by L. L. Ash
He dragged his hand through his hair, resting his elbow against his thigh and his face in his palm. He looked exhausted.
“You need to make me a book or something of all the stupid rules I have to follow here. I can’t seem to do anything but stay in my room without getting into trouble. Then you come storming in and demand things… I’m tired of it, Calix.”
“And you think I’m not?”
“Then loosen up!” I almost shrieked.
“I can’t!” he shouted back, standing again before continuing his pacing. “I have to do things a certain way. Rules must be followed. There are too many people, too many lives at stake. Both human and vampire. I am the prince. I am the master, and I am responsible for these people. I’m responsible for you, Lily. Just please think before you act. Try and make my life just a little less hellish, please?”
I was stunned speechless.
His hand ran over his face again and he turned toward the door muttering that he needed a drink.
“Calix… you can...”
“No,” he said sharply before slamming the door behind him, to punctuate the F-you he just gave me.
I bit my lip in frustration, then growled, then raged, then sprawled out on the bed with the remote.
Fine. I’d be a good girl. I’d do nothing. I would cease to exist to him. It would be long and boring but I would do it. The exhaustion I saw in his eyes scared me a little, especially knowing I had put at least some of it there. I’d do what I could to lessen his burden, even if it was stupid.
I fell asleep watching TV, eventually waking up when the door opened again. I cracked an eye open and watched Calix enter. He took a few seconds to kick off his shiny shoes, then he shed his clothes, practically collapsing onto the bed.
A minute of silence.
“It’s not polite to stare, Lily.”
Shit… how did he know I was awake?
“I’m asleep,” I whispered and was rewarded with his chuckle. “And I wasn’t staring.”
“I can hear your heart beating fast and your quickening breath. You’re awake. Also, I can feel your eyes on me.”
“Shit, so you always know when I’m awake?”
He hummed in the affirmative before turning onto his side away from me.
“Are you hungry,” I asked finally.
“No, Lily.”
And that was that.
Eventually I heard his breathing slow in sleep, and then stop.
I freaked.
“Calix!” I shrieked, pressing my hands against his chest to start compressions.
I knew how to do this. I took first aid in school.
Calix shot up, awake fully and looking around the room.
“What is it?” he asked, as if he was looking for some invisible threat.
“Holy fuck, you stopped breathing!” I gasped, hand flying to my chest as I finally caught my breath after holding it in shock.
He sighed and fell back against the pillows.
“I don’t breathe, Lily. Why don’t you know this already?”
“You don’t breathe? Every living creature breathes!”
“I am not living.” He looked at me annoyed. “I do not breathe, I do not eat, my heart does not beat. I am dead for all intents and purposes.”
“But I’ve seen you! You’re breathing right now!”
“Only because it is a reflex. If I chose to, I can stop. I only need breath in order to speak.”
He took my hand and pressed it against his chest, right above his heart.
I almost didn’t notice the absence of a beating heart or inflating lungs because of the tingling the skin to skin contact sent buzzing through my entire body.
But there it was, the stillness of death.
Finally he took in a breath.
“Are you contented now? May I sleep?”
“Well sorry to care for your welfare. I just thought you were dying is all. Don’t mind me.”
My sarcasm wasn’t lost on him.
He lifted his lips in a little smile before saying, “Thank you, Agápi Mou. I do appreciate your care. I am just weary.”
My fingers moved without my permission and touched his face, grazing over his forehead and moving aside the hair there.
When our eyes met and I realized what I was doing, I drew my hand back like it had been shocked and laid back.
I felt him move again and peeked. He was back on his side, facing away from me.
Holy hell it was awkward sharing a bed with someone you’re angry with.
Eventually I fell asleep and stopped thinking about who was sharing the bed with me.
Several days passed the same way. He avoided me in the day, I stayed in the room watching movies off the surprisingly awesome wi-fi connection they had, and at night we laid in bed silently, facing away from each other. Each night he came to bed late and was even wearier than the night before. And each night the strain was worse. But in the morning when I woke up, he was gone, already going about whatever it was he did all day.
Eventually I woke up when he did. The shower was running in the bathroom, the clock on the side table reading 3:26pm. He had only come to bed around noon.
Keeping the vampire hours was weird, but I was starting to get used to it.
I laid in bed, fully awake now because oh my God my bladder was full. I twisted and turned, eventually sitting up in hopes to stave it off until he got out. But the water kept running and running and running like a freaking waterfall, teasing me.
Shit…
I hopped up, knocking on the bathroom door.
I didn’t even wait for an answer before I was heading in.
“I’m sorry, I have to pee really bad,” I explained, heading for the toilet.
A cold waft of air swept by me and I shivered.
Holy hell, he was taking a cold shower?
A very cold shower.
I hooked my thumbs in my panties to pull them down but I felt eyes on me.
“Can you turn around please?” I asked him without looking.
“Again?” was his only response. “After everything that’s happened, it seems a little redundant.”
“Please Calix?”
He sighed behind me but I thought I heard him turn; the water dancing differently against the tile floor.
