Chapter IX
Nicolai
The lycan licks the skin right where he’d sunk his teeth in, and I shiver, pleasure still radiating from the spot. The outrage that should have been there at the very idea that I let a werewolf mark me isn’t there. Only a strange contentedness and a deeper twist in my stomach.
“Who knew a vampyre was such a good fuck?”
Good feelings gone. “Trust you to make it something vulgar.” He may not be wrong—this was a physical reaction, nothing more—but there are less antagonizing ways he could have said it. Or he could just keep his mouth shut, which is my preference.
“Were you waiting for me to whisper sweet things in your ear?” he asks, propping himself up on an elbow. There’s a distinct power imbalance to the move, and if he thinks it’ll intimidate me, he can think again. “You wouldn’t even let me kiss you.”
“Did I hurt your feelings?” I goad with a humorless laugh.
He can’t seriously care about that. The act may mean nothing to him; perhaps he throws that kind of affection around without a care.
I’m more discerning than that, and there will never be a world where I’ll give an ounce of it to a werewolf.
He should count himself lucky that he got as much as he did.
A badge of honor for being my first, and last, lycan.
He won’t live long enough to gloat about it.
He nips my bottom lip before I realize what he’s doing, and I swing at him in response. He catches my wrist in his strong grip before I can connect with his cheekbone and break it.
“That wasn’t very nice,” he says low, a distinct sensuality to his tone that my body responds to without my permission.
“Get off me.” The glow of fantastic sex is well and truly over. I don’t know why it existed in the first place. All I want to do now is get up, find a way to get clean, and get the hell out of here. With or without him at this point.
“I’m not finished yet.”
“That sounds like a personal problem.” We got off. What else is there? He can go play his games with someone else.
He bends down and kisses my chin. For someone as big as he is, he’s deceptively fast. “Is here okay for a kiss?”
My upper lip curls, a fang peeking out. “What do you think you’re doing?” I’m not interested in whatever this is. I don’t play. I’m not an animal.
He kisses a line down the hollow of my throat. I don’t like the softness of the touch or the strange fluttering under my skin.
“Those places okay?” I can hear the smirk in his voice.
I grab his arms, intending to throw him across the room and break a few bones for extra measure, when lips circle my nipple and a tongue flicks over my flesh. My fingers dig into the solid muscles of his upper arms, keeping him there. The complete opposite of my intent.
He bites down, rolling the hardened nub between his teeth.
“Nngh.” My back arches, pushing into the touch. More, don’t stop.
“Here?”
“Condescenden?a nu este o tr?s?tur? atractiv?,” I mutter, even as I squirm underneath him, all but begging without words.
The lycan grins. He gives my nipple one last lick and switches to the other one. “That sounded dirty.”
“I assure you—ah—I assure you; it wasn’t.” Threading my fingers in his thick hair gives me leverage to push up into his mouth, demanding more. If nothing else, he has a silver tongue.
“What did you say?” He continues down my chest until he reaches the place where my own seed is drying on my stomach.
“Condescenden?a—”
He runs his claws down my side, just hard enough to cause a light sting. “In English, Nico.”
“Nicolai.”
I shouldn’t be surprised that he knows my name.
It’s not a secret, and I’ve hunted enough of them that they use me as a horror story for their children.
It irks me that I don’t know his. There aren’t many alphas in the world, and I could take a random guess, but there aren’t so few of them that I’d be right, even by the tenth try.
I don’t know them all by name, and I’ve never met one.
They’re all formidable in their own right and not to be underestimated.
The lycan pauses and lifts his head. “That whole thing was the start of your name? I shouldn’t be surprised. It sounds as pretentious as you.”
“Don’t call me Nico.” Shortening a name is personal, and I haven’t given him permission.
“Nicolai,” he says mockingly.
Heat spreads over me at the sound despite the rude intent behind the way he says it. The sensation is amplified when his tongue slides across my stomach, licking up the mess. I bite back a cry as he cleans me, leaving my skin tingling and all but vibrating.
“Animal,” I gasp, only half teasing. It doesn’t surprise me how tactile he is, given his nature. I prefer not to allow others this close or give them privileges that make them think they have any right to me. For all I know, he does this every week.
