Otherwise, I’m fucked.
23
Maximus
Anger doesn’t even begin to come close to describing the emotion I’m experiencing right now. I am livid. Furious. Incandescent with rage, both at that little cocksucker Zeke, and at Sabina, for not listening to me.
It was right after sunset and I was just waking up, groggily making a coffee, when I received her text message. For a second I stared at it, wondering whether I was reading it right. Then I leapt into action.
Now I’m gripping the steering wheel of my car, speeding down the highway like a bat out of hell, little white spots dancing across my vision.
I’m going to kill Zeke.
And then…
What then?
After Caroline, I vowed never to feel this way again. Then that little blonde opened a tiny fissure in my heart and I let her—only for her to blatantly disobey me and put herself in harm’s way. If she’s still okay—and I won’t know until I reach the location her GPS tracker is indicating on my app—I don’t know whether I’ll ever be able to trust her again. Is love really worth going through this kind of fear?
I wish I could make my car blur but all I can do is press the gas pedal to the floor as I eat up the miles. The red circle on my app indicating Sabina’s location is getting larger.
Thank fuck I installed this software on her phone. If I hadn’t…
Well, that doesn’t even bear thinking about.
The text message she sent me is imprinted into my brain. I went to meet Zeke, now he’s holding me at some clubhouse. Please find and rescue me. I’m sorry.
What has the fucker done to her? Does she know he’s a shifter yet? Why would she willingly go and meet with him?
Gods, and all this before I’ve even had one sip of coffee.
I’m so rigid with fury that I almost miss the tiny dirt road on my right, and have to back up before turning onto it. Another half mile or so and I can see the squat building. It’s in the middle of nowhere, out in the tundra—exactly the kind of place shifters like to hang out.
There’s only one car parked out front: a shitty Mustang. Presumably Zeke’s. It’s all I can do not to smash the fucking windshield as I hustle past it once I’ve parked my own vehicle and jumped out.
Is he alone in there with her, or are there more? Shifters generally like to roam in packs. But Sabina wrote he’s holding me, not they.
I’m about to find out.
It might be prudent to scope the place out first, peep through the windows, try to find out what scenario awaits me inside. But I can’t. I’m too mad and hyped up. It’s very rare that I lose control, and I don’t like the feeling, but right now my aggression might serve me well.
The ramshackle door flies open easily after I give it a swift kick. There’s a resounding bang as it hits the wall, and I’m through it before it can rebound.
I take in the entire scene within the time it takes for Sabina and Zeke to look up.
The dirty fucker is sprawled on top of her on a filthy sofa, and when his eyes meet mine, I see the slitted, vertical pupils. Sabina’s hands are bound in front of her, and her beautiful face is a mask of terror.
“Maximus!” she cries. The way she says my name is half a sob and the sound goes right through me, spurring me into action.
Before Zeke knows what’s hit him, I’m on him, yanking him off the couch and flinging him halfway across the room. I could just snap his neck but I want the fucker to suffer first.
He lets out a snarl and I realize he’s about to shift.
“Run outside, Sabina,” I tell her, not wanting her to see what I’m about to do. But she remains frozen in place. “Fucking NOW!” I roar, and she finally moves. I can’t stop and wait to see whether she actually goes all the way outside. “I’m going to kill you,” I tell Zeke, who has bounced up off the floor and is baring his teeth at me. His incisors have already grown into sharp points. I don’t care. I have fangs of my own.
“You can fucking try, you little leech,” he growls.
“I’m gonna do more than that.” The stench of both his stale and fresh sweat is overpowering as I launch myself at and land on him, knocking him back down to the ground. His skull bashes the floor, hard, and I begin to punch his face over and over, venting all the anger that’s boiling inside me, relishing the crunch of cartilage and bone giving way.
The blood coating my knuckles is sticky and warm.
“Maximus, stop!” Sabina cries, and I turn to glare at her.
“I told you to—”
Zeke seizes his chance and sinks his teeth into my arm.
