Chapter 10 #2
My angel was scratched by a tiny dart, and then he released Lorien and spun around, searching the onlookers until he found me. He marched towards me and would have run into the ward if Lorien hadn’t broken it as he scrambled away in the opposite direction.
“Enjoy corruption, Gavvy,” he called, and then spread his wings and disappeared into the shadows.
Gavriel was close to me, but he didn’t stop with close.
His hand came around the back of my head and the other circled my waist. Was he going to crush my skull?
My ferret chirped at him, lecturing him about his rudeness while he walked me back until I thumped against a wall.
That didn’t feel great against my still seeping skull.
“Gavriel, what did he mean, enjoy corruption?” I asked, trying not to lose my calm at the intense emotion flooding his eyes.
“There is no meaning in the world other than you, my precious heart.” He bent his head and inhaled against my throat, his warm breath sending shocking vibrations over all of my skin.
He kissed my throat, open-mouthed, warm tongue skating over my dead flesh like he was completely deranged.
He should be repelled by my skin. Not that some people didn’t like vampire skin, but it was certainly an acquired taste.
“What are you doing?” I asked. My voice was cold, hard, reasonable, but inside I was quaking like a leaf.
He pulled away to caress my face, slipping fingers through my blood-caked hair, and gazed at me with eyes so hungry for me.
“From the first moment I saw you, I ached to warm you with my body and soul. Do you dislike me tasting your sweet skin? You smell of roses and death. I love the scent of death, so heady and irresistible, like a crackling fire on a cold day.”
“You mean like a cold day on a crackling fire. He pricked you with a dart. You’re not yourself.” I pushed him away, but he surged back against me, gazing at me with desperation I could smell.
His feelings smelled real, even though the cupid had manufactured them. How terrifying. “My love. You’ve been alone too long. Let me hold you close and fill you with my warmth. Let me be your crackling fire on a winter’s day.”
“And I’ll be your winter day? I highly doubt that’s an equal trade. Gavriel, take a deep breath. Don’t let your old friend manipulate you. Don’t let him…”
He kissed me, swallowing my words and my thoughts. I reached up and tangled my fingers in his hair, ignoring the scent of his sweet blood seeping from one of the many wounds he’d taken, including the bullet wound. I needed to take care of him, but how could I possibly resist so much aching desire?
He kissed me, gripping my sides, tugging me close while his back was completely unguarded. This wasn’t the place for this, not with the whole crew gathered to watch the fight.
I ducked under his arm and away from the wall, getting space. The others were gone, leaving us in some kind of privacy, but Lorien could be in the shadows, just waiting for an opening.
“It isn’t safe here.”
He advanced on me, his eyes flickering with barely veiled flames of passion. He captured my hand and threaded my fingers with his. “Then take me to your bed. Tell me what you want. Make me your slave.”
I yanked my hand out of his. “I’m not making anyone my slave.”
He smiled shyly and gazed at me with open adoration.
“I’ve been enslaved by your beauty from the first moment you stepped onto the gravel in those ridiculous shoes.
Except on you, they weren’t ridiculous, pointless accessories.
They were weapons. Not that you needed any.
That first moment, I was slain by the glorious glimmering of your exquisite soul.
Let me hold you, protect you, adore you until my last breath.
Take me where you will have me, and I will be yours forever. ”
That was exactly the kind of thing a slimy, manipulative seducer would say, but his emotions matched the words. He felt every one of them to the depths of his heart, thanks to that slimy, manipulative cupid.
I needed to get him out of the alley and somewhere the love drug could wear off. I looped my arm in his and tugged him towards the door. “We can talk in our room.”
He caressed my arm, gazing at me so that he would have run into the door frame if I hadn’t pulled him closer to me. He didn’t mind being closer. In fact, he wrapped his arm around me, tucking me against his side, protective and devoted.
Everyone was looking at us as we walked through the back room.
“I’m just taking him somewhere safe until it wears off,” I said, feeling judged. They could all see that I was fixated on the angel. The logical thing for a soulless, murderous, bloodsucking criminal like myself to do was take advantage of this situation. He couldn’t blame me for playing the part.
I wanted his warmth, his attentive devotion. After a hundred years with Tralcon, didn’t I deserve some happiness? I focused on Tiago while I gripped Gavriel’s forearm. The elf was the most knowledgeable one here.
“How long will this last?”
He gave me a faint smile. “Twenty-four hours or longer depending on how deep his genuine feelings are.”
Twenty-four hours?
I dragged the angel with me through the back room, past the fairy boy and his little sister, who both stared at us as we went. I hesitated and untangled Crucible from my hair, thrusting him at the girl.
“Chira, can you watch Crucible for me? I’ll be back,” I told the ferret and made the hand signals that told him to stay with her.
He wiggled his nose and squeaked irritably, but didn’t struggle in her grasp. She held the ferret to her chest and beamed at me with the brightness of a thousand rainbows. “Of course I’ll watch Crucible!”
“What a weird name,” the fairy boy muttered, but he gave the ferret a slight smile. He was also a softy, like his half-brother. Hopefully they didn’t get involved in something illegal that they couldn’t get out of. If Tralcon was truly rising, they would be ripe for the plucking.
