Chapter Three
As they passed Peyton’s room, the door flew open.
“See! I’m wearing earphones! Have fun!” Peyton yelled and then disappeared behind his shut door again.
Rhys stunned looked over at Moe, who was grinning widely.
“I could kiss him right now,” Moe shook his head at Peyton’s antics.
Rhys hissed and started to back his mate’s six-foot-eight body toward the stairs to their apartment.
“Mine!” Rhys hissed.
Moe closed his eyes and shuddered. “God yes, I’m yours.” He opened his eyes. “Do you have any idea how sexy you are right now?”
Rhys didn’t say anything, he just stalked forward, moving his mate away from the younger, smaller male to their apartment.
Once inside their apartment Rhys pounced, pushing Moe back onto their bed.
He pushed his hips forward and ground his rock-hard cock against his mate.
They both moaned. Moe reached up and pulled Rhys’s head forward.
Rhys couldn’t get enough of Moe’s tongue.
They dueled back and forth as their bodies thrust against each other.
Without conscious thought his fangs descended and nicked Moe’s lip.
His mate never even noticed in his lust-filled haze, but everything in Rhys shifted.
That one small sip of blood changed everything.
He straddled his mate and jerked his head to one side exposing the long muscular column of Moe’s neck.
Rhys leaned forward and at the last second realized what he was doing.
Breathing hard, Rhys sat back letting go of Moe’s head letting it roll back.
Moe’s gray eyes looked at him questioningly.
Rhys knew that if he asked, Moe would give him every ounce of his blood and god help him, he may take it.
Disgusted, he propelled himself backward.
He flew across the room until his back slammed against the far wall.
He allowed his body to slide down and wrapped his arms around his legs.
Behind his eyelids he was back in the dark room. Every echoed sound teased and tortured him.
Was blood coming today? He was so hungry.
He knew the crazy fuck that held him killed the people whose blood he fed from, but he didn’t care anymore.
His throat burned. He felt like had swallowed pieces of glass his throat was so dry.
He needed more. Why didn’t that psycho just kill someone already?
Oh god! He didn’t mean that, but he needed blood so badly.
“Rhys?” He heard a voice above him. Was the man back to taunt him again?
“Rhys, baby, you’re scaring me. Look at me, please,” the familiar voice called to him again.
He looked up and hissed at the man to stay away. There was only sadness, no fear in those grey eyes.
“Come back to me, Rhys.”
Why couldn’t he just leave him alone! Rhys hissed low at the large man.
“You can’t leave me. I won’t let you. If you need my blood take it! Take every fucking drop, just don’t leave me. I can’t be alone again. I won’t!”
Rhys eyed the man suspiciously as tears ran down his cheeks in steady streams.
“Please.” The deep voice broke as it pleaded. “You have to come back. You’re my miracle.”
It was as if that single word held power over him. Miracle.
Grey eyes that smiled in kindness. Miracle.
Unconditional acceptance and support. Miracle.
His mate. His mate Moe, who had helped to nurse him back from the brink of hell.
Moe!
“Moe?” He gasped. The muscles in his throat constricted, demanding blood.
“I’m here, baby! I’m here. What do you need?” Moe asked, placing his hands on the tops of Rhys’s feet.
“Blood. Hurry,” he croaked.
Moe didn’t ask for explanation or permission.
He simply scooped him up as if he weighed nothing and ran down the stairs.
He cleared the second floor and before Rhys could blink they were at the ground level and heading toward the back of the bar where his blood storage refrigerator stood.
Moe shifted Rhys so that he was holding him on his hip with one arm and with the other flung the freezer door open.
He ran inside and simply grabbed a handful of medical donation bags. He put Rhys down on the counter and grabbed a knife from a drawer. He punctured a bag and drained it into a glass. He put it in the microwave for a minute and turned back to face him.
“Hold on, baby, it’s coming.”
Rhys kept his eyes closed. In his head he was counting down.
Fifty-nine, fifty-eight, fifty-seven. Not nearly soon enough, the microwave dinged, and Moe, heedless of the hot glass, handed him the blood.
As he was gulping down the warm, thick liquid, he heard Moe put a second glass in the microwave.
His body welcomed the rush the blood heralded, the fire in his veins.
He upended the glass and used his tongue to capture every drop.
A second ding, a second glass. It wasn’t until the sixth ding did that the rush subsided and his mind began to clear.