Having faith in him that I’d dug out of nowhere, I pulled down my underwear and sat on the ice cold seat.
My faith had been well placed. Through the crystal clear walls I could see him standing, back toward me with the water spraying against his chest. As I relieved myself, my eyes couldn’t help trailing down the strong lines of his back. The fair skin did nothing to take away from the ropes of muscle hiding in wait. Down the line of his spine, his ribs narrowed into a small waist and slim hips. And oh, what was below was magnificent. His butt was perfect, like everything on him; strong, muscular and well shaped.
One leg was bent a little at the knee, his shoulder leaning against the tile wall. His head rested against the tile, too, with his arms crossed in front of him. He looked tired.
When I was done I pulled up my underwear then went to wash my hand.
“Thanks,” I told him. “If I’d had held it any longer I’d have peed myself.”
He moved around again, turning his back to the water and I saw the smile on his face.
“You’re ridiculous. You know that right?” he asked me, watching me.
“It’s that privacy thing we talked about,” I told him, trying to look at anything but him and his naked bits.
Where I was shy, he was unabashed. Maybe that’s what a millenium of living did to you.
“You humans are just like children,” he said with a chuckle.
“You humans? Just 'cause I want some privacy?”
“It’s just flesh. Bone and blood and skin. It’s all the same with little variation.”
“You have a way of digging your holes bigger, Calix,” I told him, looking at his face with a laugh.
He smiled back before he
stretched, arms curling behind his head and his chest pushing out.
Oh God… Please brain, stop looking at his crotch…
How I wished I was that water, licking every inch of his body.
I turned around, head facing up so I would stop staring at his groin like a creep and he laughed.
“Unlike you, Antheia Mou, I don’t mind if you look.”
“Right, skin and bone and stuff,” I mumbled, wondering if I could run out of the bathroom without looking like an idiot.
“Right,” he repeated.
The water turned off and I felt him get closer. Like, I actually felt him. Like his body radiated some kind of energy mine could feel.
An arm reached around me, his chest a millimeter from my back. My eyes closed and my breathing stopped.
“Well, that and I have nothing to be ashamed of,” he added to his earlier agreement.
And he certainly didn’t. If I were as perfect as he was, I would want to walk naked everywhere and look down my nose at all the people.
Huh.
Who knew I was so pompous?
His hand grabbed the towel folded up on the counter that I was blocking and I exhaled.
“True,” I eventually agreed, breathing in the scent of him and his soap.
“Wow, are you actually agreeing with something I said, Lily?” he asked, his chuckles reverberating through me.
“Hey, pigs can fly and vampires exist. Anything’s possible.”
“I like your humor,” he said, his voice light for the first time in… days, I suppose.
“Oh my God. Was that a compliment, Calix?” I teased, turning around to face him with the stupid grin on my face.
“I suppose,” he agreed, smiling back with his hair sticking every which way after drying it with his towel.
I reached up and tousled a couple strands before running my hand through it, pushing it out of his face. Our eyes met and suddenly my stomach was doing somersaults as I started to get trapped in the icy depths.
“Sorry… I’ll leave and let you just...”
I was already turning to leave in embarrassment but a hand wrapped around my waist, stopping me.
“Stay,” was all he said, suddenly directly behind me, his mouth whispering into the shell of my ear.
Shivers ran through me, leaving me trembling.
It was the first time he’d touched me voluntarily in days.
I stilled, absorbing the feeling of his hand splayed against my thin t-shirt, seeping cold through to my skin.
“Do I still frighten you, Antheia Mou?”
“Yes,” I admitted. “But I’m not scared of you. Not anymore.”
He moved behind me, his other hand lifting to cup my neck, his skin like ice against mine.
“Y-you’re so cold.”
“Do you dislike it, mate?”
Did I?
No. I loved it.
“No,” I breathed and his thumb pressed against my jaw, moving my head toward the side gently.
“Do you wish me to let you go?”
His voice was even softer as he murmured the words against my neck. Cold lips trailing lines down toward my shoulder.
“No,” I said again, just about out of words.
“Good,” he breathed against my skin.
More pressure against my throat had me gasping in surprise.
“I need your blood, Lily,” he said almost regretfully. “Having you so close and not having you…it’s been torture.”
God did I know the feeling.
“Take what you need,” I told him. “I’ve noticed how worn you look. I don’t mind feeding you.”
“Thank you, Agápi Mou.”
His hand on my waist scooted its way under the hem of my t-shirt, quickly joined by his other hand, abandoning my neck in other pursuits.
Once the t-shirt was gone, his fingers slipped beneath the band of my panties and slid back and forth over my skin, quickly getting my heart pumping and my body heating. His cold hand slid in further until he was cupping me, one finger over my pearl and freezing it in the most delicious way.
My eyes closed, mouth opened in heavy breathing and my hips ground back into him and against his hand.
“I-I meant just my blood,” I managed to finally gasp out. “But I don’t mind this either.”
“I’ve missed you,” was his response.
