A raw, guttural sound escapes Vance, and he clings to me that much harder, as he buries his face in my neck. His hips go still, and he starts kissing my neck, as his body shudders against mine.
“You’re wearing my ring,” he says, as though now is the time for conversation.
My body aches with need all over, not satisfied from just that one orgasm. I’ve had too many stolen from me, and I’ve been left too vulnerable to do anything about it.
My head fogs for a brief second, and a hiss of familiar whisper enters my ear. “I can break these chains.”
Shaking my head to clear away the annoying monster, I focus my attention on Vance.
“Of course I am,” I manage to say, even though my voice is strained.
This really isn’t the time for conversation, but…he looks as vulnerable as I feel right now, and my heart does that fluttery thing he tends to make it do.
His serious, oddly hopeful eyes meet mine. I’ve mated him and he’s surprised to find me wearing his ring?
He just put me out of some of my misery, so does that mean we’re okay?
“I had a much more romantic reveal planned, but then you were taken,” I tell him.
There’s a sharp, nearly staggering, almost-orgasm that hits me hard and abruptly.
Vance hisses out a breath when I clench around him, and I cry out in frustration when I just barely miss that edge, getting doused with the metaphorical bucket of cold water once more.
I dart a glare to Damien, even as Vance starts hungrily kissing my neck.
“I just need a few minutes,” Vance says against my ear, his lips dragging back down my neck immediately after.
My whole body aches with the need for immediate relief, and my legs tremble against Vance. Damien smirks before there’s a stabbing surge of euphoria pushed upon me and stolen away just as quickly.
A whimper escapes me, and I try to lunge for Damien, feeling a chill violently surging through my veins. Damien’s grin deepens.
“Stop fucking with her, Damien,” Vance grinds out.
Damien cuts his devious gaze toward Vance. “Do you really think I’m going to pass up an opportunity to be claimed? You don’t get to be special, Van Helsing. I want her mark on me too.”
Another stab of unnaturally blissful pain erupts through me when the same process repeats itself.
Vance curses, as he’s abruptly pulled away, and my hearing dulls to a near echo.
“Told you she’d probably start reacting a lot more once she had her one chosen mate atop her. Now I know why my monster really kept the fucker out of the room when I was claiming her,” Damien drawls.
Another attack hits, and my vision dims.
I hear salt spray, and immediately that’s followed by Vance cursing.
“Fuck’s sake, Damien! What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Vance shouts.
“I’m punishing her, of course,” Damien states, his touch ghosting over my body, as the heat rises to the surface, leaving me whimpering for release. “If our darling little new alpha wants it to stop, she’s going to have to break those chains.”
“You’ve already been claimed, but we haven’t. It’s my wedding night. Violet said it’s more important to me, so I can have whatever I want,” Arion says through a grin, looking right into my eyes.
Fucking vampire.
I’m so damn gullible.
Here I was thinking he’d be a romantic sweetheart on our wedding night, after waiting so long to take a bride. Instead, he’s busy reminding me why I don’t trust him.
This is why Arion is dangerous.
“You really told him that?” Vance asks me like I’m stupid, even as his lips twitch.
Why is he now amused—
My thoughts are cut off when the next hit of ecstasy painfully teases my body with another almost epic moment.
I want to cry when it doesn’t happen, even though I knew it would just be taken away like all the others. I was so relieved to feel Vance on me, but that already seems like a false memory, because all the desperate sensations have done is double since then.
Just as I feel myself almost giving into the foggy sensation in my mind, Monster Mash starts playing very loudly throughout the room. It slices through the fog—as well as the maddening tension—and I pant heavily, watching as everyone cuts a glare toward Arion, who is standing in front of the speaker.
He gives them all a blank look in between a slow blink.
“Yeah, everyone look at me. Makes perfect sense. Because that’s certainly a song I’d play in this moment,” Arion states in a tone that’s clearly dripping with sarcasm.
As one, the four of them cut their gaze to a grinning Anna, as I’m allowed a moment to catch my breath between Damien’s hits. She gives them a little five-fingered wave.
“Four against one hardly seems like fair odds,” Anna chirps.
“You’re supposed to be on our side. You want to claim us, remember?” Arion argues, jabbing a finger at Anna like she’s still nothing more than a pest.
Her grin deepens, just as Damien catches me off guard, hitting me with a heavy dose of seduction that boils through my veins.
A startled cry leaves me, as the song shifts. I’m not sure what it changes to, because for a moment, there’s nothing but silence.
Darkness is all I see.
Numbness blows through me, dragging with it a reprieve from the overwhelming, unsatisfied aches that have been dominating my body for what feels like hours.
A prickle of cold awareness spreads through me, and I damn near panic. If it’s dark and numb, then…Anna managed to shove me back.
There’s a laughter in the back of my mind that’s so dull I barely hear it, and an image slams into me from somewhere outside.
The wall is crumbling, steel is groaning, and someone shouts a curse as dust explodes into the room.
It goes dark and silent for another brief second. I feel and hear the spray of salt once more, and my breath comes out in a heaved rush. My eyes collide with Emit’s, and a daring grin hikes up at one corner of his mouth.
