Chapter 41
Sam
“What the hell do you mean Joseph might be one of us?” I screeched.
Lock and I had barely come back from doing very unholy things in my childish home and now this wack ass demon was trying to tell me my first boyfriend might bear blood that wanted to submit to me. It was ridiculous. Ludicrous. Fucking absurd.
“I don’t know for sure,” Raf admitted. “It’s just a theory.”
“He could be right, Belladonna.”
I threw my hands in the air. “Great. Now you two are agreeing on something. That can’t be a good omen.”
Raf held his hand out, revealing a pill that brought back unpleasant memories. Crossing my arms over my chest, I began to pace. I hadn’t even showered yet and the blood was beginning to get really uncomfortable. It was dry and tugging on my skin in a way that made me want to rip it all off.
“What are you thinking, darling?” Lock asked.
“I’m thinking that I would know if he was somehow mystically bound to me.”
“You didn’t know I was,” Raf pointed out.
“I was human. Now I feel it.”
“But he’s human. I felt our connection because your blood calls to me. The other way around, it may not be so simple to detect. You must sense something, though.”
Thinking back on the past twenty-four hours, I could see where he was coming from. There’d been an immediate desire to be around him since we got here and none of our past had mattered to me once I saw him. Still, it didn’t feel the same as with Raf. The draw wasn’t as palpable.
“And what if you’re wrong?” I asked. “Say we give him that and he’s just an ordinary human. It could bring Sibon here. He’ll be in danger.”
“Then I’ll leave.”
We all looked toward the hallway where Joseph was standing in the shadows. How did we all have vampire hearing and manage to be surprised by anything? Maybe we all just learned to tune most things out so we weren’t overwhelmed all the time.
“Joseph, this is your home.”
“No, it isn’t. This is where I live. It hasn’t been home since you left. Since we stopped talking, even. I was going to leave anyway, remember?”
“You’d have to pack your shit and go tomorrow. That’s too short notice.”
“I have money saved and I’m not afraid of new things, Sam. You lived on the streets for a month and survived. I’ll be far better off.”
“Let’s back up for a second,” Lock suggested. He was running his thumb over his jaw like he did when he was thinking hard. “What happens if he tests negative is easy to deal with. If he is part of your Nexus and Vas is to be believed, that gives you two out of three. Even if we never find the third, we’ll be far better off at sixty-six percent.”
“It’s dangerous,” I went on, even though it was clear I didn’t have a leg to stand on.
Joseph came up to me, taking both my hands. “We met as infants and it would be easy for me to surmise that was the reason I felt so strongly about you. Shit, I think I fell in love with you before I could even talk.”
Lock took a couple steps closer and I saw a flash of silver in his hand, but he didn’t do anything else.
“What I’m saying is maybe there’s more to this. If not, we won’t have lost anything, but I won’t be at all surprised if this thing tells us we have some freaky supernatural bond. Things may be different now and I can’t love you in that way. I worked through that already when you left. Regardless, I’ve always been yours, Sam, and I always will be. Whatever that means.”
A tear rolled down my cheek. “You understand that you’d have to change.”
“Yes. I’m not afraid of that. Right now, I’m standing here, holding your hands while you look like you just bathed in Moses’ Nile.”
With a snotty laugh, I nodded. “Alright. I guess it’s time for you to take some drugs with unknown properties. Wait. Have any of us drank his blood type?”
“I’m on it,” Ryan called from the kitchen. He came in with an armful of what looked like hospital blood bags. “He’s A positive, so we’re all going to drink B negative to make sure we don’t guzzle him… What the fuck happened to you?”
His eyes were wide as he looked at me, then Lock. I was torn between laughing and blushing, even though I technically couldn’t do that.
“It’s not important,” I said dismissively.
“Jesus, Sam. It’s everywhere.”
“It is everywhere,” Lock chimed in with a smirk. “I made sure of it and I am very thorough.”
“Is this what I’m in for if I ever find a vampire girlfriend?”
“They’re not all this cool. I imagine you’ll have a very boring, mousey little woman.”
I rolled my eyes before draining the blood. It was cold, which made me grimace. Lock’s distaste for the bottles back home was understandable and even though it felt strange that I’d be using what was essentially a walking blood bag when we got back to the tower, I was happy to be able to drink less refrigerated blood.
“Ready?” I asked.
