Chapter 16 – Klista
Chapter Sixteen
Klista
I don’t know why I had been so sure that today would be different. That I wouldn’t feel the same sense of bereavement, desolation. and debilitating thirst as soon as Tristian left my apartment.
The night after our first date, I thought I would lose my damn mind with how much I missed him, how much I craved him. It was so acute, so unbearable, making me feel as if I had gone months without feeding, that it was a wonder that I had gotten through my shift unharmed or without causing someone else to be hurt.
To make matters worse, all day I had remembered and replayed how his cock felt and tasted in my mouth. How my tongue licked and sucked him off, how violently he unraveled for me, and then I would desperately want to do it again.
Now, more than a week later, I was still having vivid memories of our erotic nights together. Since he’d taken me forcefully against the wall just inside the entrance of my apartment, those particular erotic images had been on rewind and replay for days in my mind. Hell, I would never enter my apartment again and not remember how he made me beg and scream as I came apart.
My perfect recall of the images and pleasure during the night hadn’t stopped at what happened at my apartment’s entrance. Nope! I was tormented by the potency of his lovemaking in various parts of my apartment. My kitchen counter, my sofa, the carpet in front of the sofa, my shower, my bedroom… or basically anywhere in my apartment we found ourselves.
My vampire spends hours kissing, tasting, and caressing me. Every touch, every kiss has been languid, tender and sweet. So slow and agonizingly seductive that I am left pulsing and soaked with need throughout the day for him.
Tristan especially loves eating me out. But my favorite so far has been when we were on my bed and he grabbed my right leg and threw it over his shoulder and held the left leg pinned to the bed as he swooped down and slid his tongue into my soaked folds, the hard tip licking along my taut clit.
I trembled, I moaned, and I begged until my voice was hoarse.
He has no mercy, no restraint. Relentlessly he licks, nips and sucks my sensitive flesh, every touch sending a tighter and tighter coil of blistering pleasure through every cell in my body until a climax rips through me.
Even as I am still spasming in release, he flips me to my stomach and pulls me to my knees before plunging into me in one hard thrust. With his cock buried deep inside of me, I feel our connection completely, our minds, our bodies, and our souls interlinked and interlocked for all time. There isn’t a part of us that hasn’t connected and merged. He starts moving in that maddeningly slow, tormenting roll of his hips. He keeps us on a pinpoint edge of bliss for almost an hour. Every time I’m about to come, he pulls back and makes me come down, before he starts the seduction all over again. And then he’ll press the opened vein at his wrist to my mouth and I’ll feed from him. Our minds transcend into a thick fog of sensual pleasure so intense that it sears us to the very bone until we unravel and wave after wave of ecstasy and violent tremors decimate us into an explosive nothingness of pure ecstasy.
I am dating a vampire.
Hell, that wasn’t a phrase I ever thought that I would be using. Alexi has always warned me to stay away from immortals. I can’t even blame it on his vampire allure because I’m immune. I can’t blame it on ignorance, because I knew what he was from jump, and he didn’t hide it from me. I can’t blame it on spontaneity either because I didn’t just go out to dinner with him, talk and laugh for hours, but we have since visited the opera in New York (of course, for the occasion, Tristan gifted me with a gorgeous Oscar de la Renta beaded tulle gown that had the color and design of the midnight sky), gone to a movie premier in California (we skipped the red carpet), took a late-night sail through the beautiful Strait of Gibraltar, took a full throttle motorcycle drive through the Mojave Desert, and even had a romantic dinner in an underwater restaurant in the Maldives.
Yeah, I was dating a superrich, very gorgeous vampire.
Every time he took me out, he not only provided my designer digs but he was impeccably scrumptious as well. His Tom Ford suits fit his muscular, tall, lean body to perfection.