My whole body twitches when that same silken tongue licks the length of my cock.
My half-hearted effort to push him away is forgotten altogether when he pulls my foreskin down and sucks my head into his mouth.
My stomach clenches, toes curling in my boots.
My knees lift of their own accord, bracketing him while I squirm.
It’s too much, and I spasm from the overcharged hypersensitivity.
A loud cry echoes—mine, I realize after the fact—in the space as he licks my slit, pushing the tip of his tongue firmly against it. I can’t come again. I’ve already come twice. I thought we had a truce; why is he trying to kill me?
His hands slide under my thighs, and before I register what he’s doing, he lifts my hips and buries his face in my ass. Oh, fuck.
He’s warm and wet and I’ve never felt anything like it.
With swipes of his tongue over my hole, he licks up the blood and cum dripping from me.
It’s dirty and wrong, and if he stops, I’ll murder him, truce be damned.
I push his head against my ass, rolling my hips to emphasize my point, in case he doesn’t get the hint.
He does, movements becoming more urgent and harder.
I swear in Romanian, my accent thick enough that I have no idea what I’m saying as the lycan drives me insane.
It’s not long before he has me not only fully hard again but on the precipice of coming.
All it takes is his large hand wrapping around me and his lips sliding over my head and sucking for my third orgasm to rip through me.
He swallows every drop that I empty into his eager mouth.
Even in the aftermath, satisfied and exhausted in equal measure, my dick makes a valiant effort to come back to life as he sucks me clean with a thoroughness that’s intoxicating.
It’s a kind of attentiveness that makes me uncomfortable, and yet I’m craving it at the same time.
He stands, and I can’t look away from where he’s stroking himself, fist firmly working his thick girth over, cock standing proudly. There’s a strange ache in my fangs from the mouthwatering sight.
“Get on your knees,” he says thickly.
I’m moving before my brain can kick into gear and tell him to go fuck himself for thinking he can give me orders.
Words fail me as I come face-to-face with his erection.
The lycan runs his fingers through my hair, tangling the strands between them and taking hold.
I allow it because all I can think about is his cock in front of me.
I’ve never performed this act, and now it’s all I want to do.
Find out what it tastes like, how it feels in my mouth.
He presses his fingers against the tender spot on the curve of my neck where he’d bitten earlier. It’s like a button that lights all my nerves on fire, and a shudder rolls over me.
“Ever sucked blood straight from a dick?”
My mouth goes dry. How—what?
He pulls my hair, forcing me to tip my head back and look him in the eyes. The gold is back, almost all of the brown gone, buried under the beast.
“Open your mouth.”
There’s a moment of clarity, of hesitation—why are we allowing this to happen when we’re in the middle of a ghoul’s nest, when those same ghouls could be closing in at any moment?
—before the thought slips away, and he’s forcing his cock past my lips.
His musky scent hits me, and my eyes slip closed.
The lycan groans, pulling out and sliding back in. “How the fuck is your mouth so hot when the rest of you is so cold?”
Does he really want to talk about vampyre biology right now?
A thumb strokes my cheek, soft enough that I could almost call it a caress. It better not be, or this all stops. There’s no space for affection here. “Never wanted a vampyre on his knees before,” he murmurs. “But damn, you look good down there. You look thoroughly fucked and so fucking pretty.”
I clench my eyes closed tighter, desperately trying to ignore him and instead focus on sucking him off.
The way my stomach flips at the words means nothing, because that’s all they are.
Words. It doesn’t matter that I’ve never heard them before.
That this beast is the first in existence to speak so reverently to me.
I was raised for a single purpose, and kindness has never been part of the equation.
This lycan is so free with his words, his emotions carrying every thought from his brain to his mouth without hesitation, without fear.
He has every reason to be cynical, cruel, distrustful.
He definitely is those things, but there’s more to him than just those facets.
Regret seems a foreign word in his vocabulary.
I have zero understanding of any of those things.
The head of his cock hits the back of my throat, and I could swear it pulses. His hands clench in my hair, and he groans, pumping his hips. I experimentally swallow, and the groan turns into something else entirely, animalistic and raw.
“Bite me,” he orders, words guttural and barely recognizable. “Do it, Nicolai.”
