Chapter 28 Kyren
Chapter twenty-eight
Kyren
The blood in my glass tasted like shit. I’d been ordering from the same supplier for years, and they had never steered me wrong.
Until today.
I sipped it once more. Nope. There had to be something wrong with this batch. The very taste of it was an abomination to my senses. I wanted something else.
Maybe I should try a different blood type?
Dumping the thick liquid down the sink, I turned the water on to rinse it. A soft thud. My ears pricked up. What was that?
My head tilted slightly to the side, searching out for that almost inaudible sound. When nothing happened again, I went back to washing my glass.
That’s when it hit me.
The scent of blood.
A lot of it.
And not just any blood—hers.
I almost shattered the glass with how fast I put it down, my feet already ahead of me as it raced to the door of my private house in town. Nobody knew where I lived off campus, except for Tate. How did she even find me?
The door wretched open, and there she was.
Leaning against the door frame, her dark head of hair a tangled mess, blood dripping from a slash across her forehead, those beautiful almond-colored eyes fluttering open and closed as she reached out to me.
Her hand clasped to her stomach, where even more blood poured from a wound.
“Fuck, Jack,” I stared down at her at a loss to what to do. “What happened?”
“I…” She coughed and then moaned. “I… didn’t know where else to go.” Then those gorgeous eyes closed, and she slumped against the frame.
My head darted outside my door, looking for any witnesses before I bent down and lifted her up into my arms. She groaned in pain, her hand gripping the material of my shirt and smearing me with her blood.
My fangs ached. The scent of her life essence in such an abundance made my already hungry stomach growl with need.
I shoved the need to feed down where it belonged and brought the little hunter to the living room. Laying her down on the couch, I brushed her hair away from her face. The cut on her forehead wasn’t that bad. It would heal quickly on its own, but her stomach was a whole different matter.
Bracing myself for the onslaught of hunger her blood would cause me, I lifted her hand away from her stomach.
Jack had been stabbed. Based on the empty sheath on her thigh, it was probably with her own blade.
“What have you gotten yourself into, la mia?” I murmured to myself. With her quick healing abilities, she would heal on her own if I patched her up. Except… should I?
This woman, this Durand, was the very reason my sire was gone. The bane of my very existence. The whole reason I’d joined that farce of a college was to find this very woman and destroy her.
I hadn’t been able to do it before. Not after what happened with Tate and seeing her, wrapped in my shirt, tossing and turning in bed.
Now, here she was, like fate was giving me a second chance. Injured, vulnerable, begging for my help.
Who would know if I just dumped her body in a ditch somewhere and let her bleed out? My goal to hurt the Durands the way they hurt me would be accomplished, and I could move on with my eternal life.
And yet…
And yet…
The thought of never seeing Jack’s face again felt like a stake in my heart.
To never see her shy smile when someone offered to help her.
I’d never again know what her body felt like against mine, the sounds she made as I ravished her the way I’d wanted to ever since the very first day I saw her in the quad.
My heart beat for her. My body yearned to have her near. I didn’t know when the part of me that wanted to destroy her had somehow morphed into this unending yearning to keep her near. To protect her against anyone else who would wish her harm.
No, I’d sooner bite off my own arm if it meant that this Durand, this woman—my woman, and my very reason for existence now—was snuffed out tonight.
I bit into my wrist and scooped Jack’s head up, pressing it to her mouth. “Come on, gorgeous, open up.”
Jack’s eyes moved rapidly behind her lids, her mouth cracking open slightly.
I pressed my wrist harder against her mouth, forcing the blood into her mouth.
Her throat swallowed weakly. Then her eyes snapped open. Surprise widened her eyes until they locked onto me. Her body relaxed against me, each swallow closing the wound on her stomach.
It made my heart swell to know she trusted me so much.
Her hands grabbed onto my forearms, pulling me tighter into her mouth. The pull of her lips as she sucked me down pulled at another part of me. I shifted in place and tried to hide how hard I was right now.
“I think that’s enough.” My voice came out in a low growl as I withdrew my wrist.
