Divination of My Heart

"The joining or the pain?" Thomas asked sarcastically.

"The pain on joining is unavoidable, though your body will quickly repair itself leading to our mutual enjoyment." Julien smiled devastatingly. "But the joining itself is inevitable."

That was when Thomas knew there would be no running and no escaping Julien. They were both as Julien said they were. Vampires. The walking undead. And it wasn't Julien's outrageous statement that his body would instantly regenerate itself which led Thomas to his conclusion.

He believed now because of what he saw. Earlier he'd felt Julien's bite which had triggered his dizzying spiral into pleasure, but he hadn't seen his fangs. Now he did see them. And they caused his limp staff to instantly re-harden and his own fangs to lengthen in response.

Free of all inhibitions, Thomas raised a hand to Julien's face. He stroked a finger down first one, then the other, long, dangerously sharp canine. Julien's sharp inhalation is what finally broke his attention.

On noticing Julien's eyes screwed tightly shut, faced contorted in abject discomfort, Thomas jerked his hand away. "My apologies, Julien. I didn't mean to hurt you."

"You didn't hurt me, little one," Julien murmured, opening his eyes. The desire burning in the coal black depths branded Thomas with its intensity. "On the contrary, you bring me great joy."

Julien settled himself between Thomas's thighs. The oil slicked hand moved to Thomas's rear entrance, but went no further. Julien rested the tip of one finger there, silently asking permission with his eyes.

Ironic that the man who'd remarked on his expressive eyes did so much talking with his own set.

"Thomas?" Julien questioned.

Thomas took a deep breath. It was on the tip of his tongue to say no, to shield some part of himself from this vampire who he knew without a shadow of any doubt wanted to claim and own all of him, right down to his very soul as he'd previously said. He opened his mouth, ran his tongue over his lips, stopped when he reached the tip of one of his own long, dangerously sharp canines.

If he said no, there was still a possibility for self-preservation.

"Thomas...?"

There was still a possibility for...nothing. Just as Julien had claimed Thomas for himself, Thomas knew Julien belonged to him.

And there was no existence without Julien.

"Do it."

The finger eased into his passage. It was quickly joined by a second and third and the fullness and pressure Thomas experienced as the fingers twisted and turned was a discomfort quickly replaced by a wave of forceful pleasure when a certain spot was skimmed.

Julien pulled his fingers almost all the way out and the wave had just begun to recede into a poignant memory when he eased them back in again. He quickly found the same spot, this time massaging it.

"Julien," Thomas gasped, back arching off the bed, bottom bearing down on the hand home to the invading fingers.

"Feels good, no?" Julien responded with a wicked grin. He gathered some of the liquid leaking from Thomas's rod onto his fingers, quickly bringing them to his lips. He plunged his fingers into his mouth, sucking them clean, then repeated the routine a second time. "You're ready."

This time the fingers were removed all the way. Thomas didn't have a chance to think about the resulting emptiness as the very tip of Julien's staff now rested at his entrance. Slowly, Julien pressed forward, pushing past the resistant rings to fill Thomas completely.

Thomas briefly experienced the pain Julien had spoken off, but he didn't dwell on it as there was a staggering reality of great importance that he now found himself faced with. Julien wasn't just filling the void left by his fingers, Thomas realized, he was filling a void, a deep chasm, inside of Thomas's soul that he hadn't even realized existed.

The knowledge that he was whole for the first time in his life astounded him and he valiantly tried to figure out how he'd gone eighteen years without ever knowing such a big part of him was missing.

"We're lifemates," Julien said gently, an odd expression on his intent face as he stared down at Thomas. He was buried to the hilt, but held himself absolutely still except for the occasional twitch of his shaft which couldn't be helped. "Listen closely, Thomas, I have to tell you this. This is completely out of character for me, but I feel compelled to give you the chance to make this your choice, something I wasn't going to do."

"I—"

"Listen," Julien admonished, placing a silencing finger to Thomas's lips. "I need to explain this to you, but my willpower is only so strong and we're running out of time before the choice is made for you. You'll always be a vampire as I stole your life from you. I would apologize for my thievery, but I'd be lying if I said I was sorry. I'm not. At all."

"I—"

"You should know the bond which actually ties us together as lifemates has only been initiated, not completed. If you don't want this, I can withdraw now without giving you my seed and blood and the bond will be severed. If you don't want this, if you don't want me, I'll make a gallant effort to let you live your life as you see fit with no interference, but I make no promises."

