by Tarisa Marie
“Okay, put the two bags at my feet and then go into that little room off to the left and don’t you dare come out until an hour is up, no matter what, May,” he scolds seriously. “No matter what.”
“You’re tied up. You can’t hurt me,” I remind him steadily, standing my ground. “I need to see this. I need to know about this. I need to understand. Apparently, one day I am going to marry you, so I think this is something I need to witness eventually. Why not now?”
He groans as I push the two bags in front of him. Then I back up out of his reach. “Please don’t argue, May. Go to that room before I lose control, please. I don’t want you to see this. You’ll never look at me the same way again. I will scare the wits out of you. I am a demon. You have to understand that. Neither of us are ready for this.”
“Which is why I need to see this, because the last thing I think of you as is a demon,” I counter. “I need to understand, Kade.”
Sensing he’s not going to win the argument and he’s only prolonging satiating his thirst to a manageable level, he scowls at me before giving in. His muscles tense and a feral, inhuman snarl escapes him. His eyes don’t just flicker red, they completely turn red, a dark blood red. His face pinches into a wince as instinct rapidly begins to take over. His mouth opens slightly to make room for his lengthening incisors and then in a movement so quick it’s only a blur to me, he crouches down to the bags and lifts one to his lips, using his teeth pull the small tube up and then uses it like a straw, pulling the liquid into his mouth savagely. A few drops fall to the ground and he grabs for the second bag, a gruff groaning filling the barn. The only other sound is him sucking at the bag, the need to drink so strong that the Kade I know has been pushed far back into the corner of this demon’s mind as the monster inside him takes over my Kade’s body.
When he’s done, he groans in protest and then to my surprise, his crimson eyes lift to meet mine and he thrashes against the shackles in my direction, snarling, and wincing in pain. He is in so much obvious torture. Part of me wants to go to the house and get another bag but he said he only needed two. After a few moments of trying to get at me, I glance at my phone to see that only five minutes have passed. Fifty-five more to go. I debate sitting down but I’m too on edge. It’s torture watching him struggle. He crouches back on the ground and snatches one of the empty bags, ripping it open and getting the last few drops, then he reaches for the second but it’s just barely out of his reach.
He moans in distress and then his pained eyes meet mine in silent question. In that moment, I see Kade, not the demon inside of him. I see Kade begging for my help and although I know I shouldn’t, although I know Kade will severely scold me for it if he remembers me doing it, I take a few steps towards the bag and then with the tip of my shoe, I slide it a few centimeters closer to him. He snatches it up and rips it open like the first. I’m so entranced that I forget to step back to the much safer zone. I’m out of his grasp until he finishes the remaining drops of the bag and then lunges at me again, this startles me so drastically that fall back on my ass, resulting in one of my feet to cross the invisible line between the safe zone and the kill zone. Kade grabs my ankle and yanks me towards him.
I scream bloody murder and claw at the ground but it’s too late and I’m too weak. He pulls me up to standing position and presses my back into the wall harshly. In my horror of the situation, I claw at him, trying escape. I scream again, louder this time as he runs his nose down my neck from under my chin to my collar bone. His warm breath on my skin brings a new sense of urgency flooding into me. His fangs scrape my neck ever so slightly and I just wait for the inevitable. I know I’m dead. I don’t have a doubt in my mind about it.
His lips near my ear and he whispers, “I want to taste you so badly, love.”
I shiver in fright; my whole body is shaking.
“Let me go,” I beg, in a croaky, last dodge effort.
He holds me tighter. “I know I should, but I can’t.” He rests his forehead on the cement wall. His breathing is heavy and his lips near my neck again, I can feel the heat of his breath on my throat. This time the fangs rub rougher and I’m sure they’ll break the skin. I scream again out of survival instinct. Then Kade is pulling away from me slightly and looking at me dead on. “May, god damnet! What did I tell you? How did I get ahold of you?” he snarls. His breathing is severely labored.
It’s silent as I catch my breath. The warm anger in his eyes tells me that this is Kade, or at least partially Kade, his eyes remain red, his fangs extended. “I was helping you reach a bag and you grabbed my foot,” I ramble off.
He hisses in disbelief. “I swear to god, May. I could’ve killed you. I still want to so badly. I can’t even let go of you.” He closes his eyes and I know he’s trying to gather himself but unlike the last few times this tactic has worked, his eyes open and they are still glaring red daggers at me. He’s not calming down in the slightest. His mouth comes down on my neck, but he doesn’t bite it to my shock, he licks a fine line up and then down it and then lightly sucks, his incisors scraping my flesh with urgency. He moans.
“It was my fault, don’t blame yourself, I knew better,” I rattle, my fear tangible. “Just do it quick if you have to do it,” I beg him.
He groans and pulls away from my neck. “May, I need to focus on something else. Do your excessive questioning thing again,” he suggests, his eyes closed tightly.
I struggle to find words. “What do you want for supper?” After I’ve asked it, I know how stupid I am. I mentally face palm myself.
He chuckles lowly. “You, my sweet.”
I set myself up there. “I... I...”
