by Liza Street
Bo’s expression was grim, and Mikhail’s hands tightened on Gracie’s arms.
A sudden slap stung Gracie’s cheek, and it was followed immediately by a punch. Cosette hit and kicked her while Mikhail held her in place. Mikhail’s grip was so tight that she barely moved. She was unable to dodge Cosette’s furious fists.
When Cosette was finally done, Gracie’s face was bloody and her ribs felt as if they’d cracked—maybe they had. She wheezed, then coughed, which sent stabbing pains through her torso. If she had any hope of healing properly, she’d have to go hunting immediately. Her gaze tracked over to the wooden box in the corner and Cosette laughed.
“No, I will not leave you in there, cowgirl,” Cosette said. “Not this time. But if you persist in being a weakness to the Corona Court, you’re gone. If you consort with that shifter again, I’ll report you to Ana, and I can’t say she’ll be as merciful as I have been.”
Gracie knew exactly what would happen to her if Ana knew what she’d done—she’d meet the dawn just like Maslin had.
Mikhail let go of Gracie’s arms and she collapsed to the floor. Cosette and Mikhail left, their footsteps soft on the old, worn carpeting, until it was just Gracie and Bo in the room.
“Sorry, Gracie,” Bo said. “We had an oath, though. And you’re breaking it.”
He spun around and walked out.
Gracie sat in a heap. She chucked her phone into the corner, where it cracked and broke into pieces. Technology betrayed her. Bo betrayed her.
She should stay far away from Fraze. She wanted to. Her presence in his life would only endanger him.
But after she heard everyone leave the house, she stood on trembling legs. She was thirsty. Her body demanded blood—to heal, to think, to be alive in this suspended sort of life.
But her heart demanded something else altogether.
She stood and went outside. The woods were empty—everyone had gone to town, likely to look for Fraze Rhees.
Gracie knew he was somewhere else entirely. Selfishly, she used her remaining strength and ran to him.
Sixteen
Fraze stood behind the cabin door, listening. Gracie wasn’t here yet, and he’d expected her a while ago.
If she didn’t show, maybe it was for the best. Maybe she’d just be a memory, a strange, crazy thing he’d done when he was twenty-six. Maybe he’d be able to forget her and find love with someone else.
Yeah, no. He’d never forget Gracie.
There was a loud thump on the porch, and Fraze cocked his head, listening. He opened the door, and his jaw fell open in surprise. “Gracie?”
He rushed outside. She was slumped over the railing, barely able to stand. Her face—it was completely covered in blood. Her black eyes were barely visible beneath the swollen flesh surrounding them, and her nose looked broken.
He picked her up and carried her into the cabin. There was no electricity here, no running water. He couldn’t properly care for her here. “Gracie, what do you need? What can I do?”
She looked up at him and spoke through bloody lips. “Just be with me?”
That wasn’t enough. She was weak, barely moving. She lifted her hand to cup his cheek, but it fell away immediately.
Obviously there was more than one way to kill a vampire. A severe beating could do the trick. She was so weak.
What did she need? “Gracie, tell me. What should I do?”
She shook her head. Blood dripped on the wood floor of the cabin, and Fraze’s eyes locked on the drop.
Of course. Blood. She needed blood. Fraze held his wrist up to her lips.
“Please,” he said. “I’m offering this to you.”
She shook her head again.
“My neck? Would you rather…?” He bent his head close to hers, close enough that she could kiss his throat. He waited for the sting of a bite, but she turned her face away from him.
“Gracie, please. Let me help you.”
Not sure what else he could do, he set her down on the old sofa and went to the kitchen. Found one of the cooking knives. It looked dull, but it would do the trick. He cut open a little wound next to his wrist. He could smell the coppery scent of his blood as he walked back to Gracie.
“Gracie, take this.” He pushed his wrist up to her lips.
“I can’t,” she said. “Not from you. Isn’t right. This isn’t…what we’re about.”
