12. Catalina
TWELVE
catalina
I lay on the mattress of the pink bedroom, with the mesh canopy—in the same bright pink—hanging over the bed. As conscious-less as they behaved, I used to believe there was a semblance of humanity in the vampires, but I’d fooled myself. Asher sprawled next to me, causing the canopy to sway. He set an elbow on the bed and perched his chin on his fist. God, I felt too hot and needy. Why was he so attractive?
I’d sunk into his dark embrace and ran with it. Asher’s grin widened, giving me a peek of his long incisor teeth. The very ones that elongated in preparation to bite me.
This was my life now. My chest swelled with emotion, and I wanted to burrow my head into the ground and never come out. An invisible band wrapped around my neck and tightened with each second. I clutched at my throat like I could make the suffocation go away. This was different than the pressure from asthma.
A choked laugh escaped me.
“Is something wrong?”
Everything. The room swirled at my peripheral.
“Not at all.” I waved Asher away and stifled the burst of laughter bubbling behind my lips. No way was this my life now. Vampires, blood, sex, getting tongue pillaged . . .
I licked my lips. Some more of that tongue pillaging sounded so great. My gaze dropped to his wrist, the wound I’d fed from already closed up. My mouth watered. I wanted his cock inside me while I tasted him again. His face swam in my vision.
“Stop moving around.” I squinted and reached for the front of his shirt to keep him still.
Droplets of blood had bloomed across the front of his shirt. That was my blood. The corner of my lips twitched. I shouldn’t be feeling all proud of it. Right?
But why? I liked him. I peeked at him under my eyelashes.
Asher was keeping me, and here I was, happy about belonging to him. I shouldn’t feel like this . . . right?
“What are you staring at?” Asher poked the middle of my forehead.
“You’re pretty,” I announced.
Asher’s eyebrows raised and the corner of his lips quirked.
My brain was definitely not okay right now—worry floated out of my hands like an elusive cloud.
I just wanted more of him.
The bedsheets rustled from him scooting closer. A tingle spread across my skin.
“Stop moving, Ash.” I patted his cheek with my fingertips.
Asher’s eyebrows furrowed.
My attention dropped to the hollow in the middle of his throat. I wanted to lick and bite it.
“Why am I so hot?” I whined.
Grabbing my skirt, I scooted it up my thigh, baring my skin inch by inch. His gaze lasered in on the movement. I clenched and unclenched my thighs. I was drenched with need. Finally, air hit my pussy and I grinned at the red flash of Asher’s irises.
The door swung open. Tobias entered with his head down as if he was thinking deeply about something. He slammed the door behind him.
“What is taking you so long . . .” He trailed off, his steps slowing as he focused on my soft flesh. My clit throbbed at his attention. I spread my thighs for him to get a better view at my aching folds.
I pushed up on my elbows.
“You’re bleeding,” he choked out. He was talking about Jaxon’s bite wound that hadn’t been healed.
“I know,” I said huskily.
His gaze unfocused and his knuckles popped. He took another step closer and froze, shaking his head.
“I think . . . I think she has a blood-high,” Asher breathed.
“But that is simply not possible.” His English accent deepened and took on a rougher edge. “Only vampires get blood-highs.”
I couldn’t care less about whatever they were going on about. I was still too hot! Tobias ran his tongue over his lower lip. I wanted it on my pussy.
“Tobias.” He returned his gray gaze to me. “Heal me.” I widened my thighs and stretched out my leg.
“Please,” I breathed.
Fangs sliced into his lip and his eyes turned red. He blurred with how fast he moved.
My head fell back as his mouth settled over the wound. A tongue swipe had my lips parting, then he drank from the wound. His eyes focused on mine—the red hadn’t left, he snarled, fingers digging into my ass.
Tobias bit me again. Right next to the original wound.
His eyebrows furrowed and he didn’t look away from my gaze, keeping me captive with the blazing lust splashed across his face.
“More,” I moaned.
I ground my ass on the bed, aching for him to touch my clit.
The bed shifted as he gyrated his cock into the mattress. I clenched the sheets under my ass. His brown hair fell forward and into his forehead.
He groaned, the vibration of the sound reaching my clit. His warm mouth crept close to my clit until he finally tongued the slit of my pussy.
I jolted my hips up.
“Yes, Love.” He groaned and rubbed his nose against my clit.
“Tobias,” I moaned.
“Such a good girl.” He lifted his head to look me in my eyes. Red and gray flickered in his irises. “Come for me, Love.” His sharp incisors flashed with his words.
Blood and my need dripped off his chin, then his gaze turned fully red again and he sucked on my clit.
Crying out, I gripped Tobias’s shoulder, curling forward as a massive wave crashed into my pussy. I jerked against his mouth, riding out the roll of the orgasm as it dragged me into oblivion.
Asher gripped my chin and turned me toward him. His head dipped and he claimed my mouth. I flicked my tongue against his long fangs, swirling my tongue around them. He moaned and pulled back with a gasp. His gaze blazed with lust—I’d stretched out the collar of his shirt.
The aftershocks of the orgasm throbbed through my channel, needily clenching for something it ached for.
Tobias stiffened and withdrew his tongue from my throbbing clit. He slammed his hands into the bedsheets, and bunched the fabric so hard a loud rip echoed through the room.
