Beckham’s proclamation stunned the rest of the group. Reyna was standing on a precipice. Her life irrevocably changed. Altered and rearranged. No longer was she on the sidelines of her life. She was in charge. She was in control.
“We all know that the main goal is to take out Harrington and hamstring Visage. With Harrington out of the helm, we can go a long way toward reducing Visage to their actual purpose rather than stretching their influence as they have been doing the last decade. No more prisoners under their headquarters. No more taking advantage of the poor. No more Blood Census or identity bracelets. Absolutely no feeding camps,” Reyna said. “Balance. Equality. That’s what we want.”
Everyone was nodding. As if they were all getting back on the same wavelength after so much loss.
“Our first priority remains making contact with the the safe houses and regrouping with the rest of Elle.” Reyna turned to Beckham. “You have someone good with tech?”
Beckham’s grin was a feral thing that sent chills down her spine. He was giving her a look that said he wasn’t used to being ordered around. There were few he allowed it from. Very very few.
“Zoya,” he finally said.
The black woman stepped forward. She was short but lethal. When she smiled, it was more like a grimace, her fangs revealed in all their glory. Reyna was glad to have never met her before she started working for the good guys.
“At your service,” Zoya said with a wicked gleam in her eye.
Reyna paused for a second before speaking. She didn’t know how she felt about ordering around Beckham’s army. But she’d deal with that later. “Zoya, work with Tye, Gabe, and Meghan to reach the rest of our group. Once we’re back to capacity, then we can begin to form a plan as to how to stop Harrington.”
A well-thought-out and thorough plan. Not like the one she’d ad hocked together out of anger from Brian’s capture. One that would cripple William Harrington for good.
Zoya moved to speak with Meghan, Gabe, and Tye while Beckham turned to address the rest of his inner circle. Katarina laughed at something he said and then dragged Philippé out of the room. Gerard melted into the background and stood like a statue. It was hard to believe this sinister vampire had been her driver. What had he been doing acting as chauffer when he was Beckham’s second-in-command?
“Inspiring speech, miss,” Genevieve said, appearing at Reyna side.
Washington was standing next to her. “It truly was.”
“Reminded me of the old days with Mistress Elisa,” Genevieve said with a dreamy expression on her face. It was as equally hard to believe this meek and demure woman was a vampire.
“Who is Mistress Elisa?” Reyna asked.
Washington’s lips turned down. “My wife.”
Then he turned and walked away.
Genevieve patted her arm. “I shouldn’t have brought her up. She and Master Washington were together many years before she passed on. She was a fearsome leader of the vampires. She had a vision for Visage much like yours. It was Harrington who manipulated it.”
Reyna sighed and stared off after Washington. “And he killed her for it?”
Genevieve nodded. “Unfortunately.”
“Sounds like a horrible loss.”
“It was. It truly was. Well, I must be getting back, but if you need anything at all, let me know. I will be around.”
“Thank you, Genevieve.”
Reyna sensed Beckham’s presence at her back before she felt the brush of his fingers against her sleeve.
“Elisa was before my time as well,” he said. “They say she was a visionary.”
She turned around to face him. Her heart melted at the sight of him.
After hearing everything he had to say and getting the rebellion back on track, she suddenly felt exhausted. Beckham didn’t need her to say anything. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and escorted her upstairs and into his room.
He swept a blank glance around it. “You are staying here?”
“Washington told me it was yours.” She nearly choked on the words. “It was all I had of you…other than the memories.”
He tilted her chin up. “You’ve changed.”
“I thought you were dead.”
“I told you that if the world didn’t break you, I would. And here you are.” He looked suddenly pissed. As if he was going to start raging about the room, even though he was the most in control person she had ever met.
“I was broken,” she admitted hollowly. “But then…then you put me back together.”
He shot her an incredulous look.
“If I crumpled, then your death would be for nothing. You wanted better than that for me. You always protected me, but you also kindled the fire within me. Letting it go out would be to dishonor your memory.”
“And in the meantime, you became the leader of Elle?” he asked, pushing his hands into his pockets. His voice was dry with sarcasm. “That would certainly keep you safe.”
“Truthfully, I didn’t much care about my own safety.” Reyna ran a hand back through her hair. “I’d lost both of my brothers and my sister-in-law. Jodie was missing. Elle was blown up. And the person I cared the most about—my blood match, my soul mate, was dead.”
“Soul mate,” he said slowly. Reyna had never seen fear in those onyx eyes, but suddenly it was there.
