by Tanith Frost
“Yeah, but fuck ’em.” He gives me a self-satisfied smile. “I’m warm. I have coffee. I saved a hot chick from the bad guys.”
I reach out and lay a hand on his arm, and a tingling current flashes through me as my power recoils from his, then opens to it. It’s strange, but not bad now that I’m getting used to it. Like facing a fear and recognizing it as my own shadow.
His skin feels feverish, but I know it’s mostly because I’m so cold.
“I take it back,” he says, and shivers. But he doesn’t pull away. Instead, he places his other hand over mine, enveloping it in warmth. “Hot was the wrong word, but I stand by the sentiment.”
“You hitting on me, wolf man?”
“No.” He stands and walks toward the window to pull back the curtains and look out. The blanket slips a little and he casually rearranges it, tucking the ends in, pulling it tight against his fine ass. “Why, do you want me to?”
I should excuse myself, call it a night, kick him out. I’m feeling too wild, too stressed, too desperate for connection to make good decisions, especially when there’s such a big, bad one standing right here.
According to the rules of my kind, he’s absolutely off limits. That fact makes for a dangerous combination when added to his undeniable physical appeal.
I put my feet up on the table. “Of course not. That would be very wrong.”
“Want company, then?” He nods to the stack of board games gathering dust on a high shelf. “I’m not much good at them. Joseph never kept Scrabble at the cabin.”
“You don’t have to stay, Silas. I’ll be fine.”
“I know you will.” He looks to the corner. I’d hoped he wouldn’t see the rifle there. “Loaded?”
“Silver bullets.”
He nods. “I don’t suppose it will be an easy night. They’re not going anywhere until sunrise at least.”
I shiver and remind myself that they can’t get in. Still, the prospect of spending the night alone in here is unpleasant. Company would be nice, if I have to stay awake anyway.
He reaches up and takes Clue down. The blanket slips again so that it’s slung way down his hips.
I should stop looking at him like this, but all I can think about is what it would feel like to have his warm skin pressed against mine, to let him taste my poison. He didn’t flinch from my touch. I wonder how far he’d go before our differences repulsed him.
And really, what the hell. I’ve already fucked up by staying, and the elders are likely to be pissed with me for standing in the way of whatever the D.U.R. has planned here. Hard as I try to act like a proper vampire, I need to accept that I may just be an eternal fuck-up.
There’s something in me that wants to see what’s at the bottom of this impressively deep rabbit hole. To see exactly how many wrongs it takes to either make a right or self-destruct.
I blink hard to clear my thoughts.
“You can stay,” I tell him, not sure whether I’m thinking with my head, my emotions, or something else entirely. My body is responding to him in ways that have nothing to do with the blood I sensed running hot under his skin when I touched him.
I could shut it down.
I don’t want to. I’m sick of the damned rules.
A little bit of lust makes me feel almost alive, especially when it’s this forbidden. Maybe that’s why Daniel was so cautious about letting it consume us. But this could be good. A bit of fun, a challenge, with someone who means nothing to me.
I can handle this guy if he gets troublesome, and this is starting to feel like a good night for a bad decision. Judging by the way he keeps looking at me, I suspect Silas might be thinking the same thing.
He grins at me as he sets the torn cardboard game box on the table. “Are you taking pity on me by not sending me out there?”
My smile comes slowly, more predatory than pleased. He returns it in kind.
“Yes, that’s it. You can stay for your own protection. I don’t actually want you here.”
“Well, I don’t want to be here,” he says, and sits next to me to set up the game box, closer than is strictly necessary. His knee brushes against mine. “I’m just being a decent person.”
I lean forward to pick up the cards, giving him a quick glance down my shirt. I don’t remember how to play Clue. I hope it won’t matter.
“I don’t believe you have a decent bone in your body,” I tell him.
He smiles, more to himself than to me, and holds back whatever he’s thinking.
Game on.
Chapter Seventeen
As it turns out, you need at least three people to play Clue.
“Fine by me,” Silas says, and leans back on the couch. “I wasn’t too keen on the whole murder mystery thing anyway. There’s enough of that going around.”
A long, low howl sounds outside, and it’s all I can do to keep from running to the window and yelling at them to fuck off.
“Truth or Dare?” I ask, and Silas gives me a puzzled look.
“The hell is that?” he asks.
“Sleepover party game? I say truth or dare, and you pick one. If you pick truth, I get to ask you a question about yourself and you have to answer it. If you pick dare, I dare you to do something and you have to do it.”
His eyes crinkle at the corners. It’s been a long time since I hung out with anyone who showed amusement so easily. “That sounds dangerous,” he says. “Either you’re going to try to trick me into telling you something about the other packs, which I won’t, or you’ll dare me to do something unthinkably dirty.” He lifts his nose as he says this, and I laugh.
It feels good to laugh.
“You’re not as stupid as Paul said you were, are you?”
He snorts. “Not quite.”
“What if we make a rule: No questions about anyone outside of this room.”
“Good. But I’ll go first. Truth or dare?”
“Truth.”
Maybe I’m wrong, but I think he looks disappointed. Still, he’s ready with his question.
