Chapter 20 – Rorik
This is it.
She’s going to find out just how horrible I am. So horrible that I killed the ones my heart belonged to. She’ll want to run away from me. She’ll refuse to accept the bond.
And I will, once again, live eternity alone and tortured.
“Brynn was ready to kill me, not caring that I was attempting to right my wrongs, but maybe word hadn’t gotten around.”
I smile at the memory of Brynn landing in front of me, distaste on her face.
“Gargoyles quickly learned how to kill vampires. I’m not sure how, maybe by testing out different… methods. Or maybe they saw me killing my own kind: decapitation, a stake through the chest, ripping out the heart.”
Aurora has made her way back to the couch where she slowly sits down, listening.
“Brynn was stronger than me, not quite as fast, but I was enamored by her beauty. Tall, curvy, lovely gray skin. That distraction allowed her to pin me to the ground and sink a stake into my heart. Which, as you personally know, does nothing to me.”
Aurora lifts her eyes from the twisting hands in her lap.
“I didn’t know at the time that Brynn was my mate.
I just knew my body wanted hers. She was still straddling me, confused that I hadn’t died.
Her scent overwhelmed me; she was aroused.
She could feel my cock hardening underneath her.
Then she fucked me, using the knife’s handle—still embedded in my chest—like the horn of a saddle.
“After spending several days together at her home, I needed to leave to feed. Brynn joined me. That’s when we met a human named Eden.
A beautiful, curvy little thing with dark red hair.
Her blood smelled magnificent. Nothing like I’d ever tasted before…
at least, not until I met you. I nearly drained her of every last drop, but Brynn was there to stop me.
She could sense that this human was different. She was right. Eden was also my mate.”
Aurora lets out a small puff of air, barely audible to even my supernatural ears.
“You said I’m different from them? Is it only because you can’t hear my thoughts?”
“Remember what I told you about blood mates?”
She nods.
“When a vampire mates with a human, they change. Their hearts will begin beating, and their tears will no longer bleed. They will be all but human while still living an immortal life. But none of that happened to me when I mated with Eden. I’m not sure why, maybe because I also shared my soul with Brynn. But you…”
I stalk toward the couch.
“Your voice, your touch, your nearness is awakening a part of me that died when your mother turned me. You might just be my cure.”
I sit on the coffee table in front of Aurora. She sheds a single tear, and I wipe it with my thumb before taking her hands in mine.
“I had 100 years with Eden and Brynn. Losing a mate is a painful experience.
I lost two. Two. I wanted to die with them.
I thought I would have. The pain that filled my body once their souls departed our world…
it felt as if I was being stabbed repeatedly all over my body, not an inch spared.
As if my own soul was trying to separate from my body.
“I shut down. Slept for centuries, letting my body wither until I had to emerge because I could no longer go without feeding. I… I did a lot of bad things after waking from that slumber. I killed a lot of innocent souls.”
“What happened to them, your mates? You said you’re the reason they’re no longer alive.” Aurora whispers.
“I… killed them.”
“What?” Her voice cracks on the word.
“I don’t remember doing it. I shouldn’t have been able to do it. The bond shouldn’t have allowed it. But their blood was on my hands. In my mouth… I drained them. Their hearts were ripped from their bodies… hearts that once belonged to me, left unmoving on the ground.”
Aurora stands and pulls me up from the coffee table and guides me to the couch. She straddles me, taking my face in her hands.
“You’re crying,” she says softly, wiping away the tears. “They’re not bloody tears.”
I shake my head, trying to understand. How can all of this be happening if Aurora and I haven’t even completed a mating bond? Is it because the bond knows she’s going to accept? What if she doesn’t? What if everything I’ve told her scares her away?
Yet, here she is, in my lap, consoling me.
She’s not running away from the monster before her.
I close my eyes. Aurora leans in and places her lips just below my lids. She repeats the action on the other side.
My hands smooth up and down her back. I inhale deeply, letting her sweet scent overwhelm me.
Calm me.
After kissing my tears, she flicks her tongue along the tracks.
Licking them away.
I moan and bury my hands in her thick, red hair to pull her lips to mine. The kiss is frantic, consuming. My tongue lashes over hers, and she whimpers and squirms in my lap. Her hands move along the sides of my neck down to my chest and up again until she’s fisting my hair.
My fangs drop when she tugs hard enough to cause pain. The sharp tips scrape over her lips, drawing blood.
I lap it up, then suck on the open wound.
Aurora grinds harder on my thickening cock.
“I need you, Rory.”
Her saying my name, that name, garners a growl. I secure my hands on her plump ass and stand, using my speed to bring us to the bedroom. She yelps at the fast movement.
I’m too impatient to undress her and rip the sweatpants off her body, followed by her panties. She curses and reaches for the button of my pants while I tear the oversized t-shirt off of her next.
She manages to fish my cock out, and I don’t waste time. I lay her down on the bed, line the head up to her wet pussy, and thrust inside her. She screams and digs her nails into my back.
I jerk my hips, pounding into her soft, warm cunt fast and unforgiving.
“Yes, Rory, harder.”
I can’t. I’ll hurt her if I do. But she seems to want it rough, so I wrap a hand around her neck and squeeze. She whimpers, her pussy walls fluttering around me. With my other hand, I take a nipple between my fingers and pinch. She bucks underneath me.
