He glanced down and shrugged, his mouth quirked in a sardonic smile that showed just the barest tips of his fangs. "How about a jaunty cap instead?"
She was still giggling as he kissed her again. When he slid into the wet cleft of her body, her giggles turned to sighs and then to moans of pleasure. He'd learned how to play every inch of her by now, and he was ruthless in his seduction. She surrendered to him wholly, crying out as he brought her to a swift, fevered orgasm.
"My God," she panted, her own fangs filling her mouth as he stoked her toward another shattering release. "Merry Christmas to me."
His answering growl was one of pure masculine pride. "You should see what I do for birthdays."
She laughed drowsily and gazed up at him. The sight of him this close and intimate felt so familiar now, so right. The feel of his na**d body pressed against hers was as natural to her as her own breath, her own heartbeat.
And the warm knot that squeezed so tightly in her breast, and traveled lower still, into her very core, was an ache she hoped never to lose.
Deep down, she wondered if she should be afraid.
Because somehow, she realized she had fallen in love with Sterling Chase.
CHAPTER THIRTY
THE DREAM ROARED UP on Jenna from out of nowhere.
Asleep in Brock's arms, she'd been in and out of awareness, drifting from one fragile dreamscape to another.
Then came the blanket of dark gray fog. It swept her away without warning, taking her far from her conscious mind, into that of another being.
The Ancient.
The alien part of her that was merging with her humanity, strengthening the part of her that had once been mortal. Creating something ... other.
It was this part of her that commanded her mind's eye now, as the thick fog carried her deeper into the realm of his memories. She rode it into the twilit shade of a dense primeval forest surrounded by jagged pinnacles of soaring sandstone rock. In the distance, great fires burned, choking the landscape with smoke and swirling ash.
She ran toward it, metal armor strapped to her glyph-covered chest and thighs, jangling with every long stride of her bare, blood-spattered feet. Clutched in her hand was a long sword, a crude implement of mankind's world, with its hammered iron blade and leather-wrapped hilt. But it would suffice. It had bitten off more than one enemy's head tonight.
In a few moments, it would feed again.
Loose earth crunched beneath her feet as she ran toward the smoke of a burning encampment. Some of her brethren were there already, locked in combat with the legion they'd been hunting across continents and many long centuries.
Jenna's unearthly battle cry shook the spindly pines and basalt towers as she charged forward, through the curtain of thick black smoke and the bloodied carnage scattered on the ground.
In response, the massive silhouette of an enemy warrior came out of a crouch over one of the fallen. He pivoted to face her as she cleaved her sword in a powerful, killing arc. Long blond hair, gathered in thin braids that were stiff with drying blood and sweat, swung away from his face as he wheeled around to meet the threat she brought.
He wore no plates of armor over his bare chest, only hammered metal cuffs on his muscled forearms. Loose white sentry's pants were filthy with blood and gore and dirt, hanging in ragged tatters above his sandaled feet.
Jenna's inelegant blade descended on him, a blow he blocked with a swift, double-fisted twist of his polished spear. The weapons sparked off each other, the sword shrieking a metallic protest as the staff deflected its path and sent it sweeping downward.
Jenna felt her mouth move, the voice that wasn't hers speaking words in a long-dead language that didn't belong to the Ancient either. "Your queen cannot hide forever, Atlantean."
"No," the warrior replied, fierce eyes narrowed with fury. "But she doesn't need forever. She need only outlive you and your savage kind. And she will."
He brought up the long staff and, in the glow of flames licking skyward all around them, firelight glinted off the symbol that adorned the spear's hilt and the shining metal cuffs on his arms: It was a crescent moon, poised to catch the falling teardrop that hovered above its cradle. The same symbol that every Breedmate bore as a birthmark somewhere on her body. Jenna had no time to process the uncanny revelation or the stunning implications of what it could mean.
Her arm came up, sword raised high.
She swung, using all of the preternatural power at her command. Her enemy dodged. A mere fraction too late.
The iron blade cleaved into flesh and bone and sinew, a punishing hit to his shoulder. Blood surged like a fountain from where the sentry's arm dangled uselessly at his side, all but severed. In the cradle of his palm, a bright light began to glow in the shape of the same symbol he wore on his weaponry and armor. He was injured and weakened now, but it would take more than a lost limb to end the warrior's immortal existence.
Jenna breathed in the scent of spilling enemy lifeblood and felt the rush of a savage exhilaration race through her.
She roared with it, victorious. Conquering.
Unstoppable.
She hauled back on the blade again and let it swing, burying it deep in her enemy's neck. Light erupted as his head broke away from his body. The glare of it was blinding, as pure and milky white as the full moon hanging in the night sky.
The beam flared brighter, impossibly so ... and then it was gone.
An immortal flame snuffed forever by the sword she held in her alien hand.
"Jenna!" The deep voice called to her through the billowing soot and the clash of weapons not far from where she stood. Strong hands took hold of her, shook her hard. "Jenna, can you hear me? Jenna, damn it, wake up!"
She came out of the dream gasping, clutching onto Brock, who was now sitting up on the bed beside her. His eyes were wide and worried. His big hands roamed over her face, brushing aside the strands of hair that clung to her damp brow.