Chapter Linton
LINTON
Her taste, her scent, her touch. I feel things, I feel everything, I feel alive, and at the moment my spicket produces, I’m sure I have died.
This has never happened to me before. I am awash with pleasure, with feeding, with venom, and with something else, something which encircles my chest and crushes at my heart.
I am awash with my spend too. My trousers are not going to be the same ever again. I don’t want them to. Her blood, sweet, and nutritious is the best I’ve ever tasted. I feel reborn.
Kaitlyn is staring at me, although it’s not with pity or horror. Her chest is moving rapidly, and I can’t help but be drawn to the orbs which sit tantalisingly under the fabric of her clothing.
There is a knock on the door, and I leap to my feet, ready with all my daggers to defend the creature who does things to my spicket and whose blood is the first I’ve been able to feed on in months.
“Hello!” a voice calls. “I have your dress, if you’re decent.”
Kaitlyn flashes a glance at me.
“I think you can stand down, Linton. I doubt this is a threat,” she says, smoothing back her hair and pulling her sleeve down over her arm.
I would rather everyone could see I have fed from her, and a growl escapes my lips. I’m instantly behind her as she opens the door to the innkeeper’s female.
“Sorry, hope I wasn’t disturbing anything,” she says in a weird sing-song voice.
“No…” Kaitlyn says.
“Yes, I was feeding and my spicket…” Kaitlyn elbows me sharply in the stomach. “Ow.”
“Feeding? That’s good Mister Linton,” she says happily. “I brought this for Madame.”
She hands over a bundle of silk. It’s the same colour as the markings on my wings, an iridescent turquoise. I hum with pleasure as Kaitlyn takes it.
“Thank you,” she says.
“Thank…you,” I repeat, feeling my brow pull tight at the unfamiliar phrase.
“I’ll leave you to your little nest.” The female chuckles. “If you need anything, just let me or Max know.” She scuttles away down the stairs with a laugh on her lips.
“Who’s Max?” I ask as Kaitlyn closes the door.
“The innkeeper. I told you his name before.”
“He has a name?” I query, and Kaitlyn, to my surprise, growls under her breath.
My wings flare and I shed some of my scales.
“Everyone has a name.”
“I forget names.” I shrug. “I forget a lot of things after my time in the Night Lands.”
Her eyes do something strange, something where they get a bit bigger but not because of fear. Admittedly I’m not sure I could smell her fear over the pheromone of her arousal (and mine) but there’s no fear in her eyes.
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“You did not send my kind to the Night Lands for slaughter, so you have nothing to be sorry for.”
Kaitlyn looks down at the bundle and lets it unroll down her body.
“Do you like it?” she asks.
I have never been asked if I like something before. I’m not sure how to answer.
“It’s…a dress?” I query.
“It’s a dress,” she says, with an edge to her voice which I’m pretty sure means she wants more from me than a repetition of her words..
“The colour. I like the colour.” I extend a wing to show her how it matches.
I’m not sure I know what a dress is. But I recognise the iridescence as being similar to my own.
“It is a pretty colour,” Kaitlyn says with a smile.
Somehow I have managed to please her with my words. I think that might be the first time it has happened to me.
“How does it…” I twist my head looking at the thing. I’m not sure I’ve ever been this close to human clothing. “How does it go on your body?”
Kaitlyn looks at me carefully.
“I’m not getting undressed in front of you,” she says.
I find myself swallowing hard as my body does various strange things without my bidding. I find I would very much like to see her unclothed, given how my spicket reacted to her touch on my sensitive antennae.
I hadn’t realised how sensitive.
In fact, the mere thought of her being unclothed is causing the unruly appendage to stir once again.
My spicket is misbehaving again. As much as I enjoyed it exploding when I fed, I need to master the unruly part of my body. I don’t know if Kaitlyn is even aware of what she does to the inside of my trousers, nor if she wishes to know more of my spicket.
Although I very much hope she does. But the way she glares at me, I think it would be best if I left her to deal with the clothing on her own.
“Then I will give you my leave.” I bow to her as I open the door and exit.
Once outside, I stand still, my chest heaving and my body doing all manner of strange things which it hasn’t done before. Twitches and breathlessness. It aches with the need for her proximity and touch.
None of this is good. Although having some blood in my belly is good. Especially given how sweet it was.
Blood offered is always better than blood taken. And fresh blood from a live donor is always the best blood.
I have fed, and the Yeavering seems a better place.
“Max.” I spot the innkeeper, and he turns in alarm at the sound of my voice.
“Mister Linton?”
“Yes, Max.”
I stare at him, and he stares back at me.
“My Kaitlyn is doing things with the fabric.” I say, with only a modicum of pride.
“It is good you have found a mate, Mister Linton.”
“Kaitlyn is my mate?”
“Isn’t she? You haven’t taken to picking up random females now, have you?” he says genially.
The dagger is in my hand before I can stop myself, and I have him pressed against the wall with the blade at his throat.
“She is mine,” I growl. “And I need clean trousers.”