16. Alaric
ALARIC
Her words—her shuddering, low-voiced “I’d rather you didn’t”—hits a switch in my spinal column, and for once I let the animal in my marrow take the wheel.
You’d think being part monster gives a man an edge in the romance department, but more often it’s the opposite: centuries of shared shame, and you learn to put up so many guardrails that you forget there’s a road meant for driving off them.
But Birdie is the kind of girl who invites disasters, sweetly and with eye contact, and tonight I want to become one for her.
So I do what I’ve been threatening to do for months and kiss her like she’s a first edition and I’m a careless, greedy collector.
My tongue traces the seam of her mouth, one hand on her cheek and the other braced on the countertop, and she makes a soft noise that undoes me completely.
There’s no small talk now, just the two of us, and the perpetual hush of things about to break.
Birdie’s hands find my chest and slide up to my neck, nails scratching lightly at the hairline.
The smell of her—brandy, burnt sugar, and a note of garden dirt—coils around my head like a hypnosis.
I want to memorize every microexpression, every tremor she tries to hide.
I want to imprint this version of her—a little reckless, a little scared, lips stained purple from the wine and the effort of kissing me back—onto the inside of my eyelids.
“Alaric,” she murmurs, voice tight with either nerves or anticipation (can’t tell, don’t care). “You know what you’re doing?”
“I thought I did.” I brush her lower lip with my thumb, not missing the way her breath catches. “But you keep recalibrating me.”
She fixes me with a look that could drop a puma at thirty paces, then licks her lips—a move clearly designed to liquefy my brain. “Take me to bed.” The command is feathery, but it lands with the gravitational force of a planet.
I laugh, low and genuine. “Birdie, you don’t know what you’re egging on.”
She leans forward, presses her forehead to mine. “I have suspicions.”
Fair enough. I sweep her off the counter and into my arms, and she makes a protest noise—half laugh, half yelp—but she doesn’t squirm.
Her legs wrap around my waist, and she holds me so tight I’m afraid I’ll bruise.
Good. Let her. I want her everywhere. The hall to her bedroom is perilous, lined with battered bookcases and the odd hanging crystal, but I dodge them on muscle memory, not willing to let her feet touch floor until I absolutely must.
Her bedroom is chaos: sweaters and notebooks, a dried bouquet of yarrow, Barnaby passed out on a plush bed in the corner and some kind of plush lizard giving me the evil eye from her pillow.
I deposit her there, but before I can say anything cute, she yanks me down by my collar and kisses me with an impatient, searing heat.
I want to savor her, immortal patience and all that, but Birdie is having none of it.
She tugs at my shirt with small, insistent fists, like she’s opening a stubborn Christmas present.
Buttons fly, and I’m laughing as I free her hair from its elastic, letting it spill over my hands like melted chocolate.
She shoves my shirt down my arms, traces my scars like she’s taking inventory, and hums in approval over each one.
“That was a railway spike,” I say, tilting my shoulder so she can see the white puckered scar near my collarbone.
“Did you deserve it?”
I consider. “Probably.”
She laughs, and it’s the kind of laugh meant only for a two-person audience. “Show me more.”
I do, happily—a map of old wounds, each with a story, but all of them ancient compared to what I’m feeling now.
She peels her own shirt away, and for one idiotic, unworthy second I can’t look at her directly, because the realness of her undoes me.
It’s not the skin—though, holy hell, the skin—but the way she meets my gaze with zero embarrassment: a challenge, an open dare.
Her hands are smaller than they look, strong and deft, and when she slides them under my waistband, I nearly black out. She is so soft, and also so much harder than she lets on. She takes what she wants, and tonight, it seems, that’s all of me.
We wrestle out of the rest of our clothes, and it isn’t graceful—it’s a scramble of arms and giggles and my belt hitting something ceramic and her knee nearly clocking my nose—but I wouldn’t trade the chaos for anything.
When she’s finally naked before me, she makes no move to cover herself; she just lies there, eyes bright and almost defiant.
“Are you nervous?” she asks, as if I could possibly be the one unnerved here.
“Absolutely,” I say, and she laughs—too hard, almost frantic, but then she pulls me into her orbit.
I kiss my way down her body, tasting salt and sweat and the kind of sunlight I haven’t seen in two centuries.
Her breasts fit perfectly in my palms, and when I take a nipple into my mouth, she arches up, hooking her ankles behind my back.
The sound she makes is not delicate; it’s a gasp dragged through a cheese grater, raw and involuntary.
I graze the other nipple with my teeth and she curses—artfully, inventively.
For a moment I think this will end me, right here, but I hold steady, mapping her body with lips, teeth, tongue.
When I look up, her eyes are blown and glassy, and she’s breathing like she’s run a marathon. “You’re as good as advertised,” she says, voice trembling.
“Wait until you see my Yelp reviews,” I say, and she hauls me up for another kiss, threading her fingers into my hair.
I could handle her like porcelain—she’s small enough, breakable-looking—but it’s clear she’d hate that, so instead I grip her hips and press her against the sheets with a need that’s not entirely human.
