Revenge in Vein, The Complete Series Read online

  Valkyrine pushed herself up on one arm so that she hovered over Kurt, her other hand still on his belly. She tilted her head for a moment, as if studying him.

  “You and your brother are alps, yes?” she asked.

  Anton nodded. “We are. It is the type of vampire Aldric is and he is the one who sired us.”

  “Aldric is an alp as well . . . that explains a lot.”

  Anton frowned, his eyes still on Kurt even as his mind tried to keep up with Valkyrine.

  “Explains what?”

  “Based on my mother’s ranting, Aldric’s revenge was rather erotic,” Valkyrine smirked. “I think my mother would have preferred violence.”

  “The erotic turn Aldric’s revenge took had less to do with his being an alp and more to do with the fact that Queen Dubheasa refused to allow anyone to wear clothing when they entered her sithen,” Anton grumbled. He paused. “The fact that he was celibate when he was your mother’s priest likely did not help either.”

  Valkyrine chuckled. The throaty sound slid down Anton’s spine and he found his flesh stirring to life despite his concern for his brother.

  “I’ll be with you in a moment,” Valkyrine teased, making a point of glancing at his hardening erection.

  Anton scowled. “Are you going to help him or not?”

  In answer to his question, Valkyrine dipped her head down to press her lips to Kurt’s, sliding her entire body over his at the same time. The sharp scent of copper burst into the room and Anton’s fangs ached as he watched a drop of blood slide from where Kurt and Valkyrine’s lips met.

  Valkyrine’s thighs parted as she straddled Kurt, her lips still pressed to his, her hands sliding into his golden blond hair. The arousal that had been so thick in the forest roared back to life and suddenly Anton found himself leaning toward her, his lips parted and his eyes locked on the pulse in her neck. Desire clouded his vision, making his head spin. He leaned closer.

  A strangled cry broke the silence. Anton tore his gaze from Valkyrine’s veins as his brother shot up from the bed, his arms locked around the vieschtitsa as he plundered her mouth. Valkyrine broke from the kiss, crying out with pleasure when Kurt’s mouth fell to her neck, his fangs sinking into her flesh.

  “Oh, yes,” Valkyrine breathed, her eyes fluttering closed. “There’s a good boy. Welcome back, Kurt.”

  Kurt growled low in his throat, swiveling his hips and thrusting blindly. Valkyrine moaned and raised herself up just enough for Kurt to maneuver his hardened cock between their bodies. When Valkyrine finally impaled herself on his shaft, Kurt ripped his head back from her neck, his eyes open, irises dilated with hunger.

  The sight of his brother, finally free of the undine’s memory, lifted a weight off of Anton’s shoulders. With nothing to hold it back, his bloodlust roared to the forefront, sharpened by the lust filling his cock with heat. Like an animal approaching an unsuspecting prey, Anton crawled onto the bed, careful to watch Valkyrine for receptiveness. The wounds in his face had nearly healed, but he had no intent of suffering that injury a second time.

  Centuries of seducing women together had turned Anton and Kurt into a well-oiled machine. As soon as Anton settled his weight on the bed, Kurt gripped Valkyrine by the hips and lifted her up, sliding his legs underneath him so that he knelt with Valkyrine held in his arms, still riding him. Anton pressed himself against her back, enjoying the feel of her heated flesh against his chest.

  “Play with me, Anton,” Valkyrine murmured, her voice thick with sex.

  Her words seemed to pluck a string connected directly to his cock, and his flesh grew painfully hard where it was trapped between their bodies. Anton clenched his teeth, brushing his nose against her hair and inhaling the sweet scent of night air deep into his lungs. Dipping one hand between Valkyrine’s legs, he groaned as he found her slick with her own juices from thigh to thigh. Kurt’s bite had done it’s job, ratcheting up Valkyrine’s physical response. As an alp, he could have brought her to orgasm with his bite, had he wanted to. As it was, Valkyrine’s body had gone into overdrive, loosening her muscles and increasing her body’s natural arousal. The bite of an alp could accomplish what most creatures couldn’t manage with hours of foreplay--and Kurt had spent centuries perfecting it.

