Wild and Free

by Kristen Ashley

  A table from Jian-Li’s place had been brought down, his flat screen and Blu-ray on it. The TV was on, volume down low. Some movie Abel didn’t know was playing on the Blu-ray, since he had no cable and would never get clear reception down there.

  His family had been busy.

  “Am I off the clock?” Xun asked, still whispering in deference to Delilah sleeping, and Abel looked to him to see he’d taken his feet.

  “Yeah, brother. Thanks,” he muttered.

  “Not a problem,” Xun replied, then came to him, slapped him on the shoulder, and moved out of the room.

  Abel went to the door and slid the steel shaft through the hinges that barred it.

  He drew in a deep breath and moved to the bed, seeing Delilah in the same position as last night, except she didn’t have a cheek to her palm—that arm was thrown out.

  He drew in another breath, taking in her scent, using everything he had to ignore it, and moved a hand to shift the heavy fall of silken hair off her neck.

  He shouldn’t have done that either. Her hair was softer than he’d imagined, and the waft of fragrance that came from it went straight to his dick.

  He pulled it together and ignored it as her eyes fluttered but stayed closed.

  “I’m home, Lilah,” he whispered.

  “Good, baby,” she muttered, her lips curving slightly before she moved, turning to her other side so her back was to him.

  He’d been called “baby” by so many women, it would be impossible to count.

  None of them felt like it felt when Delilah said it.

  Having used up his reserves of control to keep his hands off Delilah, he went to the fridge and got out a bag of blood, seeing only two left in there. If he’d known a warm, delicious meal and its accompanying fuck was not in the cards for him for the foreseeable future, he would have stocked up.

  He hadn’t.

  He’d have to see to that tomorrow.

  He nuked the bag and sucked it back. He needed at least three a day, even if he was feeding and fucking. He’d taken one before he went running. But that one, as did the one he was currently consuming, left him hungry.

  Definitely needed more.

  He moved to the blue trash can, toed it open, and threw the bag in, his jaw clenching at seeing what was inside as he did.

  He didn’t like what he saw even though he needed it for sustenance. It was all he knew, all he’d ever known, but that didn’t mean he didn’t understand it was utterly repugnant on every level. He rarely fed in front of his family because they tried to bury it, but his senses were vastly superior to theirs and he felt it. He knew it disgusted them. And Delilah, not surprisingly, hadn’t let her eyes wander to him even once while he was having his breakfast.

  She’d get off on him drawing from her. He knew it, just as he knew he had to be careful with it. Due to his first and second mothers, Hui’s and Mei’s, efforts, he’d never once killed or even harmed a human being while feeding. And that shit was not going to happen with him drawing down Delilah’s needed supply of blood. So he figured, when he got her there, he could give her that while fucking her maybe once a week.

  That said, the bags sucked. They worked, but they sucked. There was nothing as good as a woman writhing under you, her pussy drenched, that smell in your nostrils, her blood in your mouth. It was revolting at the same time it was fucking true.

  He’d had decades of bags. He’d have decades more.

  Centuries.

  Hui was his first mother; Mei was his second, raising him through human teen years after they’d lost Hui. Mei had told him during his second half century that he’d have many lots in life.

  “But never forget, bao bei,” she’d said, her hand curved around his jaw, her eyes tipped back to his height of towering over her. “You are a miracle. A miracle. A miracle brought to this family. A miracle upon this world. Never forget, and if you don’t, you will endure.”

  They were a miracle, a family over six generations, accepting him as he was.

  He was no miracle.

  He was a monster.

  He looked to the bed.

  Another miracle, a dark-haired, green-eyed temptress coming to him in his dreams, then appearing in his life, accepting him and the insanity around her, ending her second night as a part of his life sleeping in his bed.

  The miracle and the monster.

  Abel winced at the thought.

  But that thought was much easier to bury and he did so without effort.

  And he did it without effort because he’d had a shitload of practice.

  Chapter Six

  You Okay Now?

  Delilah

  I opened my eyes and saw the light shining on Abel sitting back in his armchair, his eyes on me just like the morning before.

  “Hey,” I called sleepily.

  “Hey,” he replied, his tone strangely tight.

  “You okay?” I asked, not moving, my head to the pillow, my eyes taking in his big frame, memories of the day before instantly available.

  He’d been tensed and freaked, understandably so. Though, why he had to take off, I didn’t know.

  That said, when Xun brought me back down to his room late yesterday evening, I was touched to see the simple white shower curtain covering the stall and a door providing privacy for the toilet. It said a lot, like the purse. Primarily that he might be gone, but his thoughts were on me.

  It was what I’d needed.

  Perhaps not weirdly, but annoyingly, the longer he was gone and I didn’t know where he was or how he was, the more that pit in my belly opened up again. And it opened, and opened, and opened. Then the pain came back.

  In the end, it was so bad, I didn’t know how I got to sleep. You would think I’d be used to it, but it being gone, then having it back again, it all seemed fresh.

  And excruciating.

  I just knew that when Abel touched my hair and told me he was home, I wasn’t very awake, but I felt the pain was gone.

