My hands rumpled his hair, and I pulled it. “Mmm… maybe we should just… skip dinner tonight?”
He nipped the skin of my neck with his teeth, kissing a trail to my ear and whispering softly, “I don’t see why we can’t have both…”
Snaking one arm around my waist, he used the other to brace himself against the dining table. With one sweeping motion, he cleared the table of the plates, the flowers, and a vase full of water. Before they could crash onto the floor, I immediately wove a spell that landed them daintily on the ground. Then I whipped my hand up and watched everything float up to the counter and gracefully alight on it. My attention returned to Casey when he lay down on top of me. I wrapped my legs around him and wove his hair between my fingers. The look in his eyes was intense, sharp, focused and hungry, a liquid-silver smoldering expression that melted me from the inside out.
He plucked a strawberry from the fruit bowl beside my thigh. “Open wide.”
I hesitated for just a second, then obeyed, opening my mouth to accept the sweet fruit, and he fed it to me. I closed my lips around it and bit down. I chewed and swallowed.
“You want one?” I said, offering him a berry of his own. His eyes went wide and hungry.
I dropped it down my blouse. “Get it.”
He grabbed the fabric of my shirt, curling his hands into fists, and ripped it down the center, sending the buttons flying in all directions.
Wow, I thought. He really wants that strawberry.
He clasped his hands on either side of my neck and brought his lips down over mine. The strawberry rolled off the table and landed on the floor. I broke away from his mouth, our limbs still entangled. “You dropped your strawberry,” I said, gasping for air.
His laugh sent chills up and down the length of my spine. My hips rose to meet the bulge in his jeans, and the deep, animal part of me emerged from the pit of my stomach. Suddenly, I wanted to feel him on top of me, between my thighs where my heartbeat was suddenly throbbing.
Casey obliged. He reached under my skirt with both hands, his eyes never once leaving mine, and slid my panties off me. He slowly pulled them down my legs until they dropped to the floor, catching for half a second on my heels.
He looked down at my skirt—business casual, not pencil-tight, but close—and undid the button with a single deft motion. I lifted my lower half up so he could pull it off me. He did, and crawled on top of me before I heard his zipper. Pinning my arm to the table, his free hand on my waist, he thrust himself inside me, plunging his tongue inside my mouth. My eyes closed at the thrill of it. I put my hand on his chest, and swirled my tongue in his throat. His breath hitched, and his body spasmed for the briefest moment.
I dragged my fingers along his bare back, selfishly refusing to allow any space to exist between us. My thighs clenched around his pelvis. I moaned into his ear. His fingers grew scorching hot. I could feel his heartbeat in every part of him, especially his throbbing member, taking long strokes, then heavy and fast, demanding my cooperation, creating a vibration like an earthquake, as the thunder bubbled up from the bottom of the ocean. I was caught in a storm you can’t see until it’s already upon you, drowning you, filling your lungs with cold wind and lightning-bright desire…
He dropped his head to my breasts, licking the space where the strawberry was, squeezing them with his hand as he worked his way back up, and thrusting deeper inside me every second, faster and faster, until it was all I could comprehend.
I orgasmed hard—and he followed two seconds later. He always had such spectacular timing. I half expected him to slump down, slick with sweat, but his movements remained deliberate. He looked at me, taking my face in his hands, and kissed me. Slipping his hands under me and picking me up, he carried me down the hall to the bedroom, dropping me in the middle of the bed and climbing on top of me.
And he went inside me again. And again after that.
I have to confess, I don’t have a whole lot of experience with sex, so I might be speaking from a position of hilarious ignorance here, but…
Hot damn.
He rose up slowly, still inside me, smiling. His bright blue eyes glowing like stars.
“I love you,” he said.
I blinked, not quite hearing him. “Oh.”
Pulling out of me, he slumped to the side, but kept looking at me. He was still smiling, but it was a little off now. “Oh?”