I wouldn’t free someone just to let a demon enslave them again.
I wanted to scream. We’d failed to get answers out of the cupid, even though Gavriel had him in his grasp.
Even though Gavriel had paid the price in pain and humiliation.
In twenty-four hours, he’d hate himself for every lie he’d said, every touch he’d given me.
He couldn’t blame me for playing the part, for taking advantage of him.
I struggled with my conscience all the way up the stairs.
Once we were in the room, he picked me up and kicked the door closed, then carried me towards the bed.
He set me down so carefully, then left me with a shock of cold to go to the sink.
He wet a cloth and then came back, kneeling on the floor as he raised my head and started washing the blood out of my hair.
“I saw you hit the bricks. I smelled your blood,” he murmured, his low voice rumbling through me like a rock slide. He was so sweet. Lust I could fight, but sweetness? Affection? Care? How could I?
His touch was so gentle as he caressed my face. “You need to be careful with your precious mind.”
I gurgled a laugh that sounded as mad as I felt. “My precious mind? Stop. That’s too ridiculous. You need to rest. I need to check your bullet wound and…”
He pulled off his sword holster, tossed his sword and shirt to the floor behind me, and then was alabaster skin that throbbed with the sweetest blood there ever had been.
I didn’t drink live prey. I didn’t want to be bound to anyone, but we were a team.
I couldn’t let this continue because I couldn’t guarantee that I could resist him.
I didn’t want to. I’d never wanted someone so much, and I wasn’t used to wanting someone in so many different ways.
His warmth, his sweetness, his goodness, his strength, but also his raw flesh and blood.
So much the blood, but just as much the flesh.
His fingers skimmed over my wrists, and I shivered down to the bone from that one innocent touch. It wasn’t innocent to me. And his eyes were so hungry, starved for connection that he’d resisted his entire life.
“Let me love you,” he whispered, pushing himself above the edge of the bed, over me where he hovered, gazing at me like a starving person who was on the brink of losing control.
If my heart could beat, it would be racing as fast as his. I put my hand against his chest, pushing him back while I sat up. I took the rag and started cleaning the blood off his shoulder, opposite his heart. I focused on cleaning the wound while he stared at me. The bullet was still there.
“This is going to hurt,” I whispered, meeting his eyes.
His smile was sweet, but also dangerous. “You touching me is the only thing that doesn’t hurt. Cut me. It will be nothing but pleasure.”
I stared at him, captured in the intensity of his sincerity before I refocused on the wound, formed my fingers like a pincer, shoved my thinnest nails into his wound and pulled out the bullet.
It was quick, but a welling of blood came from the wound that I’d reopened, the scent wrapping around me as irresistible as his soft smile.
I pressed my hand on the wound, pressure that should stop the bleeding quickly. How could I resist blood that would go to waste if I didn’t drink it off his skin? No. I absolutely couldn’t taste his skin, or I’d lose my mind as much as he was lost.
He covered my hand and cupped my face with his other hand. “Nothing but pleasure,” he murmured and brushed my nose with his. It was such a sweet gesture, so at odds with the ways his eyes burned into me, the scent of desire that filled the air with every beat of his pulse.
“What am I going to do with you?” I asked, feeling like I was drowning. We were a team. I didn’t corrupt innocents, but I wanted him, and it would be so easy to take what I wanted.
“Whatever you want, my precious love. I’m yours. Not your slave, if you don’t want a slave, but I’ll be anything, everything that you’ll let me be. Let me love you for the rest of your life.”
The words were like ice, making me sit upright. I had no life. His life should have someone in it that he could love until death. He deserved that, and if I cared about him at all, I wouldn’t ruin him.
“Can I have your blood?” I asked, raising my chin.
His smile was absolute delight. “Every last drop.”
I rolled on top of him, smoothed my hand over his chest and then, feeling like a monster with no good options, I bent over him and slowly sank my fangs into his throat.
Vampires don’t usually take throats unless they want to kill the victim or if they’re just playing vampires with someone who romanticized that kind of thing.
There were so many better places to access blood without doing damage to the victim.
That’s what I was thinking when the first taste of his blood rushed over my tongue.
Then I thought of nothing but him, his blood, his sweetness.
Why had I waited so long to find this beautiful happiness?
I could feel his happiness, his emotions, his desire, his obsession, his love.
I drank it up, drop by drop, keeping the flow steady, not too fast, not too slow, steady instead of ripping off the rest of his clothes and feeding on every other part of him. Body and soul, flesh and blood.
He murmured approval in his throat while I wrapped around him and drank him.
I held him carefully, soaking up his warmth, his love, even if it was manufactured by some diabolical cupid.
His arms and wings arced around us, hiding us from the rest of the world as he snuggled me closer, fitting our bodies together while his heart beat slower and slower, and slower.
I pulled my fangs out of his throat long after he was unconscious, but I couldn’t risk him coming to before the twenty-four hours were over. I hadn’t betrayed my partner. But I’d drunk him to the dregs.
I was ashamed for it, but I was a monster. And I’d drunk so much angel blood. Even if it was tinged with goblin, it was still too much for my system. I was going into hibernation. No. I had to stay awake and keep him safe.
I struggled, but darkness reached up and dragged me back into his arms mercilessly.