by Maya Daniels
Zoltan pulls me closer, crushing his chest to mine while he sucks my tongue deeper into his mouth. My legs wrap around his narrow hips, pressing his thick erection to my center. My channel clenches empty air, and pings of little shocks force my body to tremble in his arms. Shamelessly, my hips dilute, grinding on him when the sharp tips of his fangs scrape my lips. I need him closer. I need more.
With a tight grip on my head, he jerks me back, pulling his lips away. My eyes snap open, searching his face. He can’t be serious if he thinks I’ll let him move away. I’ll attack him right now if a single one of his muscles even twitches.
Giving me a look that melts my bones, his swollen, glossy lips lift at the corners. I sway in his arms from that alone. His gaze flicks from my eyes to my lips and back a few times, and I can see how painful it is for him to hold back as well. His throbbing erection twitching and straining his pants while bumping against my clit tells me as much, too.
“I need you to feed.” His voice sounds more profound than usual, vibrating through his chest into mine. I blink stupidly at him.
That infuriating smirk grows, and he cups my face with his other hand, leaving me hanging on him like a monkey. His rough thumb rubs over my lower lip, pressing it gently. Poking my tongue out, I swirl it around his finger, not looking away from his face. He groans as if pained.
“You lost too much blood, Francesca.” His eyes watch my swirling tongue like it’s the most fascinating thing in the world. “I need you to feed … now.”
My heart kicks up when he tilts his head, baring his neck to me. Somewhere at the back of my mind, I’m aware that things must be really bad if he is offering his throat. Even when he stood before me willing to feed me before, he did so with his wrist. Standing in front of me in such a submissive position is nothing like Zoltan.
But I can smell the scent of his skin under my nose.
“Don’t make the mistake of thinking I don’t want to fuck you right now.” His whisper rumbles in my ear. “You are too weak and can’t think clearly. When I’m inside you, it’ll be with you fully aware. You will remember every moment of it, every inch of me that fills you up. That, Francesca, is a promise. Now feed.” He presses my face harder on his skin, and my fangs sink into his flesh.
The precious, powerful blood gushes down my throat—thick and delicious—and I gulp it greedily. My hold on him tightens when I fuse my lips to his skin, and his hips jerk with each hard pull I take. He holds me in place with a hand on the back of my head, but he doesn’t need to worry. I have no intention of moving away any time soon. With every second, the fog lifts from my mind. A thought comes to me, smoother and more precise the longer I feed. My hips haven’t stopped moving either, and the gyration speeds up as the elastic band in my lower belly tightens.
It snaps so suddenly that my head tilts back hard enough to push away his strong hold on me and a scream so loud it makes my ears ring is ripped from my throat. The bright spots dancing behind my closed eyelids turn dark, the abyss pulling me under. All I can do is sag limply, twitching in his arms. He holds me through it, my head on his shoulder for a long time. It feels like it lasts for days.
I finally open my eyes and jerk back into Zoltan’s arms when Fenrir pops his head in my line of sight.
“What the fuck, Fae!”
Reality comes back like a bitch slap to my face when he grins, and Zoltan chuckles.
“I don’t find any of this shit funny.” Shoving at the damn vampire, I struggle for him to release me.
“She’s going to be okay.” Fenrir sounds chirpy as fuck, which pisses me off even more. “That was close.” He breathes a sigh of relief, and I realize he is not talking to either me or Zoltan.
With dread pooling in my stomach, I twist in the vampire’s arms, looking around the room. Every male, the shifter, the mage, and even Fenrir have shit-eating grins on their faces, their pants tenting below the waist. Astara is still sprawled out in the chair, but she is fully awake and thankfully not feral, which the Cheshire-cat smile on her pretty, but still blood smudged face tells me
“That was hot.” She snickers under her breath.
I groan.
“You can kill me now.” Thumping my head on Zoltan’s shoulder, I wish to die when all of them laugh, the vampire’s chortle shaking my body in his arms. “This is so embarrassing; I should’ve just let Roberti kill me.” Keeping up with the bumping of my forehead on Zoltan’s shoulder, I can’t stop talking. “At least Astara is fine. It’s worth the show you all got for free. Damn perverted jerks.” Which reminds me.
