Chapter 16
SIXTEEN
Z
W as I dying?
The warmth seemed to be fading from me like the sea drawing back from the land. I felt icy and cold all over. Even my veins felt sludgy.
Jax’s arms were around me, but it wasn’t a sweet embrace. It was almost too tight, as if he thought I would try to escape him.
But I wouldn’t.
I couldn’t .
I was dying. I knew that. But I still couldn’t find it within me to fight back. The dagger, at some point, had clattered to the ground beside me. Maybe I could reach for it if I tried hard enough. Maybe…
But I didn’t want to hurt Jax. I loved him. I loved him so fucking much that I would willingly give everything I had to offer in order for him to survive. But god, he would hate himself as soon as he came to.
It was that thought alone that gave me the strength to reach for him.
But I didn’t push him away.
“Jax,” I whispered roughly, forking my fingers through his messy brown hair. “Jax…please…stop.”
And for a fraction of a second, I swore he stopped. The lips suctioned to my neck ceased their relentless sucking. Then he resumed drinking, groaning low in his throat and holding me even closer.
Dark spots erupted across my vision, and I felt myself growing weaker in his arms, swaying unsteadily on my feet.
“Jax, if you’re there…I love you.” My voice sounded so incredibly weak. I wouldn’t be surprised if he couldn’t hear it. “I forgive you.”
I dragged my hand down his bicep, and I swore a shiver worked its way through him. Like before, he paused, his lips still stuck to my neck, his breathing erratic.
It took every ounce of strength I possessed, but I managed to inch my hand up his shirt so my palm splayed across his taut abs. Another shudder rippled through him. One of his hands left my waist. It slowly traveled up my bare belly and stopped just beneath my breasts. Prickles of heat ran up and down my skin.
“Jax, I’m here. It’s me,” I whispered, continuing to caress his skin.
It felt abnormally hot beneath my hand. Feverish. The backs of my eyes burned.
What the fuck had that evil bitch of a mother done to him?
His thumb gently grazed the underside of my breast. Once. Twice. Three times. On the fourth rotation, he managed to flick my nipple.
He still wasn’t feeding. His lips remained on my skin, both a threat and a promise. I knew he hadn’t come back to himself, not yet, but he was close. So, so close.
“It’s me. I love you. I’m here.” I shakily began to unbutton his pants and tug them down. It was easy to do, considering how thin he had become.
His cock sprang free, hard and wanting, and I ran my hand over it a few times before giving it an experimental tug. He growled against my neck.
“Yes. It’s me, Jax. It’s me. I love you.”
I didn’t know if my words managed to penetrate the haze his mind had become, but he suddenly gripped my hips like a man possessed. Without a word, he shoved me against the wall, tugged my panties to the side, and thrust inside of me. It was quick, harsh, and brutal.
He began to fuck me against the wall of the maze, pulling back just enough to stare at me. I expected to see my Jax peering back at me—his eyes full of love and wonder, adoration and respect—but he was too consumed by his sin. By gluttony. By the vampire inside of him.
I was weak from blood loss, so incredibly weak, but I managed to grab his chin and force his gaze to mine.
“It’s me, Jax. It’s me. It’s Z. I love you. I forgive you. I love you.” I didn’t know what else to say to him, how to get through to him.
All I knew was that love thrummed headily through my veins. This wasn’t him. I knew that. I didn’t blame him.
But he would blame himself if he didn’t snap out of it.
He fucked me harder, his thick cock pistoning in and out of my tight pussy, and despite my pain, lust raced through me.
“Yes, Jax. Yes,” I panted out, gauging his reaction carefully.
Lines deepened at the corners of his mouth, which was stained red with my blood.
With another roar befitting an animal, he yanked my already destroyed shirt up just enough to bare my breasts. He focused on the way they bounced as he fucked me against the wall.
“I love you, Jax. I love you,” I cried as he captured one of my tits in his hands and squeezed.
I ran my own palms over the broad slope of his shoulders, down his biceps. My skin tingled with the intensity of his gaze.
His eyelids drooped, languorous and heavy, as he came inside of me with a roar. He lowered his forehead to my shoulder, his breathing heavy and unsteady.
“I love you. I love you. I love you,” I breathed, running my fingers through his hair.
He slowly lifted his head and blinked at me, seemingly in a daze. Confusion blanketed his face for a fraction of a second before he took in our position—and the bloody mess that was my neck.
