Chapter 7
SEVEN
Christian
I know the moment she realizes her mistake.
Her sweet laughter cuts off into silence, and only the hardness of metal jarring against the spiraling bedpost can be heard.
I cannot see her. But I can sense her features.
A soft outline of light surrounds her in the dark, my heightened senses giving me as much detail as possible.
I can smell the panic she exhales. It’s acidic and bitter.
The opposite of her alluring heartbeat that’s thrumming like a hummingbird caged in my hands.
She’s a curious little thing though. It’s an accomplishment to pique my interest. People are predictable.
Especially humans. I can’t predict what this girl does though.
From the way she kissed me in the club to the way she’s calculating her next step, it’s all very, very different from what I’m used to.
Despite her fear, she doesn’t scream. She shifts carefully around the blanket, and in the dark, I can see her bright aura surrounding her as she lifts up to her knees.
And so, I crawl silently over the dense mattress.
Not a single part of the bed dips as I inch closer and closer and closer until.
.. the heat of her breath fans across my lips.
She really is a bird in my hand. She doesn’t even know where I am.
And yet... I could snap her neck before her next blink.
Why is she so magnetic? Even the quietness of my heart can be felt, with a heaviness that weighs my own chest just simply from not touching her soft skin.
The taste of her blood is a fresh memory in my mind that I can’t ignore. It’s a taste that’s rich and imprinted on my tongue.
But I can’t do that again.
Not ever.
I’m a hunter. A killer. A monster. But I’m loyal.
Even to a man as disgusting as my father.
“I—I didn’t know you were into this kind of thing,” she whispers in a mostly even tone. The light laughter that accompanies her words confuses me. It conflicts with the slamming pace of her pulse.
I smile quietly.
She’s smart. Controlled. Cunning. All the things a woman bound in my golden chains shouldn’t be. Even vampire women cry when they’re first bound or promised. My sister’s sobs from this evening are a constant shadow at the back of my mind that I don’t want to think about right now.
Why is the girl different?
I linger there and listen as she swallows slowly. I wish I could see her features better. The light surrounding her is all I’m able to pick up on, and it’s making me insane not to watch every syllable leave her fuckable lips.
She’s on high alert but doesn’t even know I’m right in front of her. If I were a different man, I’d break her before her very next breath, and she’d never see it coming.
She’s a female, and females are meant to be broken under Blood Law. It’s not my rule though. I watched that rule destroy my own mother, and now...
I shake my head at the racing, blinding thoughts. My jaw grinds with frustration to get my mind in order.
Not that that’s possible.
I won’t break her. But I will play with her. I want to see how far she’s willing to take her little performance. How long can she cling to that false sense of security before her natural instinct to burst into tears and beg me for her life will kick in?
Show me what you’re made of, Pretty Pet.
“I’m into a lot of things ,” I tell her, my voice vibrating in my throat, and it’s only then that she realizes I’m right in front of her.
A gasp cuts across her lips, but she silences it. She swallows it down, and then she does the very boldest thing anyone has ever done to me:
She touches me without permission. She does it just like she did last night, and I find myself in a trance all over again.
I don’t lash out at the feel of her touch against my skin. My flesh doesn’t crawl with a need to shove her away.
I—I like it even.
Soft fingertips skim up my bare chest, her touch blazing hot along the low lines of my abdomen. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. The tingles of her skin against mine ripple right through me and straight down to my cock.
The darkness caged within me rattles to life.
“Why don’t you show me?” she says with a soft, meticulous breath that fans along the edge of my jaw.
My eyebrow arches at this creature. It’s that one soft breath that makes me realize she isn’t fully human. She’s very much dark fae. Conniving and calculating are exactly what she is, and her ability to still use those gifts even while facing a death like myself...
She’s good. Really fucking good.
What is she plotting?
I intentionally take her bait with the snap of my palm against her wrist, stopping her addictive touch from exploring another single inch of my body. Her breath falters.
“No touching, Pretty Pet.” My other hand slides up the smooth span of her soft thigh. She shifts against my touch, adding more friction and—was that a gasp of fear or excitement?
It’s a testing touch along the softest skin I’ve ever felt as I trail up her inner thigh and dangerously along the edge of her panty line. She leans in once more, brushing herself against my hand like a creature desperate for affection.
She is desperate. Desperate for survival. And it’s sexy. As. Fuck.
The tremble of her breath is this mesmerizing mixture of panic and pleasure.
The peaks of her nipples graze my bare chest ever so lightly through her thin dress.
The hitch of her exhale has me devouring the tiny noises she gives away.
Images of what I could do to her—how deep I could fuck her, how wet I could make her, how loud I could make her cry out—they all flicker through my mind like scratching thoughts I can’t keep track of.
I want to keep her chained here for the rest of our lives just to hear how she sounds with every orgasm I could take from her pent-up body.
