“I feed you and you feed Rachel.”
“I cannot feed from you. I do not know what would happen. ”His voice was implacable.
“You’re not being reasonable. You’ve already had a few drops. What’s the worst that could happen?”
“Slaughter.”
She scowled. “Concise.”
She watched as he lifted his hands to his mouth, blowing on his fingers. Did that work since he was a vampire?” Oh! I get it. You’d need to drink from Jack.” She laughed. She couldn’t help it. The hilarity of the situation was overwhelming. Not only would Jack freak out but it would be quite the picture. She stopped laughing. Lucas piercing Jack’s neck and drinking his blood. In a twisted way, she suspected that would be super-hot.
But Jack wouldn’t allow it. No, that made it sound trivial. As though Jack wouldn’t eat a meat-lover’s pizza because he was a vegetarian. His parents and the way they had died. What he had seen over the years…. Feeding Lucas would really screw with his head.
“There must be some way to ensure you have my blood without you becoming violent,” she said. “Besides you always say that, and now you’ve had my blood twice and you’ve been fine. I think the lady doth protest too much.”
His hands gripped her arms lightly, trying to rub warmth into them. “My luflych, thou cannought quoth Shakespeare to me.”
His hand cupped her cheek, and she leaned in to him. My love, he’d said. It made her warm inside, the silly term of endearment that he rattled off simply to show that his Middle English was better than hers.
“If you were a full blooded empath who knew her powers, maybe. That would change things. Then it’s a matter of trust, not violence.”
“Why trust?” she asked, her voice soft.
“Trust you wouldn’t harm me, kill me… permanently enslave me.” His words were a bare a whisper before her, like the air would carry them away just as they reached her unless he kept close.
She felt the world narrow down to the two of them, an odd shimmery thing between them, an idea, just a kernel that was there for only them to see. Almost a dream, or a wish, to be so close, so connected that he’d trust her, and she’d trust him.
What was deeper than that? More seductive than giving yourself to someone because you knew they wouldn’t hurt you? Because hurting the one you love would be just as bad as hurting one’s own self.
Then he smiled and took a step back, his hands coming up to his face, coveringhim for a moment so she could only see his eyes. Like the connection was too much and he was erasing any outward display of how he felt, making himself a perfect blank mask again.
His hands came down, his arms folded across his chest and he said, “The evil glint in your eye makes me glad that is not a possibility or else I would be doing dishes and cleaning for the rest of my life.”
She felt a slow smile spread across her face. “I’m not sure I had anything so domestic in mind, actually. A man of your skill and looks, I’m not sure you’d ever make it to the kitchen.” She leaned in to kiss him and then pulled back, chastising herself. Serious shit first, flirting later.
“Is there any other way, besides drinking from Jack?” She bit her lip in agitation, but it hurt because of where he nicked her, and she reached up to touch the cut. Lucas walked away from her, all the way against the wall—putting distance between them.
If Jack was the only option, she’d have to decide if she was willing to allow that, let him take away Jack’s will, violate him and then what? Pretend it never happened? Hope he’d forgive her if they made it out of here alive and she came clean in a Geraldo Rivera kind of way?
“If Jack allowed Rachel to drink from him and I drank from her immediately after, that would sustain me.”
It killed her to say it, brought images to her mind that she hated. “Then why don’t you drink from Rachel and leave Jack out of it?”
“We both need live blood. We cannot survive on vampire blood alone. It is power yes, but we are creatures of death. We need life to sustain ourselves. He is the only human. It must be him.”
She shook her head and felt the need to pace, not just because it was fucking freezing but because there were too many bad options and she wanted to leave them all behind and pretend they didn’t exist. Also, it really creeped her out to talk about Lucas being a creature of death.
“I’m telling you now, there is no way in hell Jack would let Marion’s girlfriend—the woman who killed his parents while he watched— drink his blood. He’d rather die.”
Lucas shook his head. “I think you are wrong.”
