Chapter 28 #2
Nicholas thrusted back without inhibition, grinding against him, lathering Gabriel’s face with his own cum.
Gabriel lapped at him, eating him out with devotion, spilling vulgar words into his pretty hole. He smelled like cum and arousal, musk and sweet nectar, and tasted better than all the blood types combined.
The demands he directed at Gabriel bordered on disrespect, the look he aimed back at him downright murderous.
He wanted more cock. He needed more blood. And he would have both now.
Re-entering him from behind, Gabriel pulled him up and onto his lap. He slung an arm around Nicholas’s chest, crushing him against him, then held his hip, forcefully sliding him up and down his erection, fucking him roughly.
Nicholas whined low in his throat. Gabriel could feel his hunger, his thirst, so he raised his wrist to his mouth, letting him feed.
The tips of Gabriel’s fingers began to dry and shrivel, and his vision turned hazy. He needed blood. Between their swordplay and Nicholas feeding from him, he was nearly depleted.
He wouldn’t drink from Nicholas, though. Not without permission, and not without him being fully cognizant of his choice.
He’d nearly done so once before. Nicholas had granted permission then, but he hadn’t done so while armed with the truth, and he hadn’t been fully lucid at that exact moment either.
Gabriel had inhaled from his neck, like he did now. Had scented the blood as it flowed deep below Nicholas’s skin. He’d pressed his teeth against his thumping vein and had almost pierced right through it. He’d ripped into his own arm to stop himself… Like he did now.
He felt himself sinking as Nicholas grew more ardent, as he nearly snapped his wrist in two to get what he needed.
I love you, he thought as his movements turned sluggish.
I love you.
Something cool and wet brushed Gabriel’s lips, and he opened his eyes to find Nicholas’s concerned gaze bearing down on him, and a blood bag pressed to his mouth.
He lurched up, squeezing the pack, gulping down its contents.
He went through the large pile next to him, one at a time, feeling his limbs straighten and loosen.
“Thank you,” he said hoarsely.
Nicholas shoved up, water splashing along the training room floor as he paced in a tight circle. They were still naked.
“You were going to let me kill you.” His voice shook with clear rage. “You would’ve let me kill you!”
Gabriel got to his feet with a sigh.
“You wouldn’t have killed me, Habibi. That’s not how it works.”
“Why didn’t you stop me? Why?”
“Because your cravings are mine, because what you want I intensely want, too. I’m helpless to you, Nicholas. There is nothing I wouldn’t do for you. Nothing I wouldn’t sacrifice. Even myself.”
“Except let me die,” he said bitterly, fear of what he thought he’d just done still lingering in his eyes. “There’s nothing you wouldn’t do for me except let me die. You turned me against my will, Gabriel.”
“Do you wish you were dead now, Nicholas?” he asked gently.
He opened his mouth, but nothing came out, as though he’d caught the lie before it rolled off his tongue.
“I don’t know. I wish being alive didn’t hurt so much.”
Nicholas stared at the destroyed room, at the holes in the wall and the water damage.
“I can’t do this anymore.”
“Nicholas—”
“No,” he said sharply. “Let me speak.”
He held Gabriel’s stare unflinchingly, morphing into the man he’d been becoming over the last several weeks. His tone softened, but it was no less stern, no less sure.
“I’ve never been honest with you, Gabriel.
Not always. Not really. I knew the beautiful man was Zayn before the night you turned me, and I knew you were Muharib.
I didn’t want to believe it. I have a bad habit of sticking my head in the sand.
No…” He corrected himself. “I had a bad habit of doing that. I’m trying to break it. It never served me to begin with.”
He lapsed into silence, holding Gabriel’s gaze as he seemed to work through all he had to say.
“All I do is quietly pine for you. All day and all night. I touch myself to thoughts of you, to visions of you. Every night and every day.”
He dug his fingers into his chest, as if his heart squeezed and he wanted to squeeze it back. He did that a lot lately.
“I want you in my sleep, and I want you each and every time I cry. I want you when you’re not around, and I want you when you’re right there.”
He reached for Gabriel before dropping his hand to his side.
“I’m addicted to your scent, to the way you move, the way you don’t move… I’m addicted to your blood…” Nicholas glanced over at the sword stained with Gabriel’s blood and swallowed.
“It makes it nearly impossible to drink what’s in the fridge, and to not consume every part of you every chance I get. I almost tore your bedroom door off its hinges the other night to get to you.”
Gabriel had felt his presence in the hall, felt his struggle, his need. He’d wanted to tear the door down himself, to beg Nicholas to come in. He, too, touched himself every single night and day, whenever he heard Nicholas doing it.
“The love I feel for you is so… visceral.”
Nicholas said the word, like speaking it alone didn’t do it justice, like it needed to be felt. Gabriel allowed himself to feel it, let it seep into every dark crevice of his mind and body, even though the moment felt foreboding.
“It shouldn’t feel like I would die without you. You shouldn’t feel like an obsession, but you do.”
Gabriel’s heart released a rapid flutter.
He wanted to whisper that he felt all those things and more, that he loved Nicholas with a selfishness that would make the world suffer.
That had made the world suffer. But he understood that Nicholas needed to be heard right then, so he listened, hoping the soft curve of his lips conveyed what he couldn’t say out loud.
“But none of that is real.”
Gabriel’s smile died before it had ever truly formed.
“I need my feelings to be my own, and not ruled or steered by something I didn’t ask for, something I can’t control. I need to get out of this house, away from you… I need to be free of our bond.”
Gabriel stared in confusion. “Our bond?”
“You said my feelings are heightened, and that they would level out in time, once I gained control. But I’ve gained so much control in the last few weeks, and yet my feelings for you have only gotten stronger. It has to be the blood-bond. It has to be because I’m your mate.”
“Oh… I see.”
Gabriel adopted a neutral expression, restraining himself so that his maelstrom of emotions didn’t spill into the room.
“You have to be tired of living like this, even a little. I feel like I’m constantly tearing you apart with my silence and cruelty, and it chips away at something in me every time.
It hurts to be mean to you, but it hurts to be kind to you, too.
It feels like a betrayal to myself, to all I’ve been through. ”