by Cate Corvin
There wasn’t a lot of room to hold back with the bloodsong was pounding in the back of my head. She was Morrìgna. She was mine.
I wanted Victoria, and I would have her. It was that simple.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
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TORI
I didn’t get a chance to raise my guard again, feeling loose and languid from hundred-year-old wine I had no business drinking, laughing at Càel’s jokes that probably weren’t really jokes. He was the last person I’d expected to find comfort in after a week of rage and misery.
That was probably why I was totally unprepared for my emotional walls to crumble to dust, and my physical barriers to follow right after it.
When he gave me another hungry once-over, my entire body responded to his clear desire. Càel didn’t give me a biology lesson this time.
He moved faster than the eye could see, burying his hands in my hair and tilting my face up, devouring my mouth with an intensity that had me curling against him. Càel kissed like he wanted to consume, his tongue slick as silk against my lips. For a dazzling moment my entire body was completely attuned to him as I gripped his massive arms, pushing back like I wanted to feast on him in return.
Càel was rough and raw once he dropped the charmer act, hunger zipping through my veins straight between my thighs, and he thrust one of his thighs between my legs like he knew exactly what I wanted. Just the sound of his groan had me shivering in his arms.
My tongue slid between his lips and found the hard, smooth edge of one fang. Reality came crashing down on me in a harsh, unwelcome wave.
He was a vein-licker. He had to survive by drinking blood, no two ways about it.
I planted my hands against his chest and pushed back, turning my head aside with a gasp. Càel kissed my jaw, working his way down my throat in a slow, luxurious way that was both seductive and dangerous. One slip and my jugular was gone.
“Càel, stop,” I whispered, my fists bunching in his shirt. You didn’t run from a vampire. Like all predators, they had the instinctive need to chase. “I don’t want you.”
Lie or not, that got his attention. His lips paused just below my collarbone, and I felt a strange sensation that I realized was a frustrated snarl reverberating through my chest. Eyes the color of a cloudless Arctic sky found mine.
“No?” The word came out clipped and painfully tense.
He wasn’t going to make a hypocrite of me, regardless of what my body was telling him. For the thousandth time, I wished Càel was a mortal man so I could strip him down right here and now, which every fiber of me longed to do.
“No.” I kept my hands planted on his broad, firm chest, ignoring the desire to run my nails over his skin. “And don’t try to tell me my physiology is lying. I’m more than my body’s reactions. I don’t choose to do this.”
If I couldn’t stand the idea of Sura fucking demons, there was no way I was going to screw a vampire on a whim. Not after what I’d yelled at him in a moment of rage and betrayal, how pathetic it was to have to look outside your kind and lie about it later.
Part of me got it now. Even a Shadowed Worlder could reach into my soul and resonate with me on a level no one else did.
Didn’t mean I had to give up on my beliefs.
After a long, fraught moment, Càel stood up, towering over me. I slipped off the bar stool and wobbled a little bit, and despite his frustration, he gripped my arms until I was steady.
I couldn’t bring myself to look him in the eye. If I did, my resolve might crumble. Heaven help me, he was the White Wolf, the murderer of thousands, and I liked him.
By all rights, he was one of my worst enemies.
“Good night, Càel,” I murmured, and his thumb rubbed my arm before he released me.
He leaned in close when I turned my back, pushing my hair behind my ears. “There will come a day that I don’t let you walk away from me, little slayer.” Goosebumps rose all over my body, and my knees became liquid. It was hard to tell if I loved or hated the sound of that. Maybe both.
I didn’t look back as I left the vampire’s private bar, letting out a long, slow breath as I walked up the stairs. I’d gotten two stories up when muffled cheers came from behind a cracked door.
I slowed almost automatically. I’d never seen a vampire feeding, let alone their blood-games. How bad was it?
The door opened easily enough, and I slipped into a dark room that was more of an amphitheater, surrounding a stage. The only light in here was bloody.
