Okay, I promised you a third and final excerpt before the July release date, and here it is! I was looking for a good excerpt that didn’t provide spoilers, and interestingly, it’s another one that starts with Elisa sleeping in Mal’s bed, the one that seems to have some magical properties to it. This is right after a dramatic event out on the preserve where he had to intervene between her and a lion… (Oh, and if you need a reminder from the Chapter One excerpt, remember she was raped by one of the fledglings, Victor, before she came to the island – he’s the one who killed Willis.) There’s a few other things in here that may seem a little confusing, but I’ll hold off explaining those unless someone directly asks so I don’t spoil the story (wink). Hope you like this...
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Her dreams took her into darkness, and she was afraid there. Afraid of the black loneliness, the scent of blood and fear, and anger. Screams, and Victor dragging her. Elisa struggled to get away from the memory, but it sucked her in. In this veiled world, she was a ghost doomed to endure the same act, again and again.
Her fear was Victor’s entertainment, a toy that made sounds if pressed certain ways. She would never forget that feeling, and she wanted to forget it more than she’d ever wanted anything in her life. He’d made her believe she was completely insignificant. There was no God, no devil, no real meaning to all of it. She was a dust mote, swept up in a pan with other dirt and tossed into the yard. Things were getting so very dark . . .
“Elisa.”
Elisa. Come back to me. Come out of there.Were there places one wasn’t supposed to go in the dreams offered by this bed? Shadowed, fearful places? Turning, she wasn’t sure what way to go, but in the end she followed his voice, crawling out of blood and death toward a room lit by candles. A concerned, strong face was poised over hers, his features familiar and yet new, different, something she could explore with her fingertips over and over and find them amazing. “Make me matter,” she whispered. “Bring me back. Make me forget.”
Mal bent, his hip pressing against her. Turning her face away, she gave him her throat, and when she felt his mouth and then his fangs, she wanted to weep and hold on to him. She did both, her fingers curled hard into his biceps as his arm slid beneath her, drew her close. He drank from her, letting her nourish him, give him life. As he did, she let those tears fall among the soft furs, the animal totems that protected his island.
“Am I supposed to be in your bed?” The words came out thick as she lifted a heavy, logy hand, tangled it in his hair as he continued to tease blood from her throat.
I told them to put you here, Elisa.“I saw you playing with the cubs.” She closed her eyes, tightening her grip as he slid his hand down to her breast, stroking and kneading in a soothing way, those capable hands. She stilled, remembering. Her fingers found the leg he had crooked on the bed. He’d changed trousers, of course, because if he’d continued with his duties, he wouldn’t want the other cats spooked or agitated by the scent of his blood. But she remembered the swipe of that big cat’s paw, how Mal had twisted beneath the lion, contorting to break the hold, get on top.
He’d saved her. She’d been terrified, seeing him go down under hundreds of pounds of muscled feline flesh. Yes, unless Thai the lion had somehow ripped off his head, Mal couldn’t be killed, but if he’d been forced to unconsciousness and dragged off, beyond where she and Tokala could find him in time, Thai might have eaten him. She expected having his heart and other internal organs digested might be as effective as a stake. And she would have lost another man who made her feel . . . significant.
“If you give the pants to me, I’ll sew them.” Her voice had that detestable tremor again, no help for it. “Thank you for saving my life.”
Shhh, girl. Just hush and feel.Her eyes closed tighter, two men overlapping in her mind at the endearment that linked the past with the present. You weren’t supposed to think about one man while you were with another, but this didn’t really seem like that. She wasn’t preferring one over the other. It was as if one was a continuation of the other, a strangeness she couldn’t really explain.
When his lips moved on her neck, his fangs retracting, it shuddered through her body like he’d withdrawn from her after a more carnal penetration. As he straightened, his hand slipped to her hip. She’d been too tired or Kohana had been too respectful, so she was still wearing her trousers. His touch skirted that area the pants delineated so precisely. Some of the churchgoers in Perth thought a decent woman didn’t wear pants, probably for that reason. Of course, it delineated that same part of men, but good girls didn’t look at that. She’d challenge any of those wowsers not to look at what Mal had to offer in his daks, though.
He blinked at her. “Wowsers?”
“People who . . . Prudes?”
He nodded. “It’s a unique thing, to be in your mind and not understand half of what you’re saying.”
“A bad thing?”
