Chapter 7 – Lamia #2
“Then explain it,” he barks out.
I close my eyes, and a groan slips past my lips. “It’s a long distance from here. There are a lot of innocent lives between here and there, and my control is…weak.”
He’s quiet for a long time. “So, if we go there, you might kill?”
I nod, and another groan slips from my lips. This man smells amazing. Like dark chocolate and sweet strawberries. His blood calls to me, just as it had so many years before.
I’ve never wanted someone more.
“Answer me,” he growls, shifting on top of me.
Which is the moment I realize something else. It isn’t just his blood that I want. I want him.
The knowledge is shocking. How long has it been since I felt arousal?
Since I was human. And briefly when I fed on the three gargoyles.
And yet, there’s no denying it. Yes, I want his blood, but I also want his cock deep inside of me.
“Lamia!”
My eyes flash open. I’m breathing hard, naked beneath this man I find arousing. “What did you ask?”
His teeth clench together. “I asked if you’ll kill on our travel to the cave.”
I nod.
“I could keep you tied up.”
I stare at him. “Honestly, I don’t think that’ll be enough.”
His eyes flash with anger. “Then what do you need?”
I don’t hesitate. “I need to have my hunger quenched.”
The anger fades from his gaze, and he stares down at me with the oddest look.
“You should get off of me,” I say.
He doesn’t move. “Why?”
“Because I want you. And I’m dangerous.”
“You want me?” he repeats slowly.
I force my eyes closed. The hunger is becoming painful. Uncontrollable. “I—I have trouble stopping myself from feeding when I’m hungry. But with you...with you, it’s different.”
“How?”
“Fuck,” I groan, then press myself against him.
A string of curses explodes from his lips, and an instant later, he rolls off of me.
I roll away from him and climb to my feet. Racing across the sand, I dive back into the water. I need to cool off. I need to calm down. I’ve already killed this gargoyle once. I won’t do it again.
Suddenly, hands are around me. I fight against them, and we explode from the water.
The gargoyle is trying to pin me against him.
“What are you doing?” I shout.
“You won’t escape so easily!”
I stare at him, and angry words explode from my lips. “I’m not trying to escape! I’m trying not to bite you and fuck you!”
His jaw drops open.
“Get away from me! Let me calm down!”
“You think I trust you?” he shouts back.
I don’t say a word when my lips descend on his. A kiss so powerful, so filled with need, seems to unleash between us. For one hot moment, I’m lost in the strength of his kiss.
And then he jerks back from me. “Don’t kiss me, monster!”
I stare at him. He kissed me back. I’d felt it.
“What do you want from me?” I shout at him. “I’m dangerous to be around!”
“You are, but you’re also the only person who can help me. You owe this to me.”
My heart thumps wildly in my chest. “I don’t know if I can control myself.”
“I’ll make you,” he says.
Then, as if to prove it, he turns me around in the water. One arm goes around my stomach. The other pins my wrists behind me.
A shudder moves through my body. I’ve never felt like this before. His skin seems to burn into mine, begging for what I want.
He swims us back to the shore. But when we reach it, I stumble on the shore without the use of my hands to hold me up. Looking back at him, I find the gargoyle positioned behind me. His cock against my ass. My wrists still trapped in his big hand.
He has that odd expression on his face again as he stares down at me. And maybe I’m a fool, but I think it’s arousal. But then, his gaze meets mine, and the look fades.
“Tell me how to find this cave.”
“The book,” I tell him.
He frowns.
I indicate where it still sits near the fire with a jerk of my head.
His gaze connects with it, and then he stands, dragging me up with him. We start toward the book, but then he stops near my abandoned dress.
Sighing, he reaches down and grasps it, then releases my wrists. “Think you can dress?”
I tear my gaze from his throat. “Yes.”
Slipping into the dress, I stare down at the pale fabric that clings to my wet skin. “Better?”
When I look up, he’s staring directly at my nipples. “It’ll have to do.”
Going into the woods, he disappears for a minute before reappearing with a bag. Watching me carefully, he takes out a shirt and tears it into strips. Then, turning me around once more, he binds my wrists behind my back.
I know the bindings will do nothing. I know this gargoyle isn’t powerful enough to stop me. But just being secured like this makes me feel less dangerous, so I allow it.
Next, he sits me down on a rock, goes back into the woods and comes out in dry clothes, then sits down to read the book.
And I watch him as he reads, imagining the taste of his blood.
And the way he’d feel deep inside of me.
A big man like him…no doubt he’d want to be in control.
He’d thrust into me, his cock hard, his eyes intense.
I bite down on a moan. I don’t know what I want more: his blood or him.
When he’s done flipping through the pages, he looks up at me, seeming troubled.
“You read this book the day I came back to life?”
I nod.
He closes the book and stares at the burnt wood in the fire pit.
“It seems in order to make this journey you need what they call Protectors. Males who feed you to keep your blood-lust from overcoming you. Which means a few things: first, you’re right, you can’t go to the towns full of humans hungry.
Second, I was brought back to life to be your Protector. And third, that I’m not the only one.”
My mouth feels dry. “So, what are we going to do?”
His gaze meets mine. “You killed me. You destroyed my life. And I hate you down to my very core.”
My heart aches, but I don’t look away. Everything he says is true.
“But it looks like I need you to reverse this curse.”
“So?”
He stares out over the water. “I think we need to wait to see how many Protectors awaken. And I think I need to find a way to let you bite me again.”
His words drop between us like stones.
“No matter how revolting I find the idea.”
I finally look away from him. I wanted to go to the cave. It had seemed like my first chance of having any kind of life since I became this thing. And I needed to find a safe way to get there.
It seems that with the arrival of this gargoyle, I can have everything I ever wanted.
So why do I feel like the lowest creature imaginable?