by Sarah Black
“Stop delaying, Penny,” Valentino speaks up, drawing my attention back to him. “Enough of this.” He lets go of me, his hands sliding down to mine as he pulls me along, pausing at the broken creature on the ground.
I can’t tell if he’s asleep or not, and it’s on the tip of my tongue to let him just rest until Valentino kicks him in the side. His body teeters and falls to the hard concrete. But I don’t feel pity at it, not when his stormy eyes peer up at me from his straggly, greasy hair.
The vampire chuckles to himself, his lips lifting in a sneer. “The lost witch. Have you come to steal my secrets?” He sounds just as bored as Silas.
But his words strike me with interest. Can I do that? Can I steal his secrets?
He laughs harder. “You don’t even know, do you?” He struggles to sit up. I can feel Valentino and Silas backing away, leaving me alone with the creature. “You have no idea why your kind is an abomination.”
I crouch before him, casting my net and feeling his power just inside, teasing the strands of my web. I grit my teeth in an attempt to control myself. “Why don’t you tell me?” I try to keep my voice calm, but flashes of Poppy’s broken body dance behind my eyes. Reminding me just what this bastard did.
“Never willingly.”
I sigh. If I can read his secrets, then I will. But not yet. Not when I still have hope he will tell me, so I don’t have to sacrifice my morals for a criminal. “Tell me.”
His legs splay in an uncomfortable position with his ankles zip tied. Still I don’t feel bad about it. What kind of a person does that make me? I’m not proud of it. But I don’t revel in it either.
He spits at me, his saliva tinged with blood as it lands at me feet, his cackle echoing all around us. “No one should have the power you do. Every blood witch in this world will die.”
“You insinuate there are more of us.” I can’t help the hope in my voice.
“Not anymore,” he singsongs, the sound disturbing coming from a grown ass vampire.
“Why shouldn’t I have this power?” I know these questions have nothing to do with my sister and are purely for selfish reasons.
“Want to know what her blood tasted like?”
“Why shouldn’t I have this power?” I repeat, my voice dropping dangerously low.
He groans, shifting his weight. “Her blood tasted like freedom, like honeyed bourbon.”
“Why?” I grind out, wanting to repeat my sentence but falling short.
Again, he groans, his head falling back and his eyes fluttering closed. “So, fucking sweet.”
“Tell me why you hunted us, you bastard.”
“I swallowed her up, her blood like water to a dying man in a desert.” His head snaps forward, his stormy eyes meeting mine as thunder crashes overhead. Moments later, the lights flicker, the buzz of electricity humming before they turn back on. I glance to the creature before me who begins to smack his lips with a predatory gleam. “Delicious.”
Chills of foreboding douse my spine in ice.
The lights flicker off.
I take a step back, waiting for my eyes to adjust, but I’m too slow. The vampire launches himself at me. His teeth clacking as his body wiggles over mine, his jaws attempting to tear at my throat. The decay on his breath curdles my stomach. My body slams to the concrete, my head bouncing off the hardened surface. A scream lodges in my throat as my palms strike the hard chest above me.
Behind me, I hear scuffling along with harsh whispers.
Why aren’t they helping me?
“Let her go!” Valentino roars, and even the vampire pinning me down pauses. “Right now, she’s the most dangerous creature in this room, she just needs to realize it.”
His words slice through me.
The boogeyman of supernatural society.
So why am I lying here like a helpless victim? Under the creature who didn’t hesitate to tear into my sister’s neck? The one who snaps his fangs at me in a struggle to get at my neck?
My body aches, each wound from the past week flaring with uncanny precision, highlighting every injury as a mockery to my mortality.
I slam my head down as tears bubble in my eyes. Still, I fucking hesitate.
“Back up,” I gurgle, but not to the vampire pinning me, to Valentino and Silas. “Don’t let me lose myself.”
Forgive me, Father. For I am sin.
I cast my web, a chill shaking my body. My magic flares to life with unholy awareness. Too soon I can pinpoint each and every wound on his body. Every possible opening to dig my claws into.
I feel each one. My breath becomes shaky as I prod into him, magic invading his body like a venom.
Because that is what I am—poison. Poison that’s like a drug to supernaturals. I am his death. But not before I spill everything he knows.
I know it the moment he feels me. He throws his body backwards, landing with a cry on his zip tied hands. Finally, my sight adjusts to see the outline scrambling away.
But like a spider, he only tugs my web, because I can hold him. I sink my magical claws into his body, spiraling through veins and arteries. Each pulse of his power teases me.
Just a sip, I tell myself, launching at him far quicker than I’ve ever moved before. My own fangs descend, sinking into his neck.
His screams echo all around me.
I only bite harder.
I show him the mercy he showed my sister. None.
Venom pulses from my fangs with but a thought, and his scream blasts my eardrums. Still, I sink in further, latching onto his power, and with a greedy little pull, I swallow his blood and his power all at once.
Euphoria sinks through me as his power heals every single ache, cut, sprain, and bruise in my body. I pull, the high quickly turning addictive.
I pull harder. My purpose spearing me with renewed vigor.
