Chapter 29
Being chased through the woods was a common nightmare, sure.
Zipping between trees with that strange flickering speed, wrenching herself aside as trunks or giant granite boulders reared before her, leaping like Supergirl—all that was new, and so was the terrible dilating pain in her throat, the dry ache returned with a vengeance.
One moment she’d been staring at the black, rumbling hole in the hillside, alternating waves of hot and cold flashing all through her.
The next, that immense growl halted and Lukas resolved out of thin air, his suit torn to ribbons, thick dark splatters dripping from arms and legs, holding one of the nasty little green henchmen casually as a struggling kitten.
There was no sound behind her save the wind and mounting waves of raindrops piercing the forest canopy, but her back crawled with that instinctive sense of invisible eyes following every move. The terror was immense, red-tinged, vying with the pain in her throat.
The thirst.
Hiking eastward on the mountain had taken quite a while, but it seemed like only a few seconds later she burst from a line of trees just past the leaning wreck of the stable, sneakers brushing softly instead of smacking in mud.
The rain was silver curtains loaded with ice; sheer unthinking desperation, beating behind her heart like a second pulse, pelted her for the house.
Boarded windows, locked doors, the porch shuddered as she leapt onto it and hesitated, skidding…
…and a warm living weight hit her from behind, driving them both through the front door with its beveled glass insets, still whole despite abandonment.
Or it had been. The entire doorway shattered, splinters and shards flung across the foyer; somehow Lukas’s arms were around her; he turned and took the impact on his shoulder, a half-familiar movement.
She barely had a heartbeat to realize he must have done the same thing in the elevator before they tumbled, rolling, all the way across the foyer, ending at the foot of the stairs.
Disuse, neglect, mildew—the house reeked of all those things.
Under the sad rotting smell an uninhabited structure quickly acquired was familiarity, from the ghost of floor polish to the even fainter trace of Jared, and a tinge Bea almost didn’t recognize as her own preferred laundry detergent and the perfume she’d discovered in college.
Memories crowded her, a flood she managed to keep dammed during waking hours. Her own voice, sharp and needling or sarcastically dismissive.
Can you take Snowball out? I’m doing the goddamn bills...do you always have to make everything weird...it’s raccoon tracks, or something...I guess I’ll come stay for a little while...Jesus Christ, don’t listen to everything Don says…
The warm, heavy weight was on top of her, and Lukas inhaled harshly.
His cheek had ended up pressed to hers, a rasp of stubble, and more frightening than the strength in his fingers or the deep growl something human-sized shouldn’t have been able to produce was the fact that he wasn’t crushing her, and his fingers around her right wrist didn’t squeeze.
He simply held that arm pinned, the rest of him stretched over her, and Bea froze.
Oh, shit.
He was sniffing, she realized. Great deep gulps, and both of them were soaked clean through.
In his case it was probably a good thing, because the guck he’d been covered with was unpleasantly acrid; she probably didn’t smell too fresh either, after being drenched, drip-dried, then hiking through the goddamn woods in yet more pouring sleet.
The growl petered out, but he stayed atop her. Bea didn’t dare move, she hardly dared breathe. The curious stillness was expectant instead of peaceful, the last moments before a thunderstorm breaking.
“Beatrice.” The same lingering over each syllable of her name. He shuddered, a wave passing through his much larger frame, and at the end of the movement his knee was between hers. “You are...unhurt. That is good.”
It’s probably gonna change in the next few seconds. Staying frozen was hard work, especially when he moved again, his knee sliding up, and she felt a very familiar insistent probing against her thigh, prodding through his ruined trousers and her wet, clinging jeans. Oh, hell.
“The door unlocked,” she managed, in a husky little whisper.
It sounded less terrified, and more...provocative, since the thirst was torment-teasing again.
A terrible dry need hit her sideways, swamping her entire body, filling the deepest pit of her belly with molten heat.
“I s-swear it wasn’t me, the door unlocked and I… ”
She wanted monster blood, she realized. His blood. The swimming lassitude, the deep warmth—it was like needing chocolate once a month, or the salt cravings at infrequent intervals.
