Chapter 10 Furyon
Furyon
I was heading home for the night when my mustang tattoos started throbbing so bad, I had to drive out here to check on the herd.
Instinct told me something was wrong, and when I stopped on my usual viewing rock to take a peek, I found the horses going wild, eyes white and milky like the moose and Mykel’s cattle.
And then Lemon Knox barreled up outta the damn gulch like a heathen and bowled me over.
Now she stands with both hands raised in supplication, ruby eyes wide. “I did not do this, Furyon. I know how it looks. I was just reading my welcome book and enjoying some peace and quiet.”
Squealing echoes off the rock walls of the gulch, furious-sounding.
“Yeah.” I wave at her empty hands. “What book?”
She turns bright red. “I dropped it down there when one of the ponies bit me.”
At my look of suspicion, she waves at her knee. It’s bleeding, the skin all scraped up.
“See?!”
She’s getting flustered, starting to tap one foot as her cheeks go from pink to red. Crimson eyes flick to my mouth, her pupils widening. When she looks up and sees me watching, she glances off toward the wide open fields over my shoulder.
I jerk my head toward my pickup. “Get in, Lemon. We’re gonna go to my place and talk about this.”
“What about the ponies?” Her tone is soft, cautious.
I run a hand through my hair, resisting the urge to rip the bun out and start over. I walk to the edge of the rock and watch the mustangs, but they’re still fighting and squealing. They’re off somehow, and my tattoo still throbs.
Returning to Lemon, I pass her and grab the passenger door, opening it. “They ain’t ponies. They’re horses. Go on now, get in.”
She lifts her chin like she’ll sass me, but she does as I ask and hops in delicately, crossing her arms as she stares straight ahead.
Like earlier, my mind supplies a perverse vision of her on top of me in the truck, her mouth all over mine. It’s not what I should be focusing on right now, but there’s a palpable chemistry between us. She’s too damn pretty and distracting.
Her continuing to be where the problems are does not bode well for any sort of sexy future.
She’s quiet all the way to my place. She remains that way while I call Echo and Sheriff Rygold to let them know what’s going on. Lemon’s utterly silent until I lead her into the kitchen and pat my counter.
She looks around as she hops up onto the butcherblock surface.
After opening the cabinet next to my sink, I withdraw my first aid kit. I set it on the counter next to her thigh. Her pleasantly firm, thick thigh. Mental images come to me again. My teeth buried in that pretty pale skin. My tongue between her legs.
I’ve got to get it together. I don’t lust after anyone in this haven. I never have. I haven’t been on a single date in the entire fifty years I’ve lived here. I’ve kept my head down, making a few friends and looking after the animals.
But all those carefully laid plans are dashed at the way this female’s blood smells.
“Don’t lick it,” she says.
I jolt, wondering if she heard my damn thoughts.
She chuckles, but it sounds nervous. “I know dark elves sometimes drink blood. This blood’s got horse saliva in it though, on account of the bite I mentioned.”
“So you said.” I grab a cotton swab and dab at the blood, sniffing carefully. I do smell horse on the wound. I don’t think she’s lying. I look up at her as I clean the scrape. It ain’t deep, but whatever got her took quite a bit of skin off. “Why’d it bite you? You get close to a foal?”
She shakes her head. “I was sitting on a big boulder there by the river, reading the welcome book. The ponies, I mean horses, were fine, and then they started leaping onto the rock and trying to bite me.” She narrows those pretty eyes at me. “What were you doing there, anyway?”
I spread a little bit of antibacterial ointment on her knee. She hisses and grabs at my forearm, and the dominance of it stands the hair on my nape. I glance up at her to find her second eyelid flashed over her eyes, fangs bared.
“That hurt,” she whines softly.
I move my fingers from her skin and lift my forearm to show her the mustang tattoos on my skin. “I’m able to sense how animals feel. The tattoos extend that power.” Almost as if I willed it, the silver tattoos seem to shimmy and shine, iridescence pulsing along the thin lines.
“How unusual.” Lemon’s eyes are wide, her mouth dropped slightly open. “I’ve never known a dark elf to have animal tattoos.”
I laugh. “Or useless, if you’re my father, and you wanted your eldest son to go into the family security business.”
Her cheeks go pink. “That’s definitely a more common dark elf job.”
“It is.” I grab a bandage and apply it over the cuts on her knee.
She hisses but allows me to do it. “My father is gravely disappointed in my life choices, but the reality is, living out here, doing what I’m meant to do, that’s never felt wrong to me.
I’ve never been happier than I am now, doing what I love, protecting the animals.
Although this week has been hard, for obvious reasons. ”
Dark lashes flutter against high, elegant cheeks. “I understand what it’s like when a parent doesn’t approve.” She mutters something, but I can’t entirely make it out.
I plant a hand on either side of her thighs, staring at her. She’s so godsdamned pretty, it almost hurts to look at her.
“Your family don’t approve of you being here?”
She grumbles again. “Au contraire. My father sent me here to learn from Letitia, but it’s a punishment for a fuckup that wasn’t entirely my fault.” There’s so much bitterness in her tone, I feel it right in my bones.
“I don’t get on with my father, either,” I offer. “Pine Gulch is a good spot for second chances, Lemon.” I reach up and tuck a stray blonde strand behind her ear. Her hair’s soft as silk, and I ache to wrap my fist through it.
She gives me a suspicious look. “Is that what you’re doing out here, Furyon? Are you not investigating me?”
“Oh, I am.” I gotta keep that clear, mostly for myself. It ain’t a good sign that I found her at the literal scene of another crime. But every intuition I have tells me she’s not at fault.