Between my inexplicable thirst for him and the kaleidoscope of images from our passionate nights together, my brain is usually mush all day, not only recalling passion but also reveling in our amazing dates. The more I knew about him, the more I craved him. He made me smile so much that I was in a constant state of happiness when I was with him and misery until I saw him again. Of course, all of our dates were at night. Tristan was determined to show me that we could have a full life even if most of it was during the night. Strangely enough, even though most nights I slept less than three hours, I never felt tired or sleep deprived.
My world had narrowed to everything Tristan until I got the frantic text message from my little sister this evening. Apparently, the assholes who had taken them hadn’t bothered to confiscate her cellphone and she was able to send me a message along with her location. As our SWAT units were in the middle of a firefight between two rival gangs that seemed determined to destroy each other, along with any innocent bystanders as collateral damage, it took me more than an hour to get here.
I hated seeing the look of disappointment and disapproval on Aidan’s face, but I was disappointed in him too. After everything that the wolves taught me over the years—justice, integrity, and honesty— finding him openly guarding one of the most notorious, brutal criminals in the world was shocking to say the least.
Tristano Eduardo Marino, the Godfather of all Italian and Sicilian mafia families, was known for his merciless, murderous, and cold dealings with anyone who disappointed him or disagreed with him. The rumors were that the Godfather had been his father’s head enforcer and executioner since he was sixteen years old. In fact, the story was that on his sixteenth birthday he had killed more than twenty men for killing his mother. He had been one of the deadliest and most feared crime bosses for more than two decades.
His base was on a private island in Sicily, which his father had left him, and it was where many have disappeared. If they did return, they were so irrevocably changed, and not for the better, that his men feared being summoned to him.
It was reported that if he didn’t kill you immediately he would throw you in his self-made terror hole, and then you would wish for death. The rumor was that the hole was a little over twenty feet below ground and barely fifty square feet. It was supposedly made of steel, which made escape impossible once thrown in. However, it wasn’t just the size of the hole or the depth, which was bad enough. It was what one would find in the hole that was the real terror. With knowledge of the occupant’s worst fear, the mafia Boss made sure that the hole became that for them. Psychological and physical, pain and fear, were guaranteed.
And now that he seemed to also be feared by the Russians, arguably one of the most barbaric, deranged, and sadistic crime syndicates in the city. The Godfather, in the past few months, in addition to being the most wanted criminal on the planet, had cemented his reputation of being one of the most feared and brutal crime bosses of the century.
Even knowing who he is and what he is about does nothing to lessen how much I want and need him. It doesn’t lessen the invisible but very visceral bond between us. It feels as if he is a part of me. He is my heart and the air that I breathe. God, I feel him in every cell of my body. It doesn’t make sense, but that is how it feels to want him, to need him. And now, even knowing that he’s the embodiment of all that I despise most in a person, the strength of my desire for him hasn’t diminished. I refuse to call it love because this feels more like an obsession than love.
It doesn’t matter how he affects me. Because of who we both are, it makes any union between us sacrilege. I am law enforcement, and he is a violent law breaker. There can only be one course of action I can take with him going forward. I will have to arrest his ass. How a human jailor can contain a vampire who can teleport is a them-problem, not mine.
God, he is already making me sound crazy.
I also can’t ignore his apparent relationship with the wolves. I don’t understand it, and knowing the complexity of the supernatural world, I will probably never understand. Again, a problem for another day.
My focus now has to be on my family and getting them to safety. This situation with the Russians came too close to my sisters and my little brother being lost to me forever.
“Mother, I’m taking you guys home now, and if anyone tries to stop me, I will throw their ass in jail no matter how much power they think they have in this city.” I said frostily, wanting someone to object so that I could have an excuse to shoot, but I also didn’t want my siblings any more traumatized than they were pretending not to be.
My mother moved slowly from the darkened corner where she had been huddled. As she limped toward me, I got more and more pissed with a growing suspicion that someone had hurt her. And then she finally stepped into the light, and I could feel my usually bluish-gray eyes ice to pure silver.