Roaring with pain and rage, I drive my knee into his belly, forcing him to release me before I grab his head with both hands and twist with all my might.
The crack is audible as his neck snaps and he goes limp.
“Fucker!” I spit, staring down at him, still straddling him, disappointed I didn’t make him suffer more.
A soft whimper reaches my ears and I turn to see Sabina. She’s cowering against the wall, and her skin is the color of fresh milk. She’s trembling. “You killed him,” she whispers.
“You weren’t supposed to see that.” I get to my feet slowly and the burning pain in my arm makes me look down to see the blood dripping to the floor. He didn’t just bite me; he tore a chunk of flesh off me between my wrist and elbow.
“You’re hurt,” she adds, rather unnecessarily.
“It’s nothing.” If this were a movie, she’d be in my arms now, flushed and swooning, kissing me passionately, grateful beyond measure that I saved her from the bad guy.
This isn’t a movie. She’s still staring at me warily from across the room, and the fear in her eyes is hurting me more than any physical pain ever could.
“It probably needs stitches,” she says.
I let out a dry chuckle. “Sure. Let’s head on over to the nearest ER and tell them I got bitten by a cheetah, shall we? Don’t worry about it, pet. It’s not like it will kill me.”
My attempt to lighten the mood falls pitifully short. The blood is dripping steadily onto the ground, and I’m starting to feel a bit woozy. Just because I can’t die doesn’t mean I don’t feel pain. Or I can’t pass out from lack of blood. Fuck.
“Sabina,” I say softly, injecting just a hint of my dom tone into my voice. “I know you’re in shock right now but I need your help. Please. You don’t need to be afraid. Everything will be okay.”
“I just…” She trails off.
“We can talk about all this later. Right now, we need to act. I need you to help me stop this bleeding. Please.”
“How?” She takes a tentative step towards me, then another.
Atta girl.
“Come here. Please, pet.” I saved you, I want to add, but something tells me she won’t be seeing it that way—at least, not yet.
After what feels like an eternity, she reaches my side. I can smell the fear emanating from her entire body and the thought that I’m causing it is almost my undoing. She’s deliberately avoiding looking down, where Zeke’s limp form is still sprawled on the floor, his head cocked at an unnatural, gross angle.
“Give me your hands,” I coax her. They’re still bound together but I slice the rope with my fangs and help unwind it from her wrists. Her fingers are almost blue and she rubs them immediately. “Are you okay?”
“No!” She lets out a noise which sounds like a half-hiccup, half-sob.
“You’re right, it was a stupid question,” I admit. “But you’re strong and brave, and I need you to stay that way, at least for a little longer.”
“What do you need me to do?”
“I’m bleeding out here, pet. I know it’s a lot to ask but if you would let me feed from you, that would really speed up my healing process.”
Her expressive blue eyes are huge and round as she gazes at me. “And if I don’t?”
“I’ll probably pass out.” There’s no point in lying to her.
“Oh god!” The worry in her tone is comforti
ng. She still cares. Thank the gods. She takes my uninjured hand and steers me to the sofa. “Come and sit down.”
I’m growing impatient. There’s no telling when some random shifter—or group of them—will turn up here at the clubhouse and find their shitty, dead little friend. I need to feed, then I have to hide the body. Then we need to get the fuck out of here. But I can’t rush Sabina. She’s too freaked out as it is. So I sink down on the couch and wait while she takes a seat beside me. I could feed from Zeke but the mere idea of it makes me want to puke.
The edges of my vision are starting to get blurry and the familiar fatigue which sets in when I’ve over-exerted myself is beginning to settle into my very bones. “Sabina,” I say again. “Will you help me?”
“I’m scared,” she admits. “We’ve never done it without…”
She doesn’t need to finish the sentence. Every time I’ve sipped from her in the past, it was while she was climaxing.
“Would it help if you were feeling pleasure at the same time?” I offer, wondering where I’m going to find the strength.
