by Elena Lawson
It all came to a head, rising and rising until there was nowhere left to go but down. The force of gravity pulled us all over the edge and we plummeted, all taut muscle and sinew. Sweat and blood. I cried out against Frost’s cock and he came into my mouth, hot and salty.
Blake’s hands stilled on my body as he grunted, emitting a soft cry of his own as he found his release, pouring himself into me at the same time as I came blissfully untethered. The rope snapped, both literally and figuratively at the force of it. The silk shredded and my hands were unbound, sharp fingernails biting down into the tight muscle of Frost’s glutes as I drank him down and my heart shattered in my chest. Frost’s mammoth cock acted as a gag to stifle the sound of my screams as a wild orgasm tore through me.
We spiraled together in a torrent of hot, heavy breaths, raw animal sounds, straining muscle, and the euphoric ecstasy of our primal release.
17
The bastards made me forget all about my questions that still needed answering, and the full glass of whiskey that still waited for me out in the kitchen. But, I mean, I wasn’t exactly complaining…
I hadn’t felt what they made me feel as we all found our release together in…well, I hadn’t ever felt that way if I was being honest with myself. I’d almost had the urge to cry with the force of the raw, unchecked emotions that’d run through me—undoing the knots that’d taken years to form and breaking down the walls I’d formed around my heart and mind. The walls that I erected to fortify myself. To protect myself from hurt—from pain and loss.
It was freeing, but it also brought with it the most terrifying feeling. The knowledge that they could break me even more irrevocably than they had the first time we were separated all those years ago.
I took another small swallow of the amber liquid, gripping the glass tightly with both hands as the searing taste of the whiskey burned a path down my throat.
I’d get my answers soon enough.
“We’ll be back in an hour,” Frost said as he shrugged on his leather jacket and stuffed his feet into his shoes by the door. I didn’t miss how his gaze lingered over my curves—still hungry for me in ways I knew I’d always be hungry for him no, too.
Giving him a nod, I rose from the stool and set the glass down on the countertop, adjusting my skirt so it didn’t ride so high. Now, clothes seemed optional, and the twisted little minx within kept drawing attention to how uncomfortable they were, whispering for me to take them back off. What do you need them for anyway?
I strode over to where he was by the door and wrapped my arms around him, reveling in the spicy scent of him. I breathed him in deep and suppressed the urge to shudder, cursing the swelling of my heart as he held me there against him tenderly. “How does Thai sound?”
Blake and Frost offered to go and gas up Betty and Blake’s motorcycle and get me some more food. Once that was done it would be time to go. To Baton Rouge. To…home? Well, to their home, but maybe—just maybe—it could be my home, too.
My stomach fluttered.
“Sounds perfect.”
“You sure you wouldn’t rather come with us?”
I shook my head. Even though both Blake and Frost insisted to give Ethan his space, I’d decided he had enough already. He still hadn’t come out of his room, and I was starting to worry. Worry that I’d upset him more than I thought. Or worse, that maybe he didn’t want me here after all. Maybe he wanted me to go.
It broke my heart to think that, but I needed to know one way or the other. If I refused to be their vampire bride, did Ethan not want me? Would he not accept me as his human bride instead?
I had to believe he would. But before we climbed into Betty and I let them lead me home, I had to be certain I was welcome—by all of them.
“He took it the hardest,” Blake said, and I jumped as he approached us. I didn’t hear him coming at all. Fuck, no one ever snuck up on me and now it’d happened twice in the last few hours. I needed to get my head straight. Get focused. Back in the game.
Soon, we were going to leave, and I had to be prepared. If anyone came to collect the bounty on my head—I had to make sure my boys didn’t become collateral damage in the fight. Looking at Blake’s dark eyes and Frost’s hard green ones, I knew I’d never allow anything to happen to them—not while I drew breath.
“What?” I said, shaking my head and trying to recall what he’d just said.
