Chapter 39
The Death Bringer
After Monique and Kenneth had left, Karson set out a rug on the grass by the water.
Sweat cooled on my skin as I snacked on a platter of fruits and biscuits and gourmet cheeses Mary had bought from the market.
Karson lay on his back beside me, his hands tucked behind his head, his eyes closed, his breathing slow and rhythmical.
I took a sip of champagne, my gaze sweeping over the soft cupid’s bow of his lips, down to the sharp cut of his jaw, his Adam’s apple, and further to the tip of his raven tattoo.
He was beautiful when he slept, when he was awake.
He was never not beautiful, not even when he was furious, not even when he was covered in blood.
If I thought he was attractive covered in blood, maybe Kenneth was right and I had been around vampires for too long.
I finished the champagne, placed the glass down, and climbed to my feet, stifling the urge to groan as the muscles in my legs felt like stretched-out piano wires.
“Where are you going?” he rumbled. Not asleep, then.
“To the water, I need to bathe.”
He sat up and squinted at the golden rays of the fast-falling sun. “We have to get back soon.”
For the dinner he had to go to. “I know, I’ll be quick.”
I felt his eyes burning my back as I peeled off my clothes and waded into the icy-cold water.
“Are you coming in?” I asked over my shoulder.
“I’m just admiring the view.”
I smiled as I turned to look at him. He was sitting up, his knees bent, his forearms resting on them. The sparkle in his eyes morphed as he took my body in, replaced with something deeper, something primal.
Feeling awkward at the intensity of his gaze, I turned and dived—well ploughed—in. Frigid water swarmed over my body, taking the breath from my lungs. I swam a few feet, and when I popped back up, he was standing at the water’s edge.
“Are you afraid of the water, vampire?” I teased, treading water.
“I am not afraid of anything,” he scoffed.
“Get in, then.”
He peeled off his top and my eyes drank in the cut of his muscles, the sixpack of his stomach, the V at the side running down his abdomen toward his groin, like an arrow guiding eyes to the gold.
He peeled off his jeans. The gold was covered by fitted black boxer shorts.
Until they came off too. He was well endowed—not I’m going to stretch your portal to heaven so your flaps burst into applause as you walk size, but big.
Bigger than any penis I’d seen, which was only Tom’s.
He also used it with far better skill than Tom had ever done.
I lifted my gaze to see Karson was watching me stare at his cock.
My cheeks flushed. He smiled, and in one lithe motion, he dived, barely making a splash as he entered the water, popping up right beside me.
His hands gripped around my waist. My hands went around his neck as he moved us closer to the water’s edge so my feet could touch the ground, until the water line rested under my breasts.
“Is it true vampires don’t like swimming?” I asked.
He looked amused. “I take it you saw that bit of information in a movie?”
I shrugged. “Probably read it in a book.”
“Oh well, if it’s in a novel it must be a fact.” His lip curled in the corner. “You realize you only need to ask me if you have questions.”
“You realize you aren’t the most forthright vampire.” Which was the understatement of the century.
His brows pinched. “I will always answer you honestly, Amelia.”
The cool water lapped around our bodies, stinging at my skin.
The sun’s rays swarmed across the horizon, white light spearing through shades of pink and red and blue.
Birds chattered in the treetops. The peace of the forest felt as though it existed outside the answer to one question I needed an answer to.
One question that had plagued me since the night in the library.
One image that came to life like a horror slideshow.
“Why didn’t you tell me they called you The Death Bringer?” My voice came out small against the forest.
His hands tensed slightly on my waist and he stared at a point over my shoulder, lost in distant memories, anguish flickering through his eyes, before he dropped his gaze back to me.
“What you read is not all true, but a lot of it is. What happened is not something I regret, but nor am I proud of it.”
“What parts aren’t true?”
“I did not, nor will I ever murder children,” he grated, muscles cording on his neck.
“It was the witches who slaughtered their own children to gain power. I found out about it and turned up to save them, but I was too late. The children had already been murdered. I killed their entire village for it without mercy.”