Then what he said clicked, and I beamed, my eyes going wide. “Oh!”
“Oh?” he said again, this time chuckling.
“Yes, oh!” I answered, reaching out to touch his face as I smiled up at him. “I love you too, Casey.”
His smile grew as he wrapped his arms around me. “Cool.”
I snorted. “Cool? I tell you I love you, and you say ‘cool’?”
He shrugged but his hands tightened around my waist. “Hey, I said it first and you said ‘oh’. I think we’re even now.”
“Touché.” I rolled away, getting off the bed and dizzily standing on my feet. “I’m gonna go take all this off,” I said, indicating my makeup—by now it was surely smudged beyond all salvage.
“Okay,” he said, propping himself up on his elbow. He reached behind him and grabbed his glasses, putting them on. They sat crooked on his nose, and one of the arms was pressed against the outside of his ear.
“Um,” I said as I giggled. “Hang on.”
I crawled back onto the bed and reached over to straighten them on his nose. His hand rose slowly to meet mine, wrapping around my wrist. Clamping down like a shackle, he started pulling me forward closer to him.
“Hey,” he said, his forehead pressing against mine.
“Hey yourself,” I answered, kissing him, my hands on his chest, feeling my way around him again. “I’ll be right back.”
“Mmm,” he said softly, biting his lip. “Hurry.”
“Will do,” I said equally soft, as I sauntered off to the master bathroom.
I closed the door, sighing dreamily, and looked in the mirror. I nodded thoughtfully, placing my hands on the counter—I wasn’t quite all the way to Panic at the Disco as far as my comical black mascara and eye liner streaks went, but close enough to make anyone wonder if my high school emo phase ever really came to a close.
I washed my face with cold water, pulling a towel across my skin, casually bemoaning my obsession with panicking discos and romantic chemicals.
And I heard something.
A thump like a bird hitting the window. A very large, very purposeful bird hitting a window.
“Casey?” I called, and in the same second, he shouted, “Sam?”
“What was that?” I asked.
“Something hit the window,” he said, and I could hear him fumbling back into his pants. “It sounded big.”
Oh, hell.
Thump, thump, thump. Each one was louder than the last.
I heard a click, and realized it was Casey pulling his gun from the nightstand and cocking it.
“What is it?” I called out, this time sounding more concerned.
Silence. Silence. Silence.
“Casey?”
And another noise. I was trembling like the sheen on a piano wire, tight and thin and icy. The tension was straining the glass, and spiderweb cracks began creeping through it, shattering it half a second later.
“Sam, run!” shouted Casey.
“Shit,” I said, bursting out of the bathroom, a bulb of fire sputtering to life in my hand.
In the bedroom, the window was broken, and glass shards sparkled all over the carpet. The curtains were blowing in the dark, pulled out by a viciously cold wind. The whole room was cloaked in palpable darkness, an ethereal smoke turning everything grey. It smothered the fire in my hand, dragging the air out of my lungs in sharp bursts, and stinging my throat. It was consuming all sound.
There was blood on the windowsill. Enough to drip in a pool and stain.
“Casey?” I called out, barely able to hear myself.
Ou
tside, I heard gunshots and a high-pitched, animal scream.
NINE
Bram
I must begin by assuring you that I was not, in fact, stalking my favorite fairy.
Rather, I was merely keeping a close watch on someone whom the world has developed a particular and fervent distaste for. I was in the service of ensuring her continued safety. Yes, I was following her, and hoped she could not see me; but stalking is such a morbidly unpleasant word, don’t you agree? Yes, she did not know I was in such close proximity, but my presence was not hurting her in any way. I was merely an extra pair of eyes to watch her back, a staunch defender in the shadows, creeping beside her and just close enough to be of service should anything unpleasant befall her—or if she should become something unpleasant and endanger someone else. I was protecting her, and to do that properly, I had to follow her. I am the first to admit I did so without her knowledge or consent.