"Julien—"

"Listen, you little idiot," Julien hissed angrily. "If you don't want this, you have to tell me now. Right this very instant. Because once I start, I'm not going to be able to stop until the bond is completed. And once it's completed, it's irreversible. You will truly be mine—"

"Forever," Thomas finished with a heated buck of his hips which caused Julien's phallus to withdraw and rebury itself. "Now you listen to me, Duke of Williamton, finish what you started or I'm going to make it a personal quest of mine to destroy each and every thing you hold in any kind of regard. So, Julien, I think the choice is actually yours. And I suggest you choose wisely. And I also suggest you never, ever, call me an idiot again."

"Never," Julien agreed with a pained groan. "I'll never call you an idiot again...and I'll never let you go." Julien pulled his hips back. "I'm sorry," he said, regret glimmering briefly in his eyes. "I can't go slow. The need to complete the bond is too great." He slammed his hips forward.

Again and again, Julien pulled out of Thomas only to hammer forward once more. Their coupling was rough, violent. And each thrust sent bolts of ecstasy racing through all parts of Thomas. He could feel the bond as it irrevocably knitted them together, could feel the passion as it united them as one.

For an eternity, Thomas teetered there on the brink of a great precipice, riding the waves of their ardor ever higher until he finally fell victim to the friction created between their two bodies and the rightness of them. His shaft exploded strings of liquid desire across both of their stomachs, a few drops even reaching as high as their chest and necks.

"Mine," Julien grunted, plunging deep.

He collapsed on top of Thomas then, his hips grinding furiously in close quarters, his neck near Thomas's mouth. Reacting on instinct alone, Thomas struck, teeth sinking deep into the soft flesh. As his mouth filled with mouthful after mouthful of Julien's blood, Julien pushed as deep as he could go with an agonized moan and filled Thomas with pulse after pulse of his seed.

The bond was complete. Strong. Unbreakable.

*

Julien watched the peaceful face of his lifemate.

His lifemate.

He still couldn't believe it. He'd honestly thought he'd remorselessly killed his lifemate all those long years ago. And in all the years he'd been walking the earth, he'd only known vampires to each have one lifemate only...that not all were even fortunate enough to find. Humans were frail creatures. And sometimes the life of a lifemate was stolen before the bond was created. Craving an attachment of some sort, he knew of those who chose to settle with another who wasn't their lifemate for any variety of reasons, but they lived together without the true bond ever linking them. Meaning they could walk away from each other at any time, for any reason, with no reservations to hold them back. And then there were others who chose to live their life in solitary. Having now known the true bond himself, Julien knew he could never accept either paltry fate.

If Thomas was destroyed before him, Julien would destroy himself...but only after first disposing of those responsible for Thomas's death.

Truth be told, he'd thought of destroying himself that very night. For a few brief horrible moments while in the garden with Gabriel and Tammy, when he'd realized Gabriel would turn her, he'd thought it was his absolute corruption, his abject degradation that was demanding he issue a challenge. He'd thought that he'd sunk to such a new low that he could only be happy by seeing his closest friend miserable and that's when he'd thought it might be better to end it all right then and there.

Now he didn't have to. He had Thomas to sustain him.

Julien stroked a finger down Thomas's cheek. The blue eyes opened and the sheer magnitude of the adoration and love which shone from them staggered Julien.

"I have something for you," Julien said quietly, ready to face the consequences of his past actions. He got out of the bed and retrieved the necklace from the chest. He returned to stand by the side of the bed and laid the piece of jewelry across Thomas's torso. At Thomas's lifted eyebrow, he explained, "It belonged to your ancestor. A great grandmother many times removed."

"What was her name?" Thomas asked, lifting the piece of jewelry to study it closely in the light cast by the candles.

"I don't know."

The necklace slipped through Thomas's fingers to the bed. "If you didn't know her, how did you end up with something that belonged to her?"

For the first time ever, Julien regretted something. He regretted killing the peasant girl. Before he could think of an answer that would pass as a remotely suitable expression of repentance, a knock came at the door, saving him. Latching onto the reprieve, Julien called, "Enter."

The door swung wide and his trusted butler entered, pulling an elegantly dressed woman behind him who was clearly dazed. Thomas scrambled to cover himself with a sheet, but for his part, Edwards didn't bat an eyelash over Julien's state of undress...or the fact there was an equally naked young man he'd never seen before laying on Julien's bed.

Or the fact he was more than likely delivering a woman to her death.

"Lady Miranda," Edwards announced stonily. "A gift from the Duke and soon-to-be Duchess of Lexington for you and the young master."

"Soon-to-be Duchess of Lexington?" Thomas questioned.

"Your sister," Julien replied.

"The Duke?"

