Chapter 15
PENELOPE
“Elias,” Penelope protested softly, though her lips curved upwards despite herself. “What on earth are you doing?”
“Patience, Lamb,” he murmured, voice brushing low against her ear. “Just a few more steps.”
He covered her eyes with his hands, leading her into his home. She huffed but obeyed, letting him steer her blindly into whatever it was he wished to show her. Every sense narrowed to the press of his hand and the deep, steady cadence of his breath behind her.
“You seem to be full of surprises tonight.”
Elias’ hands slipped from her eyes at last, letting the shadows of his home fall fully over her. She blinked against the dim candlelight.
“Wait—” she started, but he only held a finger to his lips. “This is yours?” she asked. Because there they were. Books. Thousands of them. Stacked and shelved, spilling across tables, leaning in precarious towers of leather and ink.
“Who else would they belong to?” Elias said, his voice low, almost amused, almost tender, as if sharing something fiercely intimate with her. “I have never invited someone into my home before. You are the first I have ever wanted to show my collection to.”
The air smelled of paper, dust, and time.
Her hand lifted instinctively to touch the nearest spine—her heart seized in her chest. “Tell Tale Heart,” she gasped, lifting the worn book, her fingertips trailing over its browned, fragile pages as though they might bruise under too much touch.
“My mother used to read this to me when I was a girl. At night, by candlelight. She would hum the melody of the story as she read, the same way she played the piano.”
Elias’ gaze softened. “What was she like?”
Penelope lifted her eyes from the book, letting them meet his.
Her shoulders rolled back, a faint shiver in the movement.
“She was beautiful,” she murmured, her voice almost lost beneath the quiet weight of the library.
“And kind. She was the one who taught me the piano… she said music could tell the truths we could not. You know,” she continued, “she always believed there was more to his stories. She said the way he spoke, so tormented, so lost, it seemed like there was always something he could not say. Something beyond the words… something that lived in the spaces between them, in the silences, the pauses, the things you had to feel rather than hear.”
Elias stepped closer, closing the space between them, his presence warm and grounding.
His hand brushed the small of her back, a gentle anchor, and the library seemed to draw them both into its hush.
“Poe,” he murmured, low, dark amusement curling the edge of his lips, “he always had a tryst with self-destruction. Mischievous, reckless… not unlike a certain Lamb I know.”
Penelope turned around, stilling her wandering hands from exploring the book any further. “You knew him? The Edgar Allen Poe?”
The curve of his mouth was all dark amusement.
“Unfortunately, yes. I met him while traveling. Briefly, before his end. I’d call it untimely, but that would make me a liar.
Your mother was a smart woman.” He said as he stepped in closer until his chest pressed against her back.
His hand found the spine of the book, his knuckles grazing hers as he traced the words on the page.
“He wrote this when he was first turned.”
Her breath hitched. “He was a vampire?”
“One of the better ones, yes. And not by choice. When you turn, the world can seem like it is trying to suffocate you with its presence. The smells, the hunger, the sound—the heart beats. It is unlike any torture I have ever known. What he was hearing was a hundred beating hearts of the townspeople.”
“That sounds awful,” she whispered into the wavering silence, as she turned her face toward him. “Was that what it was like for you?”
“That is what it is like for all of us,” he said softly, his gaze fixed on where her fingers curled around the book. Finally, looking up at her, his eyes held something not unlike mourning. He smiled. “You learn to tune most of it out.”
The air shifted, thickened, and she became acutely aware of the rhythm inside her chest. Of the rise and fall of her breasts. Of the steady drag of his gaze down to her throat, where her pulse beat hard enough she could feel it against her skin.
And she hated—no, she feared—how her body answered him.
The way her heartbeat leapt into a crescendo when he leaned just slightly closer.
The way heat curled low in her belly every time she caught him staring at her like that—like he was hunting her.
The way her body responded so intensely just from a kiss.
Penelope turned away from him before the thought could swallow her whole, sliding the book back onto the shelf with fingers that wanted to tremble.
