Chapter 13
Kohl shivered as he gradually became aware of cold rain trickling down his bare back and warm woman snug in his arms. Blinking his eyes open, he instantly realized where they were.
Or, where they weren’t, was more apt.
Completely alert in an instant, a quick assessment showed there was no immediate danger.
Not from the sun, and not from vampires.
Like any other predator, he knew instantly if any others of his kind were near.
He touched his face and shoulder, feeling the remnants of some pretty serious injuries.
Healing from wounds of this caliber took a lot out of him, making shifting back an experience he’d rather not remember, and he usually didn’t.
He must’ve passed out. Looking up at the sky, he saw some clouds had rolled in, and it was hard to judge what time it was, but he would guess they had a good three hours before sunrise.
Plenty of time for him to get them out of the open.
Devon shivered in his arms as the rain wet her face, and his body hardened instantly, eager to remind him that three hours gave them time to do plenty of other things, also.
He resisted the urge to press his hips into the softness of her ass.
Barely. But he couldn’t stop himself from tightening his hold around her waist and lowering his nose to her fragrant curls.
And then he smelled the blood.
His fangs extended as he carefully rolled her over, scanning her body for injuries.
There was a deep puncture wound in her neck. A wound he knew he hadn’t put there. He would remember if he’d fed from her. His blood would recognize her, and there’d be two fang punctures.
Kohl stared in utter shock.
Motherfucker.
Something harsh and primitive began churning in his gut, slowly working its way up to the surface. He realized he was making sounds he’d never heard himself make before. Possessive sounds. Violent sounds.
Devon blinked awake, and one hand came up to shield her face from the rain while the other reached for him, landing on the side of his face and jaw.
“Kohl? You’re back.” She smiled in the dark, but it quickly fell from her face.
“What’s wrong?” She tried to get up, but his arm lay heavy across her middle and he made no effort to release her.
She shivered again from the cold, the movement rubbing her ass provocatively against him. Though he knew she hadn’t done it on purpose, the urge to bite her was so strong, it took him a few seconds to answer. “You’ve been claimed.”
Her hand left his face and blindly felt the side of her throat. She probed the wound, and her fingers came away wet with blood. She rubbed the tips together. “He bit me.” Her voice had a faraway quality to it, and her emotions were…numb.
But Kohl was far from feeling such a lack of sensation.
“He claimed you as his to feed on,” he repeated.
Disgust and disbelief dripped from his voice.
Not toward her. Never at her. No. This was aimed all at himself as the urge to put her fingers in his mouth and suck off the blood that smelled so fucking good, to sink his fangs deep into her throat, nearly overcame any other thought in his head.
The instinct was so strong, he very nearly acted on it without thinking. But he caught himself just in time.
He knew who had done this. There was only vampire it could possibly be. Still, he wanted to be sure. The attack earlier was little more than a red haze in his mind. He caught her eyes with his. “Devon, who bit you?”
Anxious eyes searched for and found his. “I don’t know. I’d never met him before. He wasn’t at the club the other night. Or at least I never saw him.”
“What did he look like?”
She frowned. “Um...like a vampire. Black eyes, fangs.” He could see her struggling to remember, and tried to be patient.
Rushing her wouldn’t help anything. “No. He only had one fang. The other one was broken, or removed or something. Light skin. Long, dark hair. Oh! And I think he was wearing a jean vest?”
Something way beyond anger rose within him, temporarily burying the instinct to feed beneath the more immediate need to smash his fist into Jaz’s face until he felt bones turn to powder beneath his knuckles, right before he ripped off the bastard’s dick and shoved it down his own throat.
“Jaz.” Kohl closed his eyes, reigning in the violence surging through him.
It wasn’t like him to feel such rage toward another.
Especially not someone like Jaz. He felt the softness of Devon’s palm on his cheek, then his jaw, and then the side of his neck.
“I wish I could see better in the dark.”
Her sultry voice, tinged with worry, combined with her hand wandering lightly over his shoulder to feel his bare chest, and lower, instantly distracted him and intensified his lust. But not for Jaz’s blood.
For her.
