Chapter 24
Chapter twenty-four
Vidar
Bodies move to the waves of loud, beating music. Their writhing limbs tangled into the person—or persons—pressed to their every side on the dance floor. Red strobe lights pour over the sweating crowd, as if I’m standing on the outskirts of a blood orgy.
Yet, none of it holds my attention from where I lean against the bar, my focus instead is on our little group; Golden, Ramy, and Summer. Or rather…
I knock back the dark liquor Lucero handed me when we first arrived, barely registering as it burns down my throat.
Kai.
My fist tightens around my glass as a man, hips gyrating like a dying fish, stumbles over himself to get to my soulmate.
My grip only relaxes when Golden pushes the slimy bastard away, Summer and Kai flipping him off, then doubling over laughing with Ramy, before getting back to flailing their arms, jumping up and down as they try to make each other laugh.
A whisper, darkly luscious as the music and as luring as the glitter on Kai’s cheeks, sinks into the back of my mind and begs my soulmate to put on a show for me.
To lock those jade eyes on me, as if no one else in this club exists and move that lithe body the way I know—I fucking know down to my marrow—he can.
But watching him be ridiculous with his friends is better than any fantasy that whispers promises.
I exhale slowly, forcing the heat from my lungs. Fuck, I need a stronger drink.
“You should go feed, Maker,” Lucero says from where he stands against the bar beside me, voice loud but not shouting.
“And you need to buy your club something other than this watered-down piss,” I complain, voice gruff but with no real heat.
I glance at my offspring, find him watching Golden with an intensity I’ve never seen in him before, not even with his other soulmates. I wonder if that's how I look at Kai, like I’d destroy anyone who made him cry actual tears instead of glitter.
Like I’d crawl over molten glass to have him…
I zero back in on Kai, inhale deeply, and try to calm the burn. But even at this distance, when his presence is like a second pulse under my too-tight skin, nothing touches the purple fire burning between my ribs.
“And I don’t see you going off to feed, offspring. Or Golden, for that matter,” I comment.
“We’ve fed already,” he tells me, voice wicked.
“I told you to stop letting him feed on you,” I snap, my disapproval clear.
“He has,” Lucero replies, then smirks. “Well, not entirely.”
“The boy won’t get stronger if you keep this up, Luc.”
“Golden’s improving every day. Only a week ago he’d be too exhausted for this.
” He gestures to Golden dancing like a plucked chicken with Ramy.
“And as much as I want to rip out everyone's eyes for daring to look at him, I once promised that while the world doesn’t deserve him, Golden does deserve the world. So, for his happiness, I’ll tolerate sharing him with others. ”
His words echo my earlier thoughts, and it makes an uncomfortable knot form in the pit of my stomach. Already, I’m barely holding back from touching Kai, and even if it’s to protect him, can I keep this up?
How many times do I need to insist that I’m straight for it to ring hollow, even to my ears?
“Go feed, Vidar.”
The light catches the glitter across Kai’s cheeks, and the beauty of him is somehow painful in its total truth, like staring into the sun. Or…like leaving a mansion after eight years hiding inside.
‘You're straight, and I’m gay,’ Kai said. The distinctions should matter, but every time I catch myself smiling at him, I wonder if they ever really did.
I shoot back my drink, wishing it would scorch away these feelings. Or at the very least, confirm I can treat Kai with the love he deserves, and not just a warm body for me to sate this confusing lust, then slam my empty glass down and stalk away.
I used to enjoy the hunt; find a beautiful woman, tease her until we’re desperate, drink her blood, then fuck until morning—simple.
Now I find myself in the middle of a horde of desirable women in tiny dresses, all looking for a good time, and I can’t even muster a flicker of interest for pushed-up tits and a plump ass.
Well, unless that plump ass belonged to a boy with ash blonde braids and warm brown skin, then I’ve got an abundance of interest.
My first half-hearted attempt to get a woman’s attention doesn’t go well. She scurries back to her friends, who all glare at me like a pack of angry meerkats. Not that I blame them, I approached her like it was a chore.
I fist my hair, frustration growing with my hunger.
The last time I struggled like this my balls were hairless, and my ridiculous teenage posturing at least won me giggles from the pretty girls in my village. They might’ve been laughing at me, but back then, even a little of their attention made my stupid antics worth it.
A curvy woman with red hair and pale skin brushes past me, fluttering her eyelashes and smiling an invitation. I freeze in place, and she falters, ready to sweep back into the mass of bodies on an assumed rejection. So I push down my doubts. She’s lovely, full-figured. Why wouldn’t I want her?
Quickly, I return her grin. I hope I do, anyway. My lips feel uncomfortably stretched over my teeth. But the dark is my friend, and she doesn’t notice, so when I take her hand and lead her into a shadowed corner, she follows willingly.
Even though each step lands like I’m wading through quicksand, and when I press her against a wall, I remind myself I should be enjoying this. Who wouldn’t feel like the luckiest bastard to have caught her attention? She’s stunning.
Yet as I sink my fangs into her neck, a gasp of pleasure expelling from her chest, all my attention pulls towards the dance floor at my back.
