by L. E. Wilson
At his gentle teasing, she sniffed and looked down at his large hands engulfing hers. “I’ve just blocked out these memories for so long… It’s hard to revisit them.” She didn’t pull away; giving him a grateful, if brief, smile.
He left his hands around hers, and smiled encouragingly until she continued, “It wasn’t a bear. It was...they were…monsters. I don’t know how else to say it. They attacked us.”
“Monsters,” he repeated. What in the world could she be talking about? Werewolves? The bitch that had his brother was most definitely a monster, but if you didn’t know her, all you would see is a beautiful woman. Her minions were all normal looking “people”, like him. He didn’t think “monster” was a word someone would use to describe them physically.
“Can you tell me what they looked like?” He squeezed her hands just slightly, careful not to hurt her.
“Um…” She glanced up at him for reassurance and then back down at their hands. “They were like something out of a horror movie…very tall and thin, yet muscular, with long arms…” Her voice started to quiver, but she pressed on, “greyish, rotting skin. Red eyes. They had a mouthful of sharp fangs, and they wore no clothes…”
Clearing her throat, she raised her eyes and asked, “Why is this so important for you to know?”
Nik furrowed his brow as he tried to picture what she was describing. One of the local guys he’d had watching Leeha’s lair up north had mentioned seeing something that sounded similar just recently. That’s how they’d found out Leeha was back. He’d been following the thing, he said, and it took him right to her hideout.
He thought the civilian must have been mistaken. That he’d seen an animal or something. If beings such as these existed, he wasn’t aware of them. And as he had no doubt Emma was telling the truth, he found this very disturbing.
“And these things took your sister?”
Emma nodded.
“Are you sure your sister was taken by force? She didn’t go willingly?” Realizing how that would sound to her, he added, “I’m only asking because the female who has my brother would not have been able to overpower him without a witch helping her.”
She caught on quickly. “And you think my sister is that witch.”
“I believe so, yes,” he affirmed. “She’d been gone just a few days before the night my brother went to meet the bitch who’s holding him.”
“Keira was taken by force.” Emma told him defensively. Pulling her hands out from under his, she sat back in her chair.
“How can you be sure?” he asked. “I know that’s what you believe, but think about it, Em. You didn’t even know that your sister is a witch. Isn’t it possible that there are other things you don’t know about her?”
“Yes,” she admitted. “I suppose that could be possible. But whether or not she was abducted against her will, I have no doubts about that,” she insisted stubbornly.
“How do you know?” he asked again.
Gritting her teeth, she said, “Because I was there. And because of this.” She grabbed the neckline of her purple sweater and yanked it down below her collarbone, revealing a 3-inch area of shiny, puckered scar tissue.
Nik stared at her ruined skin, swallowing hard. It looked like she had been ripped open. No vampire would have left a mark like this, not even a young, sloppy one.
His voice shaking with emotion, he asked her, “They did this to you? The monsters?”
“Yes,” she whispered. Letting go of her sweater, she let it cover her again. “Keira may not have wanted me to know if there was something dangerous going on with her, but there’s no way in hell she would have let anything hurt me. Especially if she had some kind of powers that could have stopped it.”
Dropping his voice down to match hers, he whispered, “What else did they do to you?”
She didn’t answer, but she didn’t have to. The rigid way she was holding herself spoke volumes. A buzzing noise started up inside his head. He wanted to reach into her mind to see these things for himself…fuck what he’d told her before…But he stopped himself. He needed to be here right now, not off on a killing rampage, which is exactly what would happen if he groped around in her memories. He was dangerously on the verge of losing it as it was.
He didn’t even question his reaction. He would kill them. He would hunt them down and fucking kill them. After he played with them a bit, like they had done to her. Every single one of those things that had dared to lay a finger on her.
If he thought his earlier response was bad, seeing her beautiful skin marked like that was much, much worse. And if Leeha was involved in this as he suspected? Nothing would save her this time. Burning would be too good for her.
“Nik? Are you alright?” she asked, bringing him partially back to the here and now. Her eyes were wide, captivated.
He knew he was entirely vamped out on her. He couldn’t control it. His fangs were fully extended and razor-sharp, his lips pulled back as he let out a long, slow hiss. His facial features had grown sharper, harsher, the skin pulled taut across the bones. And his blue eyes were glowing almost silver.
He stared right at her, but it wasn’t her face he was seeing. Tensed to attack, his hands were clenched into tight fists, his muscles seeming to enlarge before her eyes. A terrifying, mythical creature sat in front of her, yet she didn’t seem afraid.
“Nikulas?” She actually sounded concerned.
Through the red haze of his rage, Emma’s voice came to him as if through a fog. With some difficulty, he refocused his full attention onto her, and became aware of himself in the process.
Fuck. He could just imagine what she was seeing, and it was too late to run off to the bathroom again. He dropped his head down, trying to calm himself. This was bad. This was very bad.
Mentally kicking himself, he was just about to move away from her when a gentle stroke on his hair whipped his eyes back up to hers. She was touching him? There was no fear in her eyes anymore, just a curious fascination.