He comes in closer to me, his body pressed against mine again. “If you can’t question me, then for heaven sakes, May, do something.”
Not knowing what else to do, and acting on instinct, knowing fair well that it could get me killed, I decide to play on the part of him that would never hurt me in a million years. I bring my sleeve up to the corner of his mouth and brush away the tiny driblet of blood before letting my lips find his.
It takes him a moment to understand what I’m proposing but when he figures it out, he’s more than game. He groans and presses against me harsher, his warm mouth hard against mine, his tongue travelling along my upper lip.
He opens his eyes and they are back to normal color. When he knows I’ve seen them, he closes them again, letting me know that he’s back in control.
“I should be so fricken pissed at you right now,” he murmurs and then goes back to kissing me, pulling away again slightly after a second. “But I just can’t seem to be angry with you.”
Part of me wants to burst out in tears. My life just flashed before my fucking eyes. I could’ve died just moments ago. Instead, I’m distracted by his warm embrace, no longer frightened that his demon side is about to kill me, my feelings towards this side of him flourish and I feel safe and protected in his arms. It’s probably insane. They’re technically the same person.
I kiss him fervently, hoping that this moment never ends, and he doesn’t pull away like he did last time we were intimate. I bring my arms around his waist and pull him closer, silently asking for him to not stop, to get closer even. He takes that as his que and the intensity of his kiss changes from harsh to starving, but not starving for blood, this time instead lustful starving. I like it, I want more of him. I reach into my pocket and pull out the cuff key, forcing it into his hand. He takes it and begins unshackling himself, but he doesn’t stop kissing me, his lips stay plastered on mine. I hear the first shackle drop, the second, and he briefly disappears from my lips to quickly remove the ones on his ankles. I barely notice he’s been gone when he returns, lifts me up and then sets me down onto the hay covered ground of the barn, his body resting on top of mine.
“Do you want me to stop?” he asks breathlessly.
I make a sound of needy protest and his answering grin warms my heart and flushes my entire body. He trails a line of kisses dow
n my throat and again stops at my collar bone.
“Please, Kade, more,” I beg, wanting all of him.
He shifts his weight, pausing, “Are you sure?”
I nod. Six hundred thousand fricken percent sure.
He lightly lifts my shirt and continues his trail of kisses down my stomach to where my jeans rest on my hips and then he makes his way back up, stopping to tease me where the fabric of my bra ends and the heave of my breast peaks. He licks there playfully and then slips his tongue a little way under the fabric. I clutch his head in my hands and push him into me, needing more.
He declines my request and instead he comes back to my lips. “You’re bleeding,” he whispers.
What? Where? Then I taste copper. He got me so worked up that I accidentally but my lip to keep myself from mauling him. I immediately look to his eyes for a sign of his control. They are his normal colour. I’m relieved by this. “It’s okay, if you have to get away from it.”
He shakes his head once and his eyes flicker red ever so slightly, I barely see it. “I can’t go.”
“Are you sure?” I ask and shift my body a little, afterwards realizing that this wasn’t the best idea.
He groans with the friction. “You’re going to make me lose it in a whole other way, May,” he purrs. “Let me taste you, please...just a little.”
I don’t know how to answer him. Won’t he lose control again? The memory of my fear surfaces and makes my heart pound against my ribs.
“Your heart racing isn’t helping me right now, May. Relax,” he pleads and his head bends down. I think he’s about to kiss me when his finger comes up and wipes the blood from my lip. He holds it close to his mouth, staring at it like it’s the most enrapturing thing he’s ever laid eyes on.
“I swear to god, if you kill me, I’ll come back and haunt your ass,” I warn him in a horrified squeak.
He smirks. “This is a whole other type of control I’m about to lose, May, love. You don’t have to worry about me killing you right now.”
“Why?” I ask, not convinced.
“Because all I can think about right now is carrying you into the house and onto the bed and...” he trails off, panting. “It seems we’ve found my grounding.”
“Huh?” I mumble.
“I don’t want to hurt you right now, May, even though I should. Your blood is only inches from my lips and all I want to do is make love to you. May, let me taste you, please.”
“Is that smart?” I ask, my voice cutting off half way through.
“I won’t hurt you. You’ll enjoy it,” he mumbles.
I somehow doubt that, but I decide to trust the man who nearly killed me minutes ago. Something is seriously wrong with me. I nod. “Just a little.”
He smiles and slips his bloody finger into his mouth. When he opens his eyes, I expect to see that they are red with thirst, but instead they are only filled with lust. “See?” He whispers.
I nod in fascination and then he leans down to kiss me again. At least that’s what I think he’s doing until he sucks on my bleeding lip lightly, the sensation making me grind against him.
He pulls my lip into his mouth again, pulling blood into his own mouth and the strangest, most erogenous sensation starts at my lip and moves quickly to the rest of my body. I gasp as he grins knowingly.
He continues sucking on my lip and the feeling he’s somehow causing by doing this intensifies until it peaks and I’m swimming in pleasure. I’ve never felt anything like it in all of my life.
His eyes meet mine, still brown. “I love you,” he whispers.
I nod in agreement. “I love you, too.”