"Gabriel Evans."

"Are they...?"

"Like us."

"Huh. Good for her."

Edwards retreated to the door where he stopped to add, "And Lady Cleo sends her many thanks for the return of her property and for the presentation of the party responsible for its disappearance. She said it's been gone for many years and she cherishes it now just as much as the first time you gifted it to her. She also said she thanks you for the advice and will certainly lock it up someplace safe rather than rebury it so its power doesn't fall into the hands of another silly chit."

After the door closed behind Edwards, Julien glanced at Thomas. Who was staring not at him, but at the woman speculatively.

Although he'd begun their night with every intention of corrupting Thomas's innocence and had succeeded vastly in one area, there were certain other innocences Thomas would have to soon shed. There were inescapable aspects of this new life over which he suspected Thomas would voice fierce objections.

Like how they fed.

The more he thought about it, the more bothered he became. He didn't really want Thomas to lose all of his purity. To become hard and without compunction...to become like him.

"Lady Cleo?" Thomas asked. "As in Cleopatra? You mean she didn't die from the bite of an—"

"Only bite she felt that day was mine, Thomas," Julien interrupted darkly. "Only death she experienced that day was that of her mortality."

He heard Thomas slip from the bed. Was aware of his every movement as his young lover returned the necklace to the chest then moved to stand in front of him.

A long silence stretched before he finally astutely stated, "You killed her."

They were no longer speaking of Cleopatra. "Yes."

"You regret what you did."

"I do now," Julien answered truthfully, staring at a spot on the wall high above Thomas's head. "But not for what I did to her."

"Look at me."

Julien refused, keeping his eyes fastened on that same spot. He couldn't bear to look in Thomas's eyes and to possibly risk seeing the vacancy of the adoration and love replaced by the regret he so strongly felt mirrored in the form of Thomas's own regret over the bond they'd so recently forged. "Until tonight I never had cause to regret anything I've ever done. Until tonight I never had cause to regret what I am. To regret what I so unapologetically made you. But I told you, Thomas, you are mine and I'm not letting you go, regrets or no regrets."

"You knew she was special, else you wouldn't have taken something of hers."

The words sounded like an accusation. "Yes, Thomas, I knew she was special. There was something about her which beckoned to me. I didn't like her having that power so I stole her life, then her property."

"Look at me," Thomas demanded. "Please."

Julien's will crumbled in the face of that single word. His gaze lowered to Thomas's. Where the same adoration and love still shone bright. "Thomas..."

"I'm not going anywhere, Julien. I didn't know my ancestor, but I know you. And the love I feel for you far outweighs any indignation I could possibly muster over the death of a woman I've never met. And right now I'm more interested in discovering why Lady Miranda is here with us than in speaking of the past."

One difficulty down, with another to immediately take its place. "She's here to feed us."

"Feed us?"

"The only food you will now require is blood. I know this will be hard for you, Thomas," Julien said. He placed his hand on the nape of his lifemates neck, where he stroked the skin gently. "It's always hard at first, but after the first few times it becomes natural. Eventually it'll become easier. And I'll always be here to guide and help you through any difficulties."

"Julien," exasperation was evident in the cadence of the tenor, "the thought of taking blood doesn't dismay me. I've already done it once tonight when I took yours. And it felt like the most natural of things for me to do."

"You've taken my blood twice tonight," Julien reminded, wanting Thomas to how much they were truly a part of one another.

"Twice...?"

"The first time you wouldn't remember. It was after I attacked you in the Dunbar's garden."

"Thank you," Thomas said. The gratitude reflected on his face was genuine. "Thank you for being so unapologetic. And thank you for making me yours. Now please tell me, when I feed do I have to take undue care not to kill her?"

"The urge to kill will also eventually become easier to control."

"What if I don't want to control the urge?"

"Thomas," Julien sighed, thinking of the innocences already lost. He pressed a kiss to his lifemate's forehead.

"I only mean to not control it with her," Thomas clarified, leaning into Julien and laying his mused blond curls on his chest. "We have a rather unpleasant history together. At one point, I even mistakenly thought I loved her."

Jealousy raging, Julien said, "In that case, feel free to take her life."

Delight transformed Thomas's face like he was a child with a new toy. And Julien realized even with the permanent destruction of several innocences, Thomas had, and always would, retain several others.

Thomas would never be like him. Thomas would always be innocent, pure, untried Thomas.

"I love you," Julien stated after undazing their guest at Thomas's request. He then reclined unclothed on the bed, watching in lazy amusement as his nude lifemate stalked a terrified, screaming Lady Miranda.