Hesitantly, watching him closely for any kind of reaction, she ran her fingers along his cheekbone and up underneath his eye, and then slowly leaned towards him to get a closer look at his mouth.
Expelling a shuddering breath, his blood lust for a fight turned into a completely different kind of lust as she came closer and closer to him.
Fucking hell.
Pulling away from her abruptly, he stood up and stepped away from the table, cupping his hands in front of himself to hide the bulge in his pants. “Sorry about…” He waved a hand in front of his face, pointing at his vampirish features. “I have a hard time controlling it sometimes if I get angry, or…whatever. The thought of someone hurting you…” He clenched his jaw. “Yeah…I’m going to shut up now.” Dropping his head again to hide from her gaze, he concentrated on chilling himself the fuck out.
Emma stood up from the table, cautiously walking over to stand in front of him. “This is all for me?” she asked. Reaching out, she laid a warm hand on his forearm, slightly squeezing the hard muscle under the cotton material. “Nik? It’s ok, you don’t have to hide from me.”
What the hell was she doing? Why wasn’t she running, screaming, from the room?
The tension in the air between them was a palpable thing, his entire body hummed from it, and he felt it pulling her towards him. It made him feel more alive than he had in years. He wondered if she could feel it too.
Unable to help himself, Nik groaned as her touch on his arm burned right through his shirt to the bare skin beneath. If she only knew what all he was hiding, like the throbbing bulge beneath his hands, she might not be so eager to lay her hands on him.
He felt his control rapidly slipping away at her touch, and lifted his head. Her eyes were curious, but calm and warm. He knew his own had to be burning bright. Her close proximity to him wasn’t doing a damn thing to help him calm down. His mouth watered at the thought of tasting her. Her lips, her neck, her breasts, her slick folds…her sweet blood.
H
e barely managed to rasp, “Emma, you need to back away.”
She frowned slightly. “You said you would never hurt me.”
“Emma, I’m so riled up right now…I just need you to…” kiss me, touch me…he breathed her deep into his lungs again. “Go back to the table, and give me a moment.” Especially when all he could think about was tearing off her clothes, and shoving her down onto her hands and knees right there on the hard floor. Pounding into her from behind while sinking his fangs into the soft skin between her neck and her shoulder. Her hot blood searing his throat while he exploded inside of her.
Nik caught himself right before he groaned aloud again at the erotic images he couldn’t seem to stop. “Please, Emma, just back away.” He was so jazzed up; the predator in him was poised to pounce at the slightest trigger.
“Ok,” she whispered.
Nik continued to watch her with burning eyes and a clenched jaw, his hands still cupped in front of his hips. As she removed her hand from his arm, his eyes narrowed in on her. She stopped moving; observing the reaction, then took a small step back.
Growling softly low in his throat, he tracked her. As she took another small step, Nik’s eyes never left her face, and his body started leaning towards her.
Finally, she seemed to truly comprehend the situation she was in. Her eyes widened, and he heard her heart speed up as she panicked and jerked away.
Big. Mistake.
No sooner had she started twisting around, then he was on her. She never even saw him coming. Wrapping her in the vice-like grip of his arms, she was spun around and slammed back into the fridge that had been behind him, his arms taking the brunt of the hit. One hand wrapped in her hair, and the other low on her back, he held her immobile, groaning in her ear as he rolled his hips into her softness. His massive erection pulsed on her belly, hard and thick, and he felt it grow impossibly harder as she moaned in response to the feel of him.
“Emma.” His voice was rough with strain as he tried to warn her, “I’m sorry.” Holding her head still, his mouth crashed onto hers. Heedless of his fangs, they scraped her lips, drawing blood. She gasped at the assault, and he used the opportunity to deepen the kiss. Thrusting his tongue into her mouth over and over, he tasted her until she was kissing him back, her tongue dueling with his. Her soft answering moan and the tease of her blood on his lips urged him on, and he lost what little control he’d managed to retain.
A small sound escaped her as he bit into her lower lip, his fangs so sharp they sliced into her flesh like a hot knife through butter.
Nik felt her stiften with panic as he bit her, but there was no way he was letting her go now. As her blood hit his tongue and ran down his throat, it spread through him like wildfire, burning through his body and igniting his every nerve ending.
MINE.
The word reverberated through him until there was nothing else but Emma. He resumed kissing her, sucking and drinking from her swollen lips until she relaxed against him again. The taste of her was so completely unreal; he couldn’t begin to describe it. He’d never had anything like her blood, not even Eliana had affected him like this.
He couldn’t get enough. He fed greedily from her lips as he moved his hand down to her ass, pushing her softness into his hard cock. Her little body felt so good, so utterly perfect against him, he was about to come in his jeans just kissing her.
A low growl escaped him as she rose up on her toes and wrapped her arms around his neck, and he held her to him desperately. Licking at her lip to heal his wounds, he kissed his way over her soft jaw and down her throat, breathing in that heady scent that belonged only to her. Pulling her head to the side, he gently kissed her pulsing artery, and lingered there, blood lust warring with his instinct not to hurt her.
The instinct won for now, but barely.