“Who the hell hit you?” Yeah, I knew that my voice sounded almost demonic, but the way I was feeling was the least of the worries for the bastard who hit my mother. The left side of her face was severely bruised, her cheek red and black in places, and her left eye was swollen shut. She stared at me through her dark brown right eye, which was pooling with moisture.
“Let it go, baby,” my mother said softly. “I just want to go home.”
“Nah, hell no! Who was the damn coward who hit her?!” I spat out. I looked around the room, but no one answered.
“Boris, which one of your assholes did this?” the Godfather demanded, and the threat in his voice was unmistakable.
I had to think of him as Tristano, the Godfather, and not my Tristan because that part of our relationship seems so surreal now that I knew who he was. I couldn’t reconcile my Tristan with the monster the rest of the world knew.
“She came to us this way,” Boris said uncertainly. “I suspect her boyfriend didn’t appreciate the debt that she racked up in his name…” Boris shrugged.
I looked at Carlo, my mother’s loser boyfriend and my brother’s father, who had yet to move from his knees in the middle of the room. “Did you hit my mother, Carlo?” I have been wanting to disappear this idiot since he entered my mother's life eight years ago.
“That bitch cost me everything,” Carlo sniffled. “She destroyed us! She deserves?—”
Even before Carlo had finished speaking, the Godfather punched him in the face.
I grinned in satisfaction at the sound of the crack of bones and the sight of the copious amount of blood that immediately soaked the front of Carlo’s shirt. Although the sight and smell of blood usually made me inhale in appreciation, like someone savoring the scent of their favorite meal, instead I recoiled in disgust at that asshole’s polluted blood.
“Let’s go,” I said gently to my mother and siblings.
“What about the debt your mother ran up?” Boris screeched. “You have to pay it.”
“Your men knew damn well that she couldn’t pay that debt,” I told him angrily. “You were after my siblings. So, no, I’m not paying you a damn thing.”
Several Russians stepped in my path as I turned to leave, but immediately both Aidan and Tristano moved to either side of me and glared at them menacingly.
“Touch her and you’ll die a slow, agonizing death,” Tristan said in a voice that sent chills down my spine. And the way that the men instantly backed away from me said that they felt the same.
“I will send one of my men here tomorrow to settle things with you,” Tristano was saying to Boris. “If any of your gambling houses allow Monique in to gamble again, any losses she makes will be on those houses.” Tristano stared steadily at the older man. “Got it?” His voice could cut glass.
“You control the Italians, not us,” Boris started bravely.
Tristano stepped closer to the Russian, getting directly in his face. With his back to me, I had no idea what his expression was, but the Russian’s face leached of all color, and he just started nodding and saying weakly, “Okay, okay…”
I didn’t wait around to find out what was finally agreed upon. I herded my mother and siblings through the dark corridors and to the back entrance of the club. The back steel door, which was usually locked and also manned by two guards, suddenly opened when we arrived before it.
“Causing trouble again, lass?” Owen stood at the exit with two Russian goons down on the ground at his feet, passed out.
“Uncle Owen!’ I pulled away from my siblings and rushed into Uncle Owen’s waiting warm arms. As he closed his massive arms around me and pulled me in tight, I couldn’t help returning his hug and was surprised that my eyes were wet.
Why the hell was I crying?
He put some space between us and seemed to inspect me from head to toe, and then he sniffed in deeply before scowling at me. “You’ve mated,” he accused in a harsh whisper, clearly not wanting my mother and siblings to hear him.
“What?” Sure, I heard him, but I was stalling for time. I’d mated with Tristan, not knowing that was what we were doing. I’m human, dammit. How was I supposed to know that just by having sex and drinking a little blood that I would start the mate-bonding process with a damn vampire? I have learned a lot of things about immortals, but their mating habits weren’t in Alexi’s or Owen’s curriculum. Of course, I realized my error when, after our first night together, I spent the entire next day craving Tristan in a very paranormal way.
Owen knew that I heard him too. He frowned disapprovingly. “We will speak about this later.”