  Anton swirled his fingers through the wetness dripping from Valkyrine’s body, relishing the rich perfume. Teasing his fingers around her asshole, he gently prodded the tight ring of muscle. Her body responded hungrily, the muscles easing bit by bit to let him slide his finger inside her. Every thrust of his digit opened her a little wider, allowing him to add another finger and then another.

  Tiny sounds of encouragement fell from Valkyrine’s throat as Kurt continued to pound into her pussy, every plunge drawing more and more wet arousal from her body. It dripped onto Anton’s fingers and he wasted no time adding it to the delicious thrust of his fingers into her ass. He swallowed hard, the pain in his fangs making it harder and harder to wait until he was inside her to bite her. He gritted his teeth and concentrated on preparing her for his cock. He wanted to feel her tighten around him when he finally sank his fangs into her flesh, wanted to feel the pleasure wringing her body as he drank the sweet sustenance beneath her skin.

  When her body finally felt ready and open enough for him, Anton positioned the head of his cock against her ass. He swirled the tip around her opening, giving her a small taste of what was coming. Valkyrine’s breath hitched in her throat and one of her hands scrabbled backward against his thigh, trying to pull him closer. Falling into his brother’s familiar rhythm, Anton answered her silent plea. He thrust inside her at the same time Kurt thrust into her pussy.

  Valkyrine screamed, her head falling back against Anton’s shoulder. He body tightened around him, tearing a grunt from Anton’s throat as he kept up with Kurt, thrusting in long smooth strokes. The pale column of her throat beckoned to him and he snarled as he sank his fangs into the vein pulsing in her neck. Sweet warmth flooded his mouth, dancing on his tongue before flowing down his throat. He groaned his appreciation, sucking at the wound as he continued to thrust in time with his brother.

  Pleasure continued to build, spiraling from the tight grip of her ass around his cock and the lush decadence of her blood flowing into his mouth. He slid his hands under her sweat-slicked body, gripping her thighs so he shared her weight with his brother. Together they raised her up and used her own weight to bring her down harder, adding power to their thrusts. Valkyrine squirmed in their arms, nearly tearing her flesh on Anton’s fangs. He pulled away with a groan, letting his brother dip his head for another turn at her blood.

  The heat that Saule had planted in his belly seemed to have grown hotter with every swallow and every thrust. No longer forgotten, it burned like liquid fire inside him, so hot it was almost painful. As his orgasm grew close, the heat seemed to flow through his body like a living thing. Anton hissed as it pooled in his cock, waiting for his release.

  “Oh, yes, don’t stop,” Valkyrine begged.

  Anton watched as one of her hands gripped Kurt’s shoulder, digging her black claws into his flesh. Kurt growled his appreciation and Anton knew his brother enjoyed the edge the pain lent to his pleasure. Anton closed his eyes as the former meita reached behind her and grabbed the back of his neck. This taste of her claws was a world apart from his first encounter. Unlike the havoc they wreaked on his face, this time her claws only sharpened the pleasure driving through his body. The scent of his own blood in the air reached out to a primal part of him that liked the violence.

  A stab of guilt threatened to pierce the euphoria building inside him. Valkyrine had brought his brother out of the shadow of the past. If not for her, Anton knew he would have spent the entire night trying to keep his brother warm despite a cold that came from the inside. It had happened all too often, and every time it did, Kurt seemed to have a harder and harder time fighting to come back. It seemed as if the undine would have her revenge over and over until his brother died a true death.
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  Suddenly, Valkyrine’s breath hitched, her body tensing in his arms. The burning in his cock grew sharper, his own orgasm rising up like a tidal wave to overwhelm the rising tide of guilt. Then it was too late for second thoughts.