“What’s it like to not be alive?” He frowns quickly. “If that’s not an offensive question. I just…” He trails off as I stare back at him. “You’re different,” he says. “All of you. Do you sense that?”
“That’s two questions.”
He thinks for a second. “You’re conscious, aware. You feel, I assume, though you wouldn’t know it to speak to the vampires who come through here. You move, you act. But you’re dead.”
I want to ask whether he finds that repulsive, but it’s not my turn to ask. “It’s strange,” I tell him. “At least at first. I felt the difference after I died. I didn’t know anything about the whole vampire world. I just woke up and felt this emptiness in me. Like my soul had been ripped out. And I guess it had, in a way.”
He nods slowly. “Aviva?”
“Your question is over.”
“If you have no soul… what would have happened if those wolves killed you?”
The question comes like a punch to the chest. I have every right not to answer according to the rules of the game, but when I catch the earnest concern in his eyes I can’t help wanting to.
“I’d be gone,” I say softly. “It would take a lot for them to end me. I could heal from almost anything, given enough time and a source of human blood to feed on. But if they managed it, that would be the end for me. No She’s with Jesus now like there was when I was a good church kid.” I try to make that sound facetious, but it falls flat. “No heavenly chorus. No afterlife. This is what I get.”
I questioned it hard after I died, when they finally broke that bit of news to me, but every vampire agrees on it in a way humans never have about what comes after death.
“Does that make you more scared of dying?” he asks.
“Christ, Silas. This is getting morbid.” Maybe I was wrong about his intentions when he asked to stay.
“I just wondered. I’ve been scared of dying before, but I feel like there has to be something after,
some part of myself that will go on no matter what happens to this body.” He gestures to his god-like form, and I wonder what could ever harm him.
I shrug, as though acting like it doesn’t matter will make it so. “I try not to think about it, honestly. It is what it is. Truth or dare, asshole? Your turn’s way past over.”
“Truth.”
Good. I don’t have a dare ready. I mean, I have a hundred ideas for things I’d like him to do, but none of them feel right as a segue from that morbid topic. “Did you grow up here?”
His shoulders relax. He must have been anticipating something else. “Not at first. Neither of my parents was a werewolf, so I had a pretty normal childhood until I was ten. They were kind of overprotective, I think because they were always watching for signs that I might take after Joseph. Never did that whole sleepover thing. Never had a lot of friends, either, but that was my fault. I played too rough. Bossed kids around.”
“Natural born alpha,” I say.
“I guess.” He smiles sadly. “Anyway, my parents died just before I turned eleven. I was in the car with them, but I wasn’t hurt badly.”
“Is that where the scars are from?”
He traces the scars on his chest. “No, but you’re not getting that answer as a freebie. I was still too young to undergo the change at that point, but I guess your people were watching my family—or Joseph’s bloodline, more specifically, and they saw early signs in me. Someone decided it would be best for me to come here. So I did.”
“You didn’t finish school?”
“Nah. I hated school anyway, so that was sort of a consolation. Joseph kind of homeschooled me. Mostly I dicked around in the forest, built treehouses, took my frustrations out on woodpiles that needed chopping. Read a lot, though. It was hard at first, but once my changes started, a new world opened up to me.”
I have so many questions now. But it’s his turn.
“Truth or dare?” he asks.
“Dare.”
He grins, and it’s entirely wolfish. “I dare you to go to the window and flash your tits at the wolves outside.”
I laugh to cover my surprise at the sharp bend in the game’s trajectory. This definitely beats talking about depressing shit. “They won’t see much. I think they’ve moved away from the building.”
“They won’t care even if they do. Call it a symbolic gesture.”
I sigh and stand up.
“Open the curtains wide,” he says, and I do. I don’t see any wolves out there.
I feel like a jackass anyway as I lift my shirt and pull down the lacy cups on my bra, letting my breasts out. “Good enough?”
I look back over my shoulder to find him smirking, and realize he has a fantastic view of my reflection in the window. “Not half bad.”
“Fuck you. They’re amazing.” I close the curtains and turn to face him as I pull my shirt down. He’s got his hands folded neatly over his lap. That blanket doesn’t hide much. “Truth or dare?”
“Dare,” he whispers, turning the word itself into a challenge and an invitation. His eyes roam over my curves again, with no attempt to disguise his desire.
This is a mistake. I don’t even need the benefit of hindsight to know that.
I hesitate, just for a moment. I could still stop this, but I don’t want to. It feels like a necessary mistake, maybe inevitable, a step toward finding out who I am without Maelstrom watching over my shoulder.
And no one outside this room ever has to know what happens between us. This is our business. Not a big deal.
I step closer and sink to the couch, leaning back against the armrest. “Kiss me.”
He leans in, positioning himself over me, but hesitates before our lips meet. His brow furrows. “No biting.”
“I’ll do my best.”
I wonder whether he’s afraid. Trusting him feels dangerous, even if this is only for a bit of fun and release on a lonely night, and he must feel the same about me. Does he wonder whether I could kill him? Whether he might fall under the spell of my poison as so many humans do?
A slow smile crosses his face, creasing the skin at the edges of his eyes, and he accepts my dare.
