Goldie looked at the Fatherborne and giggled. “Vlade, huh? Nice jacket, Vlade. Vlack is really your color.” A little zing of energy caressed her palm where it pressed against the knife handle and Goldie giggled again. Hunting with this weapon didn’t just work, it felt wonderful. Almost tickles.
But Skinny Jeans still looked worried. Goldie pouted at him, thrilling at the confidence that suffused her entire being now that she had her weapon in her hand and a couple of bloodsuckers to stick. “You don’t wanna play, Skinny Jeans? Too bad. If you’re going to double-team a girl you could at least laugh at her jokes. That’s just good manners.”
The one who called himself Vlade chuckled, a disbelieving smile on his face as he shook his head from side to side. “Is it odd to say I’ve missed this?”
Goldie raised one eyebrow at him. “Why, Vlade, it’s only been a day. You sweet on me?”
A movement on the bed drew Goldie’s attention. Flint. He looked horrible, his skin pale, or at least it looked that way in the green wash of her vision. A thin scratch down his chest was blistered and angry. Power thrummed through Goldie’s body. What the heck did these bloodsuckers think they were doing to her man? One thing for sure, they weren’t making it out of here without being punished. She might be wearing kneesocks, but they’d be the ones squealing like schoolgirls before she was through.
But Vlade snatched her focus back. “Not you, your sisters.”
Goldie’s mouth moved before her brain caught up. “What’s your deal with Darby? Are you the one writing letters?”
Vlade’s smirk told her she’d given him something. Shoot! Shut up and stab him! He quickly adopted a more polite expression. “I speak of your switch sisters, long ago.” Then his tone turned almost wistful. “There’s something about a smart-mouthed woman. I don’t get nearly enough of it anymore. My meals are usually too frightened to talk.”
Goldie felt her stomach flip-flop in revulsion and swallowed it down. “I’m starting to feel pretty stabby. What do you say I ventilate you and your friend here?” She edged towards Vlade, figuring he was the bigger threat. The vampire with the streak of white in his black, pushed-back hair pulled away immediately. Ha! Made you flinch! Goldie took another step toward Vlade, eyeing his leather jacket and weighing how much it might slow her knife down.
He immediately corrected and went on the offensive, stepping next to Flint’s shoulder with the black blade he’d had in the forest once more in his hand, a triumphant sneer on his craggy face. “How about I poke holes in this bear until his soul leaks out and then I go after your sister? What did you say her name was? Darby?”
Goldie held her reaction close. Stinking bloodsucker had just laid out her two worst fears, threatening to check them off his list like groceries, but she couldn’t let on. “I usually just go with ‘hothead’. It seems to work.” She gripped her knife harder and let her gaze bounce from Vlade to Skinny Jeans. Which one first?
Another glance at Flint. Head upright, eyes unfocused. He looked like he was trying. She had to Undo these vampires fast, while he still had some fight left in him.
Vlade’s head tipped to one side and his mouth took on a cruel curve as he observed her indecision. “Interesting.” Then all at once he seemed to make a choice, clapping his hands together. “Well then, switch. My friend here is going to kill the bear. I’m off to find your sister. With that head of pink hair she shouldn’t be difficult to spot. Unless…”
His eyebrows rose in smirking inquiry and he set one foot back, arms raised in front of him like Johnny in Dirty Dancing waiting for Baby to do the grand finale lift.
Goldie’s whole body hummed. All she wanted was to stab, slash, skewer, and this joker was making her think. Where would he take her if she attacked him? Did it matter, as long as she stopped him from hurting Darby? Her body tensed to run at him, her sister’s-keeper reflex kicking in hard.
But Flint groaned and Goldie stopped short, her socked toes digging into the carpet. She felt her connection to him everywhere, all through her body, from her tingling scalp to her sparkly silver toenails. Jumping Vlade meant leaving Flint to die. Out of the question. Decision made.
A huff of laughter drew her attention to Vlade’s face. He was watching her. Then he glanced at his skinny henchman with a regretful smile. “You’re going to want to run.” Vlade tensed, the thick black tendrils she’d seen yesterday pouring and swirling off his body in their oily liquid way, and disappeared in a blink. Phazed into the ether.
