Chapter Eight #2
“I don’t want your protection!” The words come out raw, desperate. “I don’t want to be the reason one of your brothers gets killed. I don’t want to be the weapon that thing uses against you. And I sure as hell don’t want—” She cuts herself off, but I hear it anyway.
Don’t want to be the reason you get hurt.
“Tessa.” I’m close now, close enough to see the pulse jumping in her throat, to smell the fear and arousal mixing in her scent. “You leave here, you’re dead. You understand that? The mark on your shoulder is a beacon. That thing will find you in hours. Maybe less.”
“Then at least I’ll die without taking everyone else with me.”
“Is that what you think this is?” Anger surges through me, hot and fierce. “You think we’re protecting you out of some misguided sense of duty? That we’re just going to let you walk out of here to die so we can sleep better at night?”
“I think you should!” she shouts back. “I think you should let me go and save yourselves!”
“Well, that’s not how this works.”
“Why not?”
“Because nobody fucks with the Kings!” The words come out in a snarl, and suddenly I’m right there, caging her against the van with my hands on either side of her head.
“That’s our motto, Tessa. Not ‘nobody fucks with the Kings unless it gets too hard.’ Not ‘nobody fucks with the Kings unless we have to make tough choices.’ Nobody.
Fucks. With. The. Kings. And that includes you now, whether you like it or not. ”
She stares up at me, chest heaving, eyes bright with unshed tears. “This isn’t your fight.”
“The hell it’s not.”
“Vex—”
“No.” I lean in closer, until our faces are inches apart. “You don’t get to decide this. You don’t get to martyr yourself because you think it’ll make things easier. You’re ours now. Under our roof. Under our protection. Mine.”
“I’m not yours,” she whispers, but there’s no conviction in it.
“Liar.”
Her breath catches. “You don’t own me.”
“No,” I agree. “But you’re mine anyway. Have been since the moment you walked into that café two years ago and smiled at me like I was human. You just didn’t know it yet.”
“That’s not, that’s not how this works—”
“Then how does it work?” I demand. “Tell me, Tessa. Explain to me how I’m supposed to let you walk out of here to die.
Explain how I’m supposed to stand by while something ancient and evil tears you apart because you think you’re protecting us.
Explain how the fuck I’m supposed to live with myself if anything happens to you. ”
“You barely know me!”
“I know you take your coffee with cream and two sugars. I know you hum when you think no one’s listening.
I know you’re terrified of us but you came anyway because you’re brave even when you don’t want to be.
I know the sound of your heartbeat, the way you smell when you’re scared, the way your pulse speeds up when I get close.
” I lower my voice to barely more than a whisper.
“I know you want me just as badly as I want you, even though you hate yourself for it.”
Her eyes go wide, pupils dilating. “I don’t—”
“Don’t lie to me.” My hand moves before I can stop it, fingers tracing the line of her jaw. “I can smell it on you. Taste it in the air. Your heart’s racing right now, and it’s not just fear.”
“Stop,” but she doesn’t pull away.
“Make me.”
For one perfect, agonizing moment, we just stare at each other. Her chest rising and falling rapidly, my dead heart somehow feeling like it’s pounding anyway. The air between us crackles with tension, sexual, emotional, supernatural, and I can see the exact second she stops fighting it.
The exact second she gives in.
She grabs the front of my shirt and yanks me down, and then her mouth is on mine and the world explodes.
The kiss is nothing like the one in my room earlier. That was tentative, questioning, a choice made in the aftermath of trauma. This is war. This is her claiming me as much as I’m claiming her, teeth and tongue and desperate need that has no room for gentleness.
I kiss her back with everything I am, monster and man, predator and protector, and she takes it all. Her hands fist in my hair, pulling hard enough to hurt, and I growl into her mouth. My fangs extend fully, scraping against her lip, and instead of pulling away, she presses closer.
Fuck.
My hands grip her hips, lifting her off her feet and pinning her against the van. She wraps her legs around my waist without hesitation, grinding against the hard length of my cock through our clothes, and the friction is exquisite torture.
“Tessa,” her name comes out rough, barely human.
“Shut up,” she gasps against my mouth. “Don’t talk. Just—”
I don’t let her finish.
I kiss her harder, deeper, one hand sliding up to fist in her hair while the other grips her ass, holding her exactly where I want her. She makes a sound, half-moan, half-whimper, and it goes straight to my cock.