Her mouth dropped open. “Are you fucking crazy?” Her heart started to pound, and Lucas shook his head, like shaking off a blow. Could he hear it?
“No, I am observant. And that is why we are in here discussing this. Because I think he will let her, and you need to be prepared for that.”
“Me? Why me? He hates vampires. You heard him. He’d rather die than let one feed off of him!” She almost spit the words at him, she was so angry. “If you let her roll him with her gaze, it will be over between us, do you understand? I don’t want her near him. Promise me that the moment we get out of here she won’t go near him again.”
“I do not police her.”
“Bullshit. You can. You should. I don’t want her with him.”
“Jealous?” he said, the words barely audible.
She felt nauseous. “She’s toying with him. It’s sick. This isn’t about jealousy, it’s about not wanting someone I love to be tortured. You’re talking about letting her feed on him, and it would break him.” She could barely speak through the choking sensation in her throat.
“Listen to me. Stop. Listen.” He was trying to make eye contact with her, wanted her to understand, his hands on her shoulders, leaning forward so that their faces were close together.
She looked at him, and his hand went around her nape, possessively, his fingers lacing through her hair. He kneaded the back of her neck, like forcing a comatose person to swallow water— forcing the knowledge down into her whether she wanted it or not. “He is drawn to her, the same way you are drawn to me. It’s a very fine line between love and hate. He wants to kill vampires, and in that is a desire, almost as strong, to master one.”
She tried to shake her head no, but his grip tightened a little. She didn’t mind, didn’t feel like pulling away, just noticed it, and allowed it because she needed him to understand too. And the connection, his hands upon her, his face close to hers, meant he’d understand her, too. “That’s fucked up and wrong. I can see how that could happen, but not with him.” Tears filled her eyes, coursed down her cheeks before she could blink them back.
He swore, not in English, something with lots of harsh consonants, and then he pulled her to him.
Why am I crying? Because he’s mine. He’s always been mine. Or was it because he’d always been a beacon of goodness, and Rachel was not good, but evil. Jack was the standard she was always supposed to have lived up to. The one she failed.
And if he’d go to her, let her drink because he wanted it, then she didn’t know him after all. If that was true, she’d only known the idea of him, and she’d been wrong for years.
She was the weak one, the fucked up one who wanted a vampire despite what one of them had done to her mother. Jack was better than that. She felt her legs give out, but Lucas supported her.
That wasn’t fair to Jack. To put that responsibility of moral perfection on his shoulders. Had she done always done that? And had she always felt like he was so much better than her? How could anything have worked between them if she really felt that way? Duh. It couldn’t.
“You need to leave this alone,” he said persuasively. Not with vampire powers but with a sincere conviction. “You must be prepared for him to allow her to feed from him. Do not interfere or else I will take away his will and give him to her. Do you understand? We could all die here.”
She felt a touch of power that he put into the words. She pulled
back from him, kicked at his shin as she jerked her head to the side, but his grip tightened a little, not letting her go.
He shoved her body flat against his, so that she’d have a harder time kicking him. She felt like a mummy, she was wrapped so tight against his body.
Her head was pressed to his shoulder, close to the crook of his neck, and she was angry, furious that he was telling her these things, and that he’d dared to use that touch of power on her. Had it worked? She tilted her head upwards, the only part of her that she could move, and bit him, determined to hurt him, make him let her go. She’d leave him and this awful conversation behind.
Because he was wrong. He didn’t know a damned thing. And he’d tried to roll her. That was not part of their relationship. It was a betrayal.
The bite was harder than a press of lips or a kiss, harder than a nip or a love bite. So hard that he groaned and shuddered, his legs collapsing, taking her to the ground.
As they fell, his hands adjusted her legs so she straddled him. His cock became steel and he threw back his head in pleasure.
His blood hit her tongue like nicotine, suffusing her, cocooning her mind and body, sweeping down her like heroine and she cried out. His arms wrapped behind her keeping her in place as he thrust against her from below.