“Yes. Washington said that a blood match is similar to a soul mate. A one-of-a-kind match.”
He seemed incredulous. “I’d have to have a soul for that, Little One.”
Reyna took a step back. “Becks, of course you have a soul.”
“No. That much I’m certain of.”
“You are determined to see the worst in yourself.”
“I see the reality,” he told her.
“Why am I surprised that even when you come back from the dead you argue with me?” Reyna shook her head. “How did you find me?”
“I sensed you.”
“Out here?” she gasped. “We’re an hour from the city.”
“You came into the city. When I woke up and got to the safe house, I thought you must be dead because I tried to sense you and felt nothing. If Gerard hadn’t come to help me, I would be dead right now. But then I felt your presence. I knew precisely where you were.”
“I went into the city to get Jodie back. I can’t believe you could sense me then. I didn’t feel anything. Definitely nothing like when you showed up here.”
“Maybe it was because I had your blood in my system. Either way, I nearly went mad trying to leave to go to you, but Gerard wouldn’t let me.”
“Why?” she whispered. “Did he not want you to see me?”
“No. It wasn’t that. I was too…weak to leave,” he admitted with distaste. “I used all my energy in getting information out of Penelope and then fleeing. I’d never been so drained in my life. As if my body had used every last bit of energy to knit me back together and I was left with nothing.”
She could see the toll that had taken on him. After thinking she was dead, he couldn’t even go to her when he’d realized she was alive. She would have gone mad too. Especially considering his physical prowess was integral to who he was…losing that had to have been debilitating.
“It took a week of near-constant feeding to begin recovering. I’m still not where I was.” He growled that last bit. A condemnation of himself.
She reached over and gently touched his hand. “You found me. I’m here. We’re both alive and safe.” Her hand moved to his jaw and he met her gaze. “Let me help you get healthy.”
His eyes narrowed. “No.”
“Becks,” she said softly. “I am your blood match. My blood must have helped save your life. It’s the only explanation. We need you at full capacity. Let me use my blood to help.”
He took a step back.
“When are you going to trust me?” she asked in frustration.
The look he shot her said everything she needed to know. He trusted her but he wasn’t going to put her at risk. He’d done that time and again. Even when he’d seen that he could control himself drinking from her. Now more than ever she wanted them to surrender to this.
She’d left that patio with his death on her conscience and his bloody jacket on her shoulders. She never wanted to waste another moment.
Reyna took his hand in hers and pulled him toward the bed. She didn’t say anything. Words were useless between them anyway. They could speak with stolen glances and quirked lips and heated skin and gentle touches. Their bodies could speak for them. Express all the things that they couldn’t bring themselves to say. All the fears that had clouded their minds for too long.
No more.
She wouldn’t live in fear.
She would only live in the moment.
She had her Becks back. It was a miracle. And she was going to treat it like one.
Her hands moved to his jacket. She slipped them under the material and pushed it off his shoulders. He didn’t move to stop her. Just quirked an eyebrow in her direction.
She smirked at him. Then moved to the buttons on his black shirt. She started at the top, slowly unbuttoning it until his chest was bare before her. Her nails grazed the solid chest and muscled abdomen. He was as formidable as a brick wall and every inch promised certain death. But not for her.
His shirt followed his jacket onto the floor and her hands skimmed over his shoulders, across the bulging biceps, over his forearms, to his hands. Those beautiful hands with long fingers and broad palms. Hands that had caressed her cheeks and grasped her ass firmly and commanded her body.
Reyna stripped out of her shirt and placed those amazing hands on her waist. She shivered at his touch, which was a shade cooler than her superheated body. His fingers flexed into her skin. They were possessive. Claiming her flesh as his own, running those fingers up her ribs and around to her back. He flicked the clasp of her bra. Her breasts fell forward out of their enclosure and the bra hit the floor. His hands skimmed around to the front of her body, covering her breasts. The pads of his thumbs flicking against her erect nipples.
A moan escaped her lips. Her back arched into the palms of his hands and she closed her eyes. Desire shot straight to her core. He pinched a nipple roughly and she squirmed under the attention. Her body pulsing as desire soaked her panties.
“I can smell you,” he said, brushing a fang against the shell of her ear.
She shivered in anticipation and reached for his belt buckle.
“I can sense everything about you,” he said, dipping his hand inside her jeans. “But the smell of you is purely primal.”
She yanked his belt loose and tugged down his zipper.
