I couldn’t say how much time passed, how many dinners I’d sat through with the guys and the children. I couldn’t say how many stolen moments I had with my men, either. All of them except Koda, that was.
And Victor, but that one went without saying.
It was hard, steering clear of Victor. My body and heart called out to him. We’d so easily connected in that other world, wherever or whenever that had been—him taking me to that room, whispering haunting words into my ears. I wanted to see him, to really see him, and I wanted to help the others see him, too. Victor couldn’t be bad, could he?
But maybe that was the curse of this place. The lines between good and bad, right and wrong, were so blurred they were nonexistent. This place was like a thousand different shades of grey, each man walking under its roof proof of that.
It was early one night—not too long after my nightly bath, since my brown hair was still wet—when I heard a soft knock on the door. Midnight yawned, reclining at the foot of my bed, as he’d started doing a few nights ago, and he watched as I got up, wearing nothing but my nightly slip, to answer the door.
I unlocked it, peering out before opening it fully. A young Payne stood, gazing up at me with silver eyes. He wore his nightclothes, too—baggy, dark grey pajamas that he looked as if he was drowning in—slippers on his feet. His white hair was messy, and I smiled at his disheveled appearance. Not too far from the older Payne I knew; that one cared more about blood and cold scientific detachment than he did about anything else.
Except me, now. After tasting my blood, Payne had taken on a new leaf, so to speak.
“You should be in your room,” I said, feeling immensely weird with what I was wearing. The young Payne, though, wasn’t one of those pervert tweens. His grey eyes were locked with mine, his lips drawn into a thin line.
He looked…worried. Payne never looked worried. Not about anything. It did not bode well for whatever reason he was here.
“He’s hungry,” Payne Jr. spoke.
“Who?” For a moment, I thought he meant Midnight, so I glanced over my shoulder at the cat on the bed—only, unsurprisingly, the cat was gone, having vanished without a trace.
“Me,” he said, blinking those peculiar eyes up at me. “Not me, but the other me. The older me.” He reached a hand to his neck, tracing a line over his throat, mimicking Payne’s scar. “He’s starving, but he doesn’t want to tell you.”
It was true, I hadn’t seen Payne eat in, well, a while—and it had been even longer since I’d cut myself and gave him some of my blood. Speaking of which, the wound was completely healed. Not even a scar remained.
That was…odd.
“And he told you?” I asked, incredulous.
Payne Jr. shook his head. “No, but I can feel it. We are…” The child paused, his silver eyes shifting to the side as he sought to come up with the correct word. “Linked.” He then studied me, very clinical in how he stared. “I think you should go to him. He seems very preoccupied with you—has to be because of your blood.”
Ah, right, because I was only special because of my blood.
“Where is he?” I knew better than to question the validity of what Payne Jr. was saying. This boy was before me, even though he should be in bed, to help his older self. If they were connected, the other kids probably were, too.
What if…what if all of them had met me as children, and they didn’t remember? What if I really was back there, with Victor and them, and it wasn’t all in my head? This place—nothing made sense. I didn’t know what to think.
Payne Jr. held my stare, saying, “The forest, where we keep the bodies.”
Okay, that sounded a heck of a lot more ominous than it should’ve. What he meant, I hoped, was the bodies of the animals Payne drained for their blood. Not human bodies. Just a little clarification there.
I went to put on my boots, zipping them up over my bare feet. Didn’t have a jacket or anything, so I’d have to make do with what I wore right now. I exited my room, grabbing Payne Jr.’s shoulder and turning him as I said, “Okay, I’ll check on him, but you need to go back to your room.”
Payne Jr. nodded once, saying nothing more as we walked down the hall. We separated; he went up the stairs to the third floor while I headed down and out through the main front door.
The moon hung low overhead, a big silver sphere among stars. The temperature outside was cool but not overly cold, not quite comfortable but not enough to cause goosebumps to rise. My boots crunched the grass as I headed around the building, seeking Payne out.