“Do it.” He rubbed his wrist over her mouth, and she was too weak to move away. Reluctantly, her tongue flicked against her lips where his blood was now smeared with her own.
“More,” he said, and pushed her forward again.
This time, her lips clamped over his wrist and he felt a long pull as she sucked. The feeling was erotic. He hadn’t expected that. And he felt like she was not only sharing from his blood, but sharing from his thoughts as well.
“Can you…read my mind like this?” he asked.
She looked up at him, her eyes half-lidded, and he saw the answer there. Yes.
He leaned back in the couch and cradled her to his chest, keeping his wrist at her mouth. After a moment, she lifted her hands to help hold him in place. He thought about her—thought of everything he knew about her. Vampire. Woman. He thought of her curves. Of her whimpered moans as he drove inside her against the wall outside of Hart’s. Of her damp desire ensnaring him and the way she’d clamped around him when she came. He thought of holding her in his lap on Burglar’s Bluff, and the way she’d shuddered and shivered against him, her sobs quiet in the stillness of the night.
She was his, whether she knew it or not. He would never be able to walk away from her, no matter what happened.
After another minute, Gracie let him go. He risked a look down at her broken face, and was amazed to see that she’d healed as fast as a shifter. She wasn’t completely healed by any means, but give her a few hours and she’d be fine. The only thing left was the long scar that spanned the length of her cheek.
“What’s this from?” he whispered, tracing it with a finger.
“Fight with the Rock Creek Clan. Their alpha gave this to me. I didn’t get blood fast enough to prevent the mark.”
He kissed the scar. “I’m sorry.”
“It was our fault,” she said. “We shouldn’t have been there.”
“You okay now?” he asked, his voice raspy.
“Yes.” She stood up with her usual, quick grace, and rushed into the kitchen. He heard the sound of a water bottle opening, and then she was at his side again. “Drink this,” she said, tipping the bottle up to his lips.
He chugged the water, feeling thirstier than he’d ever been before. “Thank you,” he said when it was gone.
She shook her head. “I didn’t want to do that. I didn’t want to take from you. And I took so much.”
“It was given willingly,” Fraze said. “You were…jeez, Gracie, what happened to you?”
“They found out. Not all of them. But Cosette, and Mikhail, and Bo…and they know I’m with you. That I’ve been talking to you. It wasn’t…they don’t want this to be happening.”
“Too dangerous with me,” he said, dropping the water bottle.
She peered into his face. “Your eyes are tired and I can tell that you need more energy. Here,” she said, lifting her wrist. “Drink.”
“What?” Fraze tried to scoot away. “No, you…you need that blood, Gracie.”
“You need to replenish your own force.” Her voice was firm, but gentle at the same time. “You might not know this, but a vampire sharing her own blood? It’s the highest honor.”
He looked dubiously at her flawless white skin. The vein in her wrist pulsed gently. “I’m not going to bite you,” he said. “It’ll draw too much blood.”
“Fine.” She returned with a clean knife and made a tiny cut on her wrist as Fraze had done. “Just a few sips, and you’ll be feeling fine again.”
“It’s not going to make me into a vampire?”
“No. You’d have to drink a lot, and
then I’d have to kill you. I wouldn’t do that to you.”
A quick flash of guilt passed over her face, but she didn’t explain. Didn’t matter whether she explained or not. He trusted her. Just the same, he eyed the blood on her wrist. He had never drunk blood before. Sure, he’d eaten prey while he was a mountain lion, hunted alone or with his brother. But that was different—it wasn’t the same as being a human and drinking blood.
But he wasn’t human, he reminded himself.
He put his lips to Gracie’s arm and tasted her—sweet, coppery. Secrets, like Dristan had described the vampire scent. Old blood, but it wasn’t bad. Just sweeter, with a darker feel.
He didn’t pull blood from her as she’d done to him, but instead lapped gently a couple of times at the blood already welling out of the cut.