Her heart thudded once when Goldie realized she no longer had the option to protect her sister. It was up to Bryce now. Goldie had a job to do.
Skinny Jeans looked like he was in the middle of shitting his namesake trousers. Goldie glanced to his hands. Hadn’t Vlade said the skinny little snot was supposed to kill her bear? And how was he supposed to do that without a weapon? She laughed and gave her opponent a pitying glance. “Your boss just left you to die.”
The vampire held out his hands in front of him, eyes scanning the room shiftily. “Wait. Just wait. If you let me out of here I’ll give you whatever you want, I swear.”
Flint groaned to Goldie’s left, his words sending her power surging. “Kill it.”
Skinny Jeans panicked, fear turning to rage in his eyes. “No! You don’t understand… I have money… as much as you want.” His desperate pleading trailed off.
To her surprise Goldie didn’t feel anything. All she could hear was the sound of her knife’s tip glancing off his brittle ribs before slipping sweetly through to his soft parts. All she could picture was the beauty of the blade sinking deep, down to the hilt. A wave of energy surged through Goldie’s body, her vision going deep forest green. This was only ending one way.
Goldie blew into her left palm and felt the bundle of emerald lightning gather there, curling her fingers so she could control it with one hand. She smiled at her prey. “Sorry. I just don’t want cash as much as I want to see you dead.”
Skinny Jeans’ face contorted in impotent rage. He visibly mustered his power and started towards Goldie, but she was more than ready for him.
She threw the ball of magicks at his legs as he lunged, and watched him crumble like wet cotton candy to the floor. In an instant Goldie was on him, one knee on his neck and the other on his chest, the gurgling in his throat a welcome melody as she raised her knife - it was singing to her! - and brought it plunging down into the vampire’s belly.
Red light erupted from the wound and the creature’s screaming mouth, blinding Goldie to the green of her vision, drowning it out and spilling through the room. Goldie felt washed clean in the rush of light and energy that filled her. Inspired and replenished, like the whole of the Nantahala River was coursing through her body at once.
She felt her knees sink closer to the floor as beneath her the vampire’s body degraded, the skin sagging over bone, drying to a leathery texture. Brown hair turned scraggly and thin over a scalp pulled close to the skull beneath. Eyes and tongue and ears disappeared, black voids where they used to be. It was repulsive. She couldn’t stop staring.
Goldie yanked her knife free of the monster’s midsection. Heart pounding, breath filling lungs with a bloodlust unlike anything she’d ever felt before, she pushed herself to standing. More. Again.
She spun in a circle, hair whipping her face as she turned. Where had that Fatherborne gone? Maybe if she ran as fast as she could, she could catch him.
Chapter 32 - Save the Switch
Flint was drifting in a sea of pain. His wrists and ankles burned so badly he was surprised he couldn’t smell his hair singeing, the flesh melting. A thin line down his torso burned and stung. He hadn’t felt this way since he’d stumbled into Five Hills a quarter-century ago, Bryce in his arms, fever raging from the wound in his neck. Every nerve in his body was on fire and he wanted to die, to sink under the pain, to be numb by any means possible.
Voices. He could hear voices. One he hated and one that called to him, to his heart, like a megaphone on bla
st. With an enormous effort he pulled his head up, tried to open his bleary eyes, and when he did he could swear he saw Goldie. Was she really there? Whoever it was was being a real smartass to the bloodsuckers. Flint loved it. His head sank back to the cushioned surface beneath it, a groan escaping his lips as the pain took him under.
He came to again. How long had it been? Seconds? Minutes? Hours? There was still talking, Goldie saying someone had left. Vlade? And now a different voice. Pleading. Begging. Scent as bitter as the stink of his desperation. Trying to bargain for his life as Flint’s was ebbing away. Flint fought through the fog, focused all his energy on getting the words past his lips: “Kill it.”
The voice again, whining, cajoling. Goldie snarking a reply that made him want to smile, but he couldn’t muster the focus. Emerald light behind Flint’s eyelids gave him a surge of energy, followed by a blast of red that Flint somehow knew meant they were safe. She’d done it. The threat was over.
(she is the threat.)