He stumbled backwards as if he were on fire, his wet dick hanging limply between his legs. I used the wall to guide myself to the ground. I wasn’t sure I was capable of standing anymore, and not just because of the blood loss.
Jax had fucked me so hard I was sure I’d walk funny for weeks.
“Oh my god.” Jax stared at me in dawning horror, and I was so incredibly fucking thankful to see it was my Jax staring back at me, not the vampire wearing his face. “What did I do? What the fuck did I do?”
He dropped to his knees in front of me and practically ripped his shirt off. He placed it against my bleeding neck as tears trailed down his cheeks. “I’m so fucking sorry, Z. I’m so sorry.”
He began to sob.
“I look like a fucking mess,” I said with a snort.
And I did. I had blood on my neck and in my hair. My shirt was still bunched up on top of my boobs. My underwear was partially ripped, and the part that wasn’t was soaked through. Cum dripped down my thighs.
“I’m so sorry, Z,” Jax continued, ignoring my smart-ass comment. “I’m sorry.” He applied more pressure to my neck. “I couldn’t control myself. I was in that room for weeks. I was so thirsty. I wasn’t thinking. I couldn’t control myself.”
“Hey.” I shakily brought my hands to his cheeks, noticing that his clean-shaven face had grown a beard. It prickled beneath my fingertips. “I don’t blame you. I’ll be okay. I know that wasn’t you. And you stopped, right? I’m still alive. I’m still here.”
“I drank from you and then fucked you like a goddamn animal!” Jax exclaimed, horrified.
I smirked, though it pained me to do so. My head felt stuffed with wet cotton balls. “And it was hot.”
He gaped at me. “How can you joke at a time like this?”
“Because I know I’m going to be okay,” I told him sincerely. “You stopped in time. You fought against your sin and won.”
Jax continued to stare at me in disbelief. Tears cut through the blood on his face like zigzagging tracks. “I didn’t even let you come.”
I snorted out a laugh. Yeah, that part kind of sucked.
“You’ll make it up to me,” I reassured him.
“How could you even want me to touch you after what I did?” Revulsion filled his tone, along with a heady dose of self-loathing. “I fucking attacked you! I could’ve killed you!”
My heart writhed at the pain in his voice. “But you didn’t, Jax. You stopped. A part of you must’ve known it was me.”
Jax scrubbed at his mouth with his free hand, frowning at the blood left behind. Then, in a soft voice, he said, “It was your touch.”
“What?” I blinked at him.
“Your touch. Your words. Your scent. They grounded me. Brought me back to the present.” He leaned forward and rested his forehead against my own. “Z, I’m so sorry?—”
“Stop saying that,” I told him resolutely.
“I love you so much.”
My heart rate spiked at his declaration. I knew he loved me. He told me all the time, but I never got tired of hearing it.
“I love you too.” I shakily brought a hand to his cheek. “And I forgive you. This wasn’t your fault, Jax. At all. And you stopped. You stopped before it could go too far.”
He squeezed his eyelids shut, and another tear broke free, cascading down his cheek to join with the others that had already fallen. I followed that tear with my gaze.
Jax pulled me closer to him, and I went willingly, allowing him to wrap me in his embrace. We were still holding each other when a flash of light blinded me. I felt adrift, a dandelion seed floating in the wind. Jax’s arms around me dissipated.
I blinked, and I was back in the tent once more, my clothes intact. When I placed my hand to my neck, it came away clean, not a single speck of blood to be seen.
And Bash…
Bash was talking, seemingly unperturbed by my sudden disappearance and reappearance.
“I think we need to be smart about this,” Bash said, frowning. He slid his gaze in my direction, and the lines around his mouth deepened. “Everything okay, Z?”
I blinked and focused back on the table.
Ryland and Dair stared at me curiously, Davia’s brows pinched, B looked annoyed, and Mali and HH wore identical expressions of concern. Paco still eyed the plates of donuts like they were his long-lost lovers.
What the fuck?
It was like no time had passed, yet I’d been in that maze for hours. Jax, apparently, had been there for months.
I opened my mouth to respond when the tent flap blew open and Killian arrived, out of breath and shaking.
“Vampires. There are vampires here.” A combination of terror, wonderment, and confusion played across his face. “They want to swear their fealty to Z and Jax.”