Joseph blew out a breath, then tossed the pill into his mouth. A horrifying thought struck me and I put a hand to my mouth. Lock appeared at my side, staring at me intently.
“What is it, Sam? Do you feel something?”
“No, I just realized that I’ve made out with three of the four people in this room and we might all be living together.”
“Oh, god,” Ryan chuckled. “Lock is gonna need a muzzle.”
He might because his eyes were currently narrowed on Raf. Nothing had come of my admission yet, but I knew Lock likely had a hundred different ideas when it came to killing him.
“Let’s forget about it,” I said quickly. “How do we know if this thing is working?”
“Now that you’re a vampire, you’ll feel it,” Raf replied, circling Joseph. “Sort of like the way you do with me. It’s activating the magic in his blood, in a way. Waking it up, as if he were a vampire, but not enough for him to notice the difference. There’s a sort of signature to it and as you become more attuned to your own magic, you’ll be able to feel it in others, even those who aren’t part of your Nexus.”
“Is that how Vas found us?”
“He must’ve figured out our general location, but yeah. He’s familiar with mine.”
“Can’t Sibon track you because of your fraudulent connection?”
He smiled a little. “Not from so far away. I’ve become pretty good at keeping her out of my business, unless she’s feeling really ornery and puts in the effort.”
My stomach clenched. “So, you’re never truly safe.”
“In theory, no, but she surprisingly hasn’t barged in yet. I’m wondering if it has something to do with you.”
“What do you- Oh, holy shit.” I blinked a few times, trying to clear my head.
There was a sudden hyper awareness that struck me, almost like it forced me out of my body. I felt a pain in my face, along with a sort of emotional warmth that didn’t feel like it belonged to me. A hand touched my arm and a chill sprung to my skin, the same way heat awoke between Raf and I.
“Joseph,” I breathed, focusing my eyes. He drew his hand back, looking at it curiously. “Did I hurt you?”
“No,” he replied. “Your skin just got cold.”
“You can’t hurt him,” Raf assured me.
“Well, that tells us everything we need to know,” Lock said, suddenly putting an arm around me and moving us backward a step.
“Don’t get weird,” I chided.
“I’m not weird. The effects last, what, an hour? We need to shower and pack. Once he goes dark, we’re leaving.”
“Back to the tower,” Ryan sing-songed, rocking back on his heels.
“The tower,” Joseph repeated. “Is that your home?”
“It’s a skyscraper and technically a research lab, but yeah. It’s pretty cool.”
“You’ll love it,” I told him, giving him a smile before letting Lock lead me down the hall.
“Another baby vamp,” I heard Ryan say. “At least Sam won’t be the youngest anymore.”
Before I could even laugh, Lock pushed me into the bathroom and shut the door. His mouth met mine, then he tore my dress down the front. Just like the old days.
“I’d be angry,” I said between kisses. “But I wasn’t going to put this blood-covered thing into my suitcase anyway.”
“Well, damn. I’ll have to find another way to piss you off, Belladonna.”
“Why would you want to do that?”
“Because I’m tired of being nice. Don’t kill Seraphim. Don’t kill Ryan. Don’t kill Joseph. Don’t piss off the newbie witch or she’ll fry off my balls. Frankly, I’m ready to tempt fate.”
“It just so happens that I’m in a damn good mood today, so do your worst.”
The way his eyes flashed with the challenge made my core throb. He undressed in a flash, then lifted me. I wrapped my legs around him and he slammed me into the shower wall, turning the water on so it rained down on us. The tub turned red with blood, the last physical memory of what had happened in this place.
“Before we leave,” he said, grazing my neck with his fangs. “I’m taking the very last part of you.”
“What part is that?”
“Your essence. Your fucking soul. Whatever it is that binds you to me.”
I tensed a little, my anxiety beginning to rise at the prospect. He raised a challenging brow before rubbing his dick against me.
“Give yourself to me, Samara.”
His words weren’t a request or a question. They were a demand, firm and leaving no room for argument. It brought me back to that day in his office what felt like ages ago but was actually only a few months. That decision had been terrifying, but simple. I hadn’t dipped a toe, I’d leapt the fuck in. Human, weak, stupid, and the best decision of my life.
Grabbing him by the hair, I yanked his head to the side and bit into his neck. He grunted and tightened his grip on me before thrusting inside of me. When he pierced me, I felt everything tenfold. My bliss from his blood, his bliss from my blood. Both of our pleasure, our emotions, the love we shared, although that no longer felt like an adequate depiction of what we had.
