Chapter 7
Dahlia
I don’t know why I told her that. I’m not sure I’ve ever admitted it out loud.
Not even to Octavia. Sure, we’ve reconciled and Red was a huge part of that.
But to actually confess, to say the words out loud, that I was jealous, insecure.
That I felt overshadowed by everything she was, even when she was at her lowest?
My stomach knots, heavy like an anchor. I don’t do guilt or remorse, haven’t got time for it. I unfurl the tangle of emotions and shove it away. The fact I admitted the truth to a total stranger concerns me more.
“Thanks,” she says, her voice flitting in from the bathroom. But my body is hot, and I don’t want to talk to her anymore. I want to get away, to crawl inside my skin and bleach the words out from under my gums. What kind of fucking voodoo magician is she to pry truths from me?
I wander around her room, tightening my towel. I’ll need to get my case and clothes from the carriage. She has so many nooks and crannies I can’t help but poke, opening drawers and wardrobes just to have a nosy.
“I guess you’re right,” she says, and she must be washing because the water tinkles and splashes. “I just didn’t want to admit it.”
I let her talk to herself while I scour away the ugly pieces of me. My fingers brush a pile of papers and magazines on her desk. Mostly fashion, some Daily Imperium newspapers.
I knock a load off and halt. Beneath the newspapers are a pile of letters that make my fingers tingle.
Written in red ink, with large flowing letters are page after page of death threats, each one more twisted and sicker than the next.
Some threatening physical violence, others threaten her belongings, the palace, her reputation.
The last one my fingers stumble upon makes my hands tingle.
Rape. Torture. Forced pregnancy.
What kind of sick fuck writes this shit?
I scrunch up the papers, lobbing them in the bin and march to the bathroom.
I punch the door open; it slams against the wall.
“What the fuck?” Penelope shrieks and yanks the curtain across the bath. “I’m naked. How dare you come in? Again!”
It takes an unnatural amount of strength not to roll my eyes. “You have the same anatomy as I do, and after the threats I just found on your desk, I don’t give a fuck what you’re wearing, I’m no longer leaving your side. Period.”
“Get out of the bathroom!” she shrieks.
“Have you read those letters? There could be a predator lurking in here.”
She screams in frustration. “The only predator in here is you, Dahlia.”
“I’m the fucking predator?” I yank open the curtain and eyeball her. I have to bite the inside of my lip to stay focused on her face. Especially when every cell in my body is begging me to be a dirty perve and drag my eyes downward.
I don’t.
Gods, I’ve grown. Look at how mature I am now.
But I am also a lowly, blood-hungry vampire, so what I say instead isn’t much better. “I’m only a predator if you want your pussy eaten.”
And then my eyes roll down her body anyway.
Oh well, the thought was there.
I devour every inch of her skin. Sweet Mother of fucking Blood. She is perfection incarnate. Her legs appear even longer in the water. Her neat little pussy shaved bald glimmers under the rippling water.
I swallow hard.
She flushes dark, then pink blossoms on her cheeks.
Her skin is paler than mine. I spend most of my nights outside training hunters and vampires, so I guess the moon glow has turned me ruddy. I can tell she’s pasty normally, but she holds the afterglow of sun, like bees hold pollen.
My eyes wander over her smooth stomach. She’s actually on the skinny side; I prefer my women with soft stomachs and too much breast to suck. Penelope’s the kind of lean and athletic that would turn a sports girl green with hate. Her breasts are small, and pert. One perfect mouthful.
I swallow again.
“See something you like?” she says in a lilting tone that screams temptress.
I tut and lean down into the bath. She doesn’t flinch at my nearness, but her nostrils flare a touch. Good, at least I’m getting to her.
“You know, this bitchy little front doesn’t work with me, Penelope. It’s all because you’re too scared to let anyone in.”
Her gaze turns acid, eyes narrowing at me. I expect a comeback. Some jab or jibe at me.
But to my fucking shock, she opens her legs and displays her little pink lips.
“Oh, I’ll let in whoever I want,” she purrs.
Three things happen simultaneously:
She smirks. My jaw tightens.
Followed by,
My pussy gets wet. Like really fucking wet.
And,
Every ounce of dominance screams to the surface as I decide I am absolutely teaching her a lesson, because Mother of fucking Blood does this brat need one.
I tear my eyes from the fury-inducing smirk she’s wearing and examine her glorious pussy glimmering under the dappled water.
This is going to hurt me more than it hurts her, but I can’t help it.
It’s against my nature to let a woman behave like this.
I lower my hand. Tentative at first, I’ll be respectful, even if she isn’t.