“Ethan,” he said by way of explanation as he pulled his suit jacket off the peg by the door and I stepped out of Frost’s arms. “He still hasn’t fully accepted all of this—what we are now. You thought he was upset because you refused to become our vampire bride,” Blake said gruffly, telling me he was still upset by that fact himself, but slowly coming to terms with it. “But really, he was probably upset that we even had to ask you.”
“Yeah,” Frost said, agreeing. “And your refusal was just adding insult to injury.”
“Oh,” I said, my brows pulling together.
“Keep your distance,” Frost whispered, his gaze flicking towards the hallway. “Ethan doesn’t feed often—on blood bags or otherwise. He only really feeds from us.”
Were they afraid he would lose control with me?
It seemed strange to be that Ethan would be the one with the least control of the three—him being so analytical and formulaic about everything—he was always the smartest of us. But then again…if he was fighting against the very nature of his new being then I supposed all bets were off.
“Alright, I’ll be careful,” I said and took Blake’s hand, squeezing it. His face darkened at the sweet gesture and I let go almost immediately, wondering if maybe he didn’t like to be touched? I took a step away, about to say goodbye and go to Ethan when Blake’s hand closed around my wrist and tugged, pulling me in for a rough kiss that stole all the breath from my lungs and made my face heat and my legs clench.
When he pulled away, I was stunned and rocked back on my heels, a bit dizzy.
“Back soon,” he purred, running the tip of his index finger down my jaw before he grabbed a jealous looking Frost by the bicep and hauled them both out of the condo, sealing the door behind them.
“Lock it!” I heard Frost call back through the heavy metal door before their footsteps faded down the corridor and I heard the ping of an elevator being called up.
18
It took me a fair few minutes to work up the courage to go and find Ethan. If it were anyone else—anyone I didn’t care about—it would have been nothing. But this was Ethan, and I needed him to hear me out, and to hopefully give me the answers I was looking for.
What Blake said gave me hope that maybe I was being overly paranoid and that he would want to have me with them, too. For a fraction of a second I worried about him losing control with me but dismissed that idea right away. Ethan wouldn’t hurt me—I was sure if it.
And the other guys wouldn’t have left me alone with him if they really thought he was a threat to my safety. Regardless of whether I could take care of myself or not.
I shut up my inner self and lifted my chin. Everything would be fine.
The door to the room where Ethan was was the only closed one in the long hall. I stomped to it, my resolve strengthening, but I faltered when I actually got there and was face to face with the thin panel of wood separating us. I lifted my fisted hand to knock, but paused, swallowing hard.
Please, I sent up a silent plea. Please let me in.
“You can come in, Rose,” the voice said from the other side, catching me off guard. I dropped my hand and inhaled deeply through my nose and pushed the breath out between my lips as I stepped inside the room.
It was dim inside. A lone lamp poured its white light over a desk covered in papers, making the edges of the room seem darker by comparison. A low, modern bed covered in a simple black blanket was pushed against the wall to my left, centered on the wall. The windows were uncovered and open to the warm, fresh breeze of the late summer evening.
And standing like a gargo
yle keeping watch over the teeming streets of Atlanta below was Ethan, leaning against the frame of the window at the far right, his hands tucked into the pockets of his pressed trousers.
The soft beige color of the thick knit sweater he wore a contract to his dark expression. His light brown hair was tousled, hanging low to partially cover his eyes as he finally turned his head to meet my gaze. A muscle in my jaw twitched as I snapped my mouth shut and ground my teeth at the haunting pain I found in his eyes.
I knew that pain. Maybe not in the same way he did, but for years I’d found that same darkness in myself when I beheld my reflection in the mirror. It was a hopelessness. A feeling like no matter what you did it wouldn’t matter. Because nothing could ever be the same. Nothing could ever be how you wanted it to be.
But I’d found a way out of that darkness, filling the void with training and soon after—with the temporary relief that came every time I ended one of their lives. And now that void filled again, but this time with something less toxic than murder.