The blood tasted like wine with echoes of metal. The barest trace of dark magic, heady and powerful. Her body remembered it, shuddered in response, spasming in reflex and she bit harder, wanting to savage him. The small traces she was getting not enough to quench her sudden, rabid thirst.
“Wait,” he breathed, the words agony as he rocked his hard length against her.
She pulled back and looked at him, breasts heaving against his solid chest. He reached up to his neck and she barely saw the knife. He shifted her slightly, aware of how squeamish she was, masking his movements.
When he turned back she could see the tiniest wound on his neck. Blood slid down into his shirt, a tiny crimson line against his smooth, white flesh. Her indecision was plain. What she wanted—to gorge upon him. What she should do—get the wiggins and bolt.
“I need you strong. I need you to survive this. Let me give it to you.” His eyes were intense, almost vulnerable or defiant, but not quite either. She should go. She might need his blood, but she didn’t need it yet.
And then he cheated.
He slipped his hands around to the front of her body, cupping her breasts, lifting them, pressing his palms and fingers flat against her, then stroking his thumbs across her nipples gently. His hands traced down, one going around her hips, settling on her buttocks, the other slipping between her legs and the seam of her jeans, where a hot ache spread from her in waves. His hand pressed against her clitoris and she closed her eyes, leaning forward and swiping her tongue against his neck like he wanted.
She locked her lips onto his flesh, let him feel the dull edges of her teeth as she sucked. His hands moved, one on her lower back, pressing her close, the other in her hair, holding her against his neck as he groaned and hissed out a breath of desperate want in her ear. Making sure she didn’t stop. He was thrusting lightly, so that the friction of him pleasured her, mimicked what his fingers or tongue would do to the pulsing center of her body if he got her out of her clothes.
The blood filled her mouth and she swallowed. She knew he could feel it by the way his hands convulsed as she took that first gulp. Her name fell from his lips like a litany. The vowels accented, the usual blandness of his words gone, voice filled with the sound of desperate passion.
Her teeth sank into his flesh again, wanting to coax more blood from him. Lucas liked that, gave a low cry. The blood blazed through her, hitting her stomach like whiskey— smoky, hot, and then burning.
She felt her body changing. A soul deep realignment as her blood vessels swelled, reacting and making her wet. And beyond that, somewhere deep inside, was that locked box of power. Like a treasure chest lost on the bottom of the sea, his blood found it, pulled it to the surface, smashed it open, releasing power into her body.
She needed to do something with it. She was supposed to do something with it. But what? How?
It was as if there was a gun pointed at her head, but she couldn’t find her dammed wallet to give to the thief.
The urgency of it was there and she realized Lucas was talking to her, had been talking to her for a while now and she’d been so in her own head, her own body, turned around in her own raw power she hadn’t heard a thing he said. “Make me come,” he said, over and over again.
How the hell did she do that? The power was like a mudslide, coating her, sweeping her away, dragging her under, unhappy that it was directionless. Could it turn on her?
“Think it, channel the power to me. Think of your desire, think of what you want from me. You can bring me with it. Valerie, you-” And then he kissed her hard and the blood was back, copper and gold in her mouth that he drank down, the a drop of blood coming from the wound on her lip.
There. That was what she’d needed. She made her thoughts sharp, focused on Lucas. All her will, all her energy on him. How she wanted him, wanted him to come—
No.
That wasn’t what she wanted. She dredged up all of her memories where she felt her own happiness and pushed it into him—A hug, a kiss, a funny movie, knowing someone loves you, laughing with a friend, doing something well and achieving a goal. All those things she wanted him to feel. Remember.
The magic was like a leviathan, slow to turn and follow, hard to make it go where she wanted to, but then she caught it, held it, focused every single part of her on that goal. She felt each vibration and pulse going from her to him, like waves sloshing in a pool, the energy bouncing off on one side and back again.