I watch as her face reddens the longer she goes without air. Her eyes roll back into her head. Her heartbeat quickens, and right before I’m sure she’s going to pass out, I release my hold.
She erupts with an orgasm. Her body shakes underneath me, and I pause while her pussy constricts around my length.
“Give me another, Little Lamb,” I say, resuming my damning thrusts.
She shakes her head, tears rolling down her face.
I piston my hips harder and she moans. Leaning down, I take the peak of her breast into my mouth. My tongue lashes over the hardened bud.
My fangs mark her, giving tiny cuts as I suck her tit.
I release my shadows and send them to her hands that keep clawing my back. The tendrils wrap around her wrists and pin them above her head.
Another shadow moves to her asshole and sinks past the first tight ring.
Aurora’s back arches off the bed. “Fuck!”
I don’t let up, pumping into her harder, if possible.
“I’m close, Rory, please,” she begs.
She’s taking me so well, such a good girl, so I’ll let her have her release.
Without warning, I sink my fangs into her breast.
She screams as a second orgasm washes over her. Her tight cunt milks me, sending me over the edge as well. My cum splashes her walls, and I groan with each pull of her blood. It tastes too sweet.
“Rory…”
Her heartbeat slows. She’s going to pass out. I detach myself from her breast, licking over the wounds so they’ll heal, and once her orgasm ends, I remove my cock from her.
Picking her up, I walk us to the shower in the main bedroom’s bathroom.
“Stay awake for me, Little Lamb,” I say, patting her cheek.
I turn on the shower, testing the water to make sure it’s warm enough. Then I step underneath.
Aurora gasps the moment the water hits her, then she smiles and stares up at me dreamily.
“That was good,” she says.
“Just good?”
“Fantastic. Amazing. Best I’ve ever had.”
“Okay, now you’re just teasing me.”
She snorts and sighs. “I’m serious, though. It felt… right. Like you were made just for me.”
“Technically, you were made for me since I’m older.”
“You always need to be right, don’t you?”
Yes, yet she’s the only one who ever challenges me.
“I’m going to wash you now, okay?”
She hums, and I gently set her feet on the ground. I lather up a cleansing scrub and get to work.
“I have a question,” Aurora says as I get on my knees to start between her legs.
“Ask away.”
“You said the bond shouldn’t have allowed you to harm your mates. But we’re mates, and I was able to stake you twice.”
“But I couldn’t die. The bond knew it. And I’m pretty sure I deserved it.”
“You did,” she says with an adorable giggle. “But if you can’t remember killing your mates, how can you be sure it was really you?”
I’ve thought of this often. But if it weren’t for their blood on my hands and in my mouth…
“I believe my curse was stronger than the bond.”
If I weren’t a selfish vamp, I’d leave Aurora to protect her from me.
Yet here I am, washing my cum from her cunt and basking in our post-orgasm haze.
“Is your favorite color really green?” she asks when the silence between us stretches for too long.
“It is.”
“Because of witches?”
“Maybe it’s because your eyes are green. Maybe it’s because I’ve dreamt about your emerald eyes for the past 3,000 years. They’ve haunted my dreams, taunted my waking thoughts, and teased my broken heart.”
“Rory…”
“To be honest, I didn’t have a favorite color until you were destined to be mine.”
She thinks about that with a smile.
“What about you?” I ask. “What’s your favorite color?”
“Pink, probably.”
I chuckle. “There’s nothing pink about me.”
“That’s not true.”
“Oh yeah?”
She nods. “Your aura is pink. Pink auras are rare.”
She smiles and shrugs at the tilt of my head.
“I can read auras. I used to do it at my shop. I had a shop. I just can’t remember where it is.”
I turn off the shower and step out with Aurora. I leave her on the mat to grab a towel to dry her off.
“What does a pink aura mean?”
She watches me dry off her legs—such an intimate act, even more so than what we just did in the bedroom.
“It means you experience unconditional love. You’re tender. Intense. Passionate.”
Tender is not a word anyone has ever used to describe me. It’s definitely not something I’d consider myself.
But with her…
My hand skims over the ink along her arm. “Tell me about your tattoos.”
Her face lights up. “Well, the crescent moon and smoke are for my magic and spells, and the snapdragons are because I’ve always loved them.”
I don’t know a lot about flowers, but I do know that snapdragons represent inner strength and can symbolize protection.
I lean in and kiss a red snapdragon bud.
“They’re beautiful. Like you.”
I don’t miss her blush as I stand to wrap the towel around Aurora’s body. I kiss her forehead. “Come on. I bought ice cream.”
“What flavor?”
“Mint chocolate chip.”
“My favorite!”
“I know.”
Again, I’m not sure how I know some of these things about her, like the size of clothes she wears or how she likes her coffee.
Maybe we’re sharing these details in dreams that we can’t remember upon waking.
Or maybe since we can’t communicate silently with our thoughts, everything else about us is connected organically.
Everything about my pairing with Aurora is different from the vampires before me. My life, in general, is an anomaly. The witches could never figure out why either. But I’m confident it’s because I was created by a witch who used black magic.
And Aurora is the key to breaking that curse.