Chapter 23
Twenty-Three
FLYNN
Leaving Talulla in bed was hard this morning.
Not just physically hard—though watching her sleep, naked and tangled in our sheets, her golden hair spread across the pillow like spilled rays of sunshine, certainly made my cock ache. But emotionally hard. Spiritually hard, if a creature like me can claim to have a spirit.
Because I’m about to tell her everything.
And there’s a very real possibility that when I do, she’ll look at me the way she’s supposed to look at me. The very same way her father looks at me.
With hatred. With disgust. With the cold, calculated determination to end me.
There’s also the chance she will let me explain and see that what we have is real, and nothing else matters to me.
Because what I’m about to confess will shatter something between us—I just don’t know if it’ll be temporary or permanent.
But she needs to know it all, so that she can get through her most traumatic event.
I’ve been preparing breakfast for twenty minutes now, and my hands haven’t stopped shaking. Almost six hundred years old, and I’m trembling over eggs and bacon. Pathetic.
The aroma fills up the room, rich and savory and so beautifully human.
I know this will make her get out of bed in, about a minute.
I’ve learned her patterns, her weaknesses, her desires.
The way to Talulla’s heart has always been through her stomach, and I’ve memorized every preference, every craving.
It’s the least I can do before I destroy everything.
I hear her footsteps before I see her—soft, slightly uneven, the essence of someone who’s been thoroughly fucked and is feeling every delicious ache. My cock hardens immediately at the sound.
And then she walks in, wearing only my silk black shirt. Two buttons are done, leaving basically everything exposed—the curve of her breasts, the shadow between them, her flat stomach, the hint of what lies below.
Fuck.
I’m already hard again, painfully so. I love seeing her in my clothes after we have sex.
The way my scent clings to her skin, the way the fabric drapes over her body like a claim, like a brand.
Honestly, any time she wants to wear them, I’m okay with it.
More than okay. It does something primal to me, something possessive and ancient and utterly beyond my control.
She’s mine. Wearing my clothes. Smelling like me. Marked by me in every way that matters.
And in a few hours, she might never wear them again.
“Good morning, red ruby,” I tell her, watching her wobble as she takes every step slowly.
I can tell how turned on she is as well—the flush on her cheeks, the dilation of her pupils, the way her nipples are already hard beneath the silk.
She should be exhausted after last night, but fuck, I’m happy she isn’t.
Because I need this. One more morning of pretending we’re normal. One more morning before everything changes.
“Good morning, fangs,” she replies, getting on her tippy toes, reaching in for a kiss.
I wrap my arms around her and breathe her in—that intoxicating mix of her natural scent, my cologne from the shirt, and the lingering musk of sex.
I press my lips to hers, and for a moment, the world narrows to just this.
Just her mouth on mine, her body against mine, her heartbeat thundering in my ears like a war drum.
This is what I could lose, I think, and the thought is a knife between my ribs. This warmth. This trust. This love. My mate.
“Guess what?” she asks, her eyes sparkling with that mischief I’ve come to adore.
“What?”
“I’m free for the morning, which means we have lots of free time before I have to go to work.”
I knew this already. I kind of made this happen by calling her place of employment and well, compelling Mr. Evans to give her a free morning. I’m not proud of using my powers on humans, but for this—for one more morning with her before I confess everything—I’d do far worse.
I’ve done far worse.
That’s the problem.
“This is wonderful news,” I reply, kissing her harder. Her lips feel like rose petals against mine. So plump. So soft. So alive.
This is exactly what we need and want in life, I think, even as the lie tastes bitter on my tongue. A normal existence, a nice house, a simple job for her, and crazy as fuck sex.
But we’re not normal. We’ll never be normal.
I’m a monster who’s killed more people than she’s met in her entire life, and she’s a hunter bred specifically to end creatures like me.
And the secret I’m keeping—the truth about who turned me, about her grandmother, about the night that set her entire family on this path of vengeance—that secret is a bomb waiting to detonate.
I bite her lower lip, making sure to gently brush my fangs on her skin. My embrace tightens, and my bite hardens, but I don’t make her bleed. I never do. I love how much she loves this kind of teasing, but I never draw blood. Not hers.
Because if I taste her blood, I don’t know if I can stop.