The audience was almost all Shadowed Worlders: packs of howling moonspawn, vampires, even a slayer or two who watched with sardonic little smiles. A human woman had been spread out across the floor of the amphitheater on a round platform, her ankles and wrists restrained with chains. Several other humans, all women, were gathered in a small group near the side, watching with a tense mix of fear and excitement.
King Thraustila watched from the side, surrounded by several more humans and his vampire guardians, the Morrìgna, who looked as impassive as he was excited. Morgrainne was wearing her armor, but Rhianwen had been poured into a pale blue silk dress, a sword at her hip.
The tattooed, dark-skinned vampire I’d seen near Thraustila’s throne was juggling knives over the chained woman’s body, and her platform slowly rose until she was dangling from the chains, her head slumped.
“Place your bets, Fiends, place your bets!” A vampire in a suit strolled the perimeter of the amphitheater, his voice audible even above the moonspawns’ howls. Korso bent over a woman draped in diamonds and offered her a steaming cocktail. The pixies had gathered in a cloud, dancing manically over a tray of drinks.
I almost gasped at the sight of a full-blood Fae woman, thin as a slip, her eyes gleaming like newly-minted pennies. She grinned at a moonspawn, showing sharp black teeth, but he purred back and snatched a pixie out of the air, which he presented to her like a flower.
She took the squirming pixie and bit off its head before settling next to the moonspawn. The cloud of its peers darted away, abandoning the drinks in their panic.
“Feast your eyes, Fiends, on Iskandar, the Flame of the East!”
The vampire with the knives circled the human’s platform, and I looked away, my stomach churning. I didn’t want to see this. There was a reason humans weren’t invited into the bar on these nights… a reason I hated Shadowed Worlders.
They were savage to the core.
Before I backed out of the room, a flash of pale hair caught my eye from across the amphitheater. Càel slipped in through the back near the small human-only section, hulking over everyone else, but silent as a panther.
For a crazy second, I thought he saw me in there, when he took a step forward, but he was behind one of the human women. She jerked, her mouth opening in a lusty gasp when she realized who was burying his hands in her hair and pulling her head to the side.
A strange emotion coiled low in my stomach, radiating outwards until my fists were clenched at my side. Càel laved the beating pulse in her neck with his tongue, slow and sensuous as a lover, while her hands fluttered upwards to his hands and hair.
I realized with a start that I was jealous. Watching him kiss her neck like she was something precious to him made me sick to my stomach, and not because he was about to feed on her. It made no sense.
Càel kissed his way down to her arm, which was scarred with numerous circular marks. He looked up when his fangs slid into his skin, meeting my eyes from across the room, like he’d known I was there and watching the entire time.
There was nothing sexual in the way he fed from her now. He pulled his hand from her hair, her wrist held to his mouth with a simple, emotionless economy.
He had wanted me to see that. It was a message: to see what I could have for myself if I wanted, that he would give me that raw sensualism while everyone else was given all the consideration of a can of soda.
The chained human woman Iskandar was working on woke up with a low, animalistic groan, and the
bubble around me popped. No matter how good Càel’s mouth felt on me, no matter what he wanted, he was still one of them. Monsters.
I turned on my heel and strode from the amphitheater, no longer sure if I was angry with Càel for forcing me into this, or with myself for wanting him at all.
“I’m sorry.”
Sura cocked his head my way, giving me a wary look. “Excuse me, want to repeat that a little louder for everyone in the back?”
“No. Don’t push your luck.” I ducked his blow, but he barely missed me by an inch. I felt the air of his fist speeding where my face had been a second ago. “This is between me and you, and I’m sorry for what I said. It was a shitty assumption to make.”
I kicked hard, aiming for his knee, but for such a big guy he danced to the side like it was nothing.
“Yeah. I wasn’t lying. Just because I know someone from Seventh Heaven doesn’t mean I’ve fucked them, Tori.”