I glance down, seeing our bodies most definitely seated together, with him under me.
“For the record, you attacked me,” he says, as though they already know it’s me again.
His hips move, and a shudder races through me, as all those numbed sensations are set ablaze once again with remembered aches. My nails are already digging into his shoulders, and I pull him closer, pressing our bodies so close that flesh slides against flesh.
He growls, his lips going to my neck, as his grip tightens on my hips, moving my body for me.
My eyes try to roll back in my head, but as my head tips back, I catch sight of my collapsed ceiling. It occurs to me that chains are clanking against Emit.
He drops back onto the bed, and he brings me down with him. My eyes widen on the gaping holes in my walls…where my legs were chained to the steel beams.
The whole wall looks unsafe now.
“Once again, the chains have proven stronger than the supports,” Damien states, before he’s suddenly coming down on my back.
Just when it feels like he’s about to join in, there’s a brief fog of darkness, another spray of salt, and then my eyes open to find Damien groaning.
He’s slowly picking himself up off the floor, shooting Emit a nasty look, when I feel the wolf laughing, while still having sex with me.
“Fuck’s sake, why does the wolf always get a free pass, but I get thrown into a damn wall?” Damien asks.
But Emit reclaims my full attention when his lips fuse with mine. Damien’s rant is barely static noise, as Emit makes use of all that experience he has with a woman’s body.
He controls my hips, halting me from moving them faster, when I feel that edge returning.
“He was one hundred percent as effectively guilty in this scheme as I was,” Damien is still griping. “He has you fooled, Violet. He really is a savage, ruthless wolf. Not some Teddy bear.”
I
feel Emit’s grin against my lips, as he takes care of my body. The only savage thing about Emit is the way he is in bed.
It’s primal and carnal every time. I almost want to join him in howling at the moon when he’s got me under him, over him, or bent over in front of him.
His hair tickles over my hands, as I slide my fingers into the long, soft strands. He makes a growl of approval when I pull him closer, devouring him as thoroughly as he’s devouring me.
My next cry is swallowed, as my body shudders in agonizing relief. The flood of sensation is almost overwhelming when that euphoric crash hits without being stolen.
I shake against him, allowing him to drink in all my sounds, as he rolls his hips in all the most perfect ways.
My breath is sucked out of me in the next second, because I’m briefly weightless, as the room turns. When my back hits the bed, Emit comes down on top of me.
It almost feels like he sets off an aftershock of pleasure the second he pushes back inside me. Chasing his own release, his powerful body moves over mine, muscles straining.
My gaze is glued to the concentrated intensity etched in his features. I feel the tickle of his beard, seconds before his lips are back on mine.
His beard is soft enough to not scratch at me, and it’s really fun when he’s kissing other places on my body. Just the thought has my body blooming with another possible—
Emit groans against my mouth, his lips going still against mine, as he gives one last lazy roll of his hips.
I really do love this wolf, even if I was just shy of another orgasm before he found his first. His lips start moving against mine again, even as they curl in a suspicious smile.
He turns me, bringing me down on top of him, as I try not to think too much. As his hand smooths down my back, I kiss him harder.
“So is he claimed? Is it that simple? I mean, the monster came out,” Damien says, moving in behind me.
It all goes dark once more.
Chapter 57
ARION
Damien’s grunt echoes through the room, as he’s launched into the wall directly beside me. My eyes stay fixed to Violet, as Damien drops and thuds to the ground with a groan.
Emit’s smiling against her throat, as Hyde smirks at me. Even though it still looks like Violet, I’m already spotting the very obvious differences.
The eyes, as Violet always points out, sell you out.
Hyde’s too jaded and devious of a monster to ever mimic Violet’s earnest eyes. This will be easier than we thought.
Damien lifts himself from the ground, as the monster cocks its head at us, all while lovingly stroking Emit’s unkempt hair.
She doesn’t bat Vance away when he moves in behind her, kissing the side of her throat, while his hands roam her sides.
“Really? The Van Helsing gets a pass? Shocker,” Damien states, clearly taking this personally, as he glares at the monster.
Arrogant deviant indeed.
I grin, mostly because I’m curious how this is going to change the dynamic. Damien always flexes on Violet, and she hates it. Now he’s the only one who truly can flex on her.
Her chains rattle, as she reaches back with a cuffed hand and shoves a hand in Vance’s hair, while twisting her head enough to meet him for a kiss. The selfish bastard just kisses her back, looking to score another turn on my bloody wedding night.
This is what I get for sharing.
Deciding to test my luck, I move closer to the bed, as her seemingly normal eyes stare into mine with that daring look Violet could never pull off.
“The daring vampire will never give up,” Hyde says as though she’s daring me, after breaking the kiss with Vance.
Moving quickly, I push forward, ready to join in if I can get one of them to move out of the way—
The air feels to get kicked from my lungs, and I feel the sensation of falling. It doesn’t register what’s happened, until I crash into the wall, landing in a heap next to Damien.
My groan echoes his from earlier, as I slowly lift up, missing the good ol’ days when Violet gave me a shot to the bollocks.