Tomorrow I can hate myself. I can tell myself whatever lie I want. That I didn’t want to do this, that I didn’t need to. That this vampire has a soul and I’m not one to judge it. But for right now?
Right now, I take and take and take.
His blood slips down my throat, filling my pasta full belly further. My body absorbs it, placing it everywhere it needs to go.
Then I remember his words. Asking if I’ve come to steal his secrets. I test that thought, and like a reel his memories spill into me.
I tear out his throat, sitting back with a groan of equal parts pleasure and pain. My nails sink into his chest as I continue to steal his power, while his blood divulges what I want to know, what I need to know.
Flashes of him lying in wait in that fated alley zip across my mind’s eyes. Rolling to him attacking her. Back, further back I go, until I see him speaking with a man.
Not a man, a vampire. Words I cannot hear are exchanged as an envelope passes between them.
Still, I go back, his address flashing through my mind.
Back to him speaking with that man again, but this time he isn’t alone. Another vampire stands with him.
“Lazarus,” I choke out.
I sink in further, pulling more. This vampire is no rogue. He never was.
I pull more. Getting images of his life, his childhood. Back to his why.
We all have a why. Why we do the things we do. Make the decisions we make. Choose the path we choose.
Why?
A small child with honey gold curls and laughter like the sun dances behind my eyes.
“Dahlia.”
He screams louder, his throat hoarse until even that dies away. His why is a child they stole and kept.
“Foolish vampire,” I whisper to him. My eyes fluttering open.
The lights flicker back on, illuminating the warehouse around me. And with it the husk I’ve left beneath me.
I scramble off, my eyes wide, horror stealing my breath. I did this. I created this. Shoes clack on the concrete behind me. I can feel him there, his presence wrapping around me.
“Did you get what we needed?” He carelessly kicks t
he leg of the vampire.
In that moment, I see Valentino for the cold and calculated creature he is. “You didn’t stop me.” I turn to him, coming to my shaking knees then to my legs. I slap him, the clash stinging my hand.
He allows it, but snatches my hand just after, his grip bruising as he steps into me. “Know this now and remember it well. He never would have lived past this evening, so I ask you again—did you get what we needed?”
I rip away from him. Defiance in my eyes as I stare up at his cool green gaze. The man who made me dinner is gone, and in his place stands the cold vampire. “Yes,” I grind out.
“Good. Let’s go.” He spins on his heel, dragging me along.
My gaze catches on Silas who stares at me with wide eyes. I watch as he takes a step back. Away from me.
I can’t look at him. I know what he sees.
A nightmare.
I’m not a boogeyman, I’m a fucking monster. A venomous spider that hides in the dark, waiting to kill.
26
I washed and scrubbed and then washed my body over and over again until the water turned cold and my body bloomed red. It didn’t matter that a storm raged outside, rumbling through the warehouse as lightning crashed.
Let it. Let it shock me, because nothing could possibly be worse than the storm raging inside of me. Yet I didn’t cry, I kept my promise. I didn’t fear.
I had killed my enemy.
I knew what had to happen, but doing it left a burden on my soul that nothing could ever remove.
My chest aches, and as I try to rub it away, Valentino strolls into the bathroom.
The fog dispersed with the hot water long ago, leaving my eyes bare to him through the glass. Unashamed, my gaze rolls down his body. The vampire in question is wearing a designer suit with the devil’s grin, donning just as many faces.
The playboy.
The lover.
The cruel killer.
I don’t know which of these I’m gazing at right now. But as his eyes take a leisurely path down my body, I get an idea.
“Are you quite finished with your pity party?”
“I don’t pity myself.”
“Tell me about your boyfriend.”
“I don’t have one.” I begin to wash myself once more under the cold spray, waiting for my mind to recognize the cold that pelts me.
“Penny.” A warning, a demand.
He knows I’ll spill my secrets to him, but only because lies are hard to maintain. I gaze at my hands, seeing the blood that should exist on my clean flesh. “I didn’t know he was a diluted something.” That’s the truth. I hadn’t known until I had one of those moments like I had with Poppy in my bathroom days ago. I got sick. My power was hungry. I ignored it. Pressed the dark swell of magic deep down as flashes of my parents’ murder haunted me. “He came over when I said I was sick. I nearly drained him of his spark of magic.” I had no idea he had an injury. A slide on his bike, leaving him with road rash. So many open wounds, and I had no control.
“A valuable lesson.” Cold. Hard. Brash.
I snap the water off, fling the door open, and step onto the mat. His words cut me deeper than exposing myself to him. Or perhaps he waited for that vulnerability before slicing into me.
Unabashed and seeing a distraction, I walk out of the shower, naked and bare before him. Unlike the last time I stood naked in front of him, my sister’s blood doesn’t taint my skin.
But there is still blood on my hands. Blood I couldn’t wash off. I’m nothing more than a modern Lady Macbeth cursed to forever see blood on my hands. Blood no one else sees. Only me.
Raising my chin, I walk up to him, brushing my wet body against his as I reach around to grab my towel. I don’t need to be this close, hell I could have asked him for that towel. But I didn’t. I chose to tease him to torture him.
Tit for tat.
He deserves my teasing.