If I manage to find a measure of peace in them—maybe Ethan could find a measure of peace in me, too. If he would allow himself.
“Hi,” I said lamely, my hands curling into fists.
Ethan smirked. “I’ve never known you to be awkward, Rose,” he said in that calm, Stillwater voice I’d missed for so fucking long. It melted me.
I opened my mouth to respond, but awkwardly closed it again. Damn. What was wrong with me?
Where Frost and Blake were creatures of passion and primal urges—and always had been for the most part. Ethan was a different sort. He was analytical. Calm. Collected. Impossibly smart. And the latter was often to his own detriment as it was now.
Being smart is more a curse than a gift—he’d once said to me with that impish grin of his I’d loved and a shrug that told me it was no biggie even though even my fourteen-year-old self knew he was more serious about that statement than he let on.
“Or to beat around the bush,” he added when I still didn’t say anything.
I stepped further into the room, moving purposefully toward him, glad when he didn’t try to move away from me, though the tension between his brows wound tighter. “Look, about earlier,” I said, coming to a stop next to him, leaning against the window frame so I was facing him, casting my gaze down into the lights and sounds of the streets twenty stories below, afraid what I might find in his eyes if I looked too long into them. “I didn’t mean to—”
“You didn’t,” he replied in a hard voice, knowing already where I was going with the thought. “You could never.”
“Ethan,” I began again, wanting to clear the air.
“Look at me, Rose,” he urged me, and I felt the brush of his hand against my wrist. Even that miniscule contact sent my blood rushing through my veins. I tried to get control of my emotions, to make the pounding of my heart calm.
When I finally lifted my head, Ethan offered me a sad sort of smile that almost broke me. “I’m so happy you aren’t…” he trailed off, the pain back in his tawny brown eyes.
I cocked my head at him. “So happy I’m not…?” I asked him, confused.
His chest expanded as he inhaled deeply, glancing down at himself.
Oh.
“I’m happy you aren’t a vampire.”
“But,” I started, even more confused now. “I thought you wanted me to be your vampire blood mate thing,” I asked, and his hand fell from my wrist and he leaned back away from me. “If I was already a vampire, then I’d have said yes,” I admitted, knowing that he wouldn’t have already deducted that.
I was sure they were all disappointed I wasn’t changed. It surprised me to hear him say he was happy about it.
“I know,” Ethan replied, and now it was my turn to want him to look at me. His stare was fixed outside again—his fists in his pockets. “But I wouldn’t wish this existence on anyone—least of all you.”
Now that I could understand. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone either. And the part of my heart that broke when Frost showed and told me what had become of him and my other boys would never heal right. Not ever.
“I realized,” Ethan continued, “Right after I saw you that I could never request of you what we did to ourselves.” He ran a shaky hand over his mouth and chin. “And it was like loosing you all over again. I was still coming to terms with the fact that you were here. I’d just finished holding you in my arms—feeling and hearing your heart pumping the blood through your veins—when I knew it was all over before it could even begin.”
He snapped his eyes up and they bore into me, burrowed down deep to grip me somewhere inside I forgot was there. “I knew then that even if you had said yes,” his voice rose in pitch and he pushed off the wall, standing at his full height, breathing faster. “And for a second—for a single fucking selfish second I hoped you would—I knew that if you did agree I would never have allowed it.”
He gripped me by the shoulders, staring down into my eyes, imploring me to understand.
“Rose, I’d give my life to make sure you never lose yours.”
I didn’t realize I was crying until Ethan came back to himself, checked himself, and released me from his grip as he watched a hot tear sear a path down my cheek.
I had been so wrong.
There I was thinking that he was upset with me because I refused to be a vampire—even if it was my guys who were doing the asking—when really he was upset at himself that he’d even asked at all.
“It’s not selfish,” I whispered as his hands fell from my shoulders and his body slumped. “I understand. I—I once considered it too, you know…” I trailed off, moving back in closer to him to place my hands against his chest. Though he drew breath hard and fast still, there was no pulse beneath the press of my fingers and another tear fell. My chest ached. “Turning myself to avenge my mom.”