My world spun. I grabbed the couch and braced myself over her, trying to still my wavering being.
“Are you alright?”
I swiped at my eyes and blinked. “Yes, just a bit lightheaded. I haven’t fed in a while.” Just the mention of feeding made my hunger roar back to life. I turned away from her, the quick movement the wrong thing to do in this moment, dragging a groan from me.
“Kyren,” Jack’s soft voice called to me, her hand touching my shoulder.
“I’m fine. Please just don’t…” The left-over blood on her body burned my nostrils, my self-restraint hanging on by a thread.
Jack pulled on my shoulder.
“Don’t touch me,” I snarled, my fangs flashing.
“Jesus, don’t be such a baby.” Jack, stronger now than me, jerked me to her. “You need blood.”
“No.” I shook my head, trying but failing to get back up, the soft parts of her body melding so deliciously against my own. “You’re hurt.”
“Not anymore, you saw to that.” She cupped my face with her hands, pulling my eyes to hers. “If you need to feed, then feed.”
My head jerked back and forth. “No, I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop if I start.”
“Then…” Jack sighed her annoyance. “Here, there’s still blood on me, can you just lick it? Maybe it will help curb the hunger.” Her head tilted toward me, still drying blood surrounding where her cut had been.
I swallowed thickly, my fingers gripping the couch as I leaned forward.
My tongue snaked out, sampling the blood on her skin. I rolled the taste of her around on my tongue, savoring the luscious taste. The blood from the supplier had nothing on Jack’s blood.
I didn’t have the chance to feel ashamed before my tongue was lapping at her skin, tracing along her hair line and down the side of her face until I got every last drop.
Swiping my mouth as I pulled back, I avoided Jack’s gaze. “Thanks.”
Her eyes tracked my face, watching as I licked my lips, my nose picking up the blood still on her stomach. Without me having to ask, Jack lifted her ruined shirt.
“There’s still some more down here.” Her fingers traced over where the blood decorated her supple flesh.
I didn’t give myself a moment to back out. I didn’t know if I could, even if I tried, before I dipped my head down. I lapped and licked at her skin, moaning with each new taste of her blood. My nose tickled with the scent of her blood and something much spicier.
My throat burned with each breath I drew. My front ground against the side of the couch, a low groan pulling from me with each brush against my pulsating cock.
“Don’t forget here.” Her fingers pushed down the waist band of her pants so I could reach where the blood had dripped into her pants.
Fuck. This woman. I wanted to devour every inch of her right here on the couch. My fingers found the belt of her pants, and I hardly knew what I was doing as I unhooked it. Her stomach tensed beneath my mouth. My fingers froze.
“Don’t stop,” her breathy voice urged me on.
I popped the buttons on her pants. Her hips lifted. My tongue followed the path of her pants where I drew them down her legs.
Her arousal blasted me in the face, and I almost came on the spot. With her, it wouldn’t be the first time.
Blood dripped down her pubic bone, disappearing into the junction of her legs. My eyes lifted to meet hers. I flattened my tongue and licked the trail of blood, stopping just short of where her intoxicating scent originated.
Jack licked her lips, her mouth opening slightly the closer I came to her center. The moment my tongue flicked across her engorged bundle of nerves, her eyes shuttered closed.
“Eyes on me, la mia.”
Light brown eyes snapped open, locking onto me. I sucked her clit into my mouth, savoring the taste of her arousal and blood mixed together.
“You are my new favorite addiction.”
“Please, Kyren, don’t stop.”
Her breathy moans were a symphony to my ears, and all I wanted to do was bury my fangs and cock into her.
Would she still moan like that when I was inside of her? Knowing who I was now? Would she still scream my name?
Suddenly, I couldn’t wait to get something inside of her, even if it was just my tongue.
The strangled cry she let out when my muscle thrust into her had me grinding against the couch harder. I dragged her legs over, pushing them open so she was half on and half off the couch, her legs thrown over my shoulders.
My hunger for blood had been temporarily sated. Now a new hunger had taken over. One that had everything to do with her. It was always about her.