“No, I don’t think I could right now. But… will it hurt?”
I almost smile. “You telling me you’re afraid of pain?”
She lets out a soft chuckle. “I guess that was a dumb question.”
“Please help me, pet.”
“I was so scared for you!” she blurts out suddenly.
The raw emotion in her tone gives me courage and I lean over and press my lips to hers, suddenly desperate to show her what she means to me. “I was terrified when I got your message,” I admit. “If I’d been too late… did he hurt you badly?”
“Not as badly as he hurt you.” She lets out a little sigh. “God, I’m so relieved. I thought you’d be furious!”
I don’t want to lie to her but I don’t want to get into a discussion right now, either. “Sweetheart, I don’t mean to rush you but we’re in a bit of a precarious position at the moment. We can talk about everything later.” I look down at the blood dripping from my arm and her eyes follow my gaze, widening when they see the extent of my injury.
“Oh god, sorry, of course! Here!” Her hair is up in a ponytail so her neck is already bared when she leans in. “I’m sorry I wasted so much time!”
“It’s okay, baby, you’re in shock.” I caress her nape with my uninjured hand, then grip her ponytail and yank her head back. Her gasp is one of arousal, just as I intended, and despite everything, it goes straight to my groin.
The sweet taste of her blood coating my tongue is a high unlike any other and I drink eagerly, feeling my strength and energy return with every beat of her pulse. Her hair is like silk against my palm and she’s moaning softly, shuddering, probably feeling the effects of the serum I’m slipping into her.
Once I’ve drunk enough to be able to function, I lap at the puncture marks on her pale skin before coating a fingertip in my own blood and dabbing it on her wounds.
“Are you okay, pet?” I murmur, stroking her cheek.
Her eyes are half-lidded and she looks dazed. “Mmmn.”
“Thank you for that,” I tell her. “I feel much better. And look, it’s already stopped bleeding. You just rest here for a moment, okay? And then we’ll go home.”
“Yes, Sir.”
Now that my injury is no longer at the forefront of my mind, the previous jumble of emotions has returned. Yes, Sir. Those two little words went straight through me, making a warm sensation pool in my gut, but I’m also still battling anger with her for getting herself into this situation, and fear—for her safety, for the future, for my own sanity.
First things first: clear up my mess. One thing at a time. Leaving Sabina curled up on the couch, I get to work, forcing thoughts about anything else to the back of my mind.
The longer I can put off what will no doubt be an incredibly difficult discussion, not to mention an even harder decision, the better.
24
Sabina
I feel like I’m in some kind of waking nightmare but the details are all so vague, and everything seems almost too surreal.
Maximus killed Zeke. Zeke kidnapped me. Zeke was a shifter. A cheetah. I’m curled up in the passenger seat of Maximus’s car, watching the occasional light flash past the black window, trying in vain to wrap my head around the events of this evening. Glancing to my left, I study Maximus’s handsome profile. He’s staring straight ahead, and there’s a muscle ticking in his jaw. I had thought he would be more angry with me for going to see Zeke behind his back but there’s been no sign of that at all. Is it still coming?
“You okay?” I ask softly.
“I’ve had better evenings.”
His arm is wrapped in a strip of material torn from his t-shirt, and my fingers go to the puncture wounds on the side of my neck. Who knew human blood could help vampires heal faster?
Who knew I would ever be sitting in a car with a vampire, even thinking that?
“I’m sorry,” I begin, wanting to get this conversation over with before we get to the diner where my car is still parked and I potentially lose my chance to apologize. “I just wanted to ask him to back off. I was meeting him in a public place. I had no idea—”
“That he was a shifter?”
The edge in Maximus’s voice makes me want to shrink back into the seat. Shit, he really is angry. Once he’d taken some of my blood and recovered himself somewhat, I’d basically passed out on the sofa while he took care of Zeke’s body. I don’t know what he did with it. I don’t want to know. Buried it somewhere outside, I assume, judging by the way he looked when he came back into the clubhouse. “That he was a shifter,” I confirm.