“I don’t think we can be friends. I foresee you staying in trouble a lot, and apparently she’s going to punish me for it as well,” I tell Damien, straining through the residual pain.
The walls look normal, but that reinforced steel behind the sheetrock really hits like a badass hammer.
“That’s not fair,” Damien tells her, pointing a finger at her like Hyde gives two fucks.
She only grins, not saying a word.
Her grin is interrupted when Emit regains her attention, and she moans against his mouth. Vance acts like he’s gotten her ready for him, already preparing to push inside her from behind.
“The vampire punished us on our special night, and the Morpheous aided him,” Hyde tells him with that devilish grin.
“So did that fucking wolf,” Damien and I both point out like a pair of tattling kids.
Not that it matters, since apparently the monster isn’t offended by his participation. Emit’s already moving his hips like he’s enjoying having her to himself.
Seriously, is he claimed? Has it worked?
Violet/Hyde bites down on her bottom lip, as Vance finally pushes inside her. I feel the pulse of power in the room that suggests Damien is working his pheromones.
“A coherently functioning monster that can play, even after being coerced out,” I state to Damien.
While they both enjoy her on my wedding night, I idly wonder why Emit was so damn cool and confident when Violet turned into Hyde, ripped the ‘unbreakable’ supports from the walls, and then threw him under her.
He never flinched.
The wolf’s hair was scared white not all that long ago by a version of this monster, but clearly has far less fear when Hyde is wearing Violet’s face.
My lips curve in a grin, as it all starts to make sense, and this time, when I move toward Violet, I leave the fear behind.
Those devious eyes slant in my direction, and I watch the change happen right in front of me. Those sweet eyes land on me, and I’m on her in the next instant, my lips finding hers.
“Ah, come on! You just said he couldn’t have you,” Damien gripes, still benched.
Without the spray of salt to signal the change, Damien has missed the shift from monster to woman, not recognizing the difference.
Violet smiles against my lips, as though she’s happy to have me kissing her. Or maybe Hyde is back.
Just this once, I don’t care which, since I need them both in order to get claimed.
Vance makes a sound that assures me he’s just enjoyed her very thoroughly. Again.
Violet’s kiss gets more aggressive, and she makes a sweet, whimpering sound that I swallow, proving all the more it is her. Her nails press into the back of my neck, and her kiss turns almost violent, until she suddenly breaks it, her body shuddering against me.
The wolf makes enough telling movements and sounds to assure me he’s also followed suit on the pleasure train that left the station without me.
“Guess it’s my turn,” I tell them, smirking like I’m winning at last, while dragging her away from both of them.
She makes a surprised sound, seconds before her back hits the bed. Coming down on top of her, I push inside her before she has the chance to change her mind.
For every fucking inch I sink deeper, I cling to her that much more.
Her arms go around my neck, and I pull her as close as possible. She’s hot and cold, her body’s temperature changing too rapidly against Damien’s power warring with her own.
I groan, because it’s already getting to me, and the feel of her seems far more intense now that she’s truly mine.
“Put in a good word for me, mmkay, Vampyre?” Damien asks from somewhere in the room.
I don’t bother looking back, as he mutters a curse, reeling with jealousy.
Like a selfish prat, I keep her all to myself, enjoying every second of how it feels to be insid
e her.
When I break the kiss, she turns her head, exposing her throat, as though she knew exactly what I needed. The second my fangs sink into her delicate flesh, something hot, familiar, and damning hits me with such erotic force that I have no choice but to…end things prematurely.
I can’t even enjoy the pleasure coursing through me, because I can feel Violet’s body tense. When I glance up, she’s keeping her lips pressed together and staring at the ceiling, being far too obvious.
“He really is the fastest of us all,” Damien quips, as my monster tries to surge to the surface. “Told you that wasn’t a good thing, Vampyre.”
“Damien, you didn’t just do what I think you did, did you?” Vance asks on what I’m sure is supposed to sound like an exasperated breath, but I hear the amusement hiding in the silversmith’s tone.
“I’m merely a spectator, Van Helsing. If you’re suggesting I made the vampire pop the cork a bit early because I’m devilishly preventing him from being claimed unless I get claimed, then you’re entirely out of line. I’d never do that over and over to prevent them from leaving me out,” the deviant states in a damn near laughable manner.
Violet clears her throat rather awkwardly, wrapping her legs around my waist, as she finally meets my gaze.
“Your eyes are black. Don’t get worked up right now, especially while…you know…you’re still attached to me. This is not a big deal. We’ve got all night,” she says in what she must think is a reassuring tone.
I’m going to murder that motherfucker.
I’m going to rip his head off and shove it in that room with Idun.
Then I’m going to flay the skin from his body and shove it in the oven. Maybe it’ll appeal to those weird kids who are obsessed with breadcrumbs, and they can take over from there.
“His eyes are starting to turn red,” Violet says in a worried tone, as I slowly cut my dimming gaze to the Morpheous in the room.
Damien bloody smirks.
I move before my mind even registers what I’m doing, and it all fades out.
Chapter 58
Gypsy Truths (All The Pretty Monsters Book 6) Page 53