17. Catalina
SEVENTEEN
catalina
Pressure expanded in my temples. My head would pop soon. I dug my nails in harder, but he didn’t loosen.
I thought I’d die at the hands of vampires . . .
The man suddenly jolted. A thin line of red slowly spread across his throat in a diagonal, then his head slid right off leaving me staring at bloody severed bone. My stomach lurched, but since his hands still remained around my throat, it dissuaded vomit from rising.
In a sudden breath, he collapsed and I fell in an ungraceful bundle beside his decapitated head. I pressed my trembling hand to my mouth to muffle my scream.
Ren staggered and dropped the sword with a thud that vibrated the ground. His palm pressed into the wall over my head.
His shoulder faced the sunlight spilling in through the front door window. Steam floated off his shoulder accompanied by a low sizzle.
His eyelids shuttered his brown eyes and he dropped to his back. Light fell across the front of his chest and within moments, the steam started at every point the sun touched him.
If he stayed like that, he’d end up boiling alive.
I forced my attention away from the dead body and crawled to block the light from hitting Ren. Blood puddled under my legs, the slippery sensation coating my skin and making it harder to scramble over to him. As soon as I blocked the sun from his body, the smoking tapered off. He’d crossed the sun to save me. He could have waited for the human to come at him.
I would need to move fast to get him covered. Jax’s room was closest. Sliding my hands under his shoulders, I used my legs to drag him.
Little by little, I nudged him toward the bedroom. I panted from exertion, but adrenaline must be working through my system because I managed to not stop until he was safe behind Jax’s door.
The threshold was as far as I could drag him if I didn’t want my lungs to explode. He draped across the entrance ungracefully, muscled limbs all over the place.
The scent of burnt flesh singed my nose from the wounds that didn’t sizzle any longer. Still, they remained open and nasty. If he’d burned any longer, the tattoos would have been a jumbled, unrecognizable mess.
I pressed my wrist to his parted mouth, but he didn’t react. Blood dripped off my chin and splattered on his chest. I gingerly touched my forehead. A gash split my eyebrow. Using what was smeared on my fingers, I rubbed it on my wrist before placing it against his mouth.
His nostrils flared and fangs distended. Yet, he remained peacefully slumbering. Shoving my wrist to his teeth, I awkwardly punctured myself with one fang. I winced from the sting.
Blood leaked from the puncture and into his mouth.
Ren grabbed my arm.
I grunted, forced down from his pull. He suckled sleepily, hugging my arm. He only swallowed a handful of times before his tongue lapped against my wound.
I tried to pull free, but he didn’t release me, keeping his lips against my wrist. The sunlight wounds at his shoulder reunited inch by inch. Amazing how it didn’t ruin the mosaic of tattoos. My neck pinched at this position of bracing up while he hugged my arm.
It would leave me even more sore than I already was. I moved my elbow so it poked out enough for me to lower.
I lolled with my ear against his abs.
My head pounded and as my body relaxed and adrenaline leaked away, each wound became startlingly easier to feel.
The human male had done a number on me.
Being held like this, even if he didn’t know it was me, comforted me. Tears pricked my eyes and they drooped with each blink, but I couldn’t fall asleep.
I missed Peter.
As soon as I had the chance, I was sending an anonymous email to my lawyer informing her of my demise. From there she would know what to do to pass along my estate to Peter. He could continue having a life without worry. That would be enough.
Ren groaned and the vibration traveled to my ear.
As much as they hurt me, they’d also protected me. If the Pale One found me, they were my only chance at surviving. I’d been waffling about all my options, but this event cemented it.
I’d die before going back to that cave that creature kept me in. Where I’d become acquainted with the smell of wet rock and the sensation of being held at the edge of death.
I huddled against Ren, waiting for the vampires to wake . . . as soon as my brain wandered, my surroundings faded.
Familiar with the fuzzy backgrounds of Bastien’s dream realm, I turned to find him looming over me.
He wore no shirt and his broad shoulders tapered to a muscled torso. His abdomen hosted the slightest indent of abs. He was the largest of the five, which was a feat all in itself. Bear-like in stature. He was also the most unhinged.