Goosebumps erupted all over me at the feel of his cold skin against mine, but I didn’t care. It was strange but felt so oddly right. Like this was how it was always meant to be.
His chest bumped against my back and suddenly we were moving. Back in the bedroom, we hit the bed and I was falling face forward again. Catching myself with my hands, I looked back at him, waiting for his command. A verbal one never came but his hands found my waist and he lifted, pushing me further onto the bed. I took the hint and got to my hands and knees, crawling forward. He was quickly behind me, pressing his palm against my back and I flattened onto the bed, face down. Lowering too, I felt his length against my back, one leg curling around mine as his hand slipped back between my hip and the sheet, his fingers working at me again.
Groaning, I wriggled against his chest, feeling the sweet pressure of his weight holding me down.
When his fingers entered me I gasped and moaned, barely noticing the sting in my neck.
Putting a little more weight on my other side, I lifted my hip toward his hand, giving him better access to my pearl and my neck.
He didn’t need it. He was a pro.
Palm grinding down against me, his fingers kept moving in and out and I felt it all the way up in my stomach.
“Calix?” I asked softly, not wanting to upset his eating.
He hummed against my skin as if to ask what I wanted.
“I want you in me. I need you inside me.”
He didn’t say anything, just ground harder, moved his hand faster until I couldn’t take it anymore and fell into a foggy pool of pleasure.
“Calix...” I moaned his name, squeezing my eyes shut as I throbbed.
The pressure on my neck let up and suddenly there was a finger at my mouth and I was sucking furiously, wishing it were something else long and ridged.
The holes in my neck tingled as they closed up with the taste of his blood, his tongue catching any remaining drops before he moved away. He disentangled himself from me and I wanted to cry out in agony at the loss, but his cool hands turned me over. Damp black hair stuck to his forehead when our eyes met, him hovering above me as I waited to see what he would do. I wanted him. I needed him. My body ached and begged for his but I wasn’t sure what he would do.
He leaned down, and he kissed me.
Breathing his kisses like air, I inhaled his affection.
My legs opened invitingly as he settled between them, taking his time as he made love to my mouth with his tongue. My heart was already beating out of my chest but I needed more. So much more.
Feeling him there, I lifted my hips in protest of the waiting thing he was attempting, and he must have understood. He pressed in quickly and I groaned into his mouth at the feel of him filling and stretching. Biting my lip gently, he ended the kiss to focus elsewhere and to give me a chance to catch my breath. It was a futile effort though, seeing how he stole my every last bit of breath away.
When I let myself go, not punishing myself internally for enjoying his touch and his taste, it took over my entire being. I was only an extension of him and I lived for him. I lived for him and he lived for me. I was his, and I finally understood what that meant. No one could ever be him to me and whether I liked it or not I would have to deal with that. I was mated, and I was his.
His fingers grasped my hips then moved down, grabbing a cheek in each hand as he lifted my hips toward him, changing the angle. I hummed in appreciation as he pumped until I was drifting off again in waves of warmth and he was throbbing inside me. Our breathy pants mingled until his head moved down and he took a breast to his mouth, savoring it for a moment before do
ing the same with the other. Pressing kisses to it and licking, he pulled on the nipple until they reached back to him.
My hand splayed against his cold chest and I found his eyes again. His hair was wild, damp and uncombed and it matched the wild, untamed reflection in his eyes.
“Theá Mou…” he breathed, pressing his forehead to mine. “Vasílissa Mou… S 'agapó kai to misó. Den thélo na se agapó...”
“What?” I asked at the pouring of unknown words but he just shook his head and moved away from me. “What is it?”
“Forget it, Agápi Mou.”
He must have been thinking of Ariston.
“When are you going to forgive me?” I asked him in a whisper, feeling my heart slowly being carved out of my chest at the look on his face.
“It’s not a matter of forgiving. I will either forgive or not forgive. What you do has no bearing on the matter. The real question is if I will be able to trust you. And the answer is, I don’t know.”
“But you never trusted me to begin with,” I looked at him, confused.
“I know. And that is the problem.”
“So how am I supposed to fix this?” I demanded.
“It is not yours to fix, Lily. Leave it alone, please.”
I couldn’t begin to describe the hurt I felt surging through my body. If this was a taste of how he felt when he found out I’d slept with his brother, no wonder he couldn’t forgive me.
“I’m sorry...” I said finally before turning over, away from him, and covering myself with the comforter.
I heard him swear before he moved, sitting up then heading back into the bathroom and closet.
When he came back out he was in his typical suit with a black shirt open at the collar.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you, Lily. I’m not ready, that’s all. I need more time.”
“Will you ever be ready?” I countered but he just lifted a helpless shoulder.
With that, he opened the door and was gone.
Chapter Nine
It was hours and hours before I saw him again. He came to bed way past his normal time and I had begun to worry about him. Being sequestered to the bedroom I had no idea what was going on or if there were even any dangers I needed to know about.
But he came into the room as always, undressing before laying in bed, looking exhausted.