My eyes are white now, fully shifted, and I know I should pull back. Should stop this before I lose control completely. But she’s not afraid. Even with my eyes glowing and my fangs scraping her skin and the inhuman strength of my grip on her body, she’s not pulling away.
She’s pulling closer.
Her hands slide under my shirt, nails dragging down my back, and the sharp bite of pain makes me snarl. I rock against her, letting her feel exactly what she does to me, and she moans into my mouth.
“Yes,” she breathes. “Vex, please—”
A throat clears behind us.
We both freeze.
I don’t turn around. Don’t need to. I can smell her, it’s Hannah’s scent mixed with Blade’s, cinnamon and leather and mate-bond so strong it’s almost visible.
“Seriously?” Hannah’s voice is caught somewhere between amused and exasperated. “The garage? Really?”
Tessa makes a strangled sound and tries to push me away, but I don’t budge. Not yet. First, I press my forehead against hers, eyes still locked on her face, and watch as the reality of what we doing crashes over her.
Her lips are swollen. Her pupils are blown wide. And the scent of her arousal is so strong it’s making my mouth water.
“Don’t,” the word comes out quiet. “Don’t run from this.”
“We can’t—”
“We just did.”
“Hannah’s right there—”
“I don’t care.”
“Vex—”
“I. Don’t. Care.” Each word is punctuated by the tiniest rock of my hips against hers, and she gasps. “About who’s watching. About whether this is a good idea. About anything except keeping you alive and preferably in my bed.”
Her eyes search mine, looking for something. A lie, maybe. A way out. But all she finds is truth.
“You’re insane,” she whispers.
“Probably.” I finally, reluctantly, lower her back to her feet but don’t step away. “Still leaving?”
She looks at the duffel bag she dropped, then back at me. “I don’t know.”
“Let me make it simple.” I crowd her again, backing her up until she’s pressed between me and the van with nowhere to go.
“You leave, I follow. You run, I chase. You try to sacrifice yourself, I stop you. However many times it takes, whatever I have to do. You’re not getting away from me, Tessa. Not now. Not ever.”
“That’s not romantic,” she says, but her voice shakes. “That’s terrifying.”
“Good.” I lean in until my lips brush her ear. “Be terrified. Be angry. Be anything you want. But be alive. And be here. With me.”
She shudders, and I can feel her resolve crumbling.
“Hate to break up this moment,” Hannah says dryly, “but Blade sent me to make sure Tessa doesn’t do anything stupid. Like, say, steal a truck and drive off into the wilderness where an ice demon is waiting to eat her.”
Tessa’s cheeks flush red. “I wasn’t—”
“Yes, you were,” Hannah and I say simultaneously.
Tessa glares at both of us, but there’s no real heat in it. Only exhaustion and fear and the lingering haze of arousal that makes my fangs ache all over again.
“Come on,” Hannah says gently, stepping forward and holding out her hand. “Let’s get you back upstairs. We can talk about this later when everyone’s not running on adrenaline and fear.”
Tessa looks at Hannah’s hand. Then at me. Then at the duffel bag still lying on the floor.
“I’m staying,” she says finally. “But not because you ordered me to.”
“Why, then?”
She meets my eyes, and there’s steel in her gaze. “Because if I’m going to die, I’d rather do it fighting than running. And if you’re all insane enough to risk your lives for me, the least I can do is stick around and try not to get you killed.”
It’s not a declaration of love. It’s not even trust, not really.
But it’s a start.
“That works,” Hannah says, relief clear in her voice. She takes Tessa’s hand and starts leading her toward the stairs, throwing a look over her shoulder at me. “You coming, or are you going to brood down here?”
“Give me a minute.”
They disappear up the stairs, and I’m left alone in the garage with the taste of Tessa on my lips and the ghost of her touch still burning through my skin.
I slam my fist into the van’s side panel. Once. Twice. Three times. The metal dents and crumples under vampire strength, and the pain feels good. Grounding.
Because Prophet was right.
I’m compromised.
Completely, utterly, irreversibly compromised.
And there’s not a damn thing I can do about it except pray I’m strong enough to protect her without destroying her.
Please, I think to whatever gods or angels might be listening. Don’t let me fail her. Don’t let me be the reason she dies.
But the universe doesn’t answer.
It never does.
So, I straighten my shirt, run a hand through my hair, and head back upstairs to stand guard outside her door.
Because that’s all I can do.
Protect her.
Want her.
And hope to fuck that wanting her doesn’t kill us both.