Chapter 14
The next morning, I wake up to the sound of the cows bellowing and the birds chirping outside the window, Kade’s bedroom window. I sit up quickly, the memories of the night before flooding back. I glance to my other side. Kade lies propped up on his elbow staring right at me, his hair tousled.
“What’re you doing?” I demand, a little too harshly.
He smirks. “Waiting for you to wake up.”
“You were watching me sleep?” I ask in horror.
His smirk grows. “Yeah, all night, couldn’t get enough.”
Heat rushes to my cheeks. I probably snored all night. Jane always used to complain about my snoring.
“Are you mad?” he asks, his smirk starting to fade now as he mistakes my embarrassment for anger.
I shake my head. “No,” I comment. “I’m embarrassed.”
“Why?” He asks, his face wrinkling.
I sigh and brush my tangled hair out of my face. “I snore.”
He chuckles and his smirk returns. “Yeah, you do, but that’s nothing compared to what you had to deal with last night and you’re still here. You didn’t run for the hills.”
“Surprised I didn’t leave in the middle of the night? You thought you’d scared me off, didn’t you?” I shoot back.
His tongue lightly licks the corner of his mouth. “You wouldn’t get far, super hearing, remember?”
“Right.” I click my tongue.
He looks up into my eyes and my heart feels like it’s jumped off a cliff. Part of me wishes that he wouldn’t have stopped last night, that we would’ve gone further, but due to his superior self-control, which makes mine look like nothing, it didn’t go any further than one damn hot makeout section on the floor if the barn and then that life changing feeling of ecstasy that he treated me to.
“You okay? Your heart is racing,” he mocks, knowingly.
I grit my teeth. “I’m fine.”
“You’re thinking about last night,” he states, grinning.
I swallow. “I thought you couldn’t read minds!” I accuse.
He shrugs. “I can’t but it’s all over your face.” He jumps up from the bed in a blur and faces me. “Let me make you breakfast.”
Before I can protest and tell him that I am more than capable of making my own breakfast, he’s gone from the room. “Show off,” I mutter to myself.
“I heard that!” he calls from the kitchen. Of course, he did.
I think back to last night again. The fear, the hurt, the acceptance, the passion, the love, it all blends together in a mixture of emotion that I can’t process although I need to.
We told each other that we love each other last night. Was it a spur of the moment exchange resulting from lust or did it come from the heart? I know the truth but I’m not sure I’m ready to admit it to myself yet. I recall him carrying me back to the house in his arms last night as I basked in the afterglow of the pleasure he shared with me. He laid me down in his bed and then I fell fast asleep in his arms, a feeling of safety and contentment washing over me.
I start to smell bacon cooking and I spring out of bed, running my fingers through my hair quickly. I come out to the kitchen, feeling as if nothing can dampen my mood. For the first time in as long as I can remember, I am happy.
Kade stands in front of the stove, back to me, not acknowledging me. I know he’s heard me come in, but he seems intent on his cooking.
I sit down at the table in my usual spot.
He turns. “I got a call from the errand lady I hired,” he tells me and by the tone of his voice, I know it wasn’t a good call.
“She’s unable to work, she’s too sick.”
I expected as much. “That’s too bad,” I worry. The poor woman.
He flips the bacon in silence. He seems too upset about this stranger’s illness.
Do you know her personally?” I wonder.
He takes a moment to respond. “No. We’ve never met.”
“Why is it you’re so concerned about her then?” I ask, hoping I don’t sound insensitive.
He turns to me, resting his back against the stove. “My human half-sister died from cancer.”
“You had a sibling?” I ask in shock, how has this not come up?
He nods once. “I told you that when I first met you, back in Montana.”
A vague memory o
f him and I speaking about our shared loss resurfaces. How had I managed to forget?
“My mom never came with my father and I when we came to America. She left my father and then ran from the community soon after. The Bryxx found her a decade later and she had two children with a human man. They killed one of her daughters as punishment for running away and then dragged her back to the Bryxx community and killed her too for leaving. The Bryxx brought the other daughter and her father to live in the community as is mandatory if a human know about our society. Eventually the father died, and my sister grew up and died of cancer in her fifties.”
“The Bryxx sure do like killing people,” I mutter.
He doesn’t disagree. “I also have two brothers. The one older than me works high up in one of the Bryxx communities in America. I haven’t seen him in a few decades. We’re nothing alike. He’s like my father. My younger brother is only twenty, so I don’t know him. He was born after I turned into a vampire and I was not welcome to meet him. I’ve only ever seen him from a distance. I’ve heard he’s very intelligent. His mother, my step mother, I suppose, is the daughter of one of the other council members, so it’s likely that my brother will one day become part of the council or at the very least something highly ranked.” He shuts the stove off and drains the bacon grease into a cup methodically, not dripping a single drop onto the counter. What it must be like to be so confident in your movements. I can’t imagine being able to move with as much grace as he does.
In a blink of an eye, a plate of eggs and bacon sits in front of me.
“Oh, my heaven. Are you trying to fatten me up?” I ask, incredulously. My plate is heaping. “Aren’t you going to eat some of this?” I ask him.