Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
BETWEEN YOUR LEGS
Feeding Grounds are provided to humans who don’t have anywhere safe to sleep. However, one must offer blood in exchange for safety.
— Serun’s Law
When I’m sure the others are asleep, I kneel underneath the vent in the ceiling above me. My fingers slip through the mesh squares and curl into a firm grip. As I pull, a creaking sound rings in my pricked ears.
Shit.
Carefully, I remove the panel and place it up and into the duct. I thought I was being cautious. Quiet. But as I reach up to climb in, I catch movement from the other bunk. Manni sits upright, her dark hair glowing auburn in the orange light, messy strands falling around her face.
She brushes aside the straggly bits and whispers, “Don’t be gone for long. Bleeders will make their rounds at midnight.”
I give a sharp nod, grab the edges of the open vent, and pull myself up. Metal clinks as I take hold of the panel and position it back into the opening. Then I make my way through the airshafts, crawling over vents and dodging the lights hanging from wires.
When I first ventured into these airshafts, I had a nagging feeling that Bleeders used them, but after using them more times than I can count, I mentioned it to my friends.
That was when Jade—who isn’t around anymore because she never returned from the private room—told me nightwalkers were known for sneaking through them.
They would enter through them and slide down onto a Feeder’s bed.
Light. Gentle. Delicate as a flower petal landing on water.
Then, without the Feeder’s knowledge, the nightwalker would drink their blood.
But because they drained blood faster when feeding directly, a rumour spread that Serun changed the rules.
Instead of nightwalkers entering Feeding Grounds, they waited for the next shipment of stored blood to arrive in the Undercity.
Now, nightwalkers were only allowed entry to the private room.
I turn down a bend and reach the busted light above Jax’s vent. Curling my fingers around the metal grate, I move to lift it but freeze as the yellow light ahead suddenly flickers.
Why is it swinging?
Behind the pendulum of light, red eyes watch me from the darkness. Fuck.
Squeezing the metal tight, I close my eyes.
An icy touch grazes my cheek and swipes under my eye.
With a sharp breath, I screw my eyes shut tighter and fill my mind.
The only monster crawling around in here is me.
The only monster crawling around in here is me.
The only fucking monster crawling around in here is me!
Sucking in a breath, I slowly open my eyes to find the darkness gone, the bulb no longer swaying, and no red eyes looking back at me.
It wasn’t real. I’m simply haunted by the fear of what I look like in the mirror.
Or what I would look like if I shattered the glamour my mum taught me as a child.
I slide down through the vent, and as soon as my feet sink into the thin mattress below, the springs groaning in protest, hands make their way up my thighs. Heat presses against me, pulling me down until I’m straddling Jax.
“Hey, babe.”
“Don’t,” I whisper. “I’m not your babe.”
With a roll of his eyes, he says, “Saya, then.”
“Better.”
With a crooked smile, his lips brush against my collarbone, trailing sensual kisses lower, finding my nipple through the fabric of my white nightgown.
My breath hitches at the way he palms one breast while sucking hard on the other, his tongue laving one of my nipple piercings through my thin nightgown.
The wet fabric sticks to my flesh, exposing my areola.
“Jax,” I say, my breath strained as my fingers weave through his brown hair, teasing the strands.
A spark of pain shudders through me when he bites down and tugs back with my nipple caught between his teeth.
He looks up at me and releases his hold with a smirk, the pleasure and pain making my core ache.
“Did anyone catch you this time?” he asks, his palms pressing against the sides of my breasts. He fondles them while keeping his eyes locked on mine.
“Just Manni again.” I lean back, kick my leg off him, and lie down. Jax moves over me, pressing his thigh between my legs and bracing his arms on either side of my head, bringing his face close to mine.
Jax has that “boy next door” look, as Emily once described it. Sky-blue eyes I can easily get lost in, muscles in all the right places and unmarked by scars. When he shaves, he appears younger, though he is growing the stubble out now.
We’ve been doing this for a while. No label in case one of us is sent to the private room. Still, he likes to push the idea whenever he can.
He plants a peck on the corner of my mouth, and his stubble tickles. Delightful scrapes brush over my skin as he kisses me.
“Jax,” I say, my breath quickening. It’s the only word that comes to mind as his lips travel lower. He lifts my gown and kisses my navel. A deep chuckle comes from him as I squirm, my legs restless beneath him.