“They blamed you for all of it?”
He nodded slowly.
“You never corrected the records?”
“No, why bother. Witches wrote most of what you read. They run the library and invite us in to make it look as though they are peacekeepers. It is nothing but smoke and mirrors.”
I couldn’t imagine what it was like to be accused of something so horrific as murdering children and everyone believing you did it. “You’re not a monster.”
“Oh, I’m a monster.” Fresh anguish and disdain grated through his tone, as if he was disgusted by himself.
“I’ve done some things I’m not proud of.
” His throat bobbed, his voice dropping to a near whisper.
“I’ve done things I wish I could change.
” He brushed hair off my face. “I wish with all my heart I could change,” he repeated.
“Do not think I’m a good man, Amelia, because I am not. ”
The way he was looking at me, as if some deep and terrible memory twisted inside him, I wanted to reach in and untangle those broken pieces until they were all put back in place again. I wanted to ask him what he’d done that was so awful it drowned his light.
“Don’t,” he said, his tone laced with desperation as he read my mind. “Please, do not ask.”
The last thing I wanted to do was push and cause him more pain. “Maybe you are a monster sometimes,” I said gently. “But you’re my monster, and I love all the parts of you.”
His eyes fluttered as if each word stroked his heart. His knuckle grazed softly down my cheek. He didn’t respond for a long moment, then finally he rasped, “I do not deserve your love.”
I could hear it in his voice, the grief and anguish of feeling like he didn’t deserve to be loved. His past didn’t matter to me. I knew his heart, felt his soul, I saw the light and dark parts that existed within him, and I loved him anyway.
He closed his eyes and held his breath as if he was waiting for my response. My fingers ran through the back of his hair. The Death Bringer—no, I corrected the words—the Vampire King shivered under my touch. “I’m not that easy to get rid of, so you’re stuck with me, vampire.”
A small guttural sound rolled up his throat.
The kiss he pressed to my lips was not hard and demanding and ravenous.
It was slow and soft, as if he wanted to savor every moment of my lips, every flicker of our tongues touching.
I melted into him, his hard groin throbbing against my stomach, and heat rushed through me.
He shifted his weight back a little and his hand slid between my legs.
I opened them for him. His finger brushed lightly back and forth across my clit, and a moan slipped from my mouth.
He dipped his head, planting gentle kisses across my shoulder and up my neck while his finger kept moving in soft, agonizingly slow circles.
I clutched at his ass and his back, trying to pull him closer.
“You feel so good.” His breath was hot in my ear as a finger slid inside.
His words did something to me and I made a pathetic whimpering sound. Karson’s darkening eyes studied me as he slid two fingers in, rubbing back and forth, and my whole body went red hot and tight.
I reached for his cock, running my fingers over his hard length. A sound of ravenous desire erupted from his lips, drowned as he took my mouth, kissing me hungrily.
When he stopped kissing me, we were both panting, and I was practically shaking with desire.
“Do you want more?” he murmured, pulling his fingers out and working my clit again.
He knew I did. My fingers feathered the tip of his cock. “I want all of you.”
His hands shifted to under my ass and he lifted me up. I wrapped my legs around his waist. He groaned and the kiss deepened. I arched my hips against him, and he groaned again, deep and primal, the sound curling through the pit of my stomach down to my groin.
His cock edged at the tip of my core. He paused, dark, lust-born shadows in his eyes as he stared at me.
I needed to feel him inside, needed the two of us to become one.
Binary stars, joining. I wasn’t sure if I said the words out loud or he heard them in my mind—he could read my mind even without my ring on when my emotions were heightened, like now—but a smile edged the corner of his lips as he nestled his head against my mine and murmured, “Binary stars.”
The words washed over me, touching my heart, playing a beautiful tune like a lover’s song.
His cock throbbed against my groin. The need to feel every inch of him inside drove me to near madness.
I bucked my hips and his cock slid in, stretching me, filling me with heat.