Tasteless blood soon flows into my mouth, and while it fills my stomach, it brings me no relief.
I don’t take much blood, but my hunger is sated enough. When I pull away, she’s breathless, and I compel a memory of a kiss instead of a bite, then guide her into a chair before fading back into the crowd.
I find my way back to Lucero through the tangle of bodies to see Golden sitting on a chair, looking tired and a little defeated. The matching cat headband he got with Ramy sits lopsided in his dark curls.
“You’re getting stronger, Golden.” I reach out to pet his hair as I would Ramy, but a glare from Lucero has me chuckling and dropping a hand on his shoulder, lightly squeezing. “Lucero said you’re drinking more blood; it shows.”
Golden’s defeated look softens, and he beams. “Thanks, Vidar.”
Lucero hands me a fresh drink, and I knock it back, washing away the taste of blood while scanning the dance floor.
In the distance, Ramy leads a man away, either to fuck or feed. Probably both.
Summer’s joined a group of women in sashes and tiaras. Screaming like shieldmaidens readying for battle as they down shots. I grin, in a thousand years, some things have stayed the same.
I keep scanning the crowd and then…
Kai.
His back pressed against a man’s chest as they dance together.
The glass in my hand shatters.
“Jesus! What the fuck?” Golden shouts.
Rage pushes me forward, the kind I’ve only known on the battlefield—when it was either my life or theirs. And that piece of shit, whose undeserving hands dare touch what's mine, is no warrior.
I move through the crowd like a shark sensing blood, and I swear to every god I once believed in that cunt will take Kai over my dead body.
My hand wraps around the man’s neck, my grip unforgiving as I yank him off my soulmate.
“What the fuck—” The stranger stops when I bare my fangs, then I shove him away, and the fucker scampers off like a filthy rat with his tail between his legs.
I expect Kai to be angry. I don’t expect him to roll his eyes and shake his head, but come willingly into my arms when I tug him forward, pressing his back to my chest like a missing puzzle piece.
“You’re so fuckin’ annoying,” Kai laughs, tossing his head back and then looping his arms around my neck.
“I know.” I brush the tip of my nose around the shell of his ear, inhaling his lavender scent to chase away this cloying rage. “But that little boy wouldn’t know how to handle you.”
And how lucky am I when Kai begins his slow dance, swaying his body into mine. “And you do?”
“I do, you need a real man.” I take hold of his hips, groaning as I move into him.
“Aren’t you straight?” Kai purrs.
“Like I give a fuck.”
With Kai flush against me, my confusion over why I lust over him is the last thing on my mind. Why bother even thinking when I can let instinct take over, and dance to the same rhythm his hips are setting.
“Now move what belongs to me.” My lips ghost down the thin skin at his ear, a deep rumble leaving my chest when he shivers. “I wanna feel it.”
Kai pushes his ass, the thing that’s driven me to madness, against my straining cock, and my body becomes fever-hot. I dig fingers into his sides, desperate for a feel of his naked flesh against mine.
“Oh yeah?” he breathes. “Then I want what belongs to me, too.”
My hand roams up from his hips and to the pure silk of his skin. A groan of agony and ecstasy rips from my throat.
“And what belongs to you, little prince?” I’d give him anything.
I bury my nose deeper into his hair, inhaling the scent of his sweat—lavender and pencil shavings, all tangled with a burst of freshly cut oranges. I groan into him, the bittersweetness of his arousal causing my mouth to water.
Another scent is folded into his natural perfume, one that I can’t quite grasp, yet it is all I’ve ever wanted.
“Did you feed?” he moans as I continue to stroke up his soft chest. The sound shoots straight to my rock-hard cock.
“Yes.”
“Show me your fangs,” he demands, voice just as teasing as his grinding hips. But when I run my fingers over his hard nipple, a shocked and sensual gasp falls from his lips.
I have to rip myself away from the paradise of his hair to open my mouth, my canines growing into long points.
Kai spins around, the glitter on his cheeks catches the light, making his blown-out eyes shine like emeralds. He leans his bare chest to mine, and I damn myself for wearing a shirt. I'm tempted to rip it off, instead I watch like a man starved as Kai’s pink tongue pokes out between his plump lips.
Kai’s eyes are hooded—his gaze fixed on my mouth—and using his arms around my neck, my little prince pushes himself up to run the tip of his tongue across the point of my fang.
A single bead of his blood splashes across my taste buds.
“Fuck,” I growl, his blood sliding down my throat like a line of molten lava.
Ecstasy. Valhalla. Pure fucking sex.
My fingerprints leave marks on his heated flesh as I press him flush against my body. I once vowed never to kneel for any man, yet a single drop of Kai’s blood and I’d fall to my knees, right here in the middle of the club.
And how mouthwatering that surrender would be.
He moans, dragging his bleeding tongue across my bottom lip. Kai demanded what was his, and as he paints my mouth red, I can’t mistake this for anything else but a claiming. With my head dizzy with desire, I tangle my fingers into Kai’s braids and crush his mouth into mine.
‘Fucking. Finally.’
As my body ignites, I wonder why I ever wanted this purple flame extinguished.