept buried in the snow near to the cave. Come that evening, he had followed them. It was easy with the human’s scent to follow and the burden he caused. It had also been easy to deduce their stop for the morning. He cut ahead, darting easily by them even with the wide berth he gave, and slipped into the loft above the small abandoned home. It was where he slept, dripping wet, cold, and alone with only the memory of Kinn to warm him.

As another day passed, he woke early, forcing himself out of the crushing force of the day’s slumber to rise before the full dusk. The sun was below the mountains with only faint rays peaking over. They would not harm him. He slipped from the loft, moving away from the house to track down the nearest prey. The elk buck provided more than enough blood to satisfy him and rewarm his body. Though he hesitated, he wound up dragging the carcass back to the house, tore a large portion of meat from its body, and quietly went about arranging it on a spit above the dying fire.

The human was sleeping, and he pushed his mind out to keep Marcus that way while he added the remaining wood into the fireplace. With that taken care of, Zane slowly crossed to the bedside nearest Kinn; his boots barely creaking the floorboards as he moved. He stood there, towering over her prone form with an ill-disguised look of anguish and longing. He wanted to touch her, to ravage her even as she slept, but he would not fall back on old habits. Instead, he satisfied himself by drinking in her beautiful face with his eyes. She was still so perfect, just like his memory, but infinitely better than the ghosts that kept him company all these decades.

Kinn moved uneasily in her sleep. Something wasn’t right, she could feel it. It was a tug, a pull towards someone that hadn’t been there for a while. She had been running from him, trying to hide and stay away. The society that they had drawn her into was little more than a prison for her; he had wanted to keep her there with him in that life of decadence and frivolity. It wasn’t her. It wasn’t the person she was and wasn’t the person she wanted to be. They had stripped her humanity from her, torn it from her grasp, but that didn’t mean she was going to turn her back on it.

His proximity to her pulled her from the day’s embrace and her eyes opened to fix on his gilded orb. She gasped softly, both in surprise and as the full force of her hunger settled on her. Her eyes became feral as they searched the room. She could hear Marcus’ heartbeat drumming in her ears. She tried to tear her gaze away from his sleeping form and back to Zane, but she couldn’t. Her fangs slowly descended as she moved closer to the sleeping mortal.

Zane’s strong fingers slid around Kinn’s slender throat so quickly it was difficult to even feel the movement. There was nothing, then the warm pressure was there. He held her at bay for a moment, then slowly but forcefully drug her from the bed into his arms. Ah, but she felt good. So cool, soft, and supple. Though he tried hard to ignore his lusts, he couldn’t resist the desire to nuzzle his face against her neck and shoulder, breathing in her sweet scent.

Kinn hissed and growled at him as he pulled her away from Marcus. The seductive siren’s call of his heartbeat was too strong for her sensibilities to ignore. Had Zane not been there, she would have drained him dry. As it was, Zane pulled her to him, holding her tightly enough to keep her away from the human and turn her attention to him.

“Leave him, my love. I overdrank for you,” he whispered in her ear. The truth of his words was there in his skin. His slightly tanned flesh was flush from the overflow; his veins positively swimming in the fresh blood he had drunk. Softly, soothingly, he stroked her hair, urging her head down to his neck and away from the seductive call of the human’s heartbeat.

Though her animalistic side had taken over, she could still smell Zane. It had been a scent she had fallen in love with so very long ago. It pained her to leave him, but she couldn’t be the thing he wanted her to be. A gilded cage is still a cage, and she had to run to save her own individuality.

Her eyes moved back to more cognitive thoughts as she looked at him. Her hand moved up to lightly cup his face as he held her in his arms. The back of his neck was where she rested her hand. Even as her fangs pierced his flesh, she whispered his name against that skin.

Zane... He heard her musical voice and felt her cool breath on his neck just before her fangs sliced in. The resounding groan that flowed over his lips nearly mirrored every single lost day without her. His hand fisted in her hair, holding but not forcing her to continue drinking. Feeling those crimson silk locks once more threaded between his fingers sent him sinking to his knees.

All his hunting, all his nights of celibacy, and he had her in his arms again. Naked and warming, the more she drank. His cock pressed against her exposed sex through the confining leather of his pan; hot, hard, and throbbing for her. He rocked her gently in his arms, spooning his larger frame around her protectively.

“I’ve missed you so, my little North Star,” he whispered harshly, his breath panting across her bare shoulder. As he spoke, his lips brushed her skin, briefly placing feather-light kisses in between his words.

She could feel his blood warming her, causing her mind to become her own again. Her eyes had moved shut when she first started feeding, but the more she drank, the more her eyes opened. He was there; he was really there. If his presence wasn’t enough to stir those long-dormant feelings for him, the way his bulge against her region was enough to make her moan.

Her hand moved down his body, rubbing him through his pants. There was a time when they knew each other’s bodies as well as their own, but that had been so very long ago. Now, everything was flooding back to her. Her touch, warmed by the fresh blood, brought a violent reaction to him. His thick erection leaped at the familiar feeling. A deep, rumbling growl reverberated around the small room. He pulled at her hair, urging her to end her feast. Barely a second after her fangs left his skin, his mouth was over hers; crushing, gliding against her lips, and forcing his tongue into her still blood-stained mouth.

Remembering her body was easy. It haunted nearly every waking moment he had, so he did not hesitate to unhook his arm from her waist and slip his large hand between her spread thighs. His fingers probed, rubbing over silken folds as he remembered the feel of and taste of vibrantly in his mind. He stroked two blunt tips across her opening, gathering her moisture and sweeping it up to her clit. Those two fingers rolled, slipping back and forth, up and down, manipulating that little button to peek out from its hood.

No sooner than he had coaxed that reaction from her, he slid those fingers away, plunging them deep into her tight little opening up to his knuckles. He shook his hand, grinding the heel of his palm against her clit as he vibrated his fingers inside of her; the muscles in his arm bunching and flexing all the way to his shoulder as he moved his hand.

She pulled her lips from his as soon as she felt his hand pull together in a tight fist in his hand. The deep moan that echoed from her lips was nothing compared to the pleasure his touch and his kiss brought her. Decades of loneliness and wanting came to a head as soon as their lips collided. Her tongue moved against his, the taste of his blood still thick in her mouth.

She gasped and moaned against his lips, her hips moving against those fingers as they toyed around the outside of her opening and then moved around the sensitive cluster. She whimpered softly against him, wanting him more than she ever did before.

As soon as he buried his fingers inside her, Kinn threw her head back and cry out for him as he moved her body, causing her to almost peak with just his fingers. She wanted more… she wanted him. She needed him to use her as he used to on the nights before she left.

Sweet musk flooded his senses as Kinn’s body reacted that rare way no one else’s ever had. It was like a small orgasm, a rush of fluids coating his hand all the way to his wrist. A silent response and plea from her body that she was ready for him.