Chapter 2
“Ryder,” James warned, “I need you to completely understand what you’re getting yourself into.”
His hands squeezed my hips so hard that it hurt—and I loved it. “Does it get any more complicated than being fated to a vampire?” I asked. “Or being targeted, not once but twice, by hunters determined to take us both out?”
James’s body thrummed with laughter. “That’s not what I meant.” After calling Carlos inside, James took my hand and led me away from the back door. “This could be very uncomfortable for you.”
“How uncomfortable?”
He stayed quiet as we strolled through the living room.
I flipped off the kitchen light on the way, following him until the bedroom door clicked shut behind us, and James pressed me back against it.
“I’ll only need to bite you once, and it’ll burn at first—that’s the venom spreading through your body.
Once it settles, it’ll feel like the worst flu you’ve ever had.
Your heart’s going to stop, and you’ll struggle to breathe. ”
At the mention of it, my heart rate sped up. As much as James had been dying to turn me, he wasn’t exactly selling the prospect—but the desire was in me too. Deep inside, and it pushed through the fear of how much this was going to hurt.
I could deal with discomfort if it meant forever with him.
Clutching the hem of his shirt, I tugged him into me until he pinned me to the door. “You’ll take care of me, right?”
He smiled against my neck, licking over the mark that had taken up permanent residence on my skin. “Of course I will, love.”
Remembering the night we’d shared all those months ago at the beach house, and the words that had been the one thing to unravel him, I threaded my fingers through his hair and massaged his scalp as I uttered my next words into his ear. “I trust you.”
“Christ,” he snarled, hooking his arm around my waist and hauling me off my feet.
I wound my legs around his waist, letting him be the sole thing that held me against the bedroom door.
Past-Ryder had always loved the clumsy, desperate fumbling that came with bringing home someone new, but the new and improved Ryder welcomed the way James knew my every move before I made it.
The moment I thought about having his hands on my bare skin, my shirt was gone.
With one arm around my waist for support, his free hand undid my belt.
It whipped free of my jeans, thunking against the floor as James tossed it aside.
“Come with me,” he instructed, tenderly lifting me away from the door and carrying me toward the bed.
As much as I wanted to protest being relocated—he could ravage me against the door for all I cared—it was time to trust the vampire.
My heart raced erratically in my chest, and I knew James could hear it.
Cocooned in his arms, James warmed himself, his body heat seeming to radiate around me.
After setting me on the edge of the mattress, he knelt, sliding down my body to find his place between my legs.
With gentle kisses to my chest and stomach, he undid my jeans and curled his fingers into the waistband, then worked the denim off and tossed it aside, my boxer briefs quickly following.
Once I was entirely undressed, James straightened, and I took that as a silent command to lie back, situating myself on the pillows.
James shed his own clothes, then climbed onto the mattress, crawling across the bed and blanketing me with his body. “I need to hear you say it one more time, love,” he said, diving in for my neck.
The bruise there seemed to tingle beneath his feather-light lips. Somewhere deep inside me, panic threatened to break through, but I shoved it away. I was ready for this.
I needed this.
“Bite me,” I said, my voice too close to a whine for my liking, but I couldn’t find it in me to care very much—especially when James drove his hips into mine.
Without clothes, our hard cocks ground together, already dripping, and a growl clawed its way up from deep in my chest. It was always erotic when James fed from me, but this moment was so much more than that.
I didn’t get much time to dwell, because James’s fangs broke my skin.
I spat out a curse. He wasn’t kidding, the burn was immediate, traveling through my veins and searing right through to my skin.
My head grew lighter, much faster than I was accustomed to with James’s bites.
I sank into the pillow, my hand curling around James’s neck.
He drank, holding onto me with an arm around my waist. Each draw from my veins sent a fresh wave of heat through my body and I sighed, arching my neck to expose more skin for him.
By the time he pulled off, I could hardly move. James peered down at me, eyes a bright, bloody red compared to the deep crimson I’d gotten used to. “You okay?” he asked, a primal husk to his voice that I’d never heard before.
It only made me harder, if that were humanly possible—or was I inhuman, already?
“M’ great,” I slurred.
James’s lips curled into a proud smile and after snatching a bottle of lube from the nightstand, he rose onto his knees. “Relax now,” he rasped. “Let me take you for a ride tonight.”
