Chapter 5 #2
“Go,” Mace breathed. “They need help. I’m better. I’m fine.”
His color was better, and most of his visible wounds had at least partially healed. But he was in no way fine.
“I’ve done all I can,” Blade said to her. “You stay. I’ll go.”
He stood, but she grabbed his wrist before he could take off. “Be careful.”
His dark, intense eyes locked with hers, a familiar promise swirling in their depths. His response would, unfailingly, be, “Always,” a counter to Mace’s perpetual, “Never.”
Blade didn’t disappoint. “Always.” With an almost cocky wink, he took off after Jon and Skoll.
Mace wrapped his arm around his midsection, cringing as he shifted his weight. He was pale with shock and blood loss, his lips nearly white. She had never seen him this anemic.
“I don’t need a babysitter.”
“Maybe not.” Gently, she brushed a sun-kissed dark lock of hair away from a half-healed cut on his forehead. “But you do need blood.”
Most Seminus demons didn’t drink blood, but Mace’s birth father, Wraith, had passed on his vampiric needs to both Mace and Talon. Neither required blood to survive, but feeding increased their strength and helped them recover from injuries.
Mace threw his head back against the tree and closed his eyes. “I could use a hit.”
In a couple of quick motions, she rolled up her sleeve and held out her wrist. “Take it.”
His eyes popped open. “What? You? No.”
“Don’t be an idiot. You need it, and I have it. Besides, where else will you get it? I doubt some crusty, grizzled gold prospector is going to show up anytime soon and offer you his vein.”
“Grizzled gold prospector?” He started to laugh, but ended up coughing. “What”—cough, wheeze—“what century do you think we’re in?”
Scotty ignored his sarcasm and thrust her arm in his face.
Clearing his throat, Mace dropped his gaze to her wrist. Hunger put hollows in his cheeks, and a glimmer of gold in his eyes, but a heartbeat later, he turned away. “I can’t.”
“Bullshit. Since when have you ever turned down a female offering something?”
“You’re not…you’re not one of those females.”
“Knock it off.” She thrust her wrist upward, closer to his mouth. “Stop being an idiot.”
“I can’t, Scotty,” he breathed, but his fingers curled around her forearm, drawing her hand to his lips. Lips that had probably touched a thousand females in ways she didn’t want to think about.
It’s finally my turn.
It was a thought she shouldn’t have. But right now, she didn’t really care.
For a long, drawn-out second, she worried he’d refuse, but then his fangs sliced downward into her wrist, and she sucked in a harsh breath at the abrupt, sharp sting.
A heartbeat later, the sting morphed into a surprising, pleasant tingle that radiated from where his mouth worked her wrist. Oh, sweet sin.
The effect was intoxicating. Warmth flowed through her, tingling and effervescent.
It was like bathing in sparkling wine, the bubbles bursting against all her erogenous zones, and she could imagine—
Mace released her, shoving her hand away with such force that she almost tipped backward.
Blinking, swaying on her knees in a drunken stupor, she struggled to regain her composure. “What’s wrong?”
He dropped his head back against the tree with a sigh. “Your body’s healing my bite too quickly. It’s like sucking ice cream through a straw. Juice ain’t worth the squeeze.”
She cursed and glared down at her wrist. Stupid immortal genes. “Shit.”
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay,” she insisted. “You’re too weak to walk, let alone fight if we get attacked while the others are gone. You need blood.”
Mace opened his mouth to protest, but whatever he’d been about to say was silenced when she straddled his thighs and brushed her hair away from her neck.
“Take it from here. The jugular won’t heal as quickly as the vein in my wrist.”
“Are you serious?” He gaped at her. “No. Fuck, no.”
Baffled, she stared back at him. “Are you serious? You just tried with my wrist. What’s wrong with my throat?”
He averted his gaze, dropping his eyes to where her legs bracketed his. “It’s different,” he murmured.
Still baffled. “How?”
“It just is.”
People said Blade was the stubborn one. But no.
Of the three of them, Mace could out-mule anyone.
Blade dug in his heels out of careful thought and didn’t generally let emotion play a role—except in the case of his brother, Stryke.
But Mace’s stubborn streaks were irrational as hell and often born of ego or pride.
She’d learned to weaponize those weaknesses a long time ago.
“You scared?”
His dark eyes snapped up. “Of what?”
She shrugged. “You tell me.”
He stared at her, his ego battling his conscience. “I’m not scared of anything.”