I paused to gulp breath, sweat pearling on my forehead. Christ, but this guy made a sparring match look like a pleasant Sunday stroll, while I was over here sweating my ass off. “I know. I shouldn’t have accused you of all that. It’s not really an excuse, but I was already pissed off and having a hard time, and that just kinda… tipped me over. I don’t think you’re pathetic, or gross, or anything else I said. So, again: I’m sorry.”
He finally slowed down in his relentless attacks. “Before I accept your apology, what brought this on?” I felt like those dark eyes could see right through me to the truth of it.
“Just gonna keep me waiting, huh?”
“Yep.”
I wiped my forehead on my sleeve and swallowed hard. Both teams had been spread out far enough across the training courts that no one would hear our private conversation unless they walked right by us.
“A vein-licker kissed me, and I got it. It’s easy to let them in when they feel like being charming. I hate them more than anything, and even I couldn’t keep up my defenses all the way.” I scoffed bitterly. “I was wrong.”
Worst part was, I dreamed of Càel kissing me, what could’ve happened if I hadn’t pushed him away. If he hadn’t been honorable enough to stop when I said no.
Sura moved closer, only inches away, running a hand through his inky hair. “Who? Which vampire?” He’d gone surprisingly tense, and his voice dropped. “Càel?”
I nodded. I felt like such an asshole for screaming at Sura when I saw now how easy it was to fall into a Shadowed Worlder’s arms. And honestly… I believed him. He was so friendly with everyone; it was easy enough to picture him making friends with all kinds of demons and vampires.
“Sura, I’m not worried about Càel right now. I’m trying to apologize. You’ve been nothing but a friend to me since I got to this shithole, and I fucked it all up.”
He just stared at me, expressionless, and something deep inside me faltered.
“Bring it in, Victoria the Repentant.” He held out his arms, and I was so overwhelmed with relief, I could’ve cried. I forced myself to step sedately into his bear-like hug instead of throwing myself at him, relieved that I had one person I cared about back. “Apology accepted. I told you the truth about her: she was a friend of Korso’s. I never touched her. But I probably could’ve been more up-front with you about the kind of people I hang out with. They’re really not all bad- well, she was, I guess, since she was murdering people, but you win some, you lose some.”
“It was just a lot to take in after what happened,” I said, my words muffled against his chest. Nobody smelled as good as Sura, and I snaked my arms through his jacket, feeling the taut flex of muscles under his shirt. “I do have one question, though.”
“What’s that, babe?” He hugged me like he was restraining himself from crushing my bones to dust, but as always, something in the power of his grip made me feel like a little breathless and heavy.
“What do you want from me?” I pushed back just enough to meet his eyes. “You won’t even kiss me, but… I just want to know where we are. Friends, more-than-friends, neighbors… mortal enemies?”
Something dark flashed across his face, there and gone. “Look, Tori, I’ve had a lot of one-night-stands, but I’ve never had a real relationship. I know how weird that sounds, but I’ve never dated someone. It’s always been just sex. I just… want more than that, and I don’t want to mess anything up.”
My heart was pounding so hard he had to be able to hear it. “I want more, too. But I’m a little touchy-feely-”
“I couldn’t tell,” he said, as my hand snaked up his muscled back.
“And I do want to be kissed, at the very least.”
He was only inches away, and Ermengol’s voice boomed through the training grounds. “You should be putting away your weapons, not playing hide-the-salami on my courts!”
Sura made a face and reluctantly released me. “Did you get your tattoo done yet?”
I froze in the middle of picking up my forgotten staff. “No, not yet.” After the emotional crash of fighting with Sura and finding common ground with Càel, I’d completely forgotten the succubus had been my first demon kill. A tiny black dot to be emblazoned at the apex of my spine. “Will you come with me?”
He slung his staff over his shoulder. There was a hesitance in his gaze that sent butterflies storming through me. “You really want me there?”
“Um, yeah, obviously. That’s what more-than-friends do for each other, or so I’ve been told.”
Will had already shelved his weapons and gone. Sura and I put ours up, and walked down to Mater Bellum’s chambers, occasionally giving each other quick, goofy grins like we were preteens on our first date.