“Oh and you’re so wet,” he groaned like a prayer.
She shuddered under his touch as he slicked a finger through her wetness and dragged it back up to her clit. He stroked slow methodical circles around her most sensitive area. She lost all cognitive thought as he toyed with her.
“Oh fuck,” she gasped.
In that moment, she didn’t care how he had come back. Just that he was here. And she needed him more furiously than she had ever needed anyone or anything.
Her body responded like a struck match. Every touch fanned the flames until she was ready to combust. And still he didn’t stop. His fingers dominating her clit. His touch clouding her senses. Everything coalescing into the one thought: Beckham is alive.
He was alive and here and touching her. He wanted her and needed her. Her life was still moving forward. It wasn’t completely derailed. And he was here to see her come out on top despite the hell she’d had to endure. It was insanity that kidnapping and prison had crippled her so much, but his death had only made her want to fight back. To make people pay for what had been taken from her. And she wasn’t going to stop until they did pay.
Because he may be here, but they’d done everything they could to take him from her.
“Stop thinking,” Beckham said, as if he’d read her mind. “Come for me, Little One.”
She moaned on a breath and released all the tension in her body. Her brow smoothed, her jaw relaxed, her body sagged—and then it hit her like a freight train. The orgasm ripped through her as unexpectedly as Beckham’s presence here.
She crumpled forward into him. He kissed her hair softly and then lifted her into his arms. She put hers around his neck as he placed her on the bed then crawled in after her. Her jeans melted away and he shucked off his own.
Reyna stripped back the comforter with a coy smile and sank onto the dark blue silk sheets. Her hair fanned out around her head, dark and alluring, while he towered over her, dark and terrifying. An unlikely match—and yet somehow perfect in every way.
“I have waited a lifetime for you,” Beckham said.
“I thought I’d have to live mine without you.”
He stroked a finger across her cheek before slanting his mouth on hers. It was a kiss of claiming. A kiss filled with loss and heartbreak and renewal and hope. It was everything she could ever want in a kiss, and more. It meant he was here. He was really here. Above everything else…he was here and he was hers.
She wanted to take her time getting reacquainted with his body, but one kiss was her undoing. She clawed at the remaining clothes that separated them. He grinned against her mouth before obligingly removing his boxers.
When he got to her black underwear, he didn’t seem quite as in control as he’d been with his own. He hastily ripped the material in two and tossed it onto the floor. She laughed at the abruptness and then immediately groaned as his mouth replaced his hands.
Just when she thought she was going to come all over again, his mouth moved to her inner thigh. He inhaled sharply right at the apex and leisurely ran his tongue along the main artery.
“Oh God, Becks, please,” she groaned. Sure, he needed to heal, but she’d be lying if she said she didn’t want him to sink his fangs into her. To claim her in every way that he could.
“Reyna…”
She thrust her pelvis up and rolled her hips achingly. She wanted him so bad. She wasn’t above begging.
Then she felt the prick. She gasped at the first feeling of pain, which was instantly smothered by pleasure as he sank his fangs in her artery and began to drink. Endorphins flooded her system. The vamp venom heightened everything in her body, especially the intense pleasure. If she got too much, she knew it could make her really disoriented and even knock her out. But she trusted that he was going to take only enough to make him feel better…and to make her see stars.
Fight or flight was kicking in, amping up the adrenaline in her body and sending her into a frenzy. It was what had sent her running from Beckham the first night that he drank from her. It was what made humans fear vampires. But the adrenaline could make you want more too. It was a rush. Hot and primal and exotic. It sent heat straight to her core, heating her up and making her body practically vibrate with need.
Then just as quickly as he’d gone in, he came up, breathing heavily with blood on his lips and looking as if he was ready to orgasm. His pupils blasted out and his sharp features heightened.
“You,” he groaned.
“Me?” she asked breathily.
He moved up her body and she reached in between them, taking his cock in her hand. His eyes closed for a split second at the touch. She stroked him idly as the rest of the venom flooded her system, giving her the best high of her fucking life.
“Taste like Heaven.”
“My blood or my pussy?” she joked.
He arched an eyebrow. “Both.”
Then he kissed her, filling her mouth with the taste of her body. He grabbed both of her hands and pushed them over her head before thrusting forward into her body. His mouth muffled her cry of desire as he moved in and out of her in the most delicious way.
Beckham Anderson had stolen her heart, he owned her body, and as they came together, their souls touched.