“You have so many books,” she said, forcing her voice past the knot in her throat.
Her touch skimmed spines and cracked leather bindings. “Some in languages I can’t even name…”
His steps followed hers, unhurried. That stare pressed between her shoulder blades like a palm.
“I have lived a long life,” he said. “I’ve witnessed wonders across the world—artists performing in crowded streets and cathedrals alike.
Their music equally beautiful. But yours”—he paused, voice low, woven with something dangerous—“yours was the first to make me feel something I haven’t in so very long. ”
Penelope stopped as he grabbed her wrist, turning her so that her back was pressed against the shelf. “And what was that?” she whispered, her eyes dancing between his and his lips.
Elias stepped closer, the air between them charged and suddenly, she felt it. His hunger, one that was devouring him. One that was not just for her blood. “Life,” he whispered, caging her in completely. Trapping her.
Penelope’s eyes met his in that moment of stillness, her heartbeat filled her ears so that the only thing she could focus on was him.
His gaze trailed down her neck, across her chest to where her heart fought for his attention.
“I can teach you, if you want…” he whispered as he stepped closer, his red eyes slowly lifting. “Languages. History. Science. Anything you want to learn. My knowledge is yours.”
“Elias,” she breathed.
“If not here, anywhere. Anywhere in this entire world. Any place you wish to see. Whisper it, and it is yours.”
“Are those the only thing you can teach me?” Her chest rose and fell with each quickening breath. What was she doing? What line was she attempting to cross?
Elias’ hands found hers, sliding slowly, deliberately, until they rested above her head. With quiet, absolute control, he pinned her wrists to the bookshelf, the spines of countless books pressing against her back. She felt the weight of him—the restraint. The danger.
“Is there something else I should be teaching you, Ms. Adams?” His voice was rough, a low rasp betraying he was at the edge of giving into his base instincts.
Desperation. Desire. Need. Every unspoken thing between them pressed against her in that suspended moment. Every inch of her wanted him, every shadow of her fear only made the heat burn brighter. Darkness and all, she wanted him—Elias, and all that came with him.
She looked up at him through her lashes, both of their breaths quickening as his eyes fought for whether to look at her eyes or her lips, a battle she fought as well. And then—
“Fuck it,” he breathed. He claimed her mouth in a searing kiss, his fangs grazing her lips as she melted into him.
“I want you to keep your hands right here, Lamb,” he murmured against her lips, and the words were an edge of command, raw and urgent.
He released her wrists, letting them fall free to roam, tracing the curves of her arms, one hand wrapped around her throat as the other continued downwards, igniting every nerve in a slow, deliberate blaze.
She gasped into his mouth as he tore her dress from her with ease, exposing her to him completely. Baring herself for his judgment. She almost dropped her hands as his fingers traced the apex of her sex, teasing slow strokes but never getting close enough to grant her true release.
“You’re trembling,” he murmured, voice rough, sharp. “Do you like that? Feeling so exposed… so utterly at my mercy?”
Her pulse spiked, a shiver rolling down her spine. “Y-yes,” she whispered, voice trembling, a mix of fear and longing.
“Tell me,” he whispered against her lips, teeth grazing her. “Tell me you want this.”
Her voice came out in a shuddered breath, half moan, half confession. “I—yes…”
“You’re mine,” he whispered against her neck, trailing his fangs over her sensitive skin, enough for her to gasp with each sharp prick. “Even when you think of him. Even when you are with him.”
Penelope cried as he bit into her. But he did not drink, he released her again, licking where he had pierced her. “Every time he looks at you, you will be reminded of me. He will never truly have all of you.”
Her fingers clenched, wanting him, trembling under his control, caught in the dangerous, intoxicating pull of a man who could be cruel and tender in the same brush of skin and whisper of command.
“Elias,” she gasped, voice fragile, pleading. But before she could finish, his hand tightened around her throat, just enough to let her feel the strength of his control, her pulse thrumming beneath his grasp.