  That was not something I relished, needing to be attached at the hip to some guy, and I hoped it was the situation that caused it, not his distance.

  “Fine,” Abel answered, taking my thoughts from yesterday-him back to the right-there him.

  “Sure?” I asked quietly.

  “Yeah, Lilah,” he answered quietly.

  “Thanks for the bathroom,” I said.

  He shook his head and his lips tipped up, but he didn’t say anything or move any further.

  “Dad called,” I told him. “He and the boys are making good time, but they won’t be here until around two today.”

  “You tell Jian-Li?” he asked.

  I nodded my head on the pillow.

  “She’ll see to a welcome spread.”

  “She says she’s closing the restaurant after lunch,” I shared.

  “Like I said, she’ll see to a welcome spread.”

  I grinned at him.

  His eyes dropped to my mouth and he frowned at me.

  That was weird.

  Then again, he seemed weird. Not that he was a normal guy, just that he seemed weirder than normal.

  I pushed up to put my head in my hand, elbow in the pillow. “You sure you’re okay?”

  “No.”

  Oh man.

  “What?” I asked. “Did you find something yesterday?”

  “Nothin’ happened yesterday, Lilah.”

  Well, at least that was good.

  Still, I studied him, stretched out in his chair, ankles crossed, hands sitting loosely on his thick thighs, neck supported by the back of the chair, but head up, eyes on me.

  There was something that wasn’t right about that, a casualness that seemed false, and I didn’t like it.

  “Why are you not okay?” I asked.

  “I lied yesterday.”

  Great.

  I did not like this.

  Lying sucked. I didn’t do it. Dad taught me not to, and the lesson I’d had meant I’d only done it once, mostly because when
he’d caught me in the lie I told (a lie I didn’t remember, just his reaction to it), he was disappointed in me and that killed.

  I could count on three fingers the times he’d been disappointed in me.

  The first was when I’d dated a preppy who drove his parents’ hand-me-down Mercedes. His family had a stable of thoroughbred horses, a huge house, and he wore pastel-colored sweaters draped over his shoulders (we’d only gone out five times, but that was five times too many for Dad).

  The second was when I’d told him in a moment of weakness that I thought maybe Mom was right and I was whacked in the head.

  And last, when I’d lied.

  I’d never done it again. As far as I knew, Dad never did it with me either. He might not tell me everything, but that wasn’t the same as lying to someone’s face.

  And if I made a list of what I’d want in a man, that would be in the necessary column.

  Well, at least Abel was owning up to it. That was something.

  “What did you lie about?” I asked, pushing up to sit cross-legged in the bed, the covers over my lap.

  But when I did this, his body visibly tensed, his eyes dropped to my lap, and his jaw went hard.

  I stared.

  What was that?

  “Abel?”

  He sliced his eyes to mine and I saw a muscle jump in his cheek before he said, “That card the vampires gave me, it said something.”

  “I reckoned that,” I replied.

  He nodded once and continued, “It said they mean you and me no harm and invited me to The Biltmore.”

  “Oh my God,” I whispered, not taking this as a good thing.

  “Yeah,” he agreed.

  “Are you going?” I asked.

  “I’m considering it.”

  My eyes got huge and my voice was two octaves higher when I cried, “Why?”

  I did this because I knew one good supernatural being: Abel. The rest left a lot to be desired, considering they wanted us both dead. Therefore, I didn’t want to have anything to do with them.

  It was more, though. I didn’t want Abel to have anything to do with them. He was strong, he had backup, but there were only so many times you could be outnumbered and come out the victor.

  He drew in a breath and sat forward, putting his elbows on his knees but keeping hold of my eyes, just like he did the morning before.

  Then, with no warning, he commenced in breaking my heart.

  “I’m a monster, Lilah.”

  “What?” I whispered.

  “I’m a werewolf vampire. I exist on human blood. I can tear a man’s head off and I have. I’m a monster.”

  “You—”

  “I am,” he stated flatly. “And the first chance I’ve had in all my years to understand why I am as I am is to go to that fuckin’ hotel.”

  I stared at him, then straightened my body so I was fully facing him. This caused his jaw to get hard again, but I ignored that and stated, “Okay, let’s break this down.”

  “Nothin’ to break down.”

  “Humor me,” I snapped, his head jerked, and his lips curved up.

  “Carry on,” he muttered.

  “Thanks,” I bit out. “First, how many men’s heads have you torn off?”

  “Four, and two wolves.”

  “That’s it?” I asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “These being the night we met,” I stated.

  “Yeah,” he repeated.

  “The night some of them were trying to kill me and the others were trying to kill you.”

  To that he said nothing.

  I kept going, “So you haven’t torn off unsuspecting citizens’ heads willy-nilly, for the fuck of it, or on a psychotic rampage?”

  He pressed his lips together and I knew it was to hide his humor because his eyes lit with it before he unpressed them to say, “No.”

  “Right,” I said sharply. “Have you ever had a psychotic rampage?”

  He shook his head.

  “So let’s get to the human blood part,” I suggested. “When you were,” I paused, “drawing from one of your ex-bitches, did you ever kill one of them?”

  “Fuck no.”

  “Take too much and make them sick?”

  “No.”

