Heirot

Tenele chuckled, a sound like sweet music. "I'm sorry, are we struggling to keep up tonight?" she asked him, gasping as his teeth scraped along her neck. For that matter, she didn't mind a little pain either. Her hands fumbled, now distracted, over his body. She found him again, taking him in her hand. She moved, and then lowered herself onto him in one quick, solid swoop. "I'll ease up if you want. Here, I'll let you catch your breath." Now that she was on him, she didn't move. Didn't even flinch. Though, she wanted to. Oh, how she wanted it. It was torture as much for her as it was for him, but she was enjoying the dominance of her game to much to give in.

Vlad glowered up at her and held perfectly still, every nerve singing at him to take her, flip her over, drive her into oblivious ecstasy. Oh, but she'd roused his competitive side. He closed his eyes to fight off her heat around him, absurdly turned on despite the lack of the friction he fiercely needed.

He really wasn't sure he could take much more. "You seem stuck, my lady. Would you like me to move for you?" he purred.

Tenele smiled at him, tapping his nose with her finger. "I'm not stuck at all," she mused. "But, if you need to move... please do." Her smile transformed into a wild grin. She wanted him to move first, she wanted him to give in. She was revelling in it. "If you want me to move, all you have to do is say, please." She kissed his neck softly.

The vampire arched over her, shaking, waiting. She was, after all, his chosen mate. What could he do if she wanted to be a little sadistic now and then?

Love her. Cherish her forever.

"Please," he framed the word in his crushingly seductive bedroom voice. His lips brushed her ear, his tongue brushing the outer edge of skin. "Please," he declared again, proudly, needfully, possessively. His body moved then, slow and firm, driving gradually deeper and sweeter inside her while his mouth worked over her neck. Submission was a kind of possession, with Tenele. If this was what she wanted tonight, the thought of her needing his need was enough to serve as an unusual, but precious turn-on for the vampire.

Tenele closed her eyes at the feel of him within her, moaning softly. His words were like a caress in itself. Her hands slid up his chest, to his shoulders, holding onto him as she moved atop him. She was slow at first, but all the holding back had driven her to a point of no return. It had been torture for her, but now she had him. He'd given in. She'd won. She moved faster, harder, rocking against him with all the force she could muster. Her arms twined around his neck, her back arching, she cried out. Nearly there, so close.

Harder.

Faster.

Her nails dragged across his skin, leaving red welts. She turned her face away, leaned back so he could get a better look at the way her body moved above him and how she worshipped his body with her own. One hand wrapped around his neck, the other knotted in the sheets at their side. Her green eyes locked on his.

"Sweet Goddess, Tenele," Vlad gasped, controlling the rhythm now despite her position above him. He drove her closer and closer, and his hands reached up to pull her face down to his. He crushed her lips with a deep, open mouthed kiss and finally slid along her cheek to her neck. His teeth found purchase there, but not hungrily. Just deep enough to taste her lifeblood in his mouth, and to pour his magic into her, to finish the climax dangling in front of them both.

Tenele held onto him, choked on a gasp, exhaled in a ragged moan. The world exploded, her mind flooded with his until their souls tangled together as surely as their bodies. When it was over she collapsed above him, breathless and spent. Her face resting in the crook of his neck with his lips and teeth took her neck.

Vlad held her down against him tight enough to limit her lungs, catching his breath in a pleased, territorial haze. "If Knight's body calls to you, I will not mind if you answer," he said gently against her neck. "However, he will never touch you as I do. I have confidence in that much. That's why it's okay. He is both of us, and he comes to need you as I need you tonight, then it's okay."

Tenele felt tears sting her eyes at his words. She kissed his cheek, and then his lips softly. "Nothing," she whispered, framing his face in her hands. "Absolutely nothing can ever touch me as you do." She pressed her forehead to his. "I can feel you in me, every part of me. From my toes, to the strands of my hair." She kissed him again. "I love you."

Vlad smiled and cradled her tight against him. "You are everything to me," he murmured sleepily, not normally so prone to romantics. "Nothing else can ever truly matter. My soul, my humanity, and my innermost demons, they all belong to you."

Tenele felt the tears that brimmed her eyes before role down her cheeks. She reached to wipe them quickly before he noticed. She pressed her lips softly to his. "I cherish it. All of it." Tenele slipped down to curl tight against his side, draping her arm across his chest and resting her head on his shoulder. A content sort of weariness was seeping into her, the kind where she was so blissfully happy and satisfied that she couldn't comprehend moving. "Will you get the lights?" she asked him, knowing he could do it without moving an inch.

Vlad smiled into her hair and drew the blanket over them as the candles in the room puffed out simultaneously. *Sleep well, my love," he whispered into her mind before his own died down into sleep. Being one with her always left him feeling oddly human and pleasantly exhausted.

Tenele slept deeply and well, but by the next morning she was ill, unable to keep down her meal from the night before or even consider breakfast. She lay curled in bed, dressed in her warm gown and tangled in covers, with a bucket tucked next to the bed. At first she thought it was just a case of sea sickness, but Talon informed her that the seas were fairly calm.

Her brother leaned against the wall, observing his sick sister. "Maybe its the food?" he asked her calmly. "I mean, they use different spices than we do. Maybe you are allergic to something they put in the food?"

Tenele groaned. "I don't know what it is, but I hate it."

"It makes sense to me," he muttered, glancing to Vlad. "I mean, she was sick the last time you visited the Outerlands... That was how Verin convinced you he'd gotten her pregnant, right?"

Vlad was propped against the headboard of the bed. His stern glance did well to hide the fact that he was pretty green himself this morning. His link with Tenele carried some disadvantages, apparently. He swallowed hard against his own nausea and let his eyes do most of the talking as he narrowed his eyes on the blood of his Blood. The look was enough to warn Talon of the consequences if he brought that case up again so casually.

The door to the already crowded room burst open. Vlad's stomach gave an angry twist as he noticed Atul step in with them. "I'd heard there was illness in the cabins..." his voice wandered off as he realized whose room he was standing in.

Tenele lifted a weary gaze to the King, her head half hanging over the bed, and arm dangling off the edge. "I'm not sick, I'm dying," she mumbled. Tenele never got sick, not very often at least. She was unaccustomed to it, and so on the rare occasions when she was sick it always felt much worst than actuality.

"Its the food. I might be a vampire, but I can still see the signs pretty well. You haven't been cursed or poisoned, the seas are calm, that leaves the food." Talon turned his red eyes on Atul and stuck out his hand. "We didn't really get to meet in Ighten, I've been a bit... temperamental. I'm Talon, Tenele's brother."