A smile touched his lips as his hand continued to wander, down over her knees, giving her a tickle that made her squirm. The smile faded as he watched the way her body moved. “No. Not a bad thing. Your fledglings are safely back in their enclosures and Jeremiah is fine.”
“They did well, didn’t they? Did . . . I?”
He regarded her, his face settling into those more remote lines she knew too well. She was chattel to him, but she also knew if he told her he wasn’t going to take her back to see them for a while, she might not be able to hold it all in. Seeing them tonight, being part of what happened, had meant so much to her that almost being mauled by a lion couldn’t overshadow it.
“Elisa.” He looked toward the wall, obviously pushing back a sigh. She waited, her hands closing into tense balls. One rested by her side, but the other had naturally followed the line of his biceps to his thigh when he straightened. It now waited there, a closed knot reflecting her bated emotions.
“Starting tomorrow, a staff member will take you to the fledglings’ area for a couple hours each night. You’ll interact with them there, and provide me information on how our outings seem to be impacting their behavior with you. I will continue taking them out in small groups every other night, and we’ll reassess in two weeks. All right?”
She nodded, a quick jerk. Rising, he pulled the covers over her more securely. “Sleep now. You need more rest.”
“Aren’t you going to stay?” Lord, what was she doing? And what must he think of her for even implying such a forward thing? She straightened then, sliding out the other side of the bed before he could stop her. It was reassuring to find the ankle was tender but able to bear weight as she snatched up the sneakers Kohana had left for her there. “This is your bed, sir. Nice as it was to give you breakfast, I’ll sleep upstairs so I won’t be a bother. And thank you. I’ll be a big help to you, I will . . .”
Whoa. She’d forgotten she’d just fed him. The room spun alarmingly as she straightened with the shoes in her hand. But in the next blink, she was against his chest, hands curled in the fabric of his shirt, his hands steadying her. “Wow, you move fast.” She blinked, trying to focus. “Like with that lion. Is he okay? Was the dream true?”
That she’d asked after the lion seemed to surprise him, but he nodded when she dropped her head back on her shoulders to look at him. “Good. Wasn’t his fault that I looked like good eating. Doing all that limping.” She frowned, thinking. “That’s what Kohana meant, when he said he can’t work on the open preserve anymore. Because of his limp. I kept wondering, because he’s so strong and capable.”
“Yes. It’s why birds sometimes fake having a broken wing to draw a cat from a nest. A predator can’t resist something that seems weak or injured, particularly when they’re seeking a meal. And it’s why rarely anything that is less than what it needs to be survives in the wild.”
“Don’t do that.” Pushing back from him then, she took a couple steps away to stand on her own two feet. “You say I’m obsessed with being with them, but you’re obsessed with making me believe they have no future.”
“I’m preparing you for a reality that may be unavoidable.”
“Reality’s going to come, no matter what. That kind of reality, there’s no preparing for it.” She met his gaze. “There was no preparing for what happened with Victor. Nothing I could have done to make it less horrible in my memory, or give me less nightmares. Or make losing Willis hurt less. Except maybe not love him, not want to be with him, not cherish every brief moment we had. But if I had done that, I would never have had those moments.
“People who say ‘prepare for reality’ are just guarding their hearts, is all. To keep them from loving and giving, because everyone knows those things can hurt worse than being trampled by cattle.” She managed a smile then, a quiet thing in the darkness that gave her comfort where he couldn’t, standing on the other side of that gulf of belief about her children. “But it also feels better than anything else, when you have it.”
He said nothing, and she knew there was no help for it, not tonight. But everything in the world changed if you worked hard enough at it. Even a vampire who thought he knew everything and who—sometimes—she was afraid actually did. She swallowed that thought and the fear that came with it and let her gaze skitter over the dark eyes and unrelenting features.
“Thank you again, sir. Good night.”
“Elisa.”
She turned at the door, trying to look anywhere but directly at him. “Yes, sir?”
“Did I say you could leave?”
She swallowed again, met his eyes. Briefly. “No, sir. What can I . . . Do you need something?”
He nodded. “I want you to undress in front of me.”
“Oh. Well.” She set the shoes aside, arranging them tidily on the floor, next to a pair of his boots that had been dropped there haphazardly. She straightened them, too. Her fingers were shaking and her body felt hot all over, and when she stood up, he was right up against her back, but she didn’t jump. Instead, her breath caught in the back of her throat as he gripped her biceps.
“Are you truly good at sewing, Elisa?”