“You are mine.” He bit again, harder this time, ignoring the squirming of her body beneath him.
The growl that rumbled in his chest sent shivers down her spine, wild and consuming.
When he finally released her, his tongue traced the bite, a slow, deliberate exploration that left her dizzy and trembling.
“And you will learn,” he breathed, his lips close to her ear as his fingers dipped into her pussy, toying with her—using her, “exactly what that means, Penelope.”
She gasped as he pushed his fingers deeper, spreading her open without giving her time to adjust to the size of his hand.
“Elias!” she cried out, fighting to keep her hands above her head.
“Shh, Lamb,” he whispered, releasing her throat as he trailed kisses down her breasts, down the small of her stomach and eventually over the mound of her sex. “You are doing so well,” he said as he kissed her pussy.
Without warning, he thrust his fingers to the base. Penelope whimpered, the feeling of his fingers forcing themselves inside her as his thumb circled her clit, all the while his fangs traced her pussy—a promise of what would happen should she disobey—it was all too much.
“Just like that, Penelope, breathe for me.”
He drew his fingers out only to slide them back in again. Coaxing out another broken moan from her already parted lips.
“Wait, Elias—”
And then his fangs sunk into her innermost thigh.
Penelope writhed beneath his hold and this time, he did not release her.
He trapped her there, even as her hands fell to his shoulders, as he drank from her—he never once stopped fucking her with his fingers.
Her stomach tightened as she attempted to close her legs as a pressure built in her core.
“Elias,” she whimpered, but he would not budge.
He drew back his fingers to the tip before slamming them back in again. And this time, she screamed out as a pulsing release washed over her.
Elias moaned as he slowed his hands down, sliding his fingers out as he removed his fangs. A mix of blood and her pleasure ran down her legs as his hands steadied her waist. Elias lifted her, carrying her a few feet over to his bed.
“You taste incredible, my Lamb.”
“Wait,” she started as he placed her down on his bed. “I want to make you feel good.”
“You have already done that, Penelope. You do not need to push yourself your first time—”
“I want this, Elias,” she breathed. “I want you.” Penelope held his gaze as her trembling hands fought against her own fear—her own embarrassment, as she spread her legs, showing him the mess he had made of her. “I want you to claim me everywhere.”
Elias growled as he fell atop of her, holding himself up with one hand as his other slid his pants down to reveal his massive cock, already hard and slick with pearly beads of white. “Touch me, Penelope. I want you to know how hard you make it to control myself. How hard you make me.”
It was another order, another test. He was challenging her.
Penelope swallowed as she touched her fingers to the tip of his cock, swirling the sticky white around his head before trailing her fingers down his mass. Then, she looked up at him as she dipped her fingers into her mouth—tasting him.
“Penelope,” he warned.
But she held his gaze, coating her tongue with him.
His hands fell on either side of her, forcing her heart into the pits of her stomach.
The tip of his cock stroked her pussy, pushing into her entrance only enough for her to groan in frustration as he pulled away again.
“Who do you belong to, Penelope?”
He pushed against her again, teasing her—tormenting her.
“You!” she pleaded. “I belong to you.”
And then—yes. She gasped as he pushed himself deeper inside of her, each thrust accented with their combined moans until he was seated completely inside of her.
His hand covered her mouth as she cried out and he pushed himself even deeper still. “Breathe, Lamb. You are taking me so well. Breathe for me.”
Elias thrust again, this time harder and without mercy, forcing her to breathe through her nose as he claimed her softest parts.
Penelope shattered again and again as he drove himself harder into her.
“Yes, just like that,” he growled.
Penelope cried out against his hand as her release washed over her all over again, completely consuming her as Elias continued to use her—chasing his own release.
Her legs shook, her breath catching in her throat as Elias slammed into her one last time, holding her in place as his cock pulsed inside of her.
“I ken,” he said through ragged breaths, “that you shall never be rid of my scent now, my Lamb.