He felt better immediately.
“Our blood is strong,” Gracie said, “because we take so much of the energy from others. It makes us stronger, and it makes our blood stronger. Now you, too, should be stronger, just like your shifter blood energy has made me.”
He pulled her onto his lap, curled his body around hers. “Gracie?” he said.
“Yes, Fraze?”
“I love you. I know we’re doing something different. I know this is going to seem weird to everyone else. But to us…could this be normal? Our normal?”
She sighed, and nestled against his chest. He felt like the biggest man in the world, holding her like this. “Yes,” she finally said. “This can be our normal.”
He stroked her cheek, her hair, her neck. When he brought his finger back up to her cheek again, she turned her head slightly and took one of his fingers in her mouth.
Fraze sucked in a breath, his cock instantly at attention.
She squirmed against him. “Look who’s up.”
Chuckling darkly, he said, “Are you trying to tease me, woman? I’ll give back as good as I get.”
She nipped his finger, not hard enough to draw blood, but enough to get his attention. “Maybe I am. Maybe I want you to.”
He stood up with her cradled in his arms, and led her to the little twin-sized bed in the opposite corner of the cabin. He laid her down, looked at her stretched in front of him like that.
“Clothes off,” she whispered.
Grinning, he tugged off his thermal and watched her eyes grow wide. He then stepped out of his pants, knowing that she was watching every move he made.
“Now you,” he said. But instead of letting her undress herself, he caught her hands in one of his and worked her pants down with the other. Her panties were soft and see-through, some kind of mesh material that allowed her wondrous scent to perfume the room. He inhaled, nostrils flaring, taking her in.
“I feel like I can hear and smell everything even better,” he whispered.
“It’s my blood in you,” she said. “Yours has the same effect on me.”
He bent down and kissed up one of her thighs, then lingered over her pussy. “I want to make you feel good,” he said.
She made a little sound, but he didn’t stop—he moved up her stomach, lifting her shirt as he went, until he could give all of his attention to her bare breasts. Perfect little handfuls, with pert nipples that came to attention immediately. He shoved her shirt up all the way, then wrapped it around her wrists and held her arms firmly above her head.
“I want to tease you tonight,” he said. “Make you desperate. Make you beg. You okay with that?”
She nodded.
He waited.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Good. If at any point it’s not okay, you say so and I’ll stop.” He trailed one hand down her belly, to those sexy little panties, and he slid his fingers inside them. Gracie arched up, trying to get him where she wanted him, but he pushed her legs back down with his own and held her fast.
“Patience, sweetheart,” he crooned, and flicked his fingertip over her clit.
“Fraze,” she breathed.
He did it again, then paused. And repeated the process again and again. Flick, pause. Flick, pause. Gracie’s movements became more erratic, as she tried to keep the contact going. He kept his thigh stretched over hers, then leaned forward so he could take one of her nipples in his mouth while he kept on his slow, torturous assault on her clit.
“Fraze, please,” she begged.
He grinned wickedly and let her nipple free. She was panting, her blond hair in rippling waves around her face, her dark eyes wild and pleading.
“Oh, are you sure?” he asked. “I don’t know that you’re ready yet.”
A total lie, and they both knew it, because she was drenched between her legs. If he positioned himself in front of her, he’d slide in with no resistance whatsoever.
He was torturing himself just as much as her. Hearing her whimpers, hearing her begging—it was almost too much for him.
“Please, Fraze, please,” she said again, her voice a whimper.
He flicked her and then waited.
“Oh, Fraze, now please or I’m gonna die,” she said. She’d completely lost her modern accent and there was a definite twang in her words.
Fraze grinned again and lavished attention on her other nipple, then came up to her mouth. She kissed him desperately, putting all of her want and desire into her lips as she sucked on his tongue, begging for more of him.
He’d never felt so powerful before, never felt so important. She actually seemed to like this. She liked him being in charge, being a little bit wicked with her.