When he released her, his head dropped down to her shoulder, his breathing unsteady. Finally, he looked at her quizzically. “What did you try to do?”
“I tried to make you happy.” She knew she was blushing.
“Why? I thought you were going to bring me.”
“I can do that anytime,” she said saucily, snapping her fingers to show how quick it was.
His brows raised but he didn’t challenge the statement. Then he turned his head away from her, giving her just the strong profile of him as he smiled, chuckled lightly.
“I wanted you to be happy. I guess it didn’t work.” She tried to shrug like it was no big deal. He stood, lifting her away from him and she felt alone, not just sexually but because she had thought she was on to something.
He shook his head and looked back at her. “No,” a really long pause, a shaky breath, and then quietly, like a secret, he said, “No. It did work. I was simply surprised.”
“Maybe your idea of happy and my idea of happy are two different things,” she said. So why don’t you tell me about it!? !
He nodded his head very slightly and clasped her hands in his, raising her hands and twining his fingers through hers. “I thought you would give me the pleasure of sex and I suppose over time, the fleeting ecstasy of release is as…close to happiness as we get.”
He blinked rapidly for a moment and stepped away from her, letting her go, putting his hands behind his back. “But that is not happiness. I had forgotten. Thank you.”
Her throat was tight with unshed tears. What did he mean? What had he felt?” So it was happiness?”
“It was… a memory from very long ago. I didn’t feel the happiness of it, so much as the moment….” His smile was real and human. “I remembered my daughter learning to ride her horse. It was like I could feel the horse’s mane under my palm, knew the heft of the leather bridle. She’d hold out her arms at the end of our lesson, and I would always smell the sun on her hair. Anyway, I was reminded of that.”
“You felt that?” she asked, hope in every syllable.
His brow furrowed, like he was thinking of lying or something. “As a young boy in my father’s keep, I always knew when it was a feast day. The men would stay up late, drink a lot, and everything
was very loud. Rowdy as the night wore on. I would be sent to bed with the other children and yet I could hear them through the walls. I was not in on the joking nor was I part of the festivities, but it was a comfort to know it was there. The feeling was like that, not something I was involved in, but it was…good to have it so close.”
He tucked her hair behind her ear almost reverently. “Your power is wild and unused. The more comfortable with it you become, the more you can alter it. Emotions can be less or more. You can give pain, take away pain, even steal memories. Your power is a strength. And given time, you could wield it like a weapon.”
“Would you like that?” she asked, unsure what answer she wanted.
“I want you safe. I want you to know how to protect yourself and to have defenses. And maybe, one day, I would like that.” He gave her a light kiss on the lips, so soft and warm that it was like the first day of spring. Her heart melted, leaving the surrounding snow temporarily forgotten.
Chapter 28
Jack watched Valerie go ‘talk’ to Lucas. He was the grim reaper and they were all at his mercy. Waiting for him to pick them off, one by one.
He still couldn’t believe he had tried to shoot him. He knew with every fiber of his being that a bullet—even a dozen bullets—would have no impact on Lucas, but he just had to.
He’d snapped. Panicked. Been overcome with rage. Killing Lucas accomplished something. Shooting him did nothing. I’m a fucking idiot. He was lucky Lucas hadn’t killed him. A small part of him wondered if he’d done it on purpose, egging Lucas on.
Val had warned him, just about begged him, not to send her to him. To leave Lucas alone, and smug asshole that he was, like his prick was made out of diamonds, he’d told her she’d be fine. He’d actually believed he’d be able to keep her safe. Why? What kind of track record did he have for keeping anyone safe? Not his parents. Not Nate. And now Val.
He needed to hit something. Was stuck taking a deep, unsatisfying breath instead. Yeah, really not that great. Like some yoga bullshit is going to be enough to erase this rage. The rage of failure, of looming disaster, sat on his chest like a Mack truck.
Love is Fear Page 19