I put him into this position. This is all my fault. It’s all too much to even wrap my brain around. I want to wind the clock back to this afternoon. No, scratch that. I want to wind it back a couple weeks, to where I never met Ethan, never met Maximus, never found out about vampires, shifters…
“We’ll discuss it when we get home,” Maximus says curtly.
“Home? My car is parked—”
“We’re not stopping for your car right now. We’re going to my place, which is closer, and then we’re going to have a little talk. We can pick up your car afterwards.”
If I’m even still alive to drive it, I think glumly, once again turning to stare out of the window. There’s a knot of anxiety in the pit of my stomach, and I keep having these shaking fits. Leftover adrenaline, probably, not unlike the ones I get after an intense scene.
Of course all this had to happen after I’d already had a fight with Maximus. It’s just poured fuel onto the fire. I was mad at him because he was behaving like he owns me when we haven’t even yet labeled this thing between us, and he was mad at me because I didn’t want him to get involved in my situation with Zeke.
God, I should have listened to him. And that’s almost the worst part of all.
By the time we roll up Maximus’s long driveway and into his huge garage, you could cut the tension between us with a knife. Wordlessly, he gets out, and comes around to my side but I’ve already opened the door and am standing beside it. We head into the kitchen and I realize my heart is pounding; the knot of anxiety has turned into a rock in my belly.
“I need to take a quick shower,” he says, indicating the reddish brown dirt streaking his clothes, arms, and face. “Get yourself a drink if you want, and then we’ll talk.”
His voice is so cold, so different to how it was before. To how it is usually when he speaks to me. It’s frightening. I take a step towards him. “Maximus,” I say gently, wanting to lay a hand on his arm but not daring to. “I really am sorry.”
He must be able to hear the fear in my tone because his face softens slightly, giving me a spark of hope. “I know,” he says. “We’ll talk in five.”
As soon as he’s disappeared upstairs, I make my way to the bar in the lounge room, fishing out a bottle of vodka. Being in there reminds me of the first time I was here. The effect Maximus had on me. The bu
tterflies I had in my stomach. Before I knew what he really was.
Pushing that thought down, I head into the kitchen to find a glass and some tonic.
Where do we go from here? I wonder as I down my drink in just a few swallows and pour myself a second. I try to let the different scenarios play out in my head, examining my feelings as I do so. The one where we fight and decide never to see each other again is by far the most painful and terrifying. Something changed tonight, and even though the knowledge is there, deep down inside me, I’m not prepared to examine it fully, let alone admit it.
Frankly, I’m way too scared.
It’s not long before Maximus’s voice interrupts my thoughts.
“All right, I’m back. Can you pass me a beer, please?”
I reach into the fridge for a Bud Light and hand it to him. His hair is wet and there are still droplets of water on his broad, beautiful shoulders. He’s wearing a black sleeveless tee and gray sweats. His feet are bare. It’s all I can do not to run into his arms. He eyes my glass. “Still your first?”
I shake my head. “Second.”
“Better make it last. Come on then.” Without waiting, he walks off into the den.
I follow, my heart in my mouth, my mind racing. Let him take the lead, I tell myself. You fucked up, you disobeyed him. You saw how scared he was. You did that to him.
That was the worst part of the entire evening: the fear on his face when he walked into the clubhouse and saw me there with Zeke on top of me. It must have brought the whole Caroline scenario right back to him.
Why was I so fucking stupid?
He folds himself into the couch and points to a nearby armchair. “Sit,” he orders.
I sink into the plush seat.
“Where to begin?” he continues after a brief silence. “First of all, are you okay? You’ve had a nasty shock. If you want to table this discussion for another time, let me know. While I was in the shower, I realized you might not be in the right frame of mind—”
“No,” I interrupt him. “I appreciate the sentiment but I want to get this over with.”
Her Vampire Addiction (Midnight Doms Book 9) Page 17