Hunger Awakened

by Dee Carney

  “More,” she pleaded. Eyes squeezed shut, body shuddering.

  “Shh,” he cooed. A feather-light kiss touched her lips. “Later. This isn’t the only way to make you feel good. I promise.”

  As if to put weight behind his words, his hand slipped between their bodies. The tender touch of his thumb on her clit almost overwhelmed her. The sensation was electric. And, she wanted more. “Yes, oh God, please...”

  Alice tilted her head back, indenting the pillow behind her as another orgasm rushed through her veins, turbulent and swift.

  She couldn’t think. Couldn’t speak. Words climbed into her mind and fell away, meaningless. There was nothing for her to do but succumb.

  Sebastian pushed his face into the crook of her neck, his moist lips like a heated torch on her skin. It touched the place where he’d bitten, the breathy caress igniting sensation through her again. She heard his soft grunts, the low muttered words of desire and pleasure. He drove into her harder and faster than he had previously, and the burning soreness of her cunt surrendered, becoming as needful as her lust.

  She opened her eyes, immediately staring into an ocean of green so clear and distinct, it rivaled the world’s most beautiful emerald. Her heart clenched, the beat following ever frantic and wild. “What have you done to me?” she whispered.

  There was feeling beneath that beating heart. Emotion. She didn’t have to search for it.

  “Alice...” Sebastian kissed her long and deep, the connection between them so strong she almost feared it. But then she felt the first shudder of his body, the sudden clenching of muscles wire-tight. His fingers threaded with hers, tightening around them as another shudder overtook him. The growl that permeated the air on its heels sent goose bumps rising in a contagion on her skin, but satisfaction sank deeply as he emptied inside of her.

  With a heart pounding so insistently she could have counted the individual knocks, Alice held on to Sebastian as he slowed the instinctual rhythm. Until he stopped moving altogether.

  He seemed to part reluctantly, pulling her in close next to him when she would have given him his space. Tucked against the warmth of his skin, she knew comfort and a feeling of being needed. As her eyes fluttered, fatigue seducing her into slumber, her eyes found the laptop screen, tumbled on its side during their activity. There, on the search results page, she thought she glimpsed repeating words, “angel” being the first. Sebastian draped his arm over her chest, covering both breasts jealously, also shattering any belief he might actually be related to one of the divine beings.

  She was so damned tired and would look at it closer later, but as heavy lids insisted on having their way, she thought she saw another familiar word.

  Demon.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “...Forty-three...forty-four...forty-five!”

  A sharp scream rent the air, a little girl’s cry of pain coming from a young man of nineteen. He tripped over his own legs in his haste to remove himself from harm’s way. Tucked next to his belly, the damaged arm smoked, the skin crackling beneath the weight of newly formed blisters. Jacob’s face twisted in agony, but he grinned. “Forty-five seconds in the direct sunlight. Let’s see who among you can best that.”

  Sebastian met the eyes of the others, and knew they were all silently wishing someone else would step up and test his hand.

  In a hundred years or so, with more exposure to the sun, such a short period of time in its natural light wouldn’t mean much. But right now, for every second their fragile skin spent beneath the sun, the quicker they would burn. It was also a rite of passage. To prove worthy to be named as one of the privileged, each would test his manhood. That, or travel to the wilds of a newly discovered land called America.

  “You next, Edmund? Or will it be Sebastian?”

  “This is childish,” Edmund protested. Not five minutes ago, he’d been jeering on Jacob to test his mettle. One look at the latter man’s disfigured fingers, fused together from damage, seemed to have tempered his lust.

  “Take your turn or step aside, Edmund,” Sebastian drawled. He didn’t want to feel the sun’s burn anymore than his companion, but there would be no satisfaction until everyone did the deed. He didn’t like the rite of passage, but he accepted it.

  “What’s the rush? Need to get back to rutting your mother?”

  He’d heard enough of the taunts about his mother—and lack of a father—to let them roll off him by now. “No, a sapphire-eyed, raven-haired vixen needs my attention...”

  Edmund scowled at the description of his sister. Sebastian smirked.

  “Get on with it, both of you.” Jacob spoke between clenched teeth, but his arm no longer smoldered. The angry red flush covering his face diminished to a healthy pink. A few minutes more, and the burn would be nothing but a memory. He plucked the pocket watch from Edmund’s vest before winding it. “The hour grows late,” Jacob continued. “At the ready.”

  Sebastian silently swore, but pushed up the sleeve of his linen shirt. The material scraped against the coarse hair covering his arm, pulling on some of them due to his haste. His expression remained impassive. These little acts of fortitude were childish, but expected among the vampire elite. If there was any chance—any at all—that he and his mother were to be pushed higher than their current stations because of a little pain, he would go through with it. This or any of a million other tortures they could put him through. She deserved it.

  He and Edmund stepped forward. A quick glance into the other man’s face proved a pallor gone unnaturally white. Sebastian stood straighter at the sight, unwilling to let the young men surrounding him see the least bit of trepidation in his own face or stance. Thank the old gods they couldn’t hear the way his insides trembled. Undoubtedly,
this was going to hurt like hell.

  Ignoring them watching with gleeful anticipation, he clenched his teeth and stared into the beam of light. The starkness of it drew his attention, the glare so innocent-seeming. Amazing that such a little thing could inflict such damage.

  “Ready,” Sebastian said to Jacob. Beside him, Edmund echoed the same.

  “Now!” shouted Jacob.