My name on his lips feeds me, lust swirling in my belly, my limbs shaking. He thrusts back into my mouth, and I turn my head enough to sink my fangs into the smooth, hard flesh, the head of his cock pressed against the inside of my cheek.
The lycan’s bellowing roar shakes the stone, reverberating through my chest. Blood and cum simultaneously flood my mouth. I choke, red spilling down my chin as I try to swallow as much of it as I can, though it’s impossible to get it all.
A part of me, a deep depraved part, wants to stay on my knees like this forever. Live off the blood straight from his cock and have him fuck me forever, keeping me relaxed and ready to be used any time I want. It’s such a startling thought that I scramble away from him.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
Whatever it is, I have the same affliction.
My eyes snap up to his. The gold has darkened, melted liquid once more. It must do that when he’s experiencing heightened emotions.
“I heard you,” he says, eyes narrowing. “In my head.”
I lick my lips and instantly regret it. The taste of blood and semen bursts on my tongue. A lingering reminder of just how far I’d let this go.
“What was that?” he continues, not needing confirmation from me. I’m sure he can see it on my face that I heard him, as well.
“I…” I don’t know. Saying those words out loud would make it all too real. I don’t know why they sent me to capture you without warning me of the danger. I don’t know why I didn’t kill you the moment you let me free. I don’t know why I let you bite me. I don’t know why I let you fuck me.
I don’t know what’s happening here.
He drops to his knees and cradles my face, hands swamping me. He moves forward as if to kiss me, and panic skitters up my spine.
I pull away with a firm, “No.” He’s taken too much already, and there’s a warning in the back of my head telling me that if I let him take more, there won’t be anything of me left. That he’ll continue to take until he consumes me.
If anyone found out that I’d slept with a werewolf willingly?
One not under my command. One I’d taken orders from.
I’d be killed. My job is to capture and kill every last wandering werewolf.
Not only am I paid handsomely to eradicate pockets of rebellious werewolves that think they aren’t under our thumb, but I’m good at it.
It’s the only thing I was built for, the only thing I have.
I can’t let him take my very identity away from me.
He kisses the corner of my mouth instead and then drags his lips up the curve of my jaw until he reaches my ear.
He traces the shell of it with his tongue and whispers, “I’m going to get a taste.
” He tugs on my earlobe, jolting me with pleasure.
“I promise you, Nicolai.” He kisses the sensitive skin below my ear.
“And I don’t break my promises.” He licks across the still-sensitive area where his bite still aches.
I don’t know why it hasn’t healed yet, especially after all the blood that I’ve drunk.
I pull away, turning my head from him, refusing to look at him.
I hate the way he says my name. I want him to stop saying it, stop forming the word with his lips and making the syllables sound like sin.
“We need to leave,” I say abruptly. Find an exit before the ghouls find us again.
Fighting in such close quarters is a risk I don’t want to take unless I have to.
We should never have lingered this long.
He lets me stand without argument, and I gather my clothes, tugging them back on as best I can given half of them are damaged.
I only get a few steps toward the door when dizziness swamps me. He’s at my side in an instant, catching me when I swoon and falter.
“Nicolai? What’s wrong?”
I try to speak; nothing but slurred words come out. I’m suddenly so tired, my limbs heavy. When he gathers me to him, I snuggle into his warmth and nuzzle his throat. My eyes won’t stay open, so I let them slip closed, embracing the lethargy and his body against my own.
The lycan groans, and then we’re both on the ground, holding each other up. There’s a sweetness to the air that I want to chase. It’s almost as nice as his blood.
“Do you smell that?” he whispers. I shiver at the deep rumble of his voice.
I graze the tips of my fangs against his neck and sink them in without a second thought. I don’t need to feed, I’m already contentedly full. I simply want to rest this way, soak in the comfort it brings me.
His fingers trail the bite on my neck, and I moan, shifting closer. I’ve never felt more at ease as I do in this moment. Like nothing in the world can get to me.
There’s something off about that thought, an underlying wrongness to it, like sulfur and rot. It blows away on the wind, and all that’s left is the werewolf’s body heat sinking into my bones.
I fall into slumber, fangs still warm and buried deep.