This voice was different from the others Flint had been tracking with his mushy mind. It came from within and was strong, clear, driving. Flint pushed his Instinct to speak again, pleaded with his bear to listen. (you are now her prey.)
Shit, the Prowl. Flint gave his head a mental shake. Goldie had killed a bloodsucker. The way she’d been feeling after their encounter in the forest, this was going to be ten times stronger than that. He had to draw her fire or everyone was at risk. But how to do it when he was chained to the bed?
He dragged his head upright - fuck, it felt like it weighed five hundred pounds - and saw Goldie rising to stand at the foot of the bed, looking down at the floor. Her switch’s glow was so bright it was almost blinding, her hair whipping around her head as she spun in a circle. Flint’s voice croaked out of him, “Goldie, come get these chains off me.”
Goldie startled and looked at him, through him, her blue eyes glazed green. “Vampire,” she hissed, as if that explained everything. She sprinted for the door.
Flint growled deep in his gut and she stopped.
He growled again. “He’s gone. I need you.”
She was at the door, turning, not listening, about to plunge through it, into the night, after vampires. He couldn’t let her leave! But he could not stop her. Frustration cleared his head. He growled again, deep, commanding. I’ll be prey, for her, and her alone. The growl that came out of him would have scared even the Father vampire, if there was one. His growl shook the bed, the floor. Even the walls trembled.
Goldie stopped as if frozen in place, and Flint spied a shiver as it chased his rumbling growl up her back to her ears. Dark satisfaction rolled through him. You like that, don’t you, Goldie?
Flint used it, let the next growl rumble so deep he knew she’d feel it through the floorboards, all the way up to that sweet spot between her legs where she’d been so wet for him the day before. Goldie’s free hand dropped from the ruined door to her side, the fingers clenching and releasing as she stood, her feet rooted to the spot. Flint knew she was desperate for an outlet to her aggression, would be lost to it soon. He wanted her lost with him. “Hold up, Goldilocks. I got something that’ll fit you just right.”
Her head turned to the side, as if she wanted to hear him better. Her lips were parted and panting, her eyelids at half-mast, her chest rising and falling quickly with the cadence of her most urgent desires. He let another rumble move through him, to her, and felt his energy surge when her aura brightened. Aw, hell yeah.
Flint kept talking, pulling energy from deep in his being to fight off the draining agony of the bloodchains. “Come on, honey. It’s just the right size, and it tastes way better than a bowl of porridge.”
Goldie turned to face him then, and Flint almost swallowed his tongue. She was wearing a yellow nightshirt that came just to the tops of her thighs, and through the thin fabric he could see her nipples were tight and begging for attention. The socks she wore were baby-blue with gold thread shot through the weave and came to just above her knee. The eight inches of flesh between the two garments was the sexiest thing Flint had ever seen in his life. He wanted to lick that skin, suck on it, maybe even nibble a little. Leave a mark to remember him by. Flint’s cock throbbed and lengthened in his sweatpants.
The deadly intense woman across the room noticed, her gaze landing on his spread thighs with a weight he could almost feel. She licked her lips and gripped her knife and Flint groaned through the pain as his cock responded, giving a little jump as if it wanted Goldie to come on over and investigate. “Damn, Pumpkin. You look like you’re going to eat me alive.”
She met his eye. “If you’re offering.” Goldie took three steps to the foot of the bed, her hands coming up to unwind the chains around his ankles. In her right hand Flint saw a familiar object.
What the hell? Flint blinked to clear his vision, unsure if the bloodchains were fucking with him, but no. Goldie was gripping his grandmother’s silver carving knife like it was her lifeline, not letting go even as she unwound his second ankle, the dead weight of his legs falling to the bed. Already he could feel the fog of the bloodchains lifting, and Flint’s curiosity got the better of him. “Goldie, whatcha doing with my Grandma’s knife?”
Goldie paused abruptly as her aura gave a surge that Flint could feel, a wave of shades from shamrock to pine needle green that filled him with strength and power, erasing even more of the pain that had dragged him low. A dreamy smile took over Goldie’s face as she gazed down at the weapon in her hand. “Is that where you got it? I love it. It’s mine. Has pumpkin vines on it.” She lifted the handle so he could see. As if he hadn’t been staring at it for the last decade and a half and wondering why.