“Yes, sir, very good. Small stitches and—”
She gasped as he ripped the front of her blouse, sending the buttons clattering away across the floor. His thumbs found the tops of the bra cups, sliding down to tease areola and then nipple, making her arch into him, pressing her buttocks into the hardness of his cock and feeling an answering spear of wetness between her legs, readying herself for him.
Of a sudden, she was ravenous. She’d almost been killed tonight, but she hadn’t been. She was alive, alive. When she would have twisted in his arms, he pressed her hard against the wall, cold stone against her hot flesh. He kept her pinned there as his hands wandered down, opening her trousers and sliding into them to verify that wetness for himself.
“That’s it,
atsilusgi,” he murmured as she cried out under his clever ministrations, coating his fingers with her slickness so that he slid three fingers right into her, almost up to the second knuckle. His groan as she instinctively rubbed her backside into his cock fueled her desire. She wanted him inside, needed him to roar and rut upon her like one of the lions, because she was alive, alive,
alive.
“You’re eating more,” he observed in that husky voice, one hand traveling back up to caress the breast. He’d worked the strap off her shoulder so it was exposed, a wanton dishabille. “I like that.”
He was rubbing her, slow, slow circles between her legs. Her hips were working back against him, erratic, the feeling in her lower belly needy, going straight toward mindless. Good Lord, who knew a male could touch a woman like this?
“You will continue to eat more. And at dawn, every night, you will be here. You will take off all your clothes so I can see these gorgeous breasts of yours, your delectable ass. And I will determine if you are filling out properly. If I’m not here yet, you will lie in my bed and wait for me.” His voice dropped, became even huskier, as stunning a stroke upon her sex as his hands. “And perhaps I will use the second mark to speak in your mind, tell you to touch yourself the way you’ve thought about doing in your own bed. You won’t do that unless I’m watching you, unless I command you to do it. I’d like to see you bring yourself to orgasm the way I’ll do it now, fingers inside your cunt, your body flushed and throat working, crying out.”
She let out a guttural moan. Vampires weren’t like human males, so distracted by their own lust they couldn’t form coherent sentences. His ability to talk in or out of her mind, driving her to insanity, didn’t seem to diminish his lust one centigrade as he lifted his head, cupped her face and drew her head back to a straining angle to look up into his face.
“What do you say to me, Elisa? How do you answer me?”
“Y-yes . . . sir.” She stared up into his face, the craving need to say it greater than her fear. “Yes . . . Master.”
His eyes flamed then and he had his mouth on hers, letting her taste him and the remnants of the blood he’d taken from her. He still didn’t let her turn, kissing her thoroughly until she was writhing between him and that wall, all but begging for his fingers to take her where they were teasing her to go. Instead, he told her to stay where she was, facing the wall, and divested her of every scrap of clothing, putting them all to the side as she trembled, experiencing him only through the feel of his hands trailing down her shoulders, her back, over her buttocks.
“Spread your legs for me, Elisa,” he said. “And don’t move another muscle.” She did, holding that position, her hands pressed flat on the rock above her, toes gripping the smooth stone tile floor beneath as the heel of his palm made solid contact with her pussy, sealing over it. She held still, even as a tremulous wail, a soft, short cry, came from her throat at the intensity of feeling that went through her. There was a light sheen of perspiration on her body. He worked his palm on her, a slow back-and-forth as she quivered.
“Are you wanton enough to do my bidding, Irish flower? Or will you be shy?”
She couldn’t speak over a dry throat. “I’ll do anything you wish, Master.”
She was alone suddenly, standing there stretched out against the wall, but she stayed there, didn’t look around until he spoke. “Then come here.”
Turning, she found he was on the bed now, as gloriously naked as herself, his clothes kicked away. He had his hand out. “Walk across the floor toward me, let me see how beautiful you are, the way your body moves. Then I’m going to put you on my cock and make you ride me until you climax hard.”
On top of him? Like experiencing his mouth between her legs, she’d never done that. She walked toward him then, trying not to be self-conscious. Faith, but vampires didn’t have any sense of modesty, no sense of making love in the dark or hiding under sheets.
What point would there be in that, when what I want to see is the way your curls shine in the firelight, the way your breasts move as you walk, the juices from your cunt damp on your thighs?She trembled so hard she wasn’t sure she would make it, but then her fingers closed over that extended hand. She focused on his face, his mouth, then reached those burning, implacable eyes that wanted everything from her and wouldn’t take no as an answer. No didn’t exist anywhere inside her when he looked at her like this. This beautiful, amazing, wild and savage creature.