It wasn’t body aches or chills or difficulty breathing that made me groan as something roused me from a sated, orgasm-induced sleep.
Voices trickled down the hall, and I rolled over expecting to feel hard muscle—only to find cold sheets.
Confused, I sat up. Lack of sunlight meant that it was still nighttime, and the voice from the living room started to sound familiar.
The words weren’t clear, but I definitely knew that slurred voice. Was that…
Shiloh?
I launched out of bed, expecting my limbs to be on fire from the vampire venom, but as I stepped into a discarded pair of sweats, I felt none of the discomfort that James warned me about.
But I didn’t have time to dwell on it. James’s quiet voice was filtering down the hall.
As I entered the living room my suspicions were confirmed: James stood at the front door, supporting a very drunk Shi.
“Leave me here,” they barely managed to say. “I’m fine.”
Their pretty camo eyes came into view as they pushed back the messy brown curls that hung in their face.
Seeing me, their face lit up and they took a step toward me in greeting.
They didn’t make it. Stumbling, they would have pitched forward if James hadn’t curled his arm around their waist, causing Shiloh’s oversized hoodie to ride up and expose their stomach.
Carlos arrived in a flurry of excitement, and I heard an unfamiliar voice say, “Oh, hi pup!” It was then that I noticed that Shi hadn’t arrived alone.
I didn’t recognize the man standing beside them, and after the recent dangers we’d faced, I was extra wary of strangers—until his evident concern for Shi lowered my defenses.
The guy scratched Carlos behind the ears, barely dodging an attempt at a wet doggy kiss.
I scolded the dog, hooking a finger into his collar to haul him back inside.
A closer look revealed that the stranger closely resembled our drunken friend clinging onto my fiancé for dear life. The two of them had the same hair, and as I approached the door, I noticed he had the same smattering of freckles across his cheeks too.
He studied me, and it occurred to me that the sweats I’d snatched from the bedroom floor weren’t mine, judging by the way they hung low on my hips. The guy averted his gaze, but not before letting it linger on my neck.
“Ryder!” Shi exclaimed, stealing my attention.
Despite Shiloh’s wasted state, I put on my best grin—which wasn’t hard with them beaming back at me. “What happened, Shi Baby? Have that third mojito?”
A noise bubbled out of them, resembling a snicker.
“They were like this when I found them,” the man at the door said. Found them? That made no sense. Wasn’t Shi in Houston?
“Whoa…” Shi said, wavering, and I noticed James tighten his grip, steadying them.
“Why don’t you go lay them down?” James suggested, trying to hand Shi over to me.
“You don’t want to do it yourself?” Shi asked, batting their eyelashes at my vampire. “I wouldn’t mind, you know.” James looked down at them in surprise.
“Go,” I said. “The couch is more comfortable than the floor.” Looking back at the stranger hovering awkwardly in the doorway, I added, “I’ve got this.”
“Are you sure?”
I glanced at Shi Baby pointedly. “They’ll be on the floor in a minute if you don’t.”
James’s attention flickered from me to the stranger, but he must’ve reached the same conclusion I had that the man wasn’t a threat. He left me at the front door, whispering softly to Shiloh. I watched them go, worried, until a soft murmur distracted me.
“This is all my fault.” The man, tall enough to look me in the eye, pushed a hand through his cropped, mousy hair. He swallowed hard, and for a moment I thought he was about to cry.
“Okay…” I scrubbed my hands over my face, banishing the last traces of sleep.
I knew turning into a vampire was supposed to be draining, but I was starting to suspect the change wasn’t happening.
I felt too normal, too tired. I didn’t think vampires felt fatigue so easily. “Why don’t we start with who you are?”
“I’m Michael,” he said. “Shiloh’s brother.”
“I’m—”
“Ryder, I know. They haven’t shut up about either of you for weeks.”
“What do you mean they were like this when you found them? I thought they were in Houston with you.”
Michael sighed. “They were. There was, um… an incident, and they flew home early. Got in this morning—yesterday morning, I guess. I booked a flight to come after them, but when I arrived a couple of hours ago, I found them like this.”
My skin prickled, but it was nothing more than my protectiveness over Shi. My heightened defenses had little to do with the guy standing in front of me though. Judging by the look on his face, and the way he spoke about them, he really cared about Shiloh. “An incident?”