“You play with fire, kitten.” There it is, that slight accent that laces his words when emotion becomes too great.
“You played with fire. Pay the consequences.” I snap the towel open and step back, wrapping the plush material around my body.
“Is that what this is?” Raising a brow, he steals the towel, pressing his thumb into my palm until I drop it. He grips my hand, pushing it into my lower back until my body bows forward. “You are only mad at me because I showed you what you willingly wanted to know.”
“It didn’t have to be like that,” I counter.
“You would have demanded I take you out within a day to hunt creatures stronger than you. Ones who have done nothing but kill their entire lives. They are hardened against this empathy you seek.” He leans down into my face. “You would have died.”
Anger flares within me. “I wouldn’t have failed.”
“You are so wrapped up in keeping your secret that you would have chosen death over using the magic inside you.” His other hand settles on my hip, his fingers flexing against my skin. The anger in his eyes matches my own. “Yet you haven’t even realized your little secret isn’t much of one anymore.”
“I was told I’d be hunted and killed.”
“You will be.”
“Then what would you have me do?” I all but growl at him.
“Fight, kill those who see you, use your magic. Use their blood.” He pulls back a little, his eyes rolling over my entire body, looking for any lingering injuries.
There aren’t any. He won’t find any.
He continues his perusal, one that shouldn’t leave me breathless, but it does. Every time his eyes linger on me, my arousal flares. My abdomen clenches with need, yet he leaves me unfulfilled.
“Not a mark,” he grunts.
I’m not ready to forgive him. Not even when he stands this close, his body hard against mine. I’m not foolish enough to mix business with pleasure. Considering that’s exactly what we are here for.
Business.
It’s a lie, I tell myself, as we stand here not talking, our bodies heating one another. He leans in and my heart picks up.
“I will not take you out of this warehouse until you can use your magic without fail,” he murmurs against my lips, while his own arousal awakens, pressing against my stomach.
His tactic won’t work. “You think you can order me around, but you can’t.”
“Penny, I own you, you just haven’t realized it yet.” His lips tease mine, his bottom lip brushing my tender flesh erotic in a way I never thought it would be.
My gums pulse as my fangs fill my mouth with the venom I know holds the power to kill a vampire. I run my tongue along their points, the movement catching his gaze where a flicker of desire appears then disappears just as fast. The need to kiss me is overshadowed by the fear that I can kill him. It’s a risk he won’t take. Fear will always outweigh desire.
“I cannot be owned,” I continue, though I feel it for the lie it is. But I refuse to admit defeat no matter how much my body aches to be touched by his.
I want his lips on me. His hands. I want them to discover every inch of me while I discover him. My body aches for it even as what I am creates a chasm between us.
His fingers stretch across my hip before gliding up the side of my body. Goosebumps dance across my skin, my breathing labors.
For him.
Damn him. He doesn’t need to tell me he owns me, his fingers alone speak the truth. His eyes never waver from mine as they slide up my body, grazing the side of my breast where they grow heavy. My nipples peak and press against his chest, each twitch rubbing them with a teasing friction.
I want to deny his hold, and yet I can’t.
“You react with every touch.” Again, he speaks against my lips, and I silently beg him with my eyes to close the distance between us. “If I dip my finger into your pussy, I guarantee you will be wet, for me.”
I’m forgetting why I’m mad at him. Why we can’t do this. My palm bunches the fabric of his shirt as I feel my wetness slide down between my thighs. I can�
�t help the jolt of need as I struggle to get closer to him. His teasing fingers make lazy circles closer and closer to my breast. I need him to touch my nipples. To ease the ache between my legs.
His grip tightens on my arm, preventing me from arching into him to rub myself against his leg.
“Valentino,” I cry out, as his fingers trace the bumps of my areola.
“That’s how I know I own you.” He lets go, leaving me to stumble away from him. He doesn’t even spare me a second glance as he walks away, leaving me cursing him and my unfulfilled desire.
That’s when it hits me.
He never took the risk to kiss me, and he barely touched me, leaving me panting and needy.
Valentino DeLuca will destroy me, and I am his poison.
27
I don’t know where Valentino ran off to after the bathroom incident. But a part of me was truly thankful he left me alone. Sleep wasn’t forthcoming, as nightmares plagued me with fangs and shadows, leaving me to feel insecure and disturbed.
Because when I finally did awoke, I would be the creature in my dreams terrorizing everyone else. Stealing their power for my own benefit and using it as though I had any right to.
I didn’t.
For nearly a decade I played the role of an innocent human while a killer lurked in the back of my mind. I once read that in the average lifespan, a person may walk past sixteen murders. Some of them they may know, love, and cherish.
I wonder how many people I’ve walked past in my life, and now I am nothing more than a statistic. For some it’s unsettling to know what another is capable of. Inside of every human and supernatural alike, we are all capable of murder. It’s the basic truth that turns people inside out. Yet that isn’t even what bothers me the most. Statistics and numbers, they are just sterile bits of information we process and spit out.
No. What bothers me the most is that I liked it. I loved the high I got from sucking the life out of him. The chills that aroused me as blood stained my fingers. It’s a hard fact that I’ll have to deal with one day.