Chapter 13
“What is it?” Nora asked, her eyes never leaving Marcel’s as they walked into the library. He shut the door behind them.
“You did a good job of keeping things together while we were gone,” Marcel began, reaching out to her as he moved closer. “I thought you would all panic for sure when we kept getting delayed. You are getting better under pressure.”
“Thank you,” she nodded, her smile evidently proud. She was always pleased to please this man.
He held her shoulders warmly in his fine hands. “I need to ask you something, Eleonora,” he said. He was the only person allowed to use her full name, no matter how grating she found it. “and I need you to be very, very honest with me.” Looking deeply into her eyes, he waited to see understanding dawning in hers. But he saw only panic.
“Something about what, Marcel?” She was curious and a little bit worried. She was nervous. She knew what he was going to ask even before he said anything.
He hesitated a moment. She felt her insides quake. His voice was low. “Did you tell a human about us and spare him the bite?”
She was quiet for a moment. The blood she had ingested from a blood-bag earlier drained from her face, leaving her feeling a little unsteady.
“No.” Well, at least not exactly. It really wasn’t her fault that Fletcher seemed to be immune to her bite. Maybe this is the time to bring it up and ask if he’s ever heard of it happening. Has he ever encountered someone who was immune to the venom of his bite?
It wasn’t a chance she used, though. She knew it was something she would regret. One didn’t get away with hiding these things, especially not from their maker.
“Nora, I need you to tell me the truth.” His look was loving but intense.
“The truth is that I didn’t tell anyone about us and then spare them.” Well, it was the truth. Just not the part of the truth he was hoping to hear.
“Octavia and Lena said their spies spotted a boy trying to tell his friends he was attacked by a vampire, or a demon, or something. The description they gave us was strikingly similar to you, so I need to ask you again, did you tell anyone what you are?”
“Marcel,” Nora said, moving closer to him, her arms sliding up around his neck, “is this really what you want to talk about after all this time apart?”
It was a low move and she knew it. Not only had she told someone about what she was, she had given him a part of her that she swore would always belong to Marcel. She knew Marcel was far from perfect, vicious even, but she believed in him. Believed in his tastes, his love for her and his determination to be a good clan leader – the kind that keeps their people safe.
Her wandering thoughts were not entirely fair, and she felt awful as she went in for a kiss that made her think of Fletcher and how soft his lips were in comparison to Marcel’s cold mouth. She couldn’t help comparing those long, passionate kisses with all their heat and saliva with the familiarity of the kisses she shared with Marcel.
It would have been easier to just come clean, tell him what was going on, and let them help with something that was very obviously out of her league. She didn’t want to lose Fletcher, though, not yet. Even if they were doomed to never spend another night together, she hoped she would get one last visit to let him know that she wasn’t a monster. That this wasn’t her doing. That she wasn’t someone who would do something like this. She wanted to tell him other things too. Things like how his kisses made her wet and how his hands, soft and warm, were the most pleasurably addictive thing she’d ever encountered.
So she chose to keep her secret and see if there was any way to escape for a bit, visit him, maybe fuck him one last time before saying goodbye for good.
Nora had already made a mental plan for her next outing. She would take her team on campus, have them take rotations and see if she ran into an opportunity to talk to him. She would create that opportunity if necessary, and then she would feed on him. Just a bit for appearances.
For now, though, she had Marcel to convince. Marcel, who had done so much for her and now needed people by his side; Marcel who was pulling her skirt up, his hand sliding between her thighs as he pushed her back into the books. It made her feel badly because there was so much about it that was real. She would always love Marcel, so she was understandably confused about what Fletcher made her feel.
His middle and index fingers fucked her slowly, forcing her mind to remain in the then and there. There was nothing fake about the way Marcel manipulated; no faking how well he knew her body and how thoroughly he understood what each caress did to her.