But him being crazed wasn’t a choice. Bastien was blood-mad. The only vampire illness in existence, according to Asher.
That must have been what was wrong with the vampire that took me, except that one was sickly and thin. Practically a skeleton.
Bastien approached with quick strides and in one fell swoop, he lifted me into his arms, cradling me close.
“Oof,” I grunted. As much as it hurt, I embraced the feeling of being held. Bastien was the only one that hadn’t been so mercurial with me, if anything, he always made me feel wanted. Sure, he was slightly psychotic, but I was used to it. At least he didn’t keep me guessing.
I buried my nose into his chest, inhaling his sweet scent.
I wouldn’t question my sexual preferences anymore. If anyone looked at them, they’d salivate as much as me.
My readers could attest that the vampire kink was alive and well. Only difference was that the ones I created were much sweeter—unlike these monsters.
Bastien hoisted me higher on his chest until my thighs spread on his torso and he could dip his fangs into my throat.
He sucked. The pleasure was veiled behind a curtain, nothing close to what it truly felt like. His exhale verged on frustration.
As good as fucking in this dream world felt, when I woke it felt like I had a really good wet dream. In better terms, it lived in my imagination. It must feel the same for him when he bit me.
Bastien never spoke to me. Honestly, I didn’t think he could. He moved his head back and looked me in the face, glowing red eyes not holding much behind the depths.
He tilted his head, nostrils flared.
The surroundings incrementally darkened and melded together as it blurred into something else.
I grabbed a handful of his long pale hair before my disorientation took me to the floor. Not that I would have hit in the real world, but it felt like I was falling.
A bed with soft cream pillows sprawled across it came into sight. My stomach dropped—my bedroom no longer existed. Now it consisted of piles of ash.
My nose burned and a tear slipped free.
Bastien’s head jerked and he narrowed his eyes. With his speed, he had us on the bed with me on his lap.
He licked the tear traveling down my cheek.
What was it with them eating my tears?
I sighed and rubbed the back of my hand against my face to dash the wetness away. Bastien settled me on my back and slid down, delved under the hem of the sweater and buried his face between my thighs.
Gasping, I trembled under his touch, bunching the fabric under my ass. The cotton felt eerily close to how mine had felt, but it wasn’t exact.
Bastien’s tongue flicked out and he ran his long warm tongue through the folds to find my clit. I jackknifed upright and pulled his long hair. He hummed against my pussy. I pressed my heels into the bed and shoved up against his mouth, rubbing myself so hard his teeth grazed against my sensitive sex. The rasp of his teeth felt delicious.
An orgasm swelled to a painful peak. Bastien didn’t stop suckling my clit. His jaw worked as he ate me out.
My head fell back and I choked on a gasp. Bastien steadily feasted. I wanted this in real time.
I shivered from the after effects. I came with him watching me. He crawled up the bed and I sifted my hand in his hair—he enjoyed when I played with his silky locks. I sank my fingers close to his scalp, and he hummed. A gush of need made my clit throb.
A large palm rubbed against my head. Groaning, I leaned into the touch, enjoying the tingles that were traveling down my spine.
I popped my eyes open, and Ren stared down at me with his eyebrows raised. He propped himself on his elbows, staring at me over the expanse of his muscled, tattooed torso where I currently rested my head. We were still on the hard ground, but half of me was all over Ren’s body.
I’d been rubbing my cheek dangerously low on his stomach, damn near his dick. Fortunately the low-riding black sweats covered the tented front.
“Continue please,” his deep voice had taken on a husky intonation I hadn’t heard before. Up until now, everything he said had been angry, abrasive, or rude.
“You’re like a little cat.”
“Like a kitten,” Jax said with his deep accented voice. He stood leaning near the door with his back against the wall, arms crossed.
Ren raised an eyebrow at Jax who cleared his throat and crossed his arms.
I popped up so fast.
Four pairs of vampire eyes stared down at me.
Asher crouched and curled the blanket that had pooled at my waist around my shoulders.
“Good job, Pet,” he crooned, clasping my cheek in his large palm.
I scowled, but he only smiled.
“What . . .?” The answer reared to the forefront of my memory. “Oh.”
“Are you struggling?” Asher asked, his eyebrows furrowing. “Considering humans have difficulty with death.”