She welcomes it, bites my lower lip when I try to hold back, and when I glide a hand down, glide a finger inside, she clamps down so hard my vision whites out.
Her body is a goddamn live wire, and I want to see her come apart.
But then, suddenly, she flips us. It’s so quick I don’t process it until she’s straddling me, hands pinning my wrists to the mattress. I make a noise—I will not confess to whimpering—and her grin goes sharp as a hunter’s knife.
“Don’t get comfortable, Grimhaven,” she says, voice low and rough. “I’m not a conquest.”
I should tell her, right here and now, that she’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted to lose myself to.
But I suspect she’d hate that, too, so instead I let her take the lead.
She grinds down, slow at first, then faster, and the friction is too much.
I’m used to holding back—decades of practice, a necessary evil—but she doesn’t give me the chance.
She leans down, licking the sweat from my neck like a wild thing. Then she does something no one’s ever done—she bites me, hard, on the trapezius, just above the greatest artery. It’s not a vampire’s puncture, but an animal’s love bite. I nearly levitate off the bed.
She pulls back, teeth bared like a wolf’s. “Too much?”
I shake my head. “Not enough.” My voice is rough, barely recognizable. “It’s been centuries since anyone’s bitten me like that. Now I know I’m in love.”
She grins, sharp and hungry. “Good.” Then she lunges—teeth bared, nails out—but I’m ready.
I flip her onto her back, pin her wrists above her head, and kiss her hard enough to bruise.
My restraint is gone, burned away like fog in sunlight.
I thrust into her, deep and slow at first, savoring the way her body clenches around me, the way her breath hitches when I hit that perfect angle.
She arches beneath me, her hips rising to meet each roll of mine, her thighs trembling where they grip my waist.
“Faster,” she gasps, her voice breaking.
I oblige, picking up the pace, my hips snapping against hers with a rhythm that’s less human and more instinct.
The bed creaks beneath us, the headboard knocking against the wall in a steady, obscene rhythm.
Her nails rake down my back, leaving trails of fire in their wake, and I groan into the crook of her neck, my fangs grazing her skin.
She shudders, her body tightening around me like a vise, and I know she’s close.
I pull back just enough to watch her face—her lips parted, her eyes glazed with pleasure, her breath coming in ragged little gasps. “You feel so fucking good,” I growl, my voice barely more than a growl. “Like you were made for me.”
She whimpers, her hips bucking wildly, and I know she’s teetering on the edge.
I shift my angle, grinding against her just right, and she cries out, her back arching off the bed as she comes undone.
Her body pulses around me, milking me, and I can’t hold back any longer.
I bury myself to the hilt, my own release crashing over me like a wave, my vision whiting out as I spill into her.
For a moment, there’s nothing but the sound of our ragged breathing, the scent of sweat and sex thick in the air.
Then she tugs me down for another kiss, slow and deep, her tongue tangling with mine like she’s savoring the taste of me.
“Don’t hold back,” she whispers against my lips, her voice rough. “I want all of you.”
And just like that, the monster inside me stirs, hungry for more.
She growls it a third time, and the sound vibrates through my bones.
That’s the only warning I give before the monster takes over.
My fangs unsheathe with a wet click, my vision narrows to a pinprick of red, and every inch of me burns for her.
I don’t just bite—I sink in, teeth splitting skin like ripe fruit, and the copper tang of her blood floods my mouth.
She arches beneath me with a broken cry, nails raking down my back hard enough to draw parallel lines of fire.
The taste of her—salt and iron and something wild—sends me over the edge, and I come so hard my muscles lock, my spine bowing like a drawn bow.
When I finally pull back, her neck is a mess of red crescents, her pulse fluttering beneath my lips.
She’s panting, her chest heaving, and when she drags her fingers through the blood, they come away slick.
She smears it across my mouth like war paint, then yanks me down for a kiss that tastes of metal and need.
Our teeth clash, tongues battling, and I can feel the exact moment her body clenches around me again—wet, hot, relentless.
The wound on her neck weeps, and I lick it clean, savoring the way her breath hitches.
“Fuck,” she gasps, voice wrecked. “Do that again.”
“Does this mean I’m a vampire now?” she asks, still catching her breath.
“No,” I say, licking the blood away, “but it means you’re mine.”
She quirks an eyebrow. “Possessive.”
I trace her jaw with my thumb, memorizing the shape of her. “You can possess me right back.”
We lie together, her heartbeat slowing to baseline, my own body settling with an unfamiliar contentment. The air smells like ozone and sweat and a little bit of iron.
After a while, she pushes my hair out of my eyes. “Don’t get a big head about this.”
I snort. “Too late. My ego has entered the stratosphere.”
She rolls over, snuggling her cheek against my chest. “Just so you know, if you ghost me after this, I will egg your car.”
“I don’t have a car.”
“Then I’ll egg your crypt.”
It’s so ridiculous I snort-laugh. “Deal.”
We fall asleep tangled together, her heartbeat doing most of the work. Somewhere between one breath and the next, I stop keeping track of the centuries. The monster, for once, has nothing to say. It’s been thoroughly outcharmed.