The feeling of him was exquisite, and I gasped with the pleasure as I nuzzled his neck, before our mouths clashed again, devouring and sucking and licking.
He began to move, and I used his shoulders to meet each thrust, increasing the friction.
We were panting as we rocked against each other, his breath hot as he moaned my name into my ear.
My head arched back as he kissed and sucked my neck, the sensation adding to our growing desperation for release. More, harder, deeper.
Karson pounded into me, his fingers digging into my hips and ass as he forced himself deeper. A delicious burn blazed from my core through my entire body.
My moan was long and ravaged as he nipped my skin just below my jaw, so close to the jugular vein, and it drove me crazy. I wanted all of him on me, in me, as one, like we were meant to be.
“More,” I pleaded as I writhed against him.
“I’ve never wanted anyone as much as I crave you,” he groaned, his fingers clenching my ass tighter as he drove inside me faster, harder.
Our eyes locked as my fingers clutched his face. “Then take me, take all of me, I am yours.”
He stilled. He knew what I was offering, something I’d offered twice and been brutally denied.
His considerable length was still inside, pressing against my walls.
He began to wade out of the water. “You are mine,” his voice was rough and demanding, but he laid me gently on the picnic rug.
I yanked at him, trying to pull him closer as his cock slipped out.
My body ached for him, throbbed with need.
But he held fast, his elbows locked as he hovered above me, his eyes molten, filled with lust. “You are mine to look after, you are mine to protect, you are mine to make love to. But you are not mine to feed from.”
My fingers grazed down his taut sides, slipping to his hard, wet cock. He shuddered as I circled my thumb over the tip. “Bite, don’t bite, I don’t care, I just want you now.”
He dragged his mouth down my jaw, down my neck. His penis slipped from my touch as he lowered his mouth to my breast, sucking gently and running his tongue over my nipple.
A rush of lust whipped through body, dizzying me. “Fuck me,” I panted.
He twisted to his side, rolling onto his back and pulling me with him so I straddled him. He stared into my eyes as I lowered my hips down inch by inch. His cock filled so deep it touched my cervix, and I let out a cry that could be heard back at his house.
“Amelia, you sound like an angel. I don’t des—” His voice was lost on a groan as I moved up and down, burying him as deep as I could take him.
His fingers cupped my breasts, and my whole body filled with heat and stars. I was getting close, so close …
“That’s my girl, come for me,” he growled. “Come for me, angel.”
His voice, like flaming velvet, quivered through me and brought me undone. An orgasm ripped from my groin through my entire body. I cried out, and he swore as we exploded together. Like binary stars.
I collapsed against his chest, panting. His hands stroked slowly, soothingly over my hair and down my back, sending fresh shivers of sensation over me.
He pressed a tender kiss to my lips. “I want to do that again, immediately,” he breathed. “But we need to go. I’m going to need to carry you to get back in time for dinner.”
I scowled. “Why are you even having a dinner if you’re all vampires anyway? It’s not like you have to eat, or even really enjoy eating.”
He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear.
“It is not about the food, it’s about the bond and connection that is shared around the table.
He is an important guest and it’s a way of honoring him.
It is also a special tradition. By hosting and attending dinners, we can retain a cherished part of our human lives. ”
Reluctantly, I rose from his arms. He climbed to his feet and began to get dressed.
“Wouldn’t do to keep your guests waiting,” I responded dryly, collecting the rug off the ground.
“Our guests.”
The rug flopped to the ground. “Surely, you don’t want me to attend?”
He collected the rug and folded it, placing it in the backpack. “As someone residing with me, Rodney will expect you to be there.”
I barely knew him, but the thought of being seated at the same table as Rodney made my skin crawl. “You’re torturing me,” I groaned.
He stepped closer and his hands grazed over my ass. “If you don’t hurry up and get dressed, I may just have to torture you.”
I placed my hands around his waist. “Promises, promises. I’m definitely not getting dressed now.”
“Get dressed,” he purred into my ear. “And I promise I will make it up to you tonight.”
He didn’t have to ask again.