She needs this more than she wants it. It’s a distraction we both need.
“What are you plotting, Pretty Pet?” My lips graze the shell of her ear, and the noise that whimpers from her lips has me instantly rock hard.
The control it takes not to shove aside her wet panties and thrust my fingers into her hot pussy is a fraying string that I’m barely holding together.
A hum follows that sweet whimpering sound though. A much more confident noise that has me even more enamored with this strange, captivating captive.
Her head turns toward mine, our lips lingering all too closely together.
So much so, I can feel the buzz between our mouths that sparks with unspoken words.
She kissed me last night. Hard. She kissed me like I wasn’t my father’s pet monster or a prince to be crowned in a kingdom damned to fucking hell.
She kissed me like she wanted to forget her life.
“I could tell you,” she whispers those taunting words along my lips, and I can’t help but close my eyes as if the weight of her breath is the faintest kiss I’ll never get from her. “Do something for me, and maybe you’ll get something in return.”
The thrum of her heartbeat is calmer now. No longer frightful but assured.
Whatever she’s planning, I want to see it out. I have to know.
With confusion and curiosity, my fingertips slide up, up, up.
The pulse of her clit is at the tip of my finger as I just barely give her the slightest pressure there from over a rough lace fabric.
Sweet thighs shift against my hand. Her heat alone is addicting.
Her wetness that seeps through those thin panties is intoxicating.
The feel of her against my fingertips, the thought of her squeezing down my shaft; suddenly it’s all I can think about.
But the real confusion is, why is she leaning into me? Why is she pressing her pussy down across my palm? Why is she grinding her hot cunt against my hand?
And the most confusingly curious thing of all about this little mortal girl:
“Why is there a man’s blood on your hands, Crymson Vain?”
The bed lurches. Her body collides with mine. I’m so distracted about every single part of her that I go down easily. Once she’s on top of me, I don’t want to stop her. I don’t want to pin her beneath me and punish her.
I want to see her next move.
And it’d be a lie if I said it wasn’t a turn-on to have her holding me down like this. No one gets the best of me. The thing inside won’t let them.
Oh, but fuck, I wish she would.
With scattering legs, she kicks hard at the bed until she’s high above me.
And in no time at all, my gold chains around her wrist are cutting into my throat.
It’s an irritating sting of pressure that she doesn’t have the muscle to enforce.
I blink up at her where she sits in the dark, and I listen to her groans and struggles of trying to choke me.
She’s actually trying to steal the breath from my lungs.
But the joke’s on her: I haven’t taken a real fucking breath in all my life.
This poor mortal girl thinks suffocation is the key to killing a vampire.
The smile on my lips is a ghost in the dark. Laughter shakes to get out. I swallow it down. I don’t make a sound, and I even allow myself to go slack across the bed. I don’t close my eyes. I can’t stand to. My cock is rock hard with the idea of seeing this pretty little redhead fight me off.
And so, I let her kill me.
Or at least, I let her think she has killed me.
The hard press of the chains lessens. Shaking hands hover over my throat as she just holds her bindings above me. The smell of the blood on her hands is consuming now.
The blood is a slight splatter, a hint of droplets that are more of a wound than a killing.
The man from last night, he screwed up. And she made him pay for it, it seems. She got to him long before I did.
Fuck, why does that make me even harder for some reason?
A sob shoves from her lungs, and the only sign of her tears is the light trembling of the blanket as she takes concealed, slow breaths.
I can hear it: she keeps her palms tightly to her mouth like she can stop the emotions that press to get out.
It’s strange, but it seems to work. The emotions are silenced before the salty scent of her tears even meets the air.
She doesn’t linger on her sadness. Survival is all she’s focused on.
It might be all she has ever been focused on in her short life.
She lifts herself over me, her pussy so close to my face, it’s hard not to slip under her and taste her even more.
I swallow hard and remain unmoving. Her chain slides over my face and chest, and then a small hand shoves into my pocket.
It’s a scramble of fumbling fingers until she seems to have found what she was looking for:
The key.
For her chains.
She’s smart. She’s going to run.
She’s just not smart enough.
Her breath halts. Her jarring movements stop.
It takes me several seconds of edged suspense to finally realize why she has stopped: Within my pants, against the thin material of my pocket, the hardness of my cock pulses with a bob that brushes her fingers.
It’s the slightest move that seems to slam surprise and understanding right into her.
Because then she’s running.
I leap up before both of her feet even hit the floor. My chest slams into her soft body, and I twist to the side to take her back down on the bed. My body covers her small frame. A bounce of the mattress grinds her into me in a deliciously distracting way.
But not too distracted.
Not anymore
The weight of her breath fans over my jaw as I lean in to whisper sweetly in her ear.
“Do not. EVER . Run from me, Pretty Pet. Because I will hunt you. And I will enjoy it.”