Could it be? Was that knife Goldie’s Resonant? He was hers as sure as the earth was round. But could she possibly be his, too? He’d hoped. Prayed. Wished. Dreamed. That knife said he could know, without a doubt.
The serene expression faded from her face to be replaced by a wicked smile. “As for what I’m doing with it…” She sidled around the corner of the bed and reached for the waistband of Flint’s sweats with her unarmed hand, pulling them away from his body. The very tip of her pink tongue flicked out to slick her lips and Flint felt his stomach shudder with electric anticipation.
Goldie pressed the point of the knife against the fabric of his pants and Flint watched it come through the inside then travel up, rending the fabric like it wasn’t even there, slicing through the elastic waistband like butter. As the two sides fell away Goldie met his eyes with her baby blues and smirked. Fuuuuuuck. Flint gave fervent, silent thanks to the Great Bear. And I promise not to complain even if takes me two weeks to recover from what’s about to go down. A Prowling switch is sexy as fuck.
A satisfied smile bloomed over Goldie’s face. She spun the knife in her hands and, with an adorable little grunt that made Flint’s toes curl with desire, stabbed it into the wooden footboard between his feet. He couldn’t help but taunt her. “Come and get it.”
She turned to face Flint with a naughty gleam in her eye. “I’ve never had a shifter before. You sure I’m going to like it?”
Flint nodded his head and steadied his breath. She didn’t even have to say the word, just knowing Goldie was talking about fucking him made Flint harder than he’d been in years. His dick throbbed, grew, long enough to peek from beneath the ripped cloth of his pants. “Undo these chains and I’ll make sure you love it.” Hell, Flint didn’t mind a little pain, and he sure felt better than he had with his legs bound, but the bloodchains at his wrists were still an irritation.
Goldie looked at his arms and pouted. “But I like you all tied up. I get to be in control.” She reached under her nightshirt with both hands and wriggled her hips, her pink cotton panties rolling down her legs until she could kick them to the side. Their eyes met and Goldie licked her lips. “Right where I want you.”
Flint’s heart rate sped up. He could tell she liked it, her scent going sweet like candied basil, like rosemary-infused h
oney. She wanted him. Would take him. Now, in her Prowl. Flint knew he was strong enough to take it. He would never let Goldie hurt him, for her sake as much as his.
He pulled at the chains burning his wrists, making the bed creak. “Don’t keep me waiting, honey.”
A shaky breath shuddered out of Goldie as her hot gaze met his. She kept their eyes locked as she stood next to the bed and grasped each side of the ruined waistband of his sweatpants, slowly pulling them apart. His dick sprang free at once, the soft caress of cotton making it bob in anticipation. Goldie’s shuddering hot breath blew over him in a wave as she pulled the shredded garment down and off. She smiled shyly up at him, her cheeks going a deep, rosy pink. “Oh, Papa Bear, what a big stick you have.”
Shit. Fuck. That should not sound as hot as it does. Flint’s cock twitched in response to Goldie’s awed proclamation. Great Bear, what the hell is this feeling? Flint wanted to give and give and give to Goldie, whatever she needed until he couldn’t anymore. Serve her body with his until they were both spent and unable to move. Feed her, bathe her, make her scream his name in ecstacy. Claim her. Another throb of his cock, almost painful in its intensity. “The better to fill you up, Goldilocks.”
A charmed giggle erupted as Goldie whipped her nightshirt over her head, her slender, slim-hipped body on unabashed display. Her bare breasts made his mouth water, their pert pink tips looking as sweet as candy. The golden curls at the juncture of her thighs made his cock throb with the memory of how soft she’d been under his fingers the night before. She leaned over Flint’s torso with a grin, her hands going to his thighs, her breasts mesmerizing him with their sway until he realized where her mouth was headed.
He gritted his teeth against the sensations as Goldie’s agile hands wrapped around his shaft from root to ridge and squeezed firmly. She set up an undulating rhythm with her fingers, milking his cock as she guided his head closer to her waiting mouth. The pain in Flint’s wrists had dulled and his strength surged until he almost felt he could break the chains himself, but he didn’t try. He didn’t want to spoil his switch’s fun on her first Prowl.
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