“God, fuck, please don’t stop. I’m going to… oh, god.”
I pulled away, making her moan in protest. “The only god you’ll be worshipping from now on will be me. You better get used to begging for mercy because I will give you none.”
Without warning, I thrust a finger inside of her, my mouth latching onto her clit until her hips thrusted up into the air, shoving her pussy against my face.
“Kyren, Kyren, please,” she wept, the sound of my name pouring out of her mouth only second to her cries of pleasure.
“That’s it, come for me, la mia.” She squeezed around my finger, and my only thought was of her pleasure. “I had forgotten how good you taste.”
Her body shuddered and twitched beneath me, my tongue flicking her clit softly to help her ride out of her orgasm. Fingers curled in her hair, she reminded me of a lazy kitten after drinking her fill of milk.
I could get used to seeing this every day for the rest of my existence.
That very thought jolted me back into reality.
I leaned back from her, the urge to lick my fingers just to keep the taste of her in my mouth so strong that I had to stand up to put some distance between us before I thrust myself into her right then and there.
“I think I’m alright now.” I rubbed my palms against my pant legs, looking anywhere but at the feast laying out for me. I would never get the smell of her out of my couch, and I didn’t know if it made me ecstatic or devastated.
“Uh… okay.” Jack shifted on the couch, her brows furrowing.
Clothing shifted behind me. I forced my eyes to focus on anything but her. “So, do you want to tell me what happened?”
Silence followed my question. Then the snap that I didn’t know I missed came back to her voice.
“Not really.”
That wasn’t surprising. We hadn’t really left things off on a good note. I’d been avoiding her since the discovery that she was the Durand I had been looking for. The one that I’d been planning on destroying to hurt her and her family.
How did I go from there to here? With the taste of her on my tongue. The memory of her sweet moans in my ears.
I busied myself with pouring a finger of bourbon into a tumbler. “Alright, then how did you end up on my doorstep?”
“Does it matter?” Jack huffed. “Fuck.”
My head turned.
“The fucker got my good dagger. Tristen is going to kill me,” she grumbled, adjusting and tightening straps on her pants.
The sound of another man’s name on her lips made me see red. Unprecedented jealousy roared through me. Who was Tristen? Why did she care what he thought? She’d just been under me two minutes ago and already she was thinking of someone else?
“Well, thanks, I guess.” Jack glanced my way, wrapping her arms around her middle. “I have a vial of one of my dads’ blood for emergencies, but I’d prefer not to have them in my dreams. It was bad enough listening to them lecture me during my waking hours.”
I sipped from my glass, hating that I was erasing the taste of her. “Not a problem.”
She stepped toward me, her eyes down on the ground. “And you know, about the other thing…”
“Forget it. Blame it on the blood.” I swallowed the words like ash in my mouth.
“Right.” She bobbed her head. Was that disappointment on her face? “I guess, I’ll be going then.”
Jack paused, pulling her lower lip between her teeth. I wanted to be the one biting that lip.
“Can we not mention this to anyone? I just don’t want Tate to worry.”
“I understand.” My jaw clenched around the words. Every molecule of me wanted to demand her to stay. Stay with me. Let me make love to you. Never leave me.
But there was still the glaring elephant in between us that kept me from saying those words.
She was the daughter of the family I hated. The same family I was plotting to take down. On a cellular level, I knew there was no way I would ever get to keep her and get my revenge.
Jack started toward the door, then paused her hand going to the doorframe the other to her head.
I stepped towards her.
“I’m fine. Just a bit lightheaded.” Then she tried to take another step, and she was falling.
On instinct, my shadows whipped out and caught her before she hit the floor. She’d passed out.
I had my shadows move her over to my couch and pulled my phone from my pocket, hitting the speed dial before putting it to my ear. Tate answered on the first ring, meaning he’d been waiting for someone to call. “Kyren? I’m sorry but I can’t talk right now. I’m looking for—”
“She’s here.”
I hung up after he stated he was on his way, turning to stare at the woman on my couch. The same woman whose family had taken everything from me and yet she had stolen something even worse.
My heart.