“I’m fine,” I said stiffly. I rubbed my eyes to get rid of the sand sensation rubbing against the insides.
“Our Pet is stronger than what you give her credit for.”
Our? I snapped my head to Ren so quickly it hurt my neck. His gaze hadn’t moved on from me.
His keen focus freaked me out.
“Back to the important bits,” Jax interjected. I didn’t miss the backhanded comment. “Calliope had to have sent him. She’s the only one that could have known. You.”
I swiveled to look at him. “When she sent you here as a spy, did she ask you to give her the lay of the manor?”
“For the millionth time, she didn’t send me.” I was getting tired of repeating myself. He’d believed me when I admitted to the transgression, but refused to doubt, just a little, that I worked for Calliope? Ridiculous, trust-issue riddled vampire.
“As mentioned,” Tobias interjected from his stiff stance behind Asher’s crouched body, interrupting whatever diatribe Jax was about to embark on. “No one knows of this manor unless we’re being watched.”
“The question to answer is why now and why was a dead human dumped on our doorstep. It’s targeted to?—”
“Me,” I croaked. “He found me.”
My stomach might as well live outside my body with how often it fell. The hollowness caused nausea to rise. It could be the only explanation. He’d found me. I’d begun to suspect, but the picture the man took of me, and the?—
“Breathe, Catalina,” Asher murmured and smoothed his palm down the back of my neck. “You’re safe. No one will touch you.”
The words swirled in my brain, but my body had a difficult time believing it. A tremble coasted over my hands.
Asher sat back on his haunches and swept me onto his lap and clicked his tongue as he rubbed my shoulder.
“Come, sweet Pet, tell me who is after you? I will not allow it to happen.”
A large, heavy palm wrapped around the back of my neck and forced my head up. I met Ren’s eyes who’d sat up.
“No one will touch you.”
The clear threat in his brown eyes served as another layer of fear.
I swallowed past the knot in my throat. If I wanted their protection, I needed to spit it out, but dredging the words to the surface compounded on my shoulders.
“A long time ago, a vampire held me captive.” I thought they’d been still, but I had never felt the quiet fall upon a room like this. Even Jax took a step forward and froze as if he’d shatter in a moment. “He fed from me until I was near death. And kept me like that, chained in a damp, dark cave, for weeks.”
Asher caught my trembling hand and it offered me the strength needed to keep talking. His body had tensed up against mine. I’d told him the surface of being hurt by one of his kind, never going into detail.
“There was something off about the intruder.” I shrank a bit.
“Go on, Pet.” Asher caressed the side of my neck with the back of his finger.
“Like he was compelled. He stood over Jax. He had a chance to slam the machete in him, but he didn’t, but as soon as he saw me, he came at me full force.” I shook my head. “And when he looked at me, there was this eerie blank glaze to his eyes.” I squeezed my eyes tight and slumped against Asher. “The person behind it has to be the one that kept me all that time ago.” I swallowed. “A-and the man took a picture of me. Was there any information on his phone?”
“No, ?lskade , I scoured the device and there was nothing but the picture he took of you,” Asher said, his arms tightening around me.
Jax suddenly straightened, his attention fully on his brother.
“We need to find this vampire,” Tobias snapped. He hadn’t looked me in the eyes, and he still didn’t when I looked over at him.
He was making it startlingly obvious he was avoiding me. Warmth washed over my cheeks and I cleared my throat, forcing my gaze away from his mouth. His delicious, tempting, sinful mouth. A shiver traveled down my spine.
Ren suddenly leaned close and inhaled deep. He hummed, making a point in letting me know he smelled my arousal. I cinched my legs tight. The heightened sense thing was a menace. It didn’t help the heat on my face.
The deep intonation of the doorbell echoed through the halls.
“You guys have a doorbell?” I usually used the bat knocker.
Jax strode out.
“Bastien’s meal has arrived,” Asher murmured into my hair.
Meal? Like he was about to feed on someone?
“What do you mean?” My voice came out high pitched. The muscle in my chest paused and restarted. “Wait!” I thrashed in Asher’s arms, trying to get free.
Jax definitely heard me, and he definitely ignored me.