I sighed in resignation and turned to my mother, who came to stand beside me. She was obviously impatient to go home.
“Owen.” My mother greeted him with a trace of bitterness in her voice.
Despite my calling Owen “uncle,” he wasn’t related to us in anyway. Alexi came into my life at a particularly vulnerable time when I needed an angel to save me. Alexi did that and then some. He also brought Owen and his wolves into my life, one of the best things that has ever happened to me.
My mother had no idea who they really were or what they did. She didn’t even know Alexi’s name or ever remembered what he looked like unless Alexi allowed her to remember. I realized when I was eight years old that Alexi and Owen to some extent had been altering her memory so that she would not be able to recall their names or faces if pressed by others unless they released her memory psychically. Otherwise, she might have been tempted over the years to sell her story to the press.
Their interest in me gave her occasional money so she took it and didn’t ask questions or even realized that she should ask questions. She remembered them as my godfather and uncle and that they benefited our lives, and that’s all she cared to know. She didn’t get why I loved them so much since they didn’t give us enough money to live as rich as they did. She has conveniently forgotten how many times Alexi bailed her out of her gambling debts and how many past-due apartment rental fees, medical bills, utility bills, and grocery bills he has paid over the years. My mother has selective memory about the numerous opportunities Alexi and Owen have thrown her way since I was born, and no matter how much the two men have given her, and how much she squandered those opportunities, she would always contend that they have done nothing.
For my part, Alexi’s lessons about giving a hand up instead of a handout had been drummed into me since he took me under his wing. He ensured that I got the best education in some of the best schools, I traveled often with either him or Owen: doing kids’ stuff like going to theme parks, with Disney World and Universal Studios being my favorites, going on cruises and to tropical beaches, and then doing some more educational things like visiting historic sights, landmarks, museums, and simply appreciating the different cultures and ethnicities. They even took me numerous times to the US Virgin Islands, where my mother’s family still lived, allowing me to understand that part of my culture.
So, my mother had no basis to complain about the support Owen has given her or me over the years. The truth is, and always has been, that she has not had to take responsibility for her actions since I was born because of Alexi and Owen, and now Tristan has just settled her debts again.
I get her dysfunction.
Before I came along, my mother had a hard life, and she never obtained the education to know how to help herself. Her abuse of drugs and alcohol eradicated any hope that she might have learned from experience to do better. Despite the many times Alexi paid for her to get professional help through therapy, my mother didn’t really believe in it and, therefore, only went through the motions. So Alexi would continue to bail her out when she got in too deep. Unfortunately, the only thing my mother has learned from those experiences, and now, is that, no matter how much trouble she gets in, the men in my life will bail her out. And that is the real reason for the bitterness she feels toward Owen and toward me, for that matter, because she was never given the huge payday she so desperately craved.
‘Let’s get you and your charges out of here,” Owen said soothingly, completely ignoring my mother’s less-than-welcoming attitude.
“I borrowed a friend’s car to collect them,” I told him.
“Don’t worry. One of my men will drive the car.” Owen turned to lead the way out of the back alley. An SUV sat idling at the curb.
As I was directing my family into the SUV, I felt the moment Tristan teleported to the curb.
“You weren’t thinking about leaving without me, were you?” he drawled.
“I have nothing to say to you,” I said through clenched teeth. He couldn’t possibly think that we could ever have a relationship now. He is a notorious criminal, an unrepented one. Granted, I had no idea that he was the famous Il Carnefice . Hell, as far as I know, no law enforcement agency has even come close to capturing him or even confronted him. And as much as I wanted to arrest his ass, I knew that it would be a useless endeavor, not just because of his connections and wealth, but because there was no human prison on earth that could contain him. However, just because I couldn’t arrest him, it didn’t mean that I would accept him in my life. That I could control.
“That’s okay because I have plenty to say to you,” he persisted in a voice that was pure nonchalance.