He took his leg off of hers and nudged her knees apart, making room for him. She moaned incoherently and arched up again, and this time he didn’t stop her when she wrapped her legs around his waist and pulled him closer. Just as he’d expected, he slid in easily, and she rocked against him, taking her pleasure.
Their lips were locked together, their tongues intertwined and dancing as their bodies did. They found a rhythm of pleasure, and Fraze could feel the pressure growing inside of his own body, as Gracie went higher and higher, her moans spiraling into gasps and cries, until her legs clenched around him and she came, shaking against him. He allowed his own release, then, spilling into her tight warmth, feeling as if he’d completely come undone and then was brought back together again, all in this one act, with this one beautiful woman.
“Gracie,” he whispered into her ear, “you’re the one.”
*
They made love several more times that night, and Fraze’s body felt relaxed and easy. Lazy lovemaking, as dawn approached. Finally he looked deeply into her dark eyes. “I should get you home, shouldn’t I?” he asked.
“I can run there.”
“Wherever you’re at, you can run that far before the sun rises?”
She nodded. “I run fast.”
“I’d like to drive you, all the same,” he said. “At least until we’re closer. Not all the way, of course. More time with my lover.”
She nodded. “I won’t object to that.”
He watched her get dressed. Her movements were slow and languorous, and she moved like a woman who’d been satisfied several times. He wished they had time so he could satisfy her again, several more times.
“When can we see each other again?” he asked.
“Soon,” she said. “I hope. My phone’s gone, though. We’ll have to meet at Hart’s, or somewhere else.”
He nodded. He didn’t want to ask about her phone, but couldn’t help himself. “Is everything going to be okay with you, with your court?”
“I hope so.”
They got in his car and drove in silence until they reached the point where Pine Ridge Road met an old logging trail.
“Stop here,” Gracie said.
Fraze turned to look at her. “I don’t like the thought of you going back to them. They hurt you. It kills me to think of them doing that to you again.”
Gracie’s mouth was a thin, determined line. “They won’t.”
“Do you have to go back? You could stay in that cabin as
long as you want. I’ll go back with you, make sure no light can get in.”
“They’ll just hunt me down if I don’t return to them,” she said. “If I go back, I can salvage…things.”
She got out of the car, and Fraze felt like a hole was forming in his chest. “Promise you’ll be careful?” he said through his window.
She came around to look inside. “I promise I’ll be careful. Fraze?”
“Yeah?”
“I know we promised no details, nothing that could get us in trouble, but there’s stuff going on that I want to tell you about.”
“Is this like what your text was about, that I should be on my guard?”
She nodded.
“Is it about just me,” he asked, “or my pride?”
“Just you.”
He considered her. Her wide, guileless eyes, dark as night. He wanted to get to the bottom of all of this. But he remembered back to a few hours ago, when she’d stumbled into the cabin’s flimsy door. “Gracie, will it be dangerous for you if you tell me about this?”
She looked away.
“Dammit, Gracie, will they hurt you if you tell me?”
“But they’ll—”
“Don’t tell me any more,” he interrupted. “Nothing else.”
She opened her mouth, as if she’d argue, or perhaps to say the things she wasn’t supposed to say. Before she could speak, Fraze leaned out the window and crashed his mouth against hers, kissing her until neither of them had any breath.
Abruptly, he pulled away, rolled up his car window, and locked his doors.
He could feel Gracie’s eyes on him as he drove off.
Seventeen
Gracie ran back toward Ana’s house. Just a half-hour until dawn. Everyone else would be bedding down for the day, climbing into their boxes in the basement.
It killed her a little to be going back to them. But what she’d told Fraze was true—if she stayed away, they’d come after her. At least this way, they wouldn’t know she’d completely rejected their plans to hurt Fraze.
The love flowing through Fraze when she’d taken his blood—it had been, there was no other word for it—incredible. Healing. Powerful. That love told her she’d made the right choice in picking him over her court.