Undying Thirst (Crimson Coven #2)

6. Asher

SIX

asher

I’d never been rejected for anything, much less a fucking. I braced one hand on the door as Catalina screamed from inside my chambers. Her fury was a sight to behold . . . spitting brown eyes, her face pinched with an adorable scowl . . . I’d been making note of all of that when she’d slammed her knee into my cock. And this time my arousal didn’t work in my favor.

I gingerly limped away from her door.

If I’d been human, her kick would have rendered me cock-less. I shivered in horror. I may as well stake myself if that happened.

The remnant throb was beginning to wear off, but I never wanted to be dick-kneed again. I’d rather be staked through my arm.

The waxed wooden stair led to the third-floor landing and split into two directions like the other floors. I turned toward the left-wing living room and unlike the second floor, this one did not have multiple rooms lining it.

I’d lost count of how many ‘homes’ I’d had—they were interchangeable. Suitable for only one thing.

A bit like women.

Until Catalina. And I was beginning to grow fond of this estate.

The small entrance opened to the ample room we hosted company in. My uneven steps echoed on the wooden floors. Right as I crossed the threshold, glass shattered into pieces. Familiar fragments skid across the floor and toward my loafer. Fuck.

Not the cobalt vase.

“That was a limited edition piece from Versailles,” I gritted out between my teeth.

“I know.” Jax sneered and without removing his gaze from mine, he stepped on a large piece that settled next to his foot. The crunch reached through my sluggish heart, shattering it.

“You monster.” I staggered forward, clasping my forehead. “I need to take a seat.” A few more steps had me around the curved sofa in the middle of the rug, with a clear view of Jax where he stood next to the marble column that had hosted my vase.

Jax snorted. Gleeful bastard. I whipped my head toward him.

“Do you know who I had to fuck to get that art?” I’d kill him. I’d kill him this second. I clasped my chest. “I’m going to hyperventilate.” Not really a thing for vampires since we hardly even breathed, but it encapsulated how I thought I’d be reacting.

Jaxon lifted an eyebrow.

“Dramatic fuck. Don’t act like you didn’t enjoy fucking the Rouge Coven leader.”

“He reeked,” I hissed. For vampires, he was disgustingly unhygienic. Imogen knew of his proclivities and taunted me into a bet to take his prized art. She must have known about his fascination with shoving candle sticks up asses. I’d tired the male out so I could steal it, but the event was not an experience I reveled in remembering.

A piece of China settled near my heel. That lovely piece of art that had made the disgusting endeavor worth it was gone.

“And what exactly did this solve?” I hissed.

“It pissed you off.”

I narrowed my eyes at the smirk. There were two of us, but if one of us poofed from existence, then good riddance. I’d be doing the earth a favor ridding it of such a bitter fucker.

I lunged at Jaxon and drove him into the ground. Any harder and his body would have dented the flooring.

Hissing into his face, I wrapped my hands around his throat.

Grinning into his scowling face, I sank my fingers in harder. He slammed his fist into my side. My rib cracked.

Grunting, I squeezed harder, breaking skin with my nails.

“You kill him, then we lose all those he sired,” Ren drawled from somewhere behind me.

“I do not care,” I hissed and dug my claws into his throat. Blood gushed from the punctures. Jaxon’s shape morphed into a cat, slipping from my grip, then just as quickly became a large mountain lion to slice his claws into my thigh, almost hitting my prized cock.

“Watch it!” I shook his blood off my hands. “You’ll tear my shirt.”

“Is this petty squabbling what you two have been up to in my absence? Such a weak minded?—”

“Shut it,” I hissed. “You talk about weakness when you burned her house down?”

Ren threw his head back and laughed.

“So we’re back to this, eh? Since when do you care about humans?” I walked over to my twin, still in his feline form and wiped my bloodied hands on his fur.

Jax slinked away with a snarl and morphed back. “The fuck?” he snapped, glaring at his sides where my hands had left prints. I returned my attention to Ren.

“Just one human. Mine.”

Ren raised his hands. “You’ve made your ownership clear, but since she’s a Pet, you should keep her in the basement.”

Any humans we’d kept stayed locked up down there, so they could not escape while we slumbered. Although the bedrooms on the second floor designated for each of us were properly sealed off from the sunlight, a vampire that could burn to a crisp couldn’t be too careful.

“Bastien is down there now,” I said, simply denying his comment instead of shouting. I also didn’t mention that her wrapped in my bedding pleased me.

“What I would give to be your Sire.”

I narrowed my eyes at Ren. He’d abuse his influence over me. The sensation had been compared to when vampires used compulsion on humans, except a vampire was aware of the Sire’s influence.

Which I knew well since Imogen was my maker. She used to take perverse pleasure in forcing her will on me.

“You,” I jerked my chin at my brother, “turn into her cat.”

“You’re worried about her right now,” Jax scoffed and shook his head. “She tried to take Imogen’s ring and you want her to have her fucking cat?”

“Turn into a fucking cat,” I repeated.

“No.”

“Jaxon.” I narrowed my eyes.

Catalina needed comfort and she would not accept it from me.

She no longer called my name with her sweet tone. It held an underlying vein of disgust. Nor would she tell me how she got hurt.

“Get it together, Asher,” Jax said. “She betrayed us. Stop protecting her so vehemently.”

I didn’t acknowledge the statement. She betrayed me, and I didn’t fucking care.

How had a human wrought me this uncertainty?

It’d been centuries since I was human, and that was the last time I encountered weak emotions like this. I didn’t think I would care this much—ever.

“And?”

“Fuck you, brother,” Jax snapped in our language and left the room.

Like clockwork, the metal shutters descended, cutting off the windows. Weight settled on my eyelids as it did when dawn approached. Even rubbing my face took effort.

I made no comment to Ren as I passed him to find a bed to fall into. As much as I wanted to curl up with Catalina, I couldn’t sleep with her, not while I didn’t know her intentions.

Our decision making had never been so compromised. Our unique Coven functioned because we let Imogen make ultimate decisions, or Imogen imposed her will. I could only think of one instance where I’d ever argued, and that was on how to handle Bastien’s blood madness.

A slip of a human caused this much conflict.

If it was up to Ren and Jax, Catalina wouldn’t have survived the night.

Our laws demanded her death. From the beginning, she should have been handled because she could not be compelled. I couldn’t even comfort her with the promise of turning her into a vampire, so she had no choice, she would have to live as my Pet.

And she had better come to terms with it, because she would not die for centuries to come if I had my way.