I’d thought we were past this point, but I guess I was wrong. Payne was still trying to do everything himself. Did he feel weird asking for my blood? I mean, yeah, it was the strangest thing I’d ever encountered in my life—a man who craved blood and refused to eat anything else—but this was Grimmstead. Strange was a part of everyday life here.
If that man needed my blood, I would give it to him. Of course I would. I cared for the man, even if he didn’t want to face it.
I doubted Payne had ever felt something like love toward another person before. Before our run-in in the basement and Bram’s brutal decapitation of him, he’d been so detached. Mentally and physically, he was a loner who caught animals that wandered onto the property and drained them of their blood.
I still swore I saw him with a bucket downstairs, but maybe that had been in my head. A lot of inexplicable things appeared to me here.
The forest resting behind Grimmstead’s towering stone walls came into view, and I marched through the thick trees, heading to the makeshift graveyard I knew was there. Not even the moon’s light was able to peek through the canopy of the trees; it was near pitch-black here, an unforgiving blackness that caused me to trip on stray sticks more than once.
Night-vision would be handy in times like these.
My eyes were slow to adjust to the darkness around me, and after a few minutes I came across the area cleared of trees. Nothing but dirt all around, save for the piles of stones placed above what I now knew were animal graves.
I did not see Payne, nor did I hear a sound. Not even a breeze blew past me. Everything was an eerie quiet, completely still, and my spine began to tingle. Something here didn’t feel right—or maybe that was just my nerves. Me, still not being used to the oddity that was Grimmstead and its grounds.
“Payne?” I spoke his name cautiously, feeling alone. But that couldn’t be right. The younger Payne had told me he was here, unless the boy was either lying or didn’t know what he was talking about.
Somehow, I didn’t think that was true.
“Payne? Your mini-me told me that you’re hungry,” I spoke to the emptiness around me, glancing all around. Nothing but blackness, dark colors and shadows blending into each other. “I offered my blood to you before, and I’ll do it again. I won’t let you go mad over this.” Really, there were a thousand other reasons to go mad in Grimmstead.
I waited for a minute, not hearing anything, not even someone’s breathing. Hmm. Maybe he’d given up and walked inside just as I was rounding the other side of the building? It was as possible an explanation as any. Maybe he was in his room.
About to head there to check on him—because now I had to find him and make sure he was alright—I did a one-eighty, turning to walk away from the cleared space, away from the graves. When I did, I smacked myself into a hard chest, stumbling back.
Silver eyes stared at me from his face, glimmering far too much in the darkness, given that there was no light anywhere for them to reflect. Payne stood, having been directly behind me, for who knew how long, absolutely quiet and still, not making a peep.
If I’d been the prey and he was the hunter, I’d definitely be dead by now.
“Payne,” I breathed out, my heart beating fast in my chest. The darned thing threatened to pop out and run away. This was way too horror-movie-like for me. “I was looking for you.”
“I heard.” It was all he said, yet I knew there was more he wanted to say
. I wished I could see him, more than the faint outline of his face and body, more than the shimmering, almost metallic reflectiveness of his eyes.
Eyes like that weren’t normal.
Eyes like that were almost inhuman.
I supposed we’d passed that threshold a while back, when his head sat, stitched to his body.
“You need to eat,” I said, reaching out to touch his face, but before I could run my fingers along his cheek, Payne pulled back.
“No. I…just go, Felice.”
This wasn’t the Payne I knew.
“I’m not going.”
“You should.”
I tilted my head, wondering if he could see me through the darkness, if his eyes were more like a cat’s than a human’s. “Why? Is this you trying to be alone and brood because of the hand life gave you?”
“I’m not brooding.”
I was silent, not believing him in the slightest.
“Brooding is a waste of time,” he spoke, sounding like the calculating Payne I knew he was. Or, at least, I knew he could be. “I’m out here because I needed to get out. I needed to see if I could try to survive on something else…something other than you.” Something fell from his hand, something I hadn’t noticed he was holding onto until now.