His tongue was thick and insistent against her own, and as they kissed he gently pushed her to the floor. Shoving her skirt above her waist, he tore her sheer panties off, throwing them aside. His cold lips nuzzled her belly, and she thrust her body upwards. His hair tickled her as he lowered himself to nip and bite at her mound, then move downward until his long, dexterous tongue entered the lips of her vagina, rubbing her clit slowly at first, then more and more vigorously. She shuddered, and pulled his head into her. He was lashing at her now, tasting the fruits of his labor. His hair brushed her thighs, and she writhed with delight.
“Fuck me now!” she whispered, her voice raspy. “Please…”
He fucked her hard. Hard enough for her cries to echo throughout the house; to be heard by anyone who happened to be at hand. Grabbing her wrists and pinning them to the floor, he pounded himself into her so that their bodies rocked together. Panting and gasping, their beat became even faster and more savage. It was the kind of vicious that claimed your clothes and left you spent. So spent, so fucking blissfully fulfilled, that she began feeling badly about having lied to him. About the want she felt for Fletcher at the pit of her gut, burning even now and arousing her even after the passionate session she had just experienced.
“Marcel?” she said, her voice a throaty whimper as his hand lazily caressed her pussy. The softness of his kisses was enough to make her confess all her transgressions.
“Mmm-hmm?”
“There’s…” His hand began moving faster, fingers back inside her as she got turned on all over again. Her cries rose once more, “There’s a…” she moaned, the thought gone all over again as his head found its way between her legs.
Sure, she had to tell him, but maybe it could wait.
Chapter 14
Nora had been stalking Fletcher quietly since the ban was lifted a couple of weeks before.
She couldn’t do much else, no matter how much she wanted to talk to him, or see him. How much she wanted to touch and taste him. It was out of her power and this was hardly the right time to go around testing her clan’s boundaries and breaking points. Nora thought about trying to contact Fletcher very briefly, but realized that in doing so, she would only be risking both his and her own life. She wanted to warn him, but decided against it quickly, convinced that it was better for him to stay in the dark, even if that meant it was her he feared. Her people he blamed this on.
She was having a damn near impossible time letting go of this one. She thought it was about the safety of the clan at first, about protecting her brothers and sisters, but the truth was that she missed Fletcher, and she was afraid that what he knew would somehow make him the target of the sadists terrorizing the University and leaving a trail of nearly decapitated corpses in their wake. She was afraid that her connection to Marcel would somehow connect him to the clan, and that his fraternity brothers and team mates dying maybe weren’t just a coincidence.
Nora had gone straight to his house as soon as she was allowed a night on her own. She’d lurked by the bushes near the rec room’s window and watched him sit around with grim-looking teammates who, in the time that had passed, had gone from being quietly scared to a paralyzed state of horror that showed in the circles under their eyes and their sleepless faces – as if they were waiting to be snagged right out of their beds and added to the list of casualties.
Small groups of young vampires had
been going out hunting in a neighboring town for the past few weeks, just far enough from their home for them to go unnoticed if something went wrong. Places far enough for its inhabitants to think that all the rumors of incidents were just that: animal attacks blown out of proportion; University students in search of the next great campus horror story. It was convenient for now, but she knew that it was just a temporary fix to a greater problem that would soon need to be resolved. She had even heard Marcel and Antoni talk of moving, leaving everything behind. That made her fear these nomad vampires and what they could do even more – knowing how seriously Marcel took them.
Whatever it was, it was bad enough to send them running. Bad enough for Marcel, the proudest man she knew, to consider just cutting ties and finding a new place, a place where they would probably have to hide until they were eventually found. As if Ben could sniff Marcel out and it was just a matter of time before he found him. Nora was connected to Marcel, but she couldn’t find him if Marcel didn’t want to be found, and it made her wonder what it was about Ben that made that bond stronger. Wondered if it was something like what she felt when she was around Fletcher. The way she couldn’t get him out of her mind. The way she seemed to have developed a sense of where he was and how he was, even when she was nowhere near him. Even without consciously thinking about him or wanting to find him. She just knew. It was like an instinct she followed all the way to his house or favorite bars.