I lean forward and bring my nose just beneath her ear, flaring my nostrils as I scent her.
I get exactly what I expected as various smells burst over my senses.
The horses. The river. The blood of her scraped knee.
Plus her natural sunshiny smell. Then, of course, there’s the depthless richness of the blood coursing beneath her skin and pounding through the vein that throbs along the side of her neck.
“This is incredibly concerning,” she says softly, white lids flashing over her eyes again as she bares both fangs. She’s tense on the counter, ready to flee. But I don’t stop my careful perusal.
“Is it?” I press her thighs wide and slot myself between them. I’m working on pure instinct here as I slide a hand to the back of her neck and grip it tight. “You kindly reminded me that you need investigating, and as a dark elf, I got better senses than most. I’m just investigatin’ you…”
Lemon remains tense, crimson eyes dropping to my mouth when I lean in again.
She lets out a pretty little moan and drops her head to one side, baring her throat to me. Oh, fuck. Who am I kidding?
I’m on her in a second, opening my mouth to press my lips and tongue against her throat. She jolts, but she’s caught against my body. The feel of her skin beneath my mouth has me letting out a growl that’s somewhere between possession and warning.
Her thighs snap shut around my torso, and she grinds against me.
Her head falls back into my palm as I brush my fangs over her skin, leaving red welts in my wake.
It pleases me to see the raised stripes as her breath falls off into rapid-fire pants.
She’s all pent-up emotion and sensual, seductive need.
Pulling back, I stare at her bobbing throat as she lifts her gaze to mine.
“Let’s be clear. I am investigating you, Miss Knox. But I also can’t keep my hands off you,” I growl into her ear. “You’re tense, baby girl, and you need to ease some of that.”
She looks up, her lips touching mine. Her breath’s sweet, and I nip at her lower lip. It’s fat and juicy, and it needs my teeth. Every inch of her needs my godsdamned teeth.
She lifts her chin, defiant again. “You’re the literal reason for the tension, Furyon. Maybe this is all just some elaborate ruse on your part. Perhaps you wanna toss me in jail for a crime I didn’t commit just so you can bend me over some—”
Insolence. I slant my mouth over hers to silence her, sucking at her tongue as she cries out in surprise. For a moment, there’s nothing but the clash of our fangs, then I’m lost to heat. Every muscle locks up tight as I devour her, slicking my mouth over hers again and again.
One second I’m sucking on the tip of her tongue, then she’s fucking biting mine. We crash together as I hold her tight to me, fingers twisting her long hair around until I can use it for leverage to angle her to one side and eat her alive.
Sound, space, time, everything fucking muffles because the only thing left is the woman giving as good as I am.
Lemon slides her hands up beneath the hem of my shirt, fingers trailing my abs.
By the time she reaches my chest, I’m losing my fucking mind.
I pull back just enough to rip my shirt open, watching as she feels her way along every inch of my pecs.
She stares up at me, that gorgeous second eyelid white over her crimson irises.
It stokes that deeply instinctual part of my nature that wants—no, needs—to hunt and be hunted.
Without thinking, I press closer and let my head fall to the side, exposing my throat to her.
I don’t even realize I’ve done it until her teeth are there, stroking along an old scar and drawing goosebumps to the surface of my skin.
“Fuck,” I groan as I step back just a little. I lost it there for a second. She could have bitten me, and I’m not ready to go there.
Lemon reaches up and strokes pinprick scars beneath my ear. “You were a blood giver? Is that what these scars are?” Her tone is careful.
I nod. I can’t find the words to talk about that time in my life.
Instead, I press closer and guide her mouth to my neck again. “Kiss,” I command. “I don’t give you permission to bite me.”
She whines softly, and my cock jolts in my pants at how she obeys the command.
She closes her lips over my scars, and I groan, tightening my fist in her hair.
The pressure from her mouth combined with the heat have me throbbing in anticipation of her.
I want to come and want her to get off all over me.
When she licks a long stripe down my neck to my collarbone, my knees buckle.
“Fuck.” I grip her throat and put pressure beneath her chin, forcing her to look up. “We’re getting outta hand, city girl. Let’s take a step back, alright?”
She nips at her lip, and that simple move almost undoes me. I can’t stop fucking staring at her. But flashes of an old life and bitter resentment have reality flooding back in. I can’t lose control around this woman, and I’m two seconds from tossing that self-control right in the garbage.
I didn’t even know her two days ago.
“Furyon,” she whispers, and even the way she says my name has my dominance rising in a way it hasn’t in decades.
“Yes?”
“Kiss me again.” It’s somewhere between a demand and a plea. But if I go there again, I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop myself.
“Not tonight.” I grin at her. “Oz was right about that tension though, wasn’t he? You’re a damn good kisser, Miss Knox.”
She lifts her chin and lets out a displeased-sounding growl. Slipping off my counter, she flares her shadow wings wide, pushing me until I hit the fridge. Dragging black claws down my chest, she snarls at me. “I won’t forget this tease, Furyon. Do you get off on withholding?"
I slip my hands into my pockets, grinning at her. “Among other things.”
Her answering growl has my fangs throbbing to sink into that pretty, creamy throat. I wanna drink her down, and I haven’t drunk blood from another monster in almost sixty years.
“I’m leaving,” she says. “Good night, Mister Zayle.”
I don’t remind her that Mister Zayle’s my father. But I do watch her stalk around my kitchen island and out the door. She bullets up into the sky on those beautiful wings and disappears into the darkness, leaving me with nothing but my thoughts and a damn inconvenient hard-on.