  “Do it against anyone’s will?”

  His eyes went guarded, but he said, “No.”

  I threw up a hand. “Okay, so what’s the problem?”

  He blinked, straightening in his chair, but again said nothing.

  “I mean, seriously,” I went on, “I’ve seen lots of vampire movies and TV shows and even the good vamps screw up and overindulge. Hell, Jessica killed three fairies in a ravenous attack. She might have had her issues as a young vampire, but by that time, she was full-on good.”

  His brows shot together. “Fairies?”

  “Fairies.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  I threw up both hands and cried in exasperation, “True Blood!”

  “Jesus, Lilah,” he muttered.

  “No, seriously, Jessica is very sweet.”

  “For fuck’s sake,” he growled, sounding like he was losing patience, which I didn’t figure was a good thing.

  “Okay, back on track,” I began. “Tell me. Tell me one instance in your life where you actually behaved like a monster.”

  “I wanna fuck you,” he snarled.

  I stared.

  “Yeah,” he ground out. “I wanna fuck you, Delilah. Consumed with the need and I have no idea why, but I can guess, seein’ as it’s like you’re a bitch in heat, I’m a dog that catches the scent and his mind is wiped…wiped of anything…but the need to mount you and”—he leaned forward—“rut.”

  “Holy fuck,” I breathed.

  “Yeah,” he said again. “That make you feel safe?”

  “Abel—”

  “I can smell your fear.”

  I swallowed.

  “It turns me on,” he kept going. “Makes me wanna tear into your throat and fuck you and feed from you. Now, does that make you feel safe?”

  “No,” I whispered, because it really fucking didn’t.

  “Right. No,” he bit off. “So I’m not a monster?”

  “It’s…it’s…” I stammered.

  “Yeah? What is it?” he asked when I couldn’t get it out.

  “It’s you,” I said softly, because it was, even if it was scary as shit.

  “You’re absolutely correct,” he clipped, then said with disgust, “It’s me.”

  Then it hit me.

  “You left yesterday because of that.”

  “I did,” he confirmed. “I did, because if I spent another minute with you, I’d have you on your knees, takin’ my dick, you wanted it or not.”

  “Abel,” I breathed, suddenly understanding, and my heart started bleeding.

  Yes, he was protective of me, overprotective, wanting me to feel safe, struggling against his nature to keep me that way.

  “Your heart’s beating so hard, it sounds like it’s about to tear out of your chest. I did that to you. And I’m not a monster?”

  “My heart is beating hard because I’m feeling a lot right now, and not all of it is fear, Abel,” I told him.

  “Then you aren’t very smart because, even as I sit here, all I can think of is burying my cock inside you.”

  Oh shit.

  Now I was getting turned on.

  “Do you think other werewolves…do you think that they…?” I trailed off, but he got me.

  “You’re not a werewolf. Maybe there are female ones who get the way it is, but you are not one of them.”

  “But I’m yours,” I pointed out.

  “You ever transform into a wolf?”

  I shook my head, giving him the answer he already knew.

  “No,” he said. “So how do I deal with this, Delilah? It’s my nature, the monster in me for the only time in my life since I was a kid controlling me. I don’t understand it and I don’t know how to fight
it except to keep away from you. Or go to The Biltmore and talk to these fucks and hope they aren’t what I think they are and can give me some answers as to how I can deal and keep you safe.”

  “What if they’re not nice vampires?”

  “I got two choices…give into the urge and rape the woman destined for me or go to The Biltmore and find out.”

  “Or you could just fuck me,” I blurted, and the room went wired.

  Shit.

  “Do not,” he said simply, but both words were harsh and grating, hurting my ears.

  Man, oh man, he needed to fuck me.

  “You go and you get hurt or dead and Jian-Li loses you, Xun, Chen, Wei.” Me, I thought but didn’t say. “That’s better than us having sex?”

  “Rutting, Delilah.”

  I felt a rush of wet saturate the area between my legs.

  God, again, strange, but that also turned me on.

  “Okay, rutting,” I whispered.

  “I could hurt you,” he stated.

  “Try not to do that,” I replied.

  “What if I can’t control it?” he asked.

  “I…I don’t know,” I answered.

  “And you’re still willin’ to take that chance?”

  I widened my eyes at him but said nothing.

  “I can smell you,” he whispered.

  Fuck.

  “Abel.”

  “You want it.”

  “Um…” I started and stopped, finding that fact titillating, so much so, more wet hit between my legs.

  “You cannot know, you’ll never know, but I don’t think you get what hanging on by a thread means, Delilah. I’m doin’ that right now. And right now, you say one word, ‘go,’ and you won’t see me again until I got it together. You don’t say that word right now, it happens.”

  I should say “go.”

  I should.

  But something deep in my heart knew I actually shouldn’t.

  So I didn’t.

  I stared at him, heart slamming in my chest, and said nothing.

  “Fuck,” he snarled, surging from his chair, and in a flash, he was on me.

  In another flash, I was whipped around, knees in the bed, nightshirt torn over my head, palm in my back, shoving me to my hands in the bed.

  Oh God.

  Then my hips jerked violently as he tore my panties away.