Lifting my face, I turn to the mage that seems too entertained right now. “I see you’re not afraid of me anymore.” I look pointedly at his crotch.
His face turns beet red, and he folds his hands over his groin. He looks more human than supernatural to me with his unassuming features: crooked nose, thin lips, and eyes set too wide on his face. The longer I stare at him—and the more he fidgets—I can almost see the illusion cast over his appearance.
“I don’t know about Roberti, but I would love to get my hands on Cassius,” Fenrir growls to my right, reminding me of something that has been nagging me.
“Oh, dear fates, you are right.”
Zoltan’s thumb is making little circles on the skin of my lower back where the shirt has crawled up, muddling my brain. I clench every time it moves. I can’t think, so I jump out of his hold, making us both stumble slightly. He frowns at me, but I ignore him, focusing on the Fae.
“That’s what has been bothering me ever since I saw that hunter.” All the humor disappears from the room, shrouding us in tension. “He looks like her.”
“What?” Fenrir looks worried, like he thinks I’ve gone insane, so I glare at him.
“The damn hunter I can’t get out of my head. Jack, you called him. He looks like her. Cassius’s daughter.” Fenrir’s eyebrows disappear under his hairline. “She was looking at me the same way when she interrupted me with her lackeys. I’ll never forget that face.”
“She is back at the Academy, in Sienna.” Zoltan, ever the helpful, points out.
“I never said she wasn’t.” My voice is as dry as sandpaper, and his scowl deepens. “I said he looked like her. Not the lower part of his face … What’s the deal with that anyway?” I look at each of them in turn. “Is his flesh falling off? He looked disfigured under the cover he had on his face.”
“You pulled his mask off?” Zoltan stiffens next to me, sucking all the oxygen from the room.
“Yeah …” Eyeing him warily, I inch away slowly. “Why? Is that a big no-no?”
“No one has taken the mask off any of them.” Even Fenrir looks troubled.
“Well, that’s stupid and on you. You don’t have to chase a live one to pull it off. Rip that shit off the face of the dead ones you leave behind instead of burning them to ashes.” Reminding him of the fire that blazed in the building, I nod once for emphasis.
“They don’t come off, Franky,” Astara says softly, a puzzled look on her face. “We’ve tried many times. It’s just part of their face. Like skin.”
My head is shaking before she is done talking. “I’m telling you it comes off. I ripped it off and saw his face. Why would I lie to you?”
“No one thinks you’re lying,” Zoltan growls, staring daggers at all of them as if daring them to contradict him.
I still want to slap him for embarrassing me earlier.
“You are sure he looked like Cassius’s daughter?” Leo speaks hesitantly, eyeing Zoltan like the vampire is a snake ready to bite. “She’s an only child. His mate died before they could have another. I think that’s why she’s so spoiled. He let her get away with anything,” he grumbles in frustration.
“Unless he is the spitting image of her but not blood related, I say he is something to Cassius. Maybe not a child, but something.” I can feel my eyes flicking restlessly, trying to recall both their faces at the same time in my head. “I’m sure of it.”
“We need to go ba
ck.” Fenrir is coiled up for a fight. “You can go home now and better keep your mouth shut. I know where to find you.” He snaps at the mage, propelling him into action.
We watch him scatter like a bug, almost tripping over his own feet when he bolts out the door. His mumbled promises are mixed with curses and grumblings about the fates putting a bullseye on his back. It makes no sense to me, so I ignore it, simply watching him leave.
“You should be nicer to him. He saved both of us in one night.” I flick a thumb from me to Astara.
“I’m nice enough for allowing him to breathe.” Fenrir shocks me with the harshness in his voice. “He shouldn’t even be on this side of the portal. I turn a blind eye as long as he does what I tell him to do.”
“Well, look at you networking.” Putting excitement I don’t feel in my words, I watch him grind his teeth.