When he looked around he saw scattered blood-stained glasses. He looked down and to his horror he had dripped blood down his chin and chest. His mate stood there, chest heaving, tears in his eyes. The shame he felt threatened to destroy his humanity.
He covered his eyes, unable to face his mate.
Anger consumed him. “Why!” His ragged cry reverberated off of the stainless steel appliances.
“Why did this happen? Why me? What did I ever do to deserve this?” Each word came from his gut and burned his throat as he screamed.
Moe simply stood there, silently waiting.
Rhys picked up the glasses and threw them against the walls. They shattered, covering the walls with flecks of blood. When he ran out of glasses he reached for the chrome stools and hurled them across the room. He was reaching for the table when large hands pulled him against a hard body.
“No! No! I’m not your mate. You deserve someone who is whole. Get off me! Get away!” Rhys struggled in Moe’s arms, trying to get away. He would move back in with the coven, lock himself away to keep Moe safe.
“Shut the fuck up,” the low voice growled.
The bass of the gravelly request had Rhys freezing mid-struggle.
In two steps Moe had him against the wall.
“You want blood? Fucking drink it! You want to break every glass in this bar? I’ll line them up for you.
You want to redecorate our kitchen with a barstool be my guest, but if I ever hear you say you aren’t my mate I will shake the ever-loving shit out of you and claim you.
You are mine! Every strand of your gorgeous blond hair, every muscle that hypnotizes me when I watch you move, every tear you cry, every smile, every fucking thing is mine!
” Moe reached down and in one powerful jerk ripped Rhys’s pants down the front.
Before he knew what was happening, Moe lifted him in the air and with his large hands supporting him under his ass, his mate had him pinned against the wall, his groin at eye level.
Before he could say a word of protest Moe swallowed his entire cock down.
He bobbed up and down frantically, taking in every inch.
Rhys moaned out loud. It had been so damn long since he had even come. The addiction had overridden even his sex drive.
Moe came up off his cock and Rhys whimpered. Moe dipped back down and licked and nibbled his balls as they rose up against his body. He was so damn close.
“Please.”
Moe stopped and looked up at him, meeting his lust-filled gaze from across his body.
“Please who?”
“Please, my mate.”
Moe roared loud enough that the vibrations shook his body.
Moe shifted his hands and placed Rhys’s legs over his shoulders.
Using one hand to support his weight, his shoulders to pin him against the wall, Moe had freed his other hand.
Using his saliva he slicked up his fingers.
Seconds later the sensation of one of Moe’s large digits penetrating him as his mate’s throat convulsed around his cock was enough to send him to the sky.
“Moe!” He screamed and came harder than he had ever come in his life. Jets of semen erupted from his cock and shot down his mate’s eager throat. Slowly, Moe pulled off of Rhys and eased him down the wall.
Standing was beyond him. Just as his knees gave out Moe was there to lift him gently and hold him close.
He was spent. Mentally, emotionally, physically, sexually.
Tears of regret for not being the mate his man needed mingled with the tears borne from the shame of his actions, and dripped down his face.
He was unable to do more than just lay in his arms as Moe walked back up the stairs.
“I can suck cock, huh?” The outlandish question had Rhys struggling to sit up and turning in Moe’s arms to look at his mate. Moe was grinning down at him. Rhys felt his mouth drop.
“I can’t believe you. I just totally lost it down there and that’s all you can say?” he demanded.
Moe stopped, thought about it for a second, and then with a megawatt smile said, “I love you.”
Rhys’s heart stopped. It was too much. Tonight had been too much. He sobbed into the broad chest of his mate uncontrollably.
“Shush, baby, I have you. And I’m never letting you go.”
Rhys was beyond speech. He felt Moe gently place him on their bed and strip off his blood-soaked clothes. Minutes later a warm wash cloth caressed his skin in soft circles. When he was clean Moe joined him in their bed, spooning up behind him, holding him close.
“I love you too,” Rhys whispered, clutching Moe’s arm to his body tightly, afraid that if he let go he would lose this godlike man.
“Just keep loving me. All I need is you.” He felt Moe’s warm breath on the back of his neck. He nodded before curling up and letting sleep take him.
Rhys kept smiling shyly over at his mate the next day at breakfast. They held hands under the table at the diner. Moe looked like the cat that ate the canary. Moe had woken up extra early to clean up the kitchen so Peyton wouldn’t freak out when he went down for his morning tea.