My fingers hover above her knee. Enough warmth radiates from her skin it heats the pads of my fingers.
She makes no move to stop me. In fact, she widens her legs, spreading herself until I can see her opening just beneath the water.
Tempting.
Teasing.
She has no idea who she’s dealing with. I’m going to enjoy the hell out of this.
I glide lower, down her thigh and stop right before her pussy. Her mouth parts like she’s desperate, gagging for me to spread her folds and finger fuck her in the bath.
I smile, moderately irked by the fact I can’t stop my fangs from behaving like a teenage boy in the girls changing room. They drop unbidden because all my focus is on not sliding into her cunt.
“Do you always get what you want, Princess?” I say, my voice dropping to a rumble.
She sucks in her bottom lip, her long blonde eyelashes fluttering at me as she nods.
I am going to fucking ruin you. I smile harder.
“Mmm, and what is it that you want?” I say.
She opens her legs wider, hoisting her clit just above the water line. My mouth waters so much I have to press my lips shut and swallow. I brush my fingers down her centre, she inhales, sharp. Her eyelids flutter shut as her pelvis tilts towards me.
I hover above her clit, my hand still as stone. Heat billows between us. When I don’t make contact, her eyes snap open, widening as realisation dawns on her. She’s not getting an orgasm, and I’m not going to touch her.
I pull my hand away and straighten up.
She slams her legs shut. “I’m not a fucking lesbian anyway,” she snaps as she makes to get out of the bath.
But she slips on the bathtub floor. I lunge to catch her and keep her upright. She jerks her arm out of my grip. This is delicious, I’ve really pissed her off. I grab her towel and hold it up for her. Just. Out. Of. Reach.
Her nostrils flare as she steps out of the bath and swipes for it. But I’m faster and step farther out of her reach.
“Not a lesbian? And yet, no one opens their legs that confidently unless… Yeah… I’d put good money on the fact you’ve slept with a woman before.”
Penelope looks away, feinting to the side, only to dart back and snatch the towel out of my grip.
Her eyes glint with the spark of a win as she wraps it around herself. That little brat.
She cocks her chin up at me. “Just one woman.”
“And?”
“And nothing.”
“Did you like it?”
“I don’t see what relevance that has.” She struts past me towards the bedroom.
I sigh. Gods, she’s insufferably high maintenance. “Are you incapable of giving a straight answer…?”
She opens her wardrobe, purposely not glancing at me. “It wasn’t bad.”
She hauls on a nighty as I choke a laugh out. “Oh, Princess. If you’d been fucked properly by a woman, you’d never go back.”
Penelope’s eyes slide to my hands before she drags them up my body, ice leaking into her gaze as her lip curls. “And what? You think some vampire trash like you is the perfect woman for the job?”
Heat surges through me. I abandon my towel and I’m across the room, grabbing her hands and wrenching them behind her back, before she blinks. I bend her over my knee and take a seat on the edge of her bed in one smooth movement.
I lower my voice to a sinister whisper. “When you lie, the muscle in your neck twitches, and the blood rushes to that pretty little mouth of yours. You want to fuck me as much as you want the next designer dress.”
She bleats out frustrated yelp, struggling against my grip. I couldn’t be more smug if I tried.
“Take your fucking hands off me,” she yelps and wriggles, her bra-less tits rubbing over my thighs beneath the nighty.
Gods. If I had a dick, it would be painfully swollen right now. What is this woman doing to me?
“Now you listen to me. I’ve tamed many a brat over the years. If I have to deal with you for the next forty-eight hours, you’re going to be on your best behaviour. Which means no more insults. No more whining. And only straight answers.”
“Or what?”
Seriously? I shake my head, bemused at the fact she’s still pushing. “Or…” I lean over her body, pressing her torso against my thighs and whisper into her ear. “…there will be consequences.”
I shove both her wrists into one hand and tug her nighty up to her waist with the other, running the flat of my palm over her arse cheek.
“You wouldn’t dare,” she hisses.
I smile, my fucking traitorous fangs descending again as I grin at her. “Fuck around and find out, Princess.”
Penelope straightens against my grip in that defiant way that says try me.
Oh, I will.
I pull my hand back and slap her still damp arse. She cries out, aghast.
“How fucking d—”
I spank her again. The scream turns to a moan, her hips tilting to angle her backside towards me.
I fucking knew it.
“Filthy little princess, aren’t you?”
She wriggles against my grip. Her cheeks flame red, though I can’t tell whether it’s fury, frustration or the deep-seated need to be fucked.