With his hair in a disarray, he seemed even more youthful. He breathed in once, and his jawline bunched. I wanted to bury my nose into the smooth, creamy dip of his throat.
“I . . . I apologize,” he croaked and backed away, his gaze wide with horror. He wouldn’t stop blinking. Why was he so upset? Another retreating step.
I pushed to sit up.
“Priest,” Asher called, but Tobias was gone.
I frowned after him, but the room was spinning even more. What had I done wrong? Rubbing my face, I pressed my pointer fingers into my temples.
“I’m dizzy,” I muttered and then collapsed.
Asher’s arms curved around my body and he flattened me against his hard chest. He had such a long torso—the long, Viking vampire. Unfairly tall and muscled. And there were two of them!? Unfair.
Asher had rolled his sleeves up to his elbows. The arm on the bed slid under my ear. Veins bulged in his forearm. Blood ran in those veins. Delicious blood. A sweet taste that offered that expanded warmth in my belly. I just wanted more.
I nuzzled closer. His skin was warm against my cheek as it always was after he’d fed. I grazed my nose against the soft skin on the inner side of his elbow.
It tasted so good . . .
I sank my teeth into his bicep. The sweet tang spread on my tongue. Asher hissed near my ear. I managed to swallow twice before the grip on the back of my neck forced me to let go.
Vampire blood made me feel strong and capable. Something I’d sorely lacked for such a long time.
The door slammed open and Ren stared at us from the threshold in only jeans. I shoved upright, Asher alongside me.
Ren’s gaze focused in on me.
“Hand her to me.”
Asher’s fingers dug into the back of my neck where he hadn’t released me after I’d bitten him. I grimaced. That bite didn’t look good and I was surprised the hold he had on me remained relatively tame. Blood pooled at the surface of the indents of my teeth on his skin.
The rushed footsteps coming behind Ren snapped me out of my drooling. A slim woman with dripping bite marks in her neck rushed into the room. Her chest heaved over the collar of the strappy, black crop top.
“I can send another donor to please you, Mr. Crimson.” She careened to a stop, her eyes widening on Asher and me. “Asher.” She breathed, and the tone made it clear they’d spoken before.
“She’s one of our human donors,” he murmured in my ear.
I scowled, before I could smooth my expression.
Asher smirked.
“You still have it in you to be jealous.”
And why did he sound pleased by that?
“I don’t care what you lot do.” I tried to keep my tone even, but my voice rose slightly at the end, ruining the attempt.
“We have your usual human with another vamp right now, but I’ll get her for you, Ren.”
“No other will do.” He focused in on me and I clutched onto Asher—lesser of evils and all that. “I’ve developed a preference, it seems.”
“No,” Asher intoned threateningly.
“We share everything. Our Coven is powerful because we do not divide.” Ren grew eerily still. A threat rang in his voice and his nostrils flared. His low words made his anger clear even though he didn’t raise his voice.
“You gave up the right.”
Ren suddenly stood at the end of the bed. I had to crane my neck to look up at him. The top of his head brushed the pink canopy.
The corner of Ren’s lips went up, but it didn’t seem like a smile. More like a threat. He pinched my chin and forced my face up toward him.
“She belongs to Crimson Coven. Is that wrong?”
Asher’s arms stiffened around me.
A laugh escaped and I clamped my lips tight. They were fighting over a blood bag. A human sized, female blood bag that had no control over her life ever since she got involved with vampires.
Ren leaned down, blood still painting his mouth.
“You have . . .” I pointed at my lip.
“Lick it.”
The order . . . the smug look. I gritted my teeth.
I smacked him across the face.
The human girl gasped, then I gasped. What had I done? My hand hovered in the air and I gawked at it. What the hell was wrong with me? An evil, death craving entity must have possessed me.
“Asher,” I said, cringing into his chest. But he was no help since his body shook with laughter.
I peeked over at the vampire. I hit him like he couldn’t tear me apart with his hands. Ren still hadn’t straightened.
I’d wanted to do that since I found out what an asshole he was, but I never would have done it. What the hell was wrong with me?
Especially towards him. He was the last Crimson Coven vampire I should have attacked considering that not too long ago he’d bent me over the counter and drank my blood just because he wanted to.
Asher couldn’t be with me 24-7. How would the massive vampire make me pay? It wouldn’t be the easy death I wanted.
“She’s high off blood.”
Ren gripped my hair and forced my face out of Asher’s chest. His knuckles pressed into my head as he squeezed my hair to the point of pain. I cinched my eyes shut, blocking the view of his sinister expression.
“Careful, Ren,” Asher warned.
“Open your eyes.” Ren’s demand vibrated over my skin.
I cinched them tighter.
“Now.”
The low-toned threat sent a shiver down my spine and I popped open my eyes. A grin fixed across his lips. Not at all what I expected and honestly it was much more frightening.
My heartbeat stuttered.
The narrow bridge of his nose arched high and the planes of his cheeks dipped with deep dimples.
“I confirmed after trying to feed off the other human.”
He directed the words at me, but I didn’t know what to make of it. I licked my lips.
“Enough, Ren.”
Even though he looked at me, he hadn’t been speaking to me based on Asher seeming to know what Ren was going on about.
“Don’t act like you don’t taste the difference in her blood.” He raised both eyebrows. “Isn’t that why you’ve held onto the human so intently?”