Do bloodsuckers have periods? Why did her brain rabbit-jump everywhere, why couldn’t she think of something useful? And why, oh God why, did she cry when she was terrified? Her eyes were full of hot welling water.
“Yes.” As if he’d expected it, but did he believe her? “I suspect so. And yet.”
That does not sound good. “Please,” she managed. “I believe you. I do, I promise. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have staked you, please just let me go.”
“We are well past that point, kitten.” Rough, as if his throat hurt too. His knee pressed upward, pushing her legs apart a little further. “Had I seen you that night I would have taken you then. Do you doubt it?”
At least she wasn’t laying on splinters, but the floor couldn’t be clean. Cold hardwood, in fact, and the stairs a rising shadow to her left. “We could just be calm, and talk about this. Couldn’t we?”
“We will,” he said, grimly. Another deep inhale, another shudder. “I will have you, I will feed you, then we may speak of anything you like.”
Oh, boy. Bea erupted into motion—or tried to. A slight lurch, rocking a few inches to her right, was all she could manage.
It was like dropping a lit match into gas fumes. His mouth fastened on hers, and she was lost.
* * *
The floor was freezing, he was fever-hot, and the sound of tearing cloth along with cool air brushing bare, damp skin told her he was in a clothes-ripping mood again.
It might even have been a relief to have wet denim explode from her legs in shreds, but Bea was far too occupied with scooting away, her blindly questing left hand hitting the bottom step before finding the newel post at the end of the banister, curling around and hauling with hysterical strength.
That same numbing-sweet taste, his tongue pursuing, taunting, taking; a single trickle ran across the thirst-spot and lit a fuse, sparking all the way down her spine.
She was faster now, stronger, capable of putting her fist through the walls of Don’s warehouse or the monitors hanging over his desk, able to run down a winding country road fast as a car.
But he was swifter, heavier, and had leverage as well. One wrist trapped, he had the other in a trice—though there was a splintering sound as she heaved blindly, she forgot it because his hips settled between her legs and a familiar hot, hard tip probed just at the most sensitive, aching part.
At least slow down, she wanted to say, but her mouth was stoppered, and he didn’t bother waiting. The growl was back; he moved, muscle rippling in a single hard thrust, and Bea’s hips jerked, half in protest and half in pure blind reaction.
Her entire body turned liquid. The new sensory acuity extended to touch as well, and sheer sensation drowned her.
More wood splintered, the growl vibrating in his chest sending waves of heat down her back as he thrust again, driving deep.
More fire, that wicked little questing caress finding her clit, and it was official, she was being fucked at the foot of the stairs, her fingers clenching and lungs heaving as she tried to scream.
Any sound she made was swallowed, lost in the deep thrumming noise he made or his hot, insistent mouth. Again and again, hammering home, the pressure building, a dagger-sharp splinter poking at her shoulder. She flinched, and he snarled.
Weightlessness, an iron-hard, fever-warm bare arm snaking behind her back.
Then they landed, wood cracking, dust billowing, the angle of the invasion changing because they were on the stairs somehow, her hands clawing at his shoulders because he had let go of her wrists.
His free hand was somehow under her left knee, pushing upward; she was trapped, her bare hip pressed against the wall, the rest of her shaking as her back arched, cooperating blindly as the pleasure slammed again and again, setting every nerve aflame.
No warning, and no mercy—climax hit like a freight train, body bucking and the scream still trapped in her throat next to the thirst spreading in a rasp-haze.
It lasted forever, hit after hammer-hit, and each time she thought it might end he moved again, sending a fresh series of jolts from toes to scalp.
Even when he broke away from the deep voracious kisses, it was only because he had let go of her knee, a swiftly lengthening claw dragging across his naked chest just below the collarbone.
Then, somehow, her mouth found that shallow slice—and the blood trembling at its edges with its own surface tension.
An endless, searing gulp hit the back of her throat, spread in a slow summery haze. Again the world vanished, every terror and every uncertainty blotted out. The warmth rushing inward from her fingers and toes met orgasm-aftershocks; she trembled between the two, drinking voraciously.
Feeding.