I suddenly realize how bad that sounds. Allow me to explain.
Meg—the living amalgamation of nightmares that befouled Dulcie’s soul and tried to assassinate the President of the United States—is also my maker. She is the vampire that bit me and created the illustrious dark-walker you have come to know and I have had the pleasure to be.
Clinically, Meg is calamitously insane, as well as catastrophically powerful. She undoubtedly is still nursing a titanic grudge for our dear Dulcie after she thwarted Meg’s valiant attempt to end the world.
So as you see, I was not stalking Dulcie, I was just protecting her from the fury of my maker. This is purely a security operation and most definitely not an excuse for me to get uncomfortably close to a person for whom I have developed an undying affection.
Undying. In the name of Hades and the darkness he crawled out of, how far must I have fallen to resort to issuing puns?
The obvious answer, I suppose, is very; but such is not the point.
If you find me a bit creepy, let me assure you, I have only the best intentions.
And, yes, I am very worried about our heroine. Satisfied?
Standing outside Dulcie’s apartment complex for hours, I was melting myself into the shadows and staring at her window. Her light was still on, the curtain moving back and forth as she traipsed across the room. Changing, she was fresh from a shower, and still wet after hours of washing away all the blood and smoke and darkness…
Yes, darkness. Darkness similar to the sour magic my maker had grown so fond of; yet where Meg acquired this arcane stink, I know not. The mystery of its source created a flood of anxiety that flows inside me. The only creatures capable of secreting it also have a peculiar fondness for committing cold-blooded murder.
I had every intention of telling Dulcie as much, in case she hadn’t already noticed it for herself. But when she busied herself with a visit and dinner with Samantha, the opportunity to talk to her was taken from me.
So now, here we stood, in the darkest alley surrounded by unconscious perpetrators who would have harmed her, had they been given the opportunity.
She was glaring at me, tapping her foot with her arms crossed and looking decidedly unhappy.
“Bram,” she said. Her honey-blond hair fell loose and tangled around her shoulders and it trembled as she breathed.
“That is my name,” I said, brushing imaginary dust from my hands, “last I checked.”
“Bram, what the fuck?”
I frowned. “Excuse me? ‘What the fuck?’”
She gestured sharply to the unconscious men behind me. “Yes! What the fuck?”
“Whatever do you mean by that vulgar expression?”
“You just made this whole situation a hundred times worse than it would have been,” she said.
“I believe I was merely helping.”
“When they wake up, all they’ll remember is Dulcie O’Neil was threatening to arrest them before a weird shadow started kicking their asses. You know what that’s gonna look like?”
“Like you beset them?”
“Exactly.”
“And you consider that a bad assumption?”
“Yes, Bram, it’s bad. Very bad.” She ran her hands down her face, leaving them for a moment over her mouth as she inhaled and exhaled slowly. “What the hell are you doing here?”
I shrugged. “Nothing in particular.”
“Bram.”
“Yes, my dear?”
“What are you doing here?”
I shrugged, nudging one of her coworkers with my shoe who was bleeding from the mouth, although the cut on the inside of his cheek was nothing internal. Yes, his blood assaulted my nostrils and made me aware that I had yet to dine this evening. But, even so, I possess a modicum of self-control, although I frequently refuse to practice it. Tonight I was not half bad; and one could even say I was half good.
“Were you following me?”
“Why would you ask that?” I replied, feigning surprise.
“You were following me.”
My false reaction failed, apparently. “I believe it was more like I was helping you.”
“I don’t need your help, Bram.”
Hades, but it thrilled me to hear her say my name, never mind how angrily she voiced it. She was correct and did not require my help. Now that her vampiric augmentations were established, the odds of more successive victories were perpetually in her favor. But one still should not look within the mouth of the gift horse or the gift vampire, as it may be.
I shrugged. “Forgive me for worrying about you unnecessarily and indulging an old habit.”
