Feast
Iwas the creeping darkness. Slithering. Stalking.
Hunting down the living, driven by jealousy and greed.
I was smoke, rolling over myself as I closed in on my prey.
Shadow itself. My hands reached out, translucent claws extending from my misty form.
Insatiable hunger radiated from my chest; my mouth filled with the taste of dry ash.
“Feeeedddd,” a menacing whisper reverberated against the foggy walls of the dream. Encouraging me. Instructing me. Somehow I knew ripping into the flesh of the living would satiate this thirst.
I raised my arms, ready to skewer my victim. Smoke tendrils fell from tattered, ghostly gossamer. A buzzing built in my ears, like a swarm of hornets had infested my mind.
“FEEEEEEEEEDDDD,” the whisper demanded over the angry hum.
Before I struck, the figure turned to me. Her features were recognizable. She was paler than I remembered. But unmistakable.
She was…me.
Then he appeared—tall and broad—swallowing my living reflection’s frame. Recognition and fear flashed in his familiar gaze. A hollow ache crept through me at the sight of him, swiftly followed by hot, molten rage.
A snarl died within my ash covered throat and I strained to launch myself at him. The determination to rip him apart and tear his soul from his flesh so I could hold and keep it was bigger than any feeling I’d ever known.
No. Don’t hurt him. I can’t. I won’t!
I awoke, gasping. Sweat beaded my forehead. I reached out for Rhazien, but where I would normally find the rise and fall of his bare, muscled chest, I found emptiness and soft linens.
My heart pounded as the dream echoed. The thrill of the hunt. The urge to kill. The unbearable mourning. Such foreign, overwhelming, and heavy feelings to carry.
I clutched at the fabric and stifled a sob. Emotions I recognized as my own blossomed, along with my conscience. There was a sword propped on an unfamiliar bedside table.
This wasn’t my room.
“Reyva…” A concerned tone slid across the dimly lit room. “You were dreaming.”
I jolted upright, finally noticing a figure seated in a lone chair at the foot of the bed. A bed with a different color comforter than my assigned chambers.
The lazy, dying flames from the fireplace behind the chair gave the tousled locks of his silhouette a golden hue. Shadows ebbed across the ridges of Dommik’s bare chest and flowed over his muscled shoulders and arms.
It’s not safe for you in your quarters, he’d insisted before leading me to his room and locking me inside. He had duties he’d needed to attend to. Everyone had their duties.
It was Rhazien’s duty to woo Eryx and his court, keeping their relationship strong to ensure peace between Hives, which also meant satiating an apparently voracious appetite.
And it was Dommik’s duty to pleasure Valta in exchange for keeping a secret—my secret—that my courses had started while in dangerous territory.
Disgust at the thought of either of their prescribed duties slithered up my spine and coiled around my bones.
“I…yes…” I breathed, gathering myself. “It was just a nightmare.”
Just a nightmare. The declaration did nothing against the gnawing feeling in my gut.
“You said my name.” The words crawled across the gravel in his tone and I looked up at him, meeting a hardened gaze.
“I did?” I clutched the fabric over my chest, wishing there were miles more of it to bury myself beneath.
“Mhmm.”
“I…” I wiped the sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand before running it through my hair. “I don’t remember.”
His eyes ran over me before he softly exhaled. “That’s a shame.”
My heartbeat began to steady itself and I quipped, “Is it?”
He’d saved me last night. Again. Dommik had been my shield and protector when Rhazien couldn’t.
The chair groaned with Dommik’s weight as he leaned forward, surveying me. “Are you wearing my shirt?”
“I’m wearing a shirt,” I replied flatly.
I couldn’t sleep in the biting beads of the formal gown and didn’t want to risk being found naked in the commander’s room.
So, I grabbed the only things I could find—a light cream sleeping shirt and oversized pants that provided little additional heat in the depths of the Hive, but their ill fit had to do, considering the circumstances.
Dark hair danced as Dommik shook away an amused expression. His muscles shifted as he sat up straight again, rolling his neck and shoulders. “Maybe it will come back to you later.”
Dommik stretched his arms over his head, flexing, and I snuck another glance at his exposed midsection. And lower.
“Maybe it’s best if it's forgotten.” I tucked my knees into my chest, wrapping my arms around my limbs, and let my forehead rest atop my balled up form. I had to pry away my gaze from the beautiful deviant before darker, damning thoughts had a chance to weasel their way into my mind.
The shirtless commander exhaled evenly. “Maybe you’re lying.”
