Saint
Aurora’s new home is so quiet, even as the night staff comes in and does a quick clean, filling the house with food and any other supplies they think we might need.
I sit on one of the cushioned lounge chairs near the illuminated pool laid into the stone courtyard.
I’ve been out here since night broke, doing my best to reinforce my mental shields.
Flashes from last night burst behind my eyes. My dreams of Aurora—touching her skin, kissing her again, feeling her beneath me, sinking my fangs into her neck.
Fuck. It had felt so damn real.
I’ve never lost control while sleeping. Not once in all my years. But with Aurora? The lines between her soul and mine are getting blurry. We’ve shared a mind-space so often, I naturally reach out to her any time she’s near.
I rebuild my shield, hoping that taking the guest room next to hers, and not the couch in her bedroom, will help me keep my fantasies to myself.
Hunger gnaws through me, a suffocating thirst that makes me ache. It’s been nine days since I fed from a volunteer feeder. I can feel the effects—my head pounds, my fangs ache, and there’s a burn in my throat that no amount of water can satiate.
I clench my fists and crack my neck, desperate to move.
I’ve been hungry before. Samuel damn near starved me when he took me captive, and before that, I walked the line of bloodmadness with my obsession with human blood.
I toed that line, never crossing fully over like Samuel did, but this…
this feels different. A unique kind of hunger I don’t fully understand.
Once I hear the night staff leave, I head back into the house. I can still smell the humans’ lingering scents. Not one of them smells appetizing, but I’d stayed outside just in case. I may be an asshole, but at least I’m aware.
It doesn’t take me more than a second to pinpoint where Aurora is in the house, and I head toward the kitchen that could fit an entire restaurant in it.
Aurora leans against the black marble kitchen island, spearing a fork into a plate of pasta.
She takes a bite, her lips wrapping around the fork in a way that has my fangs begging to punch out.
Fuck me, I need to get a grip. But with her, it’s impossible.
She’s always been my responsibility, but she doesn’t realize she’s been my undoing since the moment I laid eyes on her.
The more time I’ve spent with her, the harder I’ve fallen.
And I hate it. Because she deserves so much more than me.
The hunter who might have a slip in sanity at any moment.
The twin who shares a bond with her abuser…
the bond that might kill me when I finally manage to end my brother.
“This pasta is amazing,” she says before looking up at where I linger just outside the kitchen.
I step farther into the space, wondering if she knew how long I’ve been watching her.
She sets her fork down and studies me as I stop on the other side of the island.
“You okay?”
“There’s no sign of the Sons,” I answer. “No sign of a threat anywhere on the property.”
Aurora nods. “That’s great to hear, but that’s not what I asked.”
“I’m fine.” I double the ice around my heart.
She scans my face, her eyes lingering on mine. I can’t help but wonder if every time she looks at me, she thinks about him.
“You look hungry.” She pushes the plate toward me. “I’ve got plenty to share.”
She looks so damn hopeful, I can’t help but pick up the fork and scoop up a bite. It’s a fine dish, but it’s nowhere near close to the food I want or need. My eyes trail to her neck, to the whorls of black ink that make up my and my twin’s mating mark.
Bite. Claim. Fuck.
The territorial bastard inside me imagines stepping into her space, running my hands over her body, picking her up and spreading her on this very kitchen island. Fuck, I’m certain she’d taste like heaven spilling into my mouth. Filling me, fueling me in every single way I need.
I clench my eyes shut, searching for that thread of control I can feel stretching so tight, I’m afraid it’ll snap.
“Saint?”
I blink a few times, forcing my sight to switch back to normal, not thermal. I’m not on a fucking hunt. I’m not about to tear into her flesh.
But if she’d ask me again…
I really hope she doesn’t. I don’t know how much longer I can deny her.
“Do you like it?”
“It’s good,” I answer, pushing the plate back toward her.
“But not what you were craving?” There’s a flash of desire in her eyes, a teasing sort of levity and clarity that makes my heart sing.
Fuck, she’s brilliant. She’s come so far.
Soon, she won’t need me to help her through the nightmares.
She’ll be free of me. And once I manage to kill my brother, she’ll be free of us both.
I should be proud. Should be happy about that fact. But I’m a selfish bastard who wants to stay in her presence forever.