A moan of approval resonates in my mouth. Talulla deepens the kiss, and it is a matter of time before the kiss turns into something else.
One more time, I think desperately. Let me have her one more time before she knows. Before she hates me.
I rip the shirt open—my shirt, covering her body, mine to destroy—and admire her perfect body. “I didn’t pay enough attention to your beautiful tits last night,” I say, my eyes dropping on her exposed chest.
“It’s true, you didn’t.”
“Would you like that, my precious red ruby?”
She giggles at my choice of words. “You make me feel like I’m the one ring.”
And I can’t help but snort, understanding the reference.
Talulla loves those kinds of books and movies, and obviously, she made me watch—endure—them all.
Hours of hobbits and elves and the corrupting power of evil artifacts.
“You do fit perfectly around my cock and fingers, so you truly are my one ring.”
Her jaw drops open. “I can’t believe you just replied to my nerdy joke with another nerdy joke.”
“You know I have a great sense of humor.” I pick her up and prop her on the marble kitchen counter, the cold stone a stark contrast to her warm skin. “You’re going to be a good girl, and let me suck your nipples now.”
“Yes,” she replies in a whisper.
“You know you need to address me in a very specific way if you want me to be good to you.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll be good.”
I can’t help but smirk. I love it when she’s a brat, but fuck, I absolutely adore when she’s so obedient. When she surrenders to me completely, trusting me with her body, her pleasure, her vulnerability.
She trusts me, I think, and the weight of that trust is crushing. She trusts me, and I’m about to betray that trust by telling her the truth.
Talulla looks so human to everyone else, but to me, she’s the reason I open my eyes every morning, the reason I wish I could be human to dream of her as I sleep. She’s the reason I’ve started to believe that maybe, just maybe, I could be something other than the monster I’ve always been.
And she has no idea of the power she has over me.
No idea that I would burn the world for her. That I would defy my father for her. That I would choose her over six centuries of loyalty and blood and darkness.
That I already have.
I cup her breasts in my hands, and then dip my head down, licking and sucking hard at her nipples. She tastes like salt and sleep and something uniquely her, and I want to memorize this taste, this moment, this feeling of her body responding to mine.
Her moans fill the room. And my throat stings as a familiar haunting hunger grows deeper and deeper within me.
Not just hunger for blood. Hunger for her blood. For the connection that drinking from her would create—the bond that would tie us together for eternity, that would make her mine in a way that transcends the physical.
But I can’t. Not yet. Not until she knows everything.
“Flynn,” she tries to say, but the pleasure is too much; it ends up in an even higher moan. “Flynn, please.”
“What do you want, Talulla?” I ask, almost wanting her to say what’s on my mind right now. Ask me to bite you. Ask me to make you mine forever. Give me a reason to believe this won’t all fall apart.
“You.”
“You already have me. We established that.” I suck her other nipple a little harder, letting my fangs graze the sensitive flesh. “Don’t upset me this early in the morning.”
“Drink from me,” she begs. “Please drink from me.”
The words hit me like a physical blow. The only thing I was craving right now, and she is demanding it out loud. Offering herself to me. Trusting me with the most intimate act a vampire and their mate can share.
Mate. The word echoes in my mind, ancient and primal and terrifying.
I could.
I could do exactly what she’s asking, and it would be the most intense feeling I’ve ever experienced in my existence.
I would come in my pants at the feel of her blood on my tongue—hot and sweet and alive, carrying her essence, her soul, her very being into my body.
And she would come over and over, at the feeling of my teeth deeply sunk in her neck, the venom in my bite flooding her system with pleasure so intense it borders on pain.
We would be bound. Forever. Irrevocably.
And she would be mine in a way that no amount of confession could undo.
That’s why I can’t, I realize with brutal clarity. Because if I bind her to me before she knows the truth, I’m no better than my creator. I’m taking away her choice.
But this is not the right moment. Not when I haven’t told her what I need to. Not when she needs to decide if I’m worth it after knowing everything about my past. “Not now, Talulla. It’s too soon,” I manage to say, and regret it immediately.
The hurt in her eyes is a stake through my chest.
“How’s it too soon? We’ve been together for a year. I love you, Flynn.”
And I love you. The words are acid in my throat. I love you so much it’s destroying me. I love you enough to let you go if that’s what you choose after you know everything.