His lips are as warm as the rest of him, hotter than any living human lips I’ve kissed since my death. I wonder how I feel to him. Not dead, surely. I’m moving. But cold, even hypothermic next to his feverish heat. I shut down my perception of his werewolf energy as well as I can. I don’t want it distracting me from pure physical sensation.
His tongue traces my lower lip and pushes deeper, and he gasps as he tastes the poison in my saliva. It’s faint, far less powerful than it would be if I did bite him. But he feels it. I expect him to pull away, but he doesn’t.
I slip my hands over his shoulders, holding him close, savouring his heat and solidity. It’s already been too long since anyone has touched me like this, and my body aches to give and receive pleasure.
But this is almost too much. Our powers mingle, intensifying every touch, and I quickly feel half-drunk on his kiss and the feel of his hard body under my hands. I’m beginning to understand that this goes way beyond inadvisable or in poor taste, but it’s too late. Desire courses through me, a sharp tension that makes me feel like I might snap.
If this is sin, I’d rather be damned than stop.
We shift on the couch so that he’s lying on top of me. I could throw him off if I wanted to, but I don’t. I need this. He reaches under my shirt, and I arch my back as his fingers trace the hard point of my nipple.
I’m trying not to bite his lips. I want so badly to taste his blood, to see why this, too, is off limits. But I won’t. That’s not what this is, and it’s not what he wants.
But I will take everything he offers.
I let my hands move over his chest, gripping hard, exploring every curve and hollow of muscle from his collarbones to his strong abdominals, moving lower. He groans into my mouth as I reach the edge of the ridiculous blanket.
Stupid thing. I should have just made him come out naked to begin with. Might’ve got his lips on me faster.
I feel him through the heavy fabric, long and hard. Wanting me like I want him.
He moves his lips down my neck. I think he’s trying to get away from my fangs until he shoves my t-shirt up and takes my breast into his mouth, teasing me through the lace. A hot bolt of pleasure shoots through me, wild and electric. I press myself against him, writhing, cursing my choice of jeans over something thinner, blessing whatever god or devil decided a dead woman could still feel so much.
I squirm under him, lifting my arms so he can push my shirt up and off. The bra soon follows, and his warm mouth on my skin is a bit of heaven.
God, he’s good with his tongue. I expected him to be a bit of a brute, demanding and selfish. It would have suited what I thought of him before tonight. He’s certainly not the tender, slow-moving type, either. He’s taking what he wants, showing his alpha side as I allow him to do as he pleases.
I just didn’t think making me moan out loud would be his top priority.
My fingers work at the button on my jeans, and he pushes them away. He moves his lips back up and traces the curve of my ear with his tongue. “That’s my job,” he says, half growling.
Fine. I reach for the blanket instead and tug the end free, reaching inside to wrap my fingers around the hard, hot length of him. He lets me touch him for a minute, then sits up, naked and completely unashamed.
Not that there’s anything to be ashamed of.
He has my jeans undone in a few seconds and slides them down over my hips. I make it as easy for him as possible. Likewise for the panties that follow.
He traces both hands down my body, starting at my shoulders, brushing over my breasts, cupping the lower ridge of my ribs, smoothing over my stomach, gripping my hips gently in his big hands. His thumbs graze the hair between my thighs, teasing gently, testing, finding me wet when he explores deeper.
“I did wonder about that,” he says gruffly.
/> I bite my lip hard as he slips a finger into me, and the pain and pleasure mix perfectly.
He continues his explorations, watching my face and my body’s reactions as he searches out my most sensitive places. I close my eyes and feel the pressure building in me, pushing me closer to the highest peak I can reach without killing someone.
He stops, withdraws.
My eyes snap open. “What?”
He leans over me again. It’s awkward here on the couch, which isn’t quite wide enough to accommodate us. I wrap my legs around his waist, drawing him closer.
He rests his weight on one arm and cups my breast in his other hand, massaging it pensively.
“Necrophilia’s never been on my to-do list,” he says. A challenge glints in his eyes, and a question.
I grin back at him, baring my fangs. “Bestiality’s never been on mine. But I’m up for trying something new. And I won’t tell if you won’t.”
His laugh only lasts until he kisses me again, but it’s enough.
This isn’t romance. We’re not friends. But it’s something we both want, maybe something we both need. A secret we won’t share with the rest of our people, either of us. This is just tonight.
That’s all I ask.
He takes a sharp breath as he slides into me. “Holy shit,” he whispers.
I take his face in my hands and make him look at me. “Bad holy shit?”
“Hell no.”
He pushes deeper into me, and for a second it feels like too much. He’s too warm, too alive. And then we’re moving together. I adjust my position so he’s getting all the right spots again, and this time he doesn’t stop before I lose myself to the waves of pleasure that wash everything else away.
I’ve barely come back down when he pulls out and flips me over.
“Oh, that’s original,” I say, but the sting has gone out of my teasing. He can take me however the hell he wants.
I position myself against the back of the couch, kneeling on the seat. He grabs a handful of my hair and enters me again, every muscle in his body tense and hard as he presses against me.