“Anyway … look.” Scrubbing a hand over my face, my lips twist in disgust when I see tainted blood still flaking off it. “I’ve been thinking, although I must say, until you mentioned Cassius, I couldn’t put it together.” That gives me everyone’s attention. “Seeing that creature’s face makes me one-hundred percent sure that he and Cassius are somehow related. There is no doubt in my mind he looks just like his daughter, from the nose up at least. But”—My gaze flicks between all of them in turn—“you said it yourself, the hunters need a mage as old as dirt to have a potion as deadly as the one they are using. Isn’t Cassius a mage?”
Fenrir opens his mouth, and I know what he wants to say before I hear it.
“He already turned his back on all of you and attacked you two. He is capable of doing it, isn’t he?” When the Fae closes his mouth with an audible snap, I know I’m right. “We have shadows devouring innocents on the streets in Sienna. Guards are dropping dead on the grounds of the Academy.” I lock gazes with Leo, remembering his beta. His animal stares at me through his eyes. “Who else knows our home”—Turning to Zoltan, I throw his words back at him—“better than him? An outsider can’t hide evidence as well as they’ve done without being intimately away from everything and everyone. It’s him, I know it. He has infiltrated the Academy to bring us all down.”
“To what end?” Astara sounds like she’ll be sick.
“I don’t know.” I flick my eyes to Zoltan, again. “He was your friend; you tell me.”
“We need to go.” Fenrir starts moving towards the door. “Now!”
17
Walking out from the building where Fenrir’s apartment is on the top floor, I look around, stretching my eyes as open as they’ll go so I can see everything. It’s bad timing to be excited about seeing the human world, I know, but finally, it hits me that I’m not home. I’m in this strange place—one I only ever thought fictional since I could see it through the TV screen.
But I’m here.
Even this late in the night, when darkness is streamed with lighter shades of gray and dawn is near, humans walk around the busy streets. Sadness passes over me like a gentle wave when I glance up and all I see is a bright gray sky. The moon is not where it always is. The silver orb in the sky that greets me every time back in Sienna, the same one I constantly take for granted shining her love on my skin.
“You okay, Franky?” Astara saddles close to me, linking her arm through mine. “You look … sad.” Her reluctant tone pulls my gaze her way.
“Do you see the moon here often?” A line forms between her perfect eyebrows, her face now clean from blood and gore, at least. “I can’t see anything from the bright lights and tall buildings in this human world. It’s weird to see a sky erased from everything that makes it special.” My hand waves up, pointing at the blank gray canvas above our heads. “Not even stars.”
“Ah, that.” Nodding in understanding, she pulls me to walk faster through the streets with storefronts that have big glass displays, bright white lights illuminating the sidewalk we are using. “Humans are not fond of dark places. I sometimes think it must be the times before the Purge that make them so obsessed with light.” Grinning at me, she wiggles her eyebrows. “The dark and the night is where we are at home. Where we lurk.”
“They must think all of us are evil and want to slaughter each and every one of us.” Keeping my eyes on Zoltan’s back I watch his purposeful stride as the Fae and the shifter flank each of his sides. My thoughts stray, pulling out random things, but I try not to focus on them. “With everything that we’ve been dealing with lately, I can’t blame them.”
“They worry about their pathetic short lives as if they’ll achieve I don’t know what in the blink of an eye.” She dismisses my comment nonchalantly, and my gaze snaps to hers.
“You can’t really mean that.” At my harsh words, she pulls back, watching me as if I’ve slapped her. “From where I’m standing, they’ve achieved quite a lot for such a pathetic, short life. And wouldn’t you want to live to the fullest if your time was short? I know I would.”
“They fear what they don’t understand is what I was saying.” Astara gets defensive, but I don’t stop her. I don’t like how she dismisses human lives the same way supernaturals dismiss the lives of half bloods like me. “In their history, do you know how many innocents have been killed just for being different? Including supernaturals like us. Their Witch trials were a clear example. They slaughtered mages and innocent human women alike.”
“You mean the same way someone is slaughtering our kind now in Sienna?” She opens her mouth to speak, but I talk over her. “The same way half bloods have always been killed for being different? I still can’t see the difference between them and us.”