“Maybe you should fuck off.” The suggestion muffled into the sheets.
A short snort of laughter escaped. “I don’t think I deserve the animosity after saving your life last night. Again.”
I couldn’t stop the sarcasm from practically erupting out of my body. I scoffed with the drama of a petulant teenager, “Ha! Dommik, the savior! Tell me, was it just awful? Doing your special tricks for Valta?”
My jealousy broke from its chains and now that it was free, I couldn’t rein it back in.
His eyes darkened. Cold, stern, and unmoving, he simply said, “Yes.”
We sat stuck in a thick, muddy silence.
I opened my mouth to say something, although I wasn’t sure what. Something along the lines of thank you or I’m sorry. I should be grateful, not spiteful. But he spoke first.
“Don’t.” He leaned forward, clasping his hands together. “I am duty-bound to protect you. And so I did what I must to perform that duty.”
Guilt spread through my bloodstream like a rampant wildfire as his words sunk in.
His assignment. His duty. A burden was what I was, always making trouble for him in one way or another.
And I understood what he meant. Better than he likely realized. A woman’s body isn’t ever our own. Not really. They belong to our husbands as they take pleasure, and our children as they take nutrients from us. But never our own.
If I didn’t know it then, something clicked into place and I understood it now.
Why I’d been so rebellious and insistent about my affair with Beau.
Why I’d needed to dictate when and where and how much pleasure I took from others.
It was a taste of the power and control I lacked in all other circumstances.
Taboo as it was, I felt the most me in those moments.
I felt it again with Rhazien. The independence. The freedom.
But I’d taken it from Dommik and that truth would weigh until I could make things right.
Any semblance of an apology turned to ash on my arid tongue. The words I tried to conjure were all unworthy of speaking aloud.
“You don’t have to be thankful or sorry. Just know I didn’t do it for me.” Dommik snuffed out a rogue ember that had bounced from the fireplace with a crunch of his boot.
Something about his response disappointed me. I lifted my gaze to his waiting stare. “Your duty.”
“To the Hive. To my regent. To you.” I looked to my feet, unsure how to describe the pain pricking at my insides.
Everyone has a job. Everyone gets something.
Including me. A life with a crown and riches waited for me at the end of my duty.
A life I’d never dreamed of or wanted with a man I couldn’t have dreamed up.
Except, Rhazien wasn’t the man I couldn’t shake.
Dommik was like a stain on my mind. An itch I couldn’t scratch. Off-limits. Out of bounds. Forbidden.
The commander pushed back his dark, messy hair and the firelight cast shadows across the angles of his face, accentuating dark circles beneath his normally alert and focused eyes. I saw it now—the weight of his duty.
“Needless to say, in your condition, you can’t leave this room.” I moved to stand and before I could protest his orders, he repeated himself, insisting, “You. Cannot. Leave. This room.”
“What about Rhaz—”
“Leave that to me,” Dommik barked, adding another brick to his already looming tower of responsibilities on this diplomatic visit.
I made an irritated sound as I folded my arms across my chest. “So I just—”
As if he read my mind he continued, “Yes. Stay here. Don’t leave. Don’t make more trouble for me.” He softened, “Please.”
Blood was beginning to pool in my undergarments, accentuating the entire reason I needed to be kept in hiding. Dommik’s nostrils flared and his eyes went wide.
I clenched, willing my body to keep any additional blood at bay. At least, until he left.
But the commander stepped closer, hunger emanating from him.
“Dommik. What is it?” I breathed through parted lips.
“You can’t imagine what it’s like,” he growled. I retreated as he took another step closer, like we were performing a slow waltz in his private quarters. “Knowing what you taste like. Knowing you so deeply.”
Dommik’s oversized shirt fell off my shoulder, revealing the skin of my collarbone and neck with the absolute worst timing possible.
I reached to fix the fabric but Dommik lifted his hand, a silent command to freeze.
And despite every instinct screaming beneath my skin to cover, hide, or run, I listened.
Entranced by his stormy gaze. Falling deeper into the crashing waves and enticing tide as he continued to stalk forward.
“Normally, vampires keep their human partners to themselves during their cycle.”
I couldn’t tell if it was the chill of the rough stone meeting my back or the predatory look in his eyes that sent a shiver through my body.
Dommik was inches from me and I was completely at his mercy.
He looked down with a pained, weighted gaze. “If you were mine, I wouldn’t have let anyone else near you. We wouldn’t have left my chambers.”