  Kurt and Anton both threw their heads back, roaring as the force of their orgasm brought the sun goddess’ heat pouring from their bodies. Valkyrine’s screams danced in his ears as her own orgasm gripped her body, thrashing her from side to side. Anton gritted his teeth as his body jerked against the warm flesh trapped between him and his brother. Every drop of the hot fluid leaving his cock seemed to sizzle along his nerves until he didn’t know if it was pain or pleasure. Valkyrine’s blood tingled in his mouth and he drew his tongue over his teeth to get every last drop of the heavenly sustenance. The pleasure poured faster and faster until he thought his body would shatter from the force of it.

  When the orgasm finally released him, Anton fell forward against Valkyrine. Kurt mimicked the motion, trapping her body between them. In the wake of the orgasm, Anton could no longer ignore the guilt. Neither one of them met the other’s eyes and Anton knew that Kurt shared his shame. Valkyrine had showed them a kindness--and they’d betrayed her.

  “Oh,” Valkyrine murmured. “I feel strange.”

  She shifted between them and a lump of nausea rose in Anton’s throat. The moment of truth had arrived. He and Kurt pulled away simultaneously. Anton stifled a groan as he pulled his cock free of Valkyrine’s body, his flesh mourning the loss of her tight embrace. His gaze locked on the vieschtitsa as she stumbled off the bed.

  “What have you done?” Valkyrine hissed, turning her glowing eyes on them. She winced, falling to her knees before collapsing on all fours.

  Anton opened his mouth, prepared to force an apology past a suddenly parched throat. Before he could utter a syllable, twin red holes appeared in Valkyrine’s back. Eyes widening in shock, Anton stared as flames leapt from the two spots, growing impossibly large until they arced in huge jets of flame from her body. The flames moved as if they were alive and Anton realized he was looking at the wings of a vieschtitsa.

  Doubt dragged its claws down his back as he watched Valkyrine push herself up from the floor. A feeling of dread settled in his stomach as he noticed the spotted fur erupting from her skin. He knew Saule’s plan had failed even before Valkyrine raised her face. Her hyena countenance turned from him to his brother, an eerily human cackle falling from a mouth full of razor sharp teeth.

  “What’s the matter, boys?” she asked sweetly, her voice slightly distorted by her inhuman form. “Were you expecting a meita?”

  “We had no choice, Valkyrine,” Anton said calmly, straining to keep his fear from shaking his voice. “We are no match for the wrath of a sun goddess.”

  “You are no match for me,” Valkyrine whispered.

  “You knew?” Kurt spoke up. His voice came out strong, but Anton knew him well enough to know that even his devil-may-care brother feared something was about to go very very wrong.

  Valkryine threw back her head and laughed that slightly hysterical laugh again. “Of course I knew,” she scoffed. “My mother cannot stand it that I’m not her pawn anymore. If she had no use for you, she would have destroyed you. I knew as soon as you showed up that she had sent you. It is not a stretch of the imagination to believe you drank her blood, or that she would could on a couple of alps to seduce her innocent little daughter.” She barked a laugh.

  “Then why go along with us?” Kurt pressed. “Why take the chance of being forced back into a life you hated?”

  “I wouldn’t have,” Valkyrine admitted. “Originally, I intended to lose you in the forest and leave you there to greet my mother’s sun in the morning. After I had my fun, of course.”

  Anton watched as the hyena pulled back and Valkyrine’s human face smiled at them again. Watching her stand there, naked with wings of flame hanging behind her, filled him with the same sense of impending doom that kneeling before her mother had inspired.

  “However,” Valkyrine continued. “after hearing about Kurt’s unfortunate run-in with the undine, I realized my mother’s little plan wouldn’t work.”

  She looked at Kurt and her face softened. Anton was slightly mollified by the thought that she truly had been affected by Kurt’s suffering.

  “The undine left a cold essence inside you. If my mother had known about it, she might have been able to imbue you with enough of her power to overcome it. But she didn’t.”

