Off Limits #2
Vaspar’s attention flicked back to me. In a blink, Dommik leapt to the other side of the table like he hadn’t suffered an extensive injury.
He dwarfed the pale, lean vampire in physical stature and prowess.
Although sharp fangs jutted between Vaspar’s sharpened teeth, he recoiled, trying to escape the blade Dommik held in the soft space where his jaw met his throat.
The sight of Vaspar’s shrinking frame sent a satisfying flicker through me.
The feeling quickly evaporated when my foot met Rolf’s large, lifeless body and the dull eyes of his severed head.
“By the Four. Don’t tell me you can’t smell her. That you don’t want a taste, too.” The blade, illuminated by the dying light of the setting moon, pressed against Vaspar’s quivering neck. With his free hand, Dommik gripped Vaspar’s black tunic.
He had smelled me. He’d tasted me. I felt so exposed. So…violated. He’d stolen a piece of me I would never get back, and he’d enjoyed every second of it.
“You’ll face extreme punishment for this.” Dommik’s smile wasn’t one I’d seen before. This smile was different. Wide. Threatening. A promise of pain. Pain I wanted to see delivered.
Vaspar’s hands lifted in surrender as he pleaded, “You know you can’t hurt me, Dommik.”
“Commander,” Dommik barked, releasing Vaspar with a forceful push.
“I’ll make you a deal, Commander.” Vaspar’s salute was a sarcastic mockery of Dommik’s position. “You keep my activities a secret and I’ll do the same for you.”
“I have no secrets,” Dommik said with unwavering confidence. The heat of Vaspar’s attention landed on me and slid back to Dommik with raised brows.
“Really? Given your history, I doubt…”
“None,” Dommik insisted. The ice in his tone could have frozen the Southern Sea. “You’re dismissed. Return to the Hive and await sentencing.”
Vaspar bowed, leveling me with a glare before vanishing from the dining room.
Dommik dropped his blade and I gasped at the darkness leering at me.
Had I traded one assailant for another?
“What were you doing up here?” Dommik growled.
“I was just—” I gestured to the painting.
“You’re not even wearing shoes!”
He strode toward me, broken glass breaking into even smaller pieces beneath his riding boots as he approached.
“I needed some air,” I sputtered before he scooped me into an effortless cradle. Curses fell from my lips. For ignoring me. For his forcefulness.
“You truly have the most colorful language,” he grumbled as we descended the stairs.
My traitorous body burned as he carried me with ease, my muscles surrendering to his hold. Dommik was a terrifyingly handsome predator. A trained, natural killer. Maybe the danger was what made him alluring.
He set me down once we’d reached the cellar, safe from the sharp edges of destroyed place settings. I bit my cheek and took a steadying breath.
“You cannot—” my open palm met his chest “—handle me like that. Ask permission.”
I needed to be doused with a bucket of cold water. I didn’t hate the way his hands felt on me. And that was dangerous.
As if my inner turmoil was written on my face, he arched a playful brow. “Let’s make a deal. I won’t touch you without your explicit permission unless your life is in immediate danger. Danger doesn’t pause to ask permission and neither will I if that’s the case.”
“Deal.” I put a hand out. He reached to shake it but I stalled and emphasized, “Only if my life is in danger.”
Dommik nodded. “Or, you explicitly tell me to.”
“I won’t.”
A smile that sent my middle into a knot spread across his stubble. He didn’t believe me. I wasn’t sure I believed myself.
“I suppose it is a notable improvement you can carry me, or stand at all for that matter.” I folded my arms. “You’re all healed then?”
Dommik’s pointed nose scrunched as he twisted to inspect his wound. “Not entirely. But I am feeling much better. I’ll be well enough to travel tomorrow.”
Tomorrow? I raised my brows. “Does that mean…”
He sighed dramatically. “One more day in the cellar. We’ll leave at sundown. It won’t be so bad. You can read to me some more.”
A rumble of thunder shook the earth. Even if we were well enough, I’d prefer not to travel in the rain. I did want to know what would happen to the ill-fated lovers in The Forest and The Flame. Not that I would tell Dommik that when he smiled at me like that—like he knew I enjoyed reading to him.
“I’ll let you have the bed tonight. It’s only fair. But let’s get you cleaned up first.” He gestured to the chairs. I kneaded my hands together as I sat. Dommik knelt before me. His crooked smile lifted but faded as he pointed to my skirts. “May I?”
Once he laid eyes on the wound and smelled the opportunity for fresh blood, would he pick up where Vasper had left off?
“Aren’t you…hungry?” I asked, unsure if I could handle knowing an honest answer.