I felt hot and cold at the same time. The shower curtain crinkled as it whipped back and forth. Lock was fucking me, but I couldn’t feel his individual movements. I was too lost in the overpowering sensations throughout my entire body. Was it possible for me to explode entirely?
Suddenly, we weren’t in the bathroom anymore. Lock had moved us to our bed and laid me on my back, never removing himself from me. I tightened my grip on his hair, demanding more of his blood. I was pretty sure his red blood cells were fucking mine, it felt so incredible.
He gripped under my thigh, moving it over his hip so he could reach deeper. Whimpering against his neck, I slowly removed my fangs. He dropped down to suck on my nipple, then bit down on my breast. The pain quickly morphed into an intense pleasure that made me begin to tighten around him.
“Belladonna,” he groaned. He gripped my hair, forcing my head back, and licked the front of my throat. “My cock is making you create a hurricane outside.”
I glanced toward the window where rain was coming down in buckets. Tree branches were thrashing so violently, I worried they’d tear free. The wind slammed against the glass and whistled through the fence posts.
He nipped my chin, drawing my attention back to him. “Does that make you or me a god?”
I would’ve laughed, but he thrust into me harder, making my mouth fall open. He licked my tongue and I grabbed the back of his neck to keep him in place while I kissed him. In a perfect world, this would never stop. One day, maybe it wouldn’t have to.
“Baby,” I cried when he changed the way he moved his hips.
Locking his hand around my throat, he fucked me harder, his breaths hitching with each one.
“You belong to me,” he growled. “Nobody will ever take you from me, not in life or in death. You… Are… Mine.”
My nails ripped into his skin as heat flooded my core. He dove into my neck, biting into it, and I did the same as both of our orgasms peaked. I was nearly sobbing against him, the contractions bordering on painful. Thunder shook the walls and I heard someone swear from the living room.
The heat spread outward, not just inside me, but across my skin. Lock dropped his forehead onto my shoulder, his body trembling.
“Fucking Christ.”
The bond was strong before, but now it felt like more. It was a constant state of awareness linking me to him. I couldn’t hear his thoughts, but it was like I was sitting just outside the room. The imprint of everything that he was wound itself through my very DNA, creating a connection that could only be severed by the finality of death.
There was something different about the way he felt. He had a sort of vibration that wasn’t there before. When I focused on where we were touching, I felt an energy pass between us, except this wasn’t like it’d been with Raf or Joseph. It wasn’t warm or cold. It felt like light, which didn’t really make sense, but still sounded right.
“Are you okay?” I asked when he still hadn’t lifted his head.
His shoulders shook, making me push him back. I relaxed when I saw him smiling.
“You asshole. What are you laughing about?”
“I was thinking about how you might have destroyed the whole town with an orgasm.”
“Then it would be your fault.”
“If that was meant to be an insult, you failed miserably.”
Huffing, I shoved at him to flip him over, but he didn’t budge. Instead, he kissed me, a.k.a. a tender and sickeningly sweet kiss.
“Did I break you?” I asked.
“I was born broken, darling.”
“Then, did I fix you?”
“Fuck no. I just experienced pleasure that only the gods were meant to know. I’m allowed a moment to recover from that.”
“Do you feel any different?”
“I feel… more. You are clearer to me and my body feels like it has a different sort of life in it.”
“It does. I can sense it between us.”
“Do you feel ready to explode?”
“I don’t think so. This shit is sort of buzzing in my veins and it seems like it wants out, but I have control of it. Then again, I’m a few minutes post-orgasm and nobody has pissed me off yet.”
“We’ll have to find someone for you to set ablaze so you can test it out.”
“Wait. Do you have magic?”
Rolling his lips, he stretched his fingers, then wiggled them. “No. I think Vas was right in his hypothesis. It’s there, but I don’t have the capacity to use it. I have no doubt that I’m stronger in a multitude of ways, but I’ll be leaving the witch business to you.”
“Are you upset about that?”
“I would be ecstatic to have the power you do, but I’m only slightly disappointed that I don’t. We still lend our strength to the other and being attached to you means I have the world’s most state-of-the-art power bank. I’d better go pick up those special chains I ordered.”
Narrowing my eyes, I punched him in the chest. He grabbed my fist and forced it down to the mattress.
“You want to fight so soon, Belladonna. Perhaps we’ll raze this entire dreadful state.”