Ethan was shaking his head. “It’s not fair. Mrs. Ward didn’t deserve that. You didn’t deserve that. And when we found out it was all true—that it really was a vampire that’d done it—well it seemed only right to put a pause on everyday mortal life and join the fray. To protect those who couldn’t protect themselves, but…”
He didn’t have to say it. But he didn’t realize it would mean trading in his soul. He didn’t realize how hard it would be to control himself—that the monster he let in could take him over. I wondered for a brief second if like Frost—Ethan had taken life in the beginning, too.
Frost would have a hard-enough time dealing with that, but Ethan? It would absolutely crush him to know that he took the life of a person that could have been a mother, a brother, or a friend. How could he live with that?
“You’re right,” I said and gazed up into his face. “My mom didn’t deserve what she got—but I blame whatever the fuck is wrong with us—with our family for what happened to her.”
Ethan, curious now and with a furrow in his brow that told me he was confused said, “It doesn’t make any sense. You shouldn’t be able to compel.”
I snorted. “You don’t think I know that?”
Ethan placed a hand over the hand on his chest, sending a shudder down my spine. But then he removed it and placed it back down at my side. I bit the inside of my cheek.
“When Frost told us you were human, but that you were strong and you healed fast we had to assume you weren’t fully human, either. But none of us really knew what to make of that. You could’ve been Fae, I suppose? But I doubted that. And you couldn’t have been a shifter. I was pretty sure you weren’t a witch, either. But then Frost said you could compel…”
He cocked his head at me, his soft brown hair falling to one side to stroke the corner of his eye. Fuck he was handsome. Even ten years later, he still had that boyish charm. The soft eyes. The dimples that you could still faintly see even when he wasn’t smiling. “It isn’t possible,” Ethan said, and I saw his jaw clench. He raked a hand down his chin again.
“And yet here I am,” I said, spreading my arms wide at my side
s with a sigh.
“And yet here you are.”
“I know it shouldn’t be possible for a human—”
“It’s not just that,” Ethan said, interrupting me with a dangerous look. “The power to compel lies only with male vampires. It’s been like that since the dawn of time. Since before the curse of Andora made us unable to walk in sunlight—made us bloodthirsty immortals,” he said, and I watched as his eyes widened and then narrowed as he figured something out in his head. I was glad he knew what the fuck he was talking about because he’d completely lost me.
“Since vampires were just Vocari,” he finished, searching in my eyes for something as though he could see the answer to a question he had written in the fine print of my stare.
“Ethan, I have no idea what you’re trying to tell me right now.”
He blinked and swallowed, rocking back on his heels. “It’s nothing,” he said dismissively. “It’s not possible, I just thought…never mind.”
“Ok,” I said drawing out the word.
“We’ll figure this out, Rose,” he said reassuringly and lifted his hand as though he intended to comfort me, but then dropped it again.
With a deep sigh I stepped away from the wall, drawn to the desk covered in papers and ink drawings against the opposite wall. It was clear Ethan was going to be a tougher nut to crack than the other guys had been. I could tell he wanted to be close with me, but he was afraid.
Whether he was afraid he’d hurt me, or afraid to be hurt if I decided to leave after all, I wasn’t sure. Maybe a combination of both. The latter I could understand. But I saw the strength in his eyes that made me know that the former wasn’t possible. He’d die before he laid a violent finger on me, or anyone for that matter.
I had to be patient. He was going to need more time.
“Did you draw these?” I asked, lifting the first sketch that caught my eye. It was a stake with a blood-coated tip, hovering amid coiling vines covered in sharp thorns. Another depicted a vampire with pain-filled eyes and a hissing mouth, his hands clutching at the same thorny vines as they choked him, drawing blood from the skin on his neck. Gruesome. And yet beautiful.