A loud honk from a passing car makes my heart jump in my throat, and Zoltan looks over his shoulder, locking his gaze on mine immediately. Shaking my head slightly, I offer him a small smile. He searches my gaze for a moment before turning back with a slight nod. I know all three of them can hear every word I say, but I don’t care. There’s nothing in this life I hate more than hypocrites.
We go quiet, Astara and I, still with our linked arms following the males through this city. It’s … nice. Strangely, I start noticing the humans we pass giving us wary glances, and that causes my skin to prickle. Fenrir casts his illusion to hide us from view, what happened when the hunters attacked us, and no one saw anything, confirmed it that his illusions work in this world. So why are the humans either inching away or looking like they want to start tearing our clothes off? The hunger in their eyes is undeniable.
My mouth opens so I can point it out to everyone when fingers wrap around my swaying forearm, stopping me in my tracks. The hold is over the sleeve on my shirt, but it still irks me enough that I whirl at whoever dares touch me. I come face to face with a human male staring at me like he is a second away from pulling me in the dark alley between the buildings at our back.
My head cocks to the side and I watch the human, fascinated that he looks as muscled and as tall as the males with us. Dark tattoos peek from under the collar of his shirt and cover his arms to his wrists. I let him hold my forearm as I scan him from head to toe, noticing the fabric of his jeans stretching over muscular thighs and his white shirt straining over his broad, barreled chest. His skin is tan, like melted chocolate, while his dark brown eyes stare at my face with unbridled lust. The features on his face are not as perfect as the supernaturals, but the little imperfections on it, like his thinner upper lip or his little, too-square jaw, make him more appealing somehow.
“What the hell …” Astara startles, gaping at the human and me.
“You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.” The human speaks, taking a step closer while pulling me to him at the same time.
“You know I’m not human?” My head tilts to the opposite side. I’m finding this particular human very fascinating.
“What?” eyebrows rising up, he pulls back with a jerky shake of his head, some of the lust disappearing from his chocolate eyes.
“You called me a thing.” My chin lowers, and I stare at him, judging if
he is all there. I did hear him say ‘thing’ to me. Did he forget what he was saying?
Astara moves, probably to do her mind screwing on him and make him go away, but I yank her back with the hold on our linked arms. This is very strange, the human talking to me. I don’t want her to interfere.
“You should come with me,” the human tells me, jerking hard on my forearm and wrapping his other arm around my waist.
Coming face to face with him, I see that I am right. He is as tall as me, and taller than most humans I’ve seen. He also smells different. Not as overwhelming as the suit guy I wanted to attack when they first brought me to this world, but just as enticing. I can feel Zoltan’s power blast me at my back, and I know he has noticed something is off, which means my time is up.
“If you don’t let go of me, you are in big trouble.” Grinning at the startled look on his face, I see the golden flakes in his irises while we stand with our noses almost touching.
The human is ripped away from me, his feet leaving the ground when Zoltan grabs him by the neck. My skin burns from the rage blasting off the vampire, who is dangling the poor male like a dog with a chew toy. The human’s face turns a bright shade of purple and veins bulge in his thick neck, and Zoltan keeps squeezing, luckily not hard enough to separate his head from his boy.
“Don’t kill him.” Placing my hand on Zoltan’s arm, I shake him. “You can’t kill this one.”
“Yes, I can. Watch.” The jerk growls, his fingers tightening around the human’s neck.
“No, Zoltan. Please.” I think it’s the please that does the trick because he finally stops. He turns his head to glare at me, and I know the human can’t breathe right now, so I need to convince him fast. “There is something about him. You can’t kill him. He is not like the rest of the humans.” When that doesn’t help, I hurry to add. “He smells different. See for yourself.”
Zoltan doesn’t look happy, although he turns around, bringing the human closer from where he dangles him at arm’s length. I hold my breath and wait to hear if I’m right. I have no idea why I find this so important. The air around us shimmers, and I hear Fenrir cursing up a storm somewhere behind me.