  Anton sucked in an unnecessary breath. So that was why Kurt had been so unaffected by Saule’s powers--why he had remained so calm while Anton fretted over the boiling blood in his stomach. It wasn’t just his carefree nature, the sun goddess’s power had been tempered by the lingering chill of the undine.

  “In any case, you have failed in your mission. Did my mother stipulate that you must succeed, or only that you try?”

  “She made no mention of pursuing us if we tried and failed,” Kurt answered. “Only if we refused to try.”

  “Splendid. In that case, I have an offer you cannot refuse.”

  She stepped closer to Kurt. Anton swelled with pride when his brother did not flinch in the face of the severe heat rolling of the vieschtitsa’s wings.

  “I have become quite good friends with the rusalki of this river. If I ask them to they will find this Marketa, and they will force the creature to release your soul.”

  Kurt’s back went ramrod straight, pain radiating from him in an almost visible aura. Anton gritted his teeth as anger burned in his belly.

  “Heartless witch,” he seethed. “We are vampires now. Even if the undine were to release his soul, it would not return to his body. Your ‘offer’ comes too late--centuries too late.”

  “If I were a human, that would be true,” Valkyrine snapped. “But I’m not, am I?” She returned her attention to Kurt. “I am a vieschtitsa, and as such, I straddle the boundary between dark and light. The spell to call both of your souls back to your bodies would be simple enough--once I have turned you into moras.”

  “The stories of the vieschtitsa reveals nothing of such a transformative power,” Kurt protested. “Why should we believe your promise?”

  “When my mother called me to tell me of your coming arrival, she told me to kill you. I know now that her plan likely counted on me doing the exact opposite,” she added bitterly, “but that is neither here nor there. After telling me to kill you, she told me with great pleasure what she did to Aldric.”

  “So?” Anton insisted. “Saule is the goddess of the sun, mother to all of her people. Her power over new life is legendary.”

  “And I am Saule Meita,” Valkyrine said calmly. “I am the one chosen to take over for my mother when she passes on her mantle.”

  “You were, but no more. Your mother would never pass that mantle on to a vieschtitsa.”

  “Be that as it may,” Valkyrine shrugged, seemingly unbothered by Anton’s assertion. “I have the power.”

  Anton shook his head. It couldn’t be possible--it just couldn’t. He risked a glance at his brother. Kurt stared at Valkyrine with a combination of disbelief and hope. That look squeezed Anton’s heart.

  “I cannot take away the memory of what the undine did to you,” Valkyrine said softly. “But I can remove the chill that holds you a prisoner afterward. With your soul returned, her hold on you will be weakened until it is no stronger than the memory of any other woman.”

  “And what price do you ask for this tremendous gift?” Anton said loudly, almost as much to distract himself from the pitiful hope on Kurt’s face as to get information.

  Valkyrine turned to him. “When Aldric agreed to change you from man to vampire, you gave him your complete allegiance--your full obedience. Considering I am offering a significantly more complicated transformation, it would seem insulting to offer me less.”

  “We have already sworn such an oath to Aldric,” Kurt said stiffly. “We cannot make a contradictory oath without risking our hon
or.”

  “Oh, somehow I doubt Aldric and I will give conflicting orders,” Valkyrine smirked. “What with him never returning from my mother’s castle and whatnot. But if we did,” she acknowledged with a shrug, “I concede that your oath to him precedes mine.”

  Anton’s mind whirled a mile a minute. He should be outraged, furious. She meant to make them her slaves. Given her immortal status as a blood descendent of a goddess, and their own coming transformation to moras, that would mean an eternity of servitude.

  He pictured his brother, eyes wide and body trembling in the grip of a woman as cold as the Arctic sea. To never have to see his brother suffer like that again . . . to finally know that Marketa had been truly punished? Anton turned to Kurt. “Say the word, and I will follow.”

  Kurt paused, staring at Valkyrine for several long moments. Finally he nodded.