I didn’t know exactly what it was, but by the juicy sound it made as it collided with the dirt below, I could put two and two together.
An animal. He’d come out here to feed on an animal that had wandered onto the property. The poor, unlucky thing.
A chill swept over me as I imagined Payne with a red-stained mouth, and it took every ounce of my courage to ask, “And how did it go?” Somehow, deep down, I already knew how it went: not good.
“I couldn’t do it,” Payne muttered, his head turning down to look at the animal on the ground. “It didn’t taste right. I…I think the only blood I want is yours.” Said so simply, so easily, as if he wasn’t confessing his darkest urge to me.
Frankly, I didn’t know how to take that.
“And you’ve tried to eat real food?” I asked.
“I can’t. Nothing tastes good. The only thing I can think about is your blood.” He took a step toward me, and I resisted my urge to match his step backward. “Which is why you should go, Felice. I’m hungry. So, so hungry. I would hate to do something I’d regret later. Hurting you is the last thing I want to do, but it’s all I can think about to get to that sweet, warm blood.”
The way he described my blood, as if he could write sonnets about it, made my stomach churn a bit. “Come inside with me,” I said, “and I’ll give you some.” Offering my blood like it was nothing; just a typical night here in Grimmstead.
“No,” Payne growled out.
I went to grab his hand, desperately wanting to do anything to calm him down, but he yanked his body away from mine, his back slamming against one of the trees that surrounded the clearing. “Payne,” I said, not knowing why he was acting like this. Was he afraid he’d hurt me, kill me? Did he think, once he got another taste of my blood, he’d always crave more and never be satisfied?
While it was true I had no idea how he felt, or what he thought, I knew one thing. I had to help him. I couldn’t stand to see him like this. If my blood could make things better, why not just take some?
My last boyfriend I’d given nothing to. Not even my heart. Yeah, I’d dated him for a while. Slept with him a few times. Smiled and laughed like I was supposed to, but I never really gave Robert Smalls anything. Nothing but fire.
Sure, I could’ve broken it off like any normal person, but I thought we all knew by now Felice Fairday was not one of those normal people.
These guys? Each and every man in Grimmstead? It was the opposite. I freely wanted to give them everything, even if they never asked. My heart, my soul, my body, my mind—each and every part of me was theirs, if they needed it, even my blood. Surely Payne had to see that.
“It’ll never stop,” Payne whispered, his back still against the tree. “You might give me some now, just as you did before, but I’ll always want more.”
I let his words sink in, taking my time in answering, “Well, I guess it’s a good thing I’m not going anywhere, then.” No, I wouldn’t leave. I wouldn’t dare leave these guys. Even if we somehow found a way off the property, I couldn’t picture a life without them. Yeah, it’d be weird to navigate the waters of life with multiple semi-crazy boyfriends, but I was willing to try.
I needed them, and they needed me. Now if Payne would just stop fighting it…
“I don’t want to hurt you,” Payne spoke quietly, inching away from the tree.
“Then don’t,” I said, meeting him halfway. We were less than six inches apart, his breath cool on my face. “I believe in you, Payne.” Maybe he’d never had someone say that to him before, but it was true. Life or death situations tended to bring people together, provided they survived those situations. “Come on, let’s go to the kitchen.”
My intent was a knife and a glass, just as I’d done before, but now it was Payne’s turn to reach for me, for his fingers to curl around my arms and spin me, placing my back against the rough tree bark. It dug into my spin and my skin, my thin night slip not doing much to protect myself.
I didn’t move, though. Didn’t fight him. Didn’t even bother to cry out. I simply gazed up into those beautiful silver eyes, their reflective, metallic hue, and lost myself in them. Almost hypnotized by their gorgeousness.
“I don’t want to do that,” Payne whispered, his palms cool on my arms, drawing down them until he found my hips.
“Then what do you want?”
“I want to take it,” the words came out in a quick breath, a flurry of desire I never thought I’d hear in Payne’s voice.
