Page 122 of Vampire's Choice

But they did. Even in moments when it didn’t seem like that was true.

That form of submission has honor to it. It’s a choice, made from a position of strength that most who are Dominant may never truly understand. But I do. You’re as much a warrior as your brother.

Merc had asked her if the third mark was two-way, and if she trusted him that much. Trust had to be earned, but sometimes it also had to be taken on faith. If she chose wrongly…

If she chose wrongly, Mal would do his best to kill him. He’d fail. But it wouldn’t matter. And then Adan would go after Merc. Or a Dark Guardian would be sent to execute him, with Marcellus.

With her mind inundated by the storm of responses, she let go of everything but what she needed.

Merc, I’m afraid. I’m alone. Help me.

Then she had no strength left to hold onto her own mind. Like everything else, it was pulled away, something he could take, leaving her lost in a passionate storm, her body rigid, caught in an endless, excruciating climax, funneling a gluttonous feast to him as she weakened, and weakened further.

She dropped through a trapdoor, right into his soul.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

She was in darkness. Total darkness, but things in that black watched her. Waiting. Silent. She considered the possibility she was dead, but she had some sense of connection to her physical body. She just couldn’t see it, or orient herself.

This wasn’t a place about the physical senses. This was Merc. She could feel his presence all around her. His soul. A place that had blocked her entry, but not because he’d wanted to prove she couldn’t get in there if he didn’t want her there.

He didn’t come here. He knew what was here, he’d told her. But somewhere along the way, he’d shut the door and locked it, refusing to visit it. And now she was locked in with it. Alone.

The incubus. No. Merc had insisted from the beginning that the incubus was part of him, and he wouldn’t turn his back on it. But the demon part, the hungry part that would only take, that was what was here. Because that was where Merc had put it.

But it wasn’t the thing to fear.

As she put her hands out, or what she was thinking of as her hands, she started to hear them. Voices like a choked gurgle beneath water, then they broke the surface, an army of cries becoming mournful wails, chilling her all the way through. Squirming tendrils of energy pulled her arms out to her sides, then her legs, wrapping around and around her, turning her, disorienting her, making her feel sick.

The voices begged for sexual release, moaning their passion, but a cry which should have been arousing, drawing her own response, couldn’t quite get there. Then the darkness showed her why.

Out of the black, a woman rose up in the straining arch caused by a climax, but a giant barbed fishhook shoved through her upper torso held her in that position. Her head was tipped back, mouth open on a scream, a plea, while her body shuddered in ecstasy.

A subconscious image that reflected the terrible reality, the memories stored here. Oh Great Father and Mother. This was where they were. All the ones whose lives he’d taken.

She flailed for a way to process, and found her own memories, the annual kill.

“Say a prayer for his soul, and ask forgiveness. You took his life, which connects you to him forever. You will meet again, because that’s the way of it.”

She understood the price of those souls, the weight of carrying them. But she’d had her father and mother to guide her. Merc had had no one. When he finally did, when he had Marcellus, that same side of him had to learn to live with this. These lives could never be restored. Maybe his unconscious had helped the demon side keep the door closed to her, because it was somewhere he didn’t want her to be.

But she did. She wanted to be here.

Merc. It’s all right. Please…come be with me here.

Her soul was inside his soul. She just needed him to join her. She had her fingers stretched out beyond the bindings, and she gripped hands. Female hands. She accepted the fear and pain, the loss, brought it inside her, cried for all of them. And they became part of her. Living inside her soul as they lived inside his. Because that was part of the third mark, when it was two-way.

Everything shared, every pain, every mistake and disappointment, every tragedy. Every joy, every moment of life given to them.

A familiar touch slid over her arm, and the bonds loosened. He could hold her, wings covering her, then the bonds were around them both, spinning them, the tears and cries turning into something else. Sounds like a forest, of life and death, all the cycles turning as they should.

They were together. That was all that mattered.

He had her. That was what she needed. He’d returned control to her, but she offered it back to him, freely surrendering, submitting. Slowly, slowly, the world came back to her room, the physical awareness of his body against hers. He was above her now, one wing shadowing his face because it curved sharply over his shoulder. He had a hand on her cheek.

“Ruth.”

She was weaker than that first time. She couldn’t form words yet, her body an empty husk. He put his wrist to her mouth, but she was too weak to bite, so he punctured the artery with his own fangs, then returned it to her lips.