“My. Ass.” This decision should be a no-brainer, so why was he waffling? She leaned in so close their noses nearly touched. “I know when you’re scar—”
He struck with the savage growl of a predator. His fangs penetrated her throat, and she gasped at the unexpected intensity of both the pain and the pleasure.
Her entire body tingled, and warmth spread through her breasts, then lower, until it pooled between her thighs. Unexpected sensations made her squirm, chasing the pleasure as it intensified all over her body, even as she tried to corral her scattered thoughts.
This was arousal, wasn’t it? After all this time, why now? And how could this feel so good…and at the same time, bad? Mace was her friend, and she shouldn’t be turned on by an act meant to help him. This was basically a clinical procedure. It meant nothing. It never would.
It couldn’t.
But as a low, rhythmic purr erupted from deep inside his chest, she lost her ability to contemplate her guilt.
It was as if the very air around her became a mantle of desire, weighing her down until she melted against Mace’s body.
She dug her fingers into his shoulders as she clung to him.
Between her legs, the hard ridge of his erection pressed into her, and she had to summon every ounce of self-control not to rub against it.
Wow. She got it now. Got why Mace tried to resist feeding from her.
This was different. This…was playing with fire, and gods help her, she’d never learned to keep her fingers out of the flames.
They didn’t find any demons. Just blood from the single shot Jon had gotten in from his handheld crossbow before the thing outpaced them. The beast had left a trail for miles, but eventually, Blade decided it was no longer feasible to track it.
“We need to keep going.” Jon peered intently into a ravine, the winding trail to the bottom showing clear signs of recent use but no blood. Either the thing had stopped bleeding, or it had evaded them.
“You guys track it if you want to,” Blade said. “I’m not leaving my teammates alone. For all we know, this was a trap to lure us away, and they’re in trouble.”
Now that he’d voiced the possibility, anxiety flared in a sudden, hot rush.
Scotty and Mace were both lethal warriors, but in his weakened condition, Mace wasn’t at full capacity.
Hell, he’d lost so much blood, he’d probably be as capable in a fight as an untrained ten-year-old human boy.
He needed to feed, and soon. Preferably from a human, but as non-demons, Jon and Skoll would make suitable donors if worse came to worst. Blade just wished his demon blood could help.
Then there was Scotty.
Not an option.
Skoll shot his buddy a look. “Blade’s right. Fight music is over anyway. My head’s full of shitty, reflective emo tunes. Let’s get to the cabin and plan our next move from there. We’re not prepared to deal with the wendigo yet.”
Blade swatted at a mosquito. Kynan was right; they were big bastards. “You don’t think what we were chasing was a wendigo?”
Jon’s gaze scoured the landscape, his body still tensed for battle. Blade might not like the guy, but he could admit that the male appeared well-trained and competent.
“Wendigos are almost as allergic to daylight as vampires,” he said. “But they attract low-level demons like flies. Whatever we were chasing was probably a bottom feeder drawn to the wendigo’s evil.” He cast a forlorn glance into the ravine before shrugging in defeat.
Blade took the lead, fear for his teammates spurring him on as he jogged along worn animal trails and leaped over fallen logs. Forest critters scattered ahead of them, and birds yelled at them from the branches above.
Jon slowed, looking into the forest canopy. “The noise is a good sign. Animals know evil. They’d be silent if there was a demon nearby.”
Thanks, Captain Obvious. Blade picked up the pace, afraid for his friends, despite Jon’s assurances. Hurry, hurry…
He burst out of the brush and onto the main trail. Mace and Scotty should be right over ther—
He came to a stunned, breathless halt. Skoll crashed into Blade’s back, but he was too numb to care.
What. The. Actual. Fuck?
Mace and Scotty were locked in a writhing, moaning tangle of arms and legs. Mace’s face was buried in her neck, her long, thick ponytail wrapped in his fist. His other hand rested on her hip, his fingers digging into her jeans.
As Blade watched, Scotty arched, her breasts thrusting upward and testing the fabric of her camo T-shirt, and Mace tugged her tighter against him.
They were fucking with their clothes on.
Hot, stinging envy drilled into Blade from the top of his skull to the bottom of his feet, pinning him to the ground. But his lust demon instincts warred with jealousy, gradually dulling the edges with the intoxicating warmth of arousal.
Skoll and Jon flanked him, and while their bodies weren’t wired for sex the way Blade’s was, they sure as shit were susceptible to the lust pheromones billowing off Mace and Scotty in radioactive blasts.
Blade’s jealousy went next-level as the guys observed Mace and Scotty with a mix of curiosity, surprise, and arousal.
Mine.