He caught her wrist before she found out how much she affected him. Somewhere at the edge of his consciousness he realized the rain had stopped. “Devon, we need to get to shelter before the sun comes up.”
“What’s wrong? Everything’s okay. You didn’t hurt me.
Why are you so upset?” She pulled her arm from his grip and touched his face.
“I can’t see very well, but I can feel it.
The strain in your expression. The tension in your muscles.
” Her fingers wandered over his mouth and one finger skimmed his fang.
“This. It’s just a bite. It’ll heal…right? ”
It would be easy. It would be so easy. All he had to do was bite down, just a little, and the tip of his fang would pierce her fingertip and he would be able to taste her.
With a moan, he pulled his head back out of her reach. “We need to go.” Jaz had her blood in his system. He’ll be looking for them, and if they didn’t get the fuck out of there, he would find them. And who knows what he’ll do in his state of mind? “We need to go, Dev.”
“I don’t think you mean that.”
“You’re wrong. I do.”
“Then why won’t you let me sit up?” She smiled. “Are you embarrassed that I’ll see you naked? Because trust me, honey, from what I can tell by looking at you in your clothes, you don’t have a damn thing to worry about in that department.”
With a start, Kohl realized that not only did he have her trapped between his arms as he leaned over her, pressing her down with his weight, but his leg was thrown intimately between hers.
He closed his eyes, but he couldn’t bring himself to move away.
“No. It’s not that. I’m a shifter. I’m used to it. ”
“Then why?”
His voice was barely above a whisper when he painfully admitted, “Because I want it to be me.” He pulled air into his lungs, and repeated his confession, louder. “I wanted it to be me.”
He heard the rush of her blood with each rapid beat of her heart, so easily discernible to his vampire hearing, and knowing how he affected her only made it worse. The scent of her desire filled his nose, intensifying the lure of her. With a moan, Kohl dropped his forehead to hers.
Her hands tightened on his shoulders. “What does it mean? When you say he claimed me? It’s not just that he bit me. Is it?”
He studied her face. Her eyelids were dark, the lids heavy, her lips slightly parted. Her tongue peeked out to wet the bottom one.
“No.”
“What does it mean?”
Her damp sweater was warm, heated from their skin. The soft wool grazed his nipples when he shifted closer, sending a shot of lust straight to his groin, scattering his thoughts. It took him a few seconds to compose himself. “He drank from you. Your blood is in his system.”
“What does that mean, Kohl?”
He tried breathing through his mouth. “It means we need to get the fuck out of here, before he finds us. If he gets anywhere within a couple of miles of you, your blood will call to him and he’ll be able to track you like a hunting dog.”
But she was shaking her head before he’d finished his sentence. “You need to fix it. How do we fix it?”
He continued to breathe in and out of his mouth. All it did was make his mouth water. “I can’t fix it.” Because the only way to fix it was for him to override Jaz’s claim with his own, and that wasn’t fixing it. That was just transferring the right to her blood from one vampire to another.
“So, I just run? For how long?”
“Just until I can take care of him.” And he realized at that moment that he meant every word.
He would take on Jaz. He would take on the entire coven if it meant keeping Devon safe.
He didn’t know when it had happened, or how.
Maybe that night at the club when the bullets were flying and all he could see was her.
Maybe it was before that, when he saw her on the news, so beaten down and fragile and yet so fucking brave.
Maybe it was after the attack last night, and the discovery that even the dragon was falling for her.
But she was suddenly very precious to him.
And he was not willing to give her up so easily.
“What if you took more? What if you bit me and took more? Would you have a higher claim to me or whatever?”
He held back a groan. Why was she doing this to him? “Yes, technically. But…”
“But, what?”
Her asking him to drink from her aroused him to a whole new level.
No. He shook his head. “I can’t, Devon. I can’t do that.” Not without having a conversation about what that would mean.
“Is it against vampire law, or something?”
“Not exactly. It’s more an unspoken rule not to move on another vampire’s territory, one that could have unpleasant consequences, depending on the situation.”
Knowing if they stayed like this any longer his vow to himself would mean nothing, he forced himself to move off of her.
She sat up, too, catching his hand before he could leave her. “But, I want you to do it.”