“Yes,” he admitted through a stern exhale. “But I would never do anything you didn’t want me to do.”
My eyes lingered on his mouth, searching for evidence of his fangs.
“We can conceal them,” he answered my unasked question. “Now, may I wrap the wound on your leg?”
I swallowed thickly and gave him a soft nod.
“See,” he said as he wrapped gauze around my thigh. The wound developed its own heartbeat from the pressure. “Explicit permission.”
“No taste test this time?” I mentioned, remembering how he’d gathered up the bead of blood from my wound and tasted me during the Veilbreakers ambush.
He paused, intensity filling his glare, as he tied off the bandage and inspected his work. Through a tense breath, he whispered, “I shouldn’t have done that.”
He’d scolded Vaspar for defying strict orders, ones he also hadn’t followed.
“There.” He looked up at me with a remorseful gaze. “I’m sorry I didn’t intervene sooner.”
Remorse and sympathy? A primal, maternal instinct nudged me to comfort him.
To tell him it wasn’t his fault, and remove the guilt he harbored in his pinched expression.
But I ignored the long-standing, deep-rooted training in how to be a ‘good woman’ for men.
No. His feelings were his own to manage.
Instead of coddling him, I sighed. “Who says you wouldn’t have done the same thing?”
Color rose to his cheeks but quickly subsided. “You’re right.”
I jerked my head back with his admission.
“And wrong.” He exhaled as he stood to stretch.
“Explain.” I eyed him while he set to cleaning Rolf’s blood from his blade.
“Some vampires have a preference to feed on the unwilling. I do not share that preference.” His eyes fell to my collarbone.
In a voice that didn’t sound like my own, I croaked, “What is your preference?”
His stormy gaze traced my neckline. “Permission.”
“Permission or submission?” I quipped, adjusting in the chair.
“Permission,” he insisted, meeting my eyes, hard and serious. Had I been standing, my knees may have buckled. He was saying all the right things. But to what end? Why flatter me? Why butter me up only to insist that I’m not to be touched or tasted?
The storm crackled, like the lightning strikes were drawn to the charged moment between us.
I blinked first.
“We’re going to be down here a while,” Dommik noted, sheathing his sword. “Best to keep busy to pass the time.”
He stood, wincing slightly as he reached his full height. Still healing, he’d said. Dommik’s long gait spanned the small basement in three easy strides. I tensed as he bent down next to me and collected The Forest and The Flame from beneath the bed.
He knelt there and slowly handed me the text. “I’m going to tend to Asher, feed myself, and bring you something to eat. I’ll be back shortly. Please stay here. Stay hidden.”
Two things worried me at that moment.
“What if you get hurt and need my help again?” I addressed my first concern, gripping the fragile book.
Dommik’s eyes flicked to my fidgeting fingers, then back to me. “I’ll be fine, lovely.”
He’d fought off a dozen raiders when he was well. Vaspar cowered in his presence when he was injured. Of course going out into the woods to find a rabbit or squirrel or whatever would satiate his thirst wouldn’t be a problem.
I looked down at the book, tracing the tree on the red cover, and admitted my second fear through a shaky breath, “What if he comes back?”
Dommik placed a curled finger under my chin, his knuckle encouraging my gaze to his. Kneeling in front of me, he looked like a knight on the brink of swearing his undying fealty.
“He won’t,” Dommik declared. His eyes burned with promise beneath his furrowed brow.
“He won’t?” I asked, reveling in the heat beneath the blanket of his weighty stare.
“He won’t.”
Dommik cupped my face and wiped away a fallen tear with his thumb. His gentle touch so fiercely contrasted the warrior who wielded his deadly blade. But I suppose we all walk the world donning many masks. Was this one of his? Or was this the real Dommik? Tender and bare.
In his fevered state, he’d said I reminded him of something. I wondered, in his unnaturally long life, if when he looked at me with those storm-filled eyes, if he saw me. Or if he was seeing an echo of something else…someone else.
Dommik blinked frantically, as if he’d forgotten himself, and stood to leave. I, too, cleared my throat and composed myself, mentally kicking dirt over the warm embers glowing in my center.
He didn’t say anything else as he left. Just turned, nodded to me, and ascended the stairs, leaving me with his favorite book.
Dommik kept his word. He’d returned with a prepared plate of food before I was halfway through The Forest and The Flame.
I’d have likely finished the thin book if it weren’t for the invasive daydreams—curiosities about vampires and feeding and why I couldn’t be touched or tasted even though Dommik had done both.
He plucked a different book from the shelf and quietly thumbed through its pages while I ate in silence, buzzing with questions.
“I didn’t peg you as a reader,” I said as I dabbed the corners of my mouth with a handkerchief.