Letting go of her head, he worked his way back up to her mouth as he ran his hands up over her back until he found the bottom of her sweater. Pushing it up, he slid his hands underneath it, unable to keep himself from touching her velvety, soft skin any longer.
Chapter Eleven
Emma was on fire, her entire body pulsing with heat. She’d had a heart stopping moment when he’d first grabbed her, but as soon as he’d kissed her she’d responded to him instinctively.
He held her so tightly, she was probably going to have bruises tomorrow, but she couldn’t care less. She was completely surrounded by him…his hardness, his smell…like soap and wilderness and pure male. She’d never felt anything like this, not that she’d had much experience, but she somehow knew she never would again.
His fangs scraped her lips, but his tongue thrusting into her mouth distracted her and she kissed him back, moaning softly at the welcome invasion. At the sound, he ground his hips into her so hard she could feel him pulsing against her belly. Her nipples tightened against his chest until they hurt, and her stomach clenched deep, a rush of wetness soaking her panties.
She let out a small sound of protest when she felt Nik pull his head back, then stiffened when he held her still and struck, his fangs sliding through her lower lip. No! But the pain lasted only a fraction of a second, and was soon forgotten as he drank from her, every pull sending stabs of pleasure straight to her core.
Holy shit. He was drinking her blood, and it was nothing like what she had experienced with the grey monsters. Every draw he took sent shocks of sensation streaking through her. She wished she could get even closer, wanted to crawl inside of him until they were one person. Sliding her hands up his hard chest, she wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing him and pulling him closer.
Releasing her lips, he pulled her head to the side and kissed his way to her throat, pausing over the artery there, and a small shiver of fear ran through her. But he didn’t bite her, instead kissing his way back up to her lips as he ran his hands over her back and down to her waist. She felt him push underneath her sweater until he was touching her bare skin, and she sighed with pleasure against his mouth at the feel of his hands on her. She wanted him to rip off their clothes until they were skin to skin. Wanted to feel him run his eyes and lips all over her…
“No! Stop!” Panicking, she tried to push him away.
***
Nik growled dangerously and hung on as something tried to pull Emma away from him. He was running on pure animalistic need, and it wasn’t until he felt her small fists banging on his chest and shoulders and heard her frantic voice, that he realized something was wrong.
“Nikulas!! Stop! Let go of me!”
What the hell?
He loosened his arms from around her just enough for her to get a good shot at his jaw, her uppercut knocking his head back as she squeezed out from between him and the fridge and ran to the sink at the other side of the room.
Spinning around to go after her, he stopped short when he saw her cowering in the corner of the counter with her arms wrapped around herself, the sight knocking some sense into him better than any punch could.
His ardor instantly cooled as he stared at her big eyes and swollen lips and messy hair. What the fuck was he doing? Licking his suddenly cold lips, he tasted the remnants of her blood…
MINE!
He gripped the sides of his head with his hands as he started pacing back and forth in front of the fridge. No. She couldn’t be his. No, no, no, no, NO!
He thought it was just folklore. He’d heard the stories, of how just one taste of their blood would reveal your fated mate to you. The one you would do anything for, the one you’d die to protect without a thought for your own safety, the one who would possess you completely. However, though vampires hooked up with humans on occasion, he’d never seen a true mating in all of his hundreds of years of being a vampire, and so blew it off as an old wives tale.
But the compulsion taking over within him told a very different tale. The way the small amount of her blood he’d taken blazed through him confirmed it. His entire being was protesting even the few feet of space separating them, and it took every o
unce of his control to keep himself where he was. He craved to feed her, to protect her, to spoil her, to make her laugh, to hear her cry out in ecstasy over and over…he craved to feed from her. He craved to love her.
He stopped pacing and met her anguished gaze with one of his own. No. No way. No fucking way this was happening. For her safety, and his sanity, he would not, could not, go there.
Even if it killed him.
***
Emma could see the pain and confusion in his eyes from across the room. Feeling like she owed him some sort of explanation, she felt shame heating her face as she managed to stutter out, “I’m sorry. I just…I have these…I don’t like people to see me.”
“I’m sorry, Emma,” he began at the same time, “I shouldn’t have done that…I…what?” He stopped speaking as what she was saying started to register on his face. “What did you say?”
She just shook her head at the floor, and refused to say anymore. How could she possibly express the hurt, the shame she felt every time she looked at herself? How could she ever let someone else see that?
Peeking up at him from under her lashes, she saw him glance at the clock on the stove to her left. It was way after midnight. Shoving his hands into his hair to push it off his face, he looked back at her. He looked torn, and kept looking back and forth between her and the clock.
He paced a few steps away and turned his back to her. Chancing another quick look, she saw him fiddling with the front of his pants. Embarrassed to catch him adjusting himself, she quickly looked back down at the floor.
A moment later, he turned back around and leaned back against the fridge…crossing his arms, all James Dean cool. “I’m sorry, Emma. I just…I lost control.” Understatement of the year. “It won’t happen again.”
Too ashamed to raise her head, Emma felt a gaping cavern open up in her chest at his words. It wasn’t her he was so crazy about; it was just his vampire impulse to prey on the weak. God, she was so naive.