“You all are such a strange lot,” she whispered as he brought her alongside of him. “So decadent and frightening, but so hard to resist. It makes things hurt inside me.”
“Where?” His voice was soft, his eyes like one of his cats, so deep and dark.
She pressed the heel of her hand on her sternum, where all that pressure seemed to be building. He sat up then, keeping her between his thighs, his aroused cock brushing her lower belly. When he put his arm around her waist, brought her closer, tears burned in the back of her throat as he laid his lips lightly, so lightly on that column of bone that descended between her breasts. He turned his head, brushing his hair across her skin, and nuzzled.
“A vampire likes fear, Elisa,” he whispered, “but the only kind I want you to experience right now has to do with pleasure. You understand me?”
“Yes, sir. I know you won’t hurt me.”
Cupping her head in one broad hand, he met her eye to eye. “What about you? Will you hurt me?”
It was so unexpected, the gleam in his eyes, a nervous chuckle sputtered from her lips. “I’ll do my best not to cause you any permanent damage.”
“On the contrary”—now his mouth was back at her jaw, cruising and making her mind wobble on its axis again—“I want to drive you to mindless savagery. I want to feel your claws dig into my flesh, your teeth snap at my throat. I want you to squeeze me inside of you as if you want to trap me there forever.”
“Oh,” she breathed, and then she caught his shoulders as he lifted her effortlessly onto his lap, holding her just above his groin.
“Put me inside of you, Elisa. Let me see your hand grip me.”
It was all new territory. Mechanically, she’d done some things like this, but in truth, it was all so very different. She gripped the thick base, marveling at how the wetness at the head kissed her wrist, and took a moment touching him, running her grip up that length, then back down again.
Elisa, I gave you a very specific command. But his mind-voice held a strain that told her he liked what she was doing, so she did it again, her gaze flicking up to him to see it register in his face, wry acceptance, enduring her innocence, and growing ferocity, held back only by a thread. Then, in one smooth motion, he shifted his grip to her hips so he brought her forward and sheathed himself to the hilt, dislodging her hands.
The feeling was like a bolt of lightning straight up through her. She sucked in another breath at the tight spiral of pain and lust that spun through her torso as he held her down, wouldn’t let her move on him yet. Bringing her fingers to her lips, she tasted him while he watched. But when she would have done it with the other hand, he shook his head.
“Rub that one over your nipple. I want my scent upon you there.”
She did, discovering the decadent pleasure in that, such that she cupped the curve before his avid gaze and became bolder, passing her fingers over the hardened tip.
As she watched him watching her, something in his gaze changed. “Sir?”
He passed his fingers over where hers were, making her quiver a bit under his touch, but then he rested them on top of her knuckles, holding them both there as she breathed, her heart pounding, matching the pulse in her sex where he was lodged so deeply.
Mal followed the pulse up to her throat, then to those large blue eyes, the fringe of lashes, the tightening of her mouth against her passion. Many of the female third-marked servants he’d met were polished creatures, who never would have had the slightly chapped pink lips or callused hands of someone who did manual labor. But Elisa suited him in that regard. His hands had never been without calluses, before he became a vampire. Over time, because a vampire with his regenerative abilities couldn’t reflect wear and tear on the body, the calluses had faded away. He missed them sometimes.
He wasn’t polished. His sire had taught him all manner of ways to exercise his sexual dominance, and so he knew all sorts of ways to give a woman pleasure. But he’d never unleashed his carnal nature like this. She wasn’t his third-marked servant, but he was acting the way he’d been told all vampires acted toward their first one. He, who understood animal behavior so well, had discarded tales of such unbridled sexual aggression as a generalization. Yet here he was, taking her over, commanding her to his will. Obsessed with owning her every reaction, every caught breath, the dazed light in her eyes, the trembling in her thighs.
“Ride me, Elisa. Do it now. Push yourself beyond what you know.”
Subject: Vampire Instinct Excerpt #3 - Last one until Release! 
Tue May 31, 2011 5:05 pm
Made my day!!! 
PMSL!!!!!! Happy to help........
I seem to be on a perennial count down: 
tssssss OW! another scorcher and loved it! Thankyou Author Mistress for another awesome sneak peak. Can't wait for the full story and yay my Mums hooking me up with a kindle and has preordered my copy for my bday WHOOP! WHOOP! Aww much love for Musette, she's got my back 
The only stalker I'd be happy with stalking me lol
)