  Closing his eyes, Sebastian thrust his arm forward and into the beam, prepared for the worst.

  “One...two...”

  The knocks of his heart matched the cadence of Jacob’s counting, but Sebastian paid it little attention. Instead, he opened his eyes and studied the skin of his forearm.

  Surprisingly, the warmth there wasn’t anything like he expected. While true that he felt its caress, the agony he expected didn’t ignite. Instead, his arm faintly glowed with awareness. He studied it, as if it hadn’t been attached to him for the past twenty years. As if it were a newfound toy, a puzzlement meant to be solved.

  “Fourteen...fifteen...”

  Sebastian glanced into Edmund’s face, then frowned. Already his friend pulled his teeth back, baring them against pain. Jacob watched him too, fascination spread across his features. The others edged forward as a crowd, similar to what Sebastian had done when it hadn’t been his turn beneath the sunlight. He understood their morbid curiosity too well.

  “Twenty-nine...thirty...”

  Edmund’s arm had begun to flush pink, every passing second encouraging the color to deepen. Before his eyes, Sebastian focused on the long, curling hair on his arm that began to draw in, withering as if a fine plant deprived of water. Edmund struggled with keeping his hand beneath the sunlight, his arm jerking in his body’s reflex to protect itself. His mind, probably overwrought with the need for the acceptance of his peers, kept the arm in place.

  “Remarkable! Forty-seven...forty-eight...”

  Sebastian’s gaze slid to his own arm. And his heart kicked so, so hard.

  There was a sudden shout before Edmund yanked himself away from the sunlight, stumbling over his feet in his haste. His face was scrunched in pain, tears leaking from his eyes. He panted heavily, his blistering arm crossed over his chest.

  Sebastian looked again into the beam shining on his own skin. Self-preservation told Sebastian to step back. To pretend to the others.

  But his preoccupation held him enthralled. He monitored the progress of his arm, its appeal unwavering to him.

  “What is this?” Jacob whispered.

  All eyes turned to Sebastian, and he suddenly wished he’d listened to his gut. “I’m a year older,” he said. “I’ve been exposed longer.”

  Jacob held up the pocket watch. “One minute, one...two...”

  They all stared at his arm. The supple skin still intact. The healthy glow steady in its color. It did not smolder.

  There was no damage whatsoever.

  “Ten...eleven...twelve...” Jacob droned on in a low voice.

  “What is this?” Edmund echoed. His voice wavered, and Sebastian didn’t know if pain or amazement trembled it.

  He didn’t know how long they stood there, waiting and watching for the slightest indication that the sun did damage to his arm. “I thought you were full-born?” Jacob asked.

  “I am.”

  “I’ve never heard of a full-born who could withstand sunlight. There has to be a mistake.”

  Sebastian wouldn’t accept that. Couldn’t. There were already enough rumors and speculation about him and his mother. Once word got out about this...

  “My birth was witnessed and documented,” Sebastian said aloud, more of an affirmation for himself than the others. They were slowly distancing themselves from him now, whether they realized it or not. “I was born a vampire, just like all of you.”

  “Not like us,” Edmund replied. “The sun would have destroyed your skin if you were anything like us.”

  Sebastian pulled his arm from the sun’s beam. At least two minutes, maybe three had passed by now. His skin was as intact as it was before being introduced to the potentially lethal rays. Folding his hand into a fist took no effort at all. One by one, the fingers curled in, the skin stretching across his knuckles. The sun might as well have been water for all the damage it had done.

  Was there something about himself he didn’t know? Did this have something to do with his father?

  “You’re not like one of us,” Edmund sneered. A hard look filled his eyes. “How far back can you trace your bloodline...oh, beg pardon. You can’t.” He took a step forward, careful to avoid the sunlight. “So you’re not even just a bastard. You’re probably a half-breed in addition. What sorts of creature is your mother willing to fuck, Sebastian of Kent?”

  Sebastian didn’t think. Unlike Edmund, he didn’t bother to avoid the sliver of light, instead launching himself at the dark-haired man. The other young men began to cheer them on as fists fl
ew, intense blows landing on belly, back and jaw. Sebastian felt the crunch of Edmund’s ribs snap beneath a punch, while pain exploded in his groin from a well-placed kick.

  As Sebastian grunted, then rolled, blocking a punch aimed for his ear, the last of Edmund’s words echoed over and over in his mind.

  Who was he?

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Fuck!” Bast bolted upright, the flash of pain so bright, it flared behind his previously closed lids. By the time he’d figured out what happened—no, he wasn’t even certain of that—the pain had vanished. As quickly as it had risen.

  A delicate hand rubbed a small circle on his lower back. “You okay?”

  He turned to face Alice. His lover. His friend. Her voice was whiskey-rough from their slumber. Very sexy.

  “Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you.” He leaned over and kissed a greeting on her lips.

  “Is it the heat again? Do you need to feed?”

  Always so quick to put him first, despite his insistence she couldn’t sustain him at the current pace. There was no way her mortal heart could tolerate the drain on its system. “No, not hungry.” He stretched his torso, pulling out the kinks. Elongating his spine. “For a second there, I’d felt like...shit. Shit.”

  She struggled to a sitting position as Bast threw back the comforter and stumbled from the bed. “Okay, so you felt like shit?” she prodded.

  He staggered in a wide circle, needing a mirror. He needed to see himself, what he looked like right now. Except damn it, he couldn’t use a mirror properly. Not enough reflection, idiot. “My back...the wings...”