Dulcie scoffed and looked away for a moment, shaking her head. “Habit? Since when did you make a habit of helping me?”
“Since…” Now that I thought about it, she was asking a legitimate question. In the realm of altruism, I was a fairly recent visitor. “Since now, I suppose.”
“What do you want from me, Bram?” she asked, her mouth looking so adorable when it quirked to one side. Seeing no surprise on her face, but the distinctive presence of dread—I knew she quite clearly expected me to impose on her with a repulsive request.
“Nothing,” I said.
She frowned at me. “Nothing?”
“Nothing,” I repeated.
“Nothing,” she clarified, “as in no things. You don’t want anything from me? Nothing at all?”
I shrugged. “I would like for Meg to die and the majority of the mortal world to forget that supernatural creatures exist,” I said. “And since you are asking me, I should also like to have a pony.”
“Dammit, Bram! You know what I mean. You always want something from me.”
I held up my hands in mock surrender. “Let me speak quite plainly. Dulcie, I want nothing from you in this world or any other.”
Her face changed and she went from dubious to outright startled. Confusion surrounded her like a fog. But what was she confused about exactly?
I realized I made the basic mistake of calling her by her name. I so rarely erred in my choice of words to address her, but under the circumstances and based on our personal history, I should have been more condescending and instead called her by my pet moniker, sweet. Then she would have appeared less surprised.
Damn. If I were not more cautious, she might think I was sincere, which may have been true, but I had no intention of letting her know that.
“Well,” I said, clapping my hands together so abruptly that it made Dulcie jump. “So all is well and good in the hood.”
“Promise me you’ll never say that again,” Dulcie snapped. “You sound like such an idiot.” Then, her eyes glowed and I glimpsed the sweltering pools of burning magma.
What could I say? Dulcie O’Neil was excellent at muddling one’s mind. Brilliant honey-golden hair, breasts that were the envy of every fertility goddess, and curves that must have been a cosmic oversight to not be sculpted in marble. In all my innumerable years, I have never been so vexed by a creature as fantastic and enthralling as she is…
“You’re staring at me that way again
.” She frowned and added, “Stop it.”
“Ah,” I said, ashamed at having been caught. “Do I make you uncomfortable, sweet?”
“Yes! You know you always make me uncomfortable.”
“Really?” I replied when she caught me offguard. She did not surprise me very often, but her reply was unexpected. She spoke it as an accusation, and not a casual observation as she might have on any other night.
“Bram, you are the poster child when it comes to making people uncomfortable.”
Something strange plucked my insides and I experienced the absurdly human rush of heat in my chest that typically accompanies a blush—an archaic response I can no longer produce. How peculiar. “Ah, please forgive me. I meant no offense.”
She frowned at me, narrowing her eyes into the suspicious glare she usually reserved for people who were doing something nefarious—or lying. On any other night, I would have proudly lied to cover up my nefarious activities.
“Bram, did you just apologize to me?” she asked slowly.
“I begged for your forgiveness. Is that an acceptable form of apology?”
“Uh-huh,” she said. “Are you high or on something?”
“On something?” I repeated. “I fail to see what you mean.”
“Drugs, Bram. Are you on any drugs? Or potions? Or anything else?”
“At this moment?”
“At this exact moment, yes! Are you on anything?”
“Chemical substances cannot alter my consciousness,” I answered. “Although I must confess your presence is rather intoxicating in its own right.”
“And you’re not drunk?”
“I lack the organs necessary to process alcohol, as you are well aware,” I responded. “If I did, it would merely dissolve into my skin and disappear.”
“And you’re not under the influence of anything else?”
“Would you care to elaborate on that?”
“I don’t know,” she said, throwing up a hand in exasperation—while the other remained planted firmly on her hip.
I admit I was temporarily lost in her sublime curves and realized too late that she said something else to me. I cleared my throat.
“I am not under the influence of any substance,” I said, hoping that would suffice.
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