“You can have that plenty to say to me first,” Owen growled. He stood tall and menacing, glaring down at Tristan, who was only a few inches shorter.
“Ah, the other brooding, big brother, is it?” Tristan asked sarcastically. “Or is the relationship between you closer? You see Aidan has been demanding, forbidding, and threatening but refusing to tell me why. Are you going to tell me why I can’t claim my mate?”
“This is not the time or place for this, Il Carnefice ,” Owen said sardonically.
“Is that what this is about?” Tristan roared. His temper went from zero to sixty in a blink. “Are you seriously disapproving of me because of that?!”
“This is not the time or place,” Owen bit out.
“And I have nothing to say to you!” I reminded him and slipped into the SUV next to my mother.
Owen climbed into the passenger front seat, and a wolf I didn’t recognize drove us away. Owen’s anger and disappointment clogged the air.
It was the first time that I have ever felt that emotion from him. I have seen Owen stoic, domineering, patient, and I have even seen him pleased, but never angry. But that’s what I was getting off him now.
We were in the car for about ten minutes before I got up the courage to finally break the silence. “I know you’re angry with me,” I started quietly.
“You think I’m angry with you?” Owen gritted out. “I’m not angry, lass. At least not with you. For you, I’m disappointed and worried. My anger is with that bastard, Tristan. He knows better. He knows the rules.”
“Look, can we bank this discussion for another time,” I said hurriedly, desperate to not have this conversation with my siblings and my mother listening. “I am more concerned with keeping my family somewhere safe tonight. I don’t want my mother’s boyfriend to find and harass her. He knows where I live, so you need to take us to a hotel.”
Owen sighed deeply. “I am taking you to one of the Petrovs’ hotels.” His voice was back to the calm, always steady guy I was used to. “We have been given a suite of rooms, and your family can stay there for a few days until we find a more permanent solution.”
“I don’t want anything from Alexi’s family. They don’t know about me. Alexi didn’t want that.”
“You know, lass, I’m not sure what Alexi was thinking toward the end. I do know that he left you in my care and your mother in the care of one of his sons.”
“Really?” I was stunned by that. “It has been five years. None of his sons has ever come forward to see my mother. Are you sure he asked one of them to take care of her? Which one of his son’s? Luka, Drako, or Xander?”
Owen muttered under his breath, but even I couldn’t make out what he said. “We should be at the hotel shortly,” he said, instead of answering my question.
His reluctance to answer made me even more determined to not depend on Alexi’s family. “What aren’t you telling me, Owen?”
“You seriously want to ask me that right now?” he scoffed.
That shut me up. There was no way I wanted my family to know that I’d been having sex with a vampire. A creature that the rest of the world thought was a myth. God, what has my life descended into?
Two hours later, my family, after being given a three-bedroom suite, had eaten a hot meal, taken baths, and had already retired to their beds.
I tried to return to my apartment, but Owen wouldn’t hear of it without having his say about Tristan.
“You are human, he’s a vampire… What the fuck were you thinking?” Owen growled. “Alexi taught you better than this. Hell, we taught you better than this. How did you not know what he was?” Owen had been pacing and ranting for ten minutes straight with questions like that, but he didn’t pause long enough for me to even answer before he would then remind me of how irresponsible and reckless I had been.
“I didn’t know that sleeping with him would bind me to him,” I finally got an opportunity to say.
“You shouldn’t have been with him at all!” Owen roared. “Why didn’t you contact us to get some information on the guy before you slept with him?” And again, he didn’t wait for my response. “You had to know immediately that he was a vampire. And knowing Tristan, he wouldn’t have told you shit about himself.”
“He wasn’t alone in that,” I protested. “We met little over a week ago and didn’t get around to swapping our life’s stories.”
“You had time to get naked with him but didn’t have time to find out his damn name!” Owen wasn’t appeased in the least. “Again, we taught you better! He is not for you, lass.”
“And why exactly is that?” Tristan’s silky voice came from the far side of the room, where he stood lounging lazily against the wall.