His tongue flicks around my navel and then down. My breaths sharpen as his fingers curl around the waistband of my knickers. I lift my hips, helping him remove them by kicking one leg free of the fabric after he lowers them to my ankles.
A cold breeze brushes against my pussy as he parts my legs like Mother parted Kepler—splitting the dry land of our world until water rushed through it like river streams. Warmth envelopes my entrance, and I inhale sharply, my hands grasping at the sheets when he kisses my inner thigh.
“I could stay down here all night if we had the time,” he murmurs as he wraps his arms around my legs and lifts my hips. “Look at this pretty little cunt.”
“Jax, enough with the—” My words catch in my throat as his tongue glides up my slit to settle on my clit. He likes it there. He lingers, swirling around the bundle of nerves while I twitch helplessly beneath him.
Our relief. That’s what we call it. We sink out of a fucked-up world full of nightwalkers and into each other.
His tongue flicks from side to side, light and quick. I let out a moan, and my fingers grip the sheets.
Jax snags the pillow under my head and tosses it over my face to muffle the sound. My teeth sink into the fabric, and it tastes of cotton and dust.
His tongue is trouble, but so are his fingers when they work in unison. His mouth is over my clit, and he slides two fingers inside me. “Saya…you’re fucking excited to see me.”
I knee him playfully in the side of the head to hush him up.
Jax laughs, kisses, licks, then draws his tongue up my slit like a fucking lollypop until he reaches my aching clit again.
My legs twitch, and with every tremor, I sense Jax’s grin broaden.
I peek out from under the pillow to find his bright blue eyes focused on me.
Heat flushes my cheeks, so I place the pillow back over my face and bite down harder to hide my moans.
My thighs slap shut around his head as an undeniable high hits me, my back arching as he nips at my exposed, sensitive flesh.
I lift the pillow to see Jax propped up on his knees. My legs have fallen open and are now pressed against his hips. His brows are pulled together, and his jaw is locked as he looks down at the bulge in his pants. He wants to fuck me, but he sighs, falls beside me and kisses me firmly on the cheek.
“Fuck, Saya. I don’t know where to begin with you once we’re free.”
I squirm closer to him. “We’ll have access to protection when we reach the settlement. But I do enjoy your mouth between my legs.”
He chuckles. “The way you deliver that line with a straight face gets me going, baby.”
My brow twitches, but I bite my tongue. I don’t like the endearment—it feels too close to a label—but I don’t say anything. Whenever I do, we go around in circles, and in the end, I let it go because I understand when he says, “I need a piece of us that is real. I need to mean something to you.”
My hands slide down between us. As I reach the waistband of his pants, he seizes my wrists, then he draws them up and presses them against his chest.
Over his steady heart and warm skin.
Alive.
Relaxing his hands, he reaches out to touch my chest. Prickles of hair rise across my skin, and my heart stutters at his touch.
“Your heart is the most attractive thing about you. The way it flutters—your humanity.” He smiles, and my stomach clenches until it feels like butterflies are going to burst from my intestines.
“And when we get out of here, I can’t wait to feel it once you see Kepler again, Saya. ”
And then the bitterness surfaces. How would he react if I shattered my glamour? What would happen if he saw me as a monster? Bright red eyes, pointed ears, sharp fangs, and pale, almost icy, blue skin.
How would he react if he knew how I teeter between life and death?
To him, I’d be seen as nothing more than a nightwalker, hiding behind a human glamour, something my mum trained me to do when I was a toddler.
A power that will only stay with me if I believe in a world of light.
If I believe that I am not one of the creatures that dwells in the dark, but someone like her: a vegodian.
“I haven’t seen the stars in a decade,” I murmur to break the silence I created. “Even though they symbolise mourning for Mother, I spent most of my nights in the vale admiring them.”
His eyes soften. “Well, aren’t you lucky? Eighteen hours of night will show you all the stars.”
My smile wavers. “Do you know why Mother left?”
Jax tucks a stray piece of blonde hair behind my ear. “It’s best not to dwell on it. Mother left Kepler, and now we have this. Thinking of her only makes us remember life before night.”
I lean in closer, savouring his warmth. “Alright, then. How are we getting out of here?” I shoot him a square look and add, “Also…Emily is interested.”
“She’ll just hold us back,” he mutters.