Take it? How would he…
You know what? I knew better than to stand here and wonder just how Payne would take my blood. How could I possibly forget what had happened when I’d initially fed him my blood? He bit into my wrist, drew more blood out. If he wanted to get the blood from its source, me, no middleman, no glass, then I supposed…I supposed I’d let him.
My heart skipped a beat as I told him, “Then take it.” It would hurt, yes, but I trusted Payne. A far cry from where we started out, but time had a way of changing you.
Payne said nothing, moving to press his hips against mine. His lean body pinned me to the tree, and he swiped my hair off my neck, bringing it all to my left shoulder. His lips caressed my jaw, kissing their way to the crook of my neck.
I shivered into him, the anticipation causing my blood to flow more. Would that make it better for him, easier? I would think so, but then again, what the heck did I know about any of this? If there was ever a time in my life when I was winging it, it was now.
“Are you ready?” Payne whispered directly into my ear, and all I could do was nod. No way my voice would make an appearance now. I was too nervous.
He said nothing else, though I did feel his tongue lick the most tender spot on my neck. An X marks the spot kind of thing? Marking where he’d bite into me? Who could say. Either way, his tongue was the only thing I felt before his teeth grazed my skin—teeth that felt sharper than they looked.
And then he did just that. He bit me.
Teeth sinking into flesh, puncturing the soft skin on my neck, I wanted to cry out from the pain, but no sounds came from me, nothing other than my ragged breath. As his teeth sunk deeper, heated pain shot throughout my neck, down my shoulders, fanning out in my body like a spiderweb, an intricate design.
I shut my eyes, wondering why the heck I’d agreed to do this in the first place. This was weird. This was like some kind of vampire stuff. This couldn’t be happening—but it was.
It was, and now there was no taking it back. I’d offered to let Payne feed on me, and now he did just that.
I felt his tongue lapping up what blood escaped from my body, felt his mouth sucking on my neck, and then the strangest thing happened—the pain subsided. Maybe I’d grown used
to it, or maybe my adrenaline had kicked into overdrive, but either way, the pain simmered until it was nothing but a memory, and a new feeling took its place.
What new feeling was that, you might ask? Let’s just say it had something to do with the instant boner pressing against my midsection.
Blood really did make Payne hard, huh?
I grabbed his arms, squeezing as I sighed. Just because this whole thing made him some kind of crazy horny didn’t automatically mean I should feel the burn between my legs too, but I did. I wanted to have sex, to feel Payne inside of me.
This place was seriously affecting my mind, because I swear, I was never as sex-crazed before as I was now. There was literally no comparison between the Felice of tonight and the Felice of a year ago.
Payne ground his hips against me, causing a liquid heat to flow between my legs. I had nothing but my night slip on, so it would be all too easy for him to lift it up and push inside me, or at the very least touch me.
I felt Payne’s teeth lift from my skin, his tongue catching the blood oozing from the wound. He said nothing as he reached between us, fumbling with his belt and his pants, his mouth still anchored on my neck, his tongue still working to feed. I moved a hand to his head, fingers weaving through his hair, letting him take the lead, letting him do whatever it was he wanted.
He could take my blood, and then he could take me. Again and again, if that’s what he wanted.
Once he was free, he grabbed my legs and hoisted me up, spreading them apart. My legs wrapped around his midsection as he pushed into me, groaning against my neck as he filled my core to the brink. I let out a short breath, my arms wrapping around his neck, my head leaning back against the tree. With his face still buried in the crook of my neck, Payne would come at me both ways; between my legs and on my neck, getting both of the things he craved from me.
With one hand on my butt to hold me up, Payne set his other hand flat against the tree beside me, breathing hard as he started to pump in and out of me. His lips found the wound on my neck again, his tongue gliding over it to lick up the blood, and I gave into the strangely pleasurable feeling of being taken in two ways at once.
Grimmstead Academy: Defiant Rebellion Page 5