Mater Bellum, the Dread Mother representing Mother War, was in her chamber. She had me laid out on my stomach across a long, low couch before I’d even finished telling her what I’d accomplished. Sura knelt next to me, his fingers laced through mine as Mater Bellum ran an antiseptic cloth over the nape of my neck. My skin cooled like ice as soon as the air dried the liquid, which numbed the sting of the needle as she engraved the first black dot into my flesh.
It took only seconds, but it was there for a lifetime, proof of my first demon kill. Mater Bellum smeared a dab of ointment on the stinging pinprick and released me.
Instead of walking me to my room, Sura pulled me to his. My entire abdomen felt hollow with nervousness and anticipation.
I wasn’t really sure what I’d been expecting. Somehow, two months into the first semester, I’d never seen their bedrooms because I avoided them like the plague. My own neat, tidy little space all I really needed.
Sura shrugged off his boots and jacket and unbuckled his weapons belt, leaving them piled on and around his desk chair. Books were stacked in piles across the top of the desk, took up every inch of available real estate on his bookshelf, and had formed a tottering tower next to his bed.
“Wow, you really like to read.” I peered at the book on top of the pile, catching the words How to Romance Difficult Women before Sura flipped it over.
“Let me see,” he commanded, grabbing my wrist and yanking me to the bed. I pulled my hair aside and felt his breath touch my still-tender neck as he examined the dot. “You have… six kills now.”
Seven, my brain amended, and for a terrifying second I considered telling him about Eluned Ravensbane, but something held me back. Even though Guilloux’s Law had been nullified that night, there had to be some other consequence to murdering one of the Morrìgna, besides Càel’s attention.
And Sura had noticed my tattoos and counted on his own. I’d never told him myself how many moonspawn I’d killed in Port Leona.
“Not bad for a podunk,” I said with a grin, letting my hair fall back into place.
Sura pulled my legs over his lap, his gaze intense. It was too easy to forget the sting of newly-inked skin and all my worries when he touched my jaw, ran his thumb to the point of my chin, and pressed the pad of that finger to my lower lip.
“Not bad at all, Victoria the
Beautiful.” The air in my lungs might’ve been made of lead. He pulled me forward, that delicious pepper-vanilla scent in my nose. “But now I want to kiss you.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
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TORI
The first kiss started out almost chaste.
I held myself back, refusing to push faster than what he wanted, even though that magnetic attraction to Sura thrummed in my veins like an irresistible force. Every instinct said to tear off his clothes and lick him all over; keeping my conscious mind above it was harder than I would’ve thought.
He held my chin, tilting his head to press a slow, soft kiss to my lips. Even while holding back, he made it seem like pure sex. What would’ve been an innocent, boring kiss from anyone else became a tease from him, a promise of something more delicious to come.
Sura nestled a kiss in the corner of my mouth, trailing over my cheekbone to my jaw. My hands curled in his collar as he slid my jacket off my shoulders, pulling my collar aside to kiss the delicate skin between my neck and shoulder.
His teeth grazed my skin, sending a wash of goosebumps over me before he worked his way back up to my lips. I was barely aware that I was moving, letting my jacket fall aside as I climbed into his lap and straddled him so I could run my fingers through his black hair. That irresistible force in my bones was impossible to ignore. I needed to touch every part of him.
He grabbed my hips and held me still, pulling back an inch. “Slow down, Victoria the Impatient. We have all the time in the world.” Despite his warning, his voice had gone deep and husky, a sound that seemed to stroke me from the inside.
“I am going slow,” I whispered, pressing a kiss to his forehead and moving down to the bridge of his nose. “This is very. Very. Very. Slow.” I kissed him between every word, tracing the high ridges of his cheekbones, faint dark stubble scratching my lips when I found his jaw.
I undid his shirt, revealing deep bronze skin over burly muscle, and Sura tried to pull my fingers away from the cloth. “I’m not a one-night stand,” I growled, gripping the edges of his shirt with white-knuckled fingers. “I won’t up and disappear just because I touched you.”