“I could help you with that,” she says, rounding the kitchen island to stand in front of me. She’s so close, her scent floods my nose. A low growl rumbles from me, a purely primal response I can’t stop. I lock every one of my muscles, forcing myself to barely breathe.
“Aurora.” Her name is a warning.
She doesn’t heed it, stepping closer. “Saint.”
Fuck me, when she says my name like that, I lose another ounce of my control.
She’s offering herself like a five-course meal on decorative silver platters.
It would be so easy to dip down, capture her mouth, and haul her against me.
I could touch her, make her limp with pleasure before sinking my fangs into her and drinking her down so deep, I’d be living off her alone.
Tasting her would be my ruin. I’ve wanted her for so long, how would I ever stop?
“Let me help—”
“No,” I cut her off and take a step away from her. The idea of having no control with her, of possibly drinking too much…I can’t put her at risk like that.
I won’t.
Her shoulders drop, but she holds her firm gaze, not budging an inch.
I turn around, and every step away from her feels like walking through wet cement.
A bloodcurdling scream rips through the walls.
I’m on my feet and wending into Aurora’s room before I’ve fully registered that I’m awake.
She thrashes on the bed, fighting against an invisible assailant. Relief surges through me for a moment, the breath coming back to my lungs now that I know she’s not under an actual physical attack, just a mental one.
“Aurora,” I whisper her name, climbing onto the bed. “Aurora, wake up.” I catch her fist as it flies toward me, the punch having a bite to it that makes me proud.
Her eyes fly open, darting left and right, her chest rising and falling rapidly.
“It’s okay,” I assure her. “It was another nightmare.”
She looks at me, reality coming back to her eyes. Her face crumples. “I hate it.” She drops her head against me, and I automatically wrap my arms around her. She trembles in my embrace, the adrenaline still coursing through her body.
“Was it the same?” I ask.
“It’s always the same,” she admits. “I beg him to stop. Beg him to kill me. He lets me taste death. Teases me with the relief of it. Then heals me.”
Anger sweeps through me in an inferno of hate.
“Make it go away,” she begs.
That quickly, I drop my mental shields, needing to soothe her in any way I can.
My power reaches out to her mind in an instant, the two of us so used to this dance we’ve done it in our sleep.
I focus hard, not wanting any images I send her to be of my deepest desires.
Instead, I paint her a moonlit beach, like the one on Cassandra’s island that she loved so much.
She relaxes in my arms, leaning heavier against me before jerking away. “No.”
I lose hold of the scene, blinking down at her. “You want to go somewhere else?” I ask, desperate to help her. “Tell me. I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.”
She inhales deeply, reaching up to cup my face in her hands. “I want to be with you, Saint. Here. Now.”
“Of course,” I answer immediately, holding her a bit tighter.
We’ve done this so many times before, spent hours talking through the night after her nightmares.
It’s how I learned she loves chocolate croissants and romance novels and how, when she was human, she had this incurable fear of spiders.
“Tell me about the book you’re reading,” I offer when she doesn’t prompt a conversation.
Normally she’s jittery and chatty after a nightmare, but sometimes, I have to coax her further out of them with topics.
“That’s not what I want to talk about,” she says. “But it’s an enemies to lovers romance.”
“Your favorite,” I say. “What do you want to talk about?”
She bites her lower lip, contemplative.
“Do you want to hear another story from a particular year?” I ask, knowing she loved to get lost in stories I’d tell from my past, always careful to tell them in a way that seemed like I never had a twin, like he never existed.
“No,” she says, shaking her head. “Saint…I don’t want to talk. I want…I want what’s real between us.” Her hand splays on my chest, slowly stroking downward—
I gently grip her wrist, stopping her. “You don’t want me.”
“I’m getting really sick of you telling me what I want.” She shakes her head. “Saint, when are you going to realize how much you mean to me?”
I furrow my brow, words getting stuck in my throat.
She moves on the bed, shifting from her sitting position to draw up on her knees like I am, facing me directly. “From the moment you saved me from that horrible place,” she says, running her hand over me.
Shit, I wended in here in only my boxer briefs.
“From the second you slipped into my mind and saved me from the nightmares. From the conversations we’d have after. The way you’re so quiet or sharp with everyone else, but with me, somehow, you crack open. I’ve only ever wanted to be with you.”
“You should be scared of me.”