So she watched him. She became that cliché on a close-by tree branch, thanking years of climbing as a human as she perched herself comfortably, her impeccable eyesight allowing her to follow Fletcher from one room to the next, catching a word here and there as he spoke listlessly. He looked sad, tired, like he’d been defeated at a game he didn’t even know he was playing.
It made her skin crawl, a strange feeling settling in her gut as she fought that impossible urge to go to him, to comfort him and reassure him. Tell him that this wasn’t her doing, that she wasn’t behind all these killings, and that she would never hurt his friends. Not even that asshole Jason who may have deserved it sometimes. It was a conversation she had on repeat in her mind now that she tweaked, replayed and reinvented almost every day. Sometimes aloud. She’d even been caught mid-dialogue by an unamused Elise who was definitely onto her. Definitely knew that something was up and that it had to do with that boy she’d seen the other night in the bar right before all this madness began.
And maybe things would have been different if it hadn’t.
Nora couldn’t help wondering if things would have been different if this had happened at any other time. Would she have tried to keep in touch with Fletcher if the state of alarm hadn’t happened? If those nomads hadn’t showed up, and if peace had allowed the sort of privacy necessary for something else to happen? She fantasized about meetings in bars out of town and hours spent tucked in some hidden location where she’d have to peel her body away to make it back to the manor before sunrise. Nothing but the excitement in her face to give her away.
She fantasized about her secret being the sort of thing you keep with a smile instead of all the fear she carried around with her. She imagined tracing over the memory of his hands, his mouth. Her hands slithered beneath her waistband at the thought of his cock and the urgent possessiveness with which he fucked her – probably because he knew she couldn’t really be his and he couldn’t really be hers. It was enough to leave her flustered, this little life she imagined where she could sneak out and sleep with him, taste him, and then go back to a life with her clan. A life of safety that she wouldn’t have dreamed of risking until he marched into her life, all smiles and well-defined muscles.
It was hard to settle for those moments she spent hidden from view, watching him looking scared and a little bit sick. It was also hard not to assume that sick look had something to do with her part in this whole thing. That was the hardest thing of all, really; knowing that the fear and exhaustion in his face were caused by her, that he would probably be more scared than relieved to find that she was there, hiding in the darkness outside his room’s window.
Instead of that triumphant stroll in her fantasies, she wandered back into the house looking defeated. Her clothes intact and her hair sex-knot-free. There were no suspicious looks because there was nothing strange about her coming home after hunting.
Chapter 15
“Where the hell have you been?”
“Out for dinner,” Nora replied and kept walking, knowing perfectly well that this conversation was far from over even before Elise began following closely behind.
“It’s that boy, isn’t it?” Elise practically hissed, both with anger and her natural urge to protect Nora’s secrets, “Nora, look at me.”
Nora stopped and turned to face Elise, the determination in her expression fading slowly.
“I knew it!” Elise shoved a finger into her face, “I fucking knew it. What the hell are you thinking, pray tell?”
Nora took Elise’s hand and dragged her into her bedroom, closing the thick wooden door behind them. “You can’t tell anyone,” she said, her back against the door to make sure Elise wouldn’t storm out of there before she could explain herself. Explain what? She wasn’t quite sure yet.
“What the hell do you think you are doing, Nora?” Elise was trying not to scream, not to cause a scene and call attention to their argument, but she was so angry everything she said sounded like she was pushing it past gritted teeth, making it more aggressive. “The way things are going? Really? Is this guy worth the risk or are you just really bored and stupid?”
“I just wanted to check on him,” Nora said after a moment of silence.
She had considered lying. She could just say that she wanted to know what was being said about the attacks on campus, what was being said about the victims, and what exactly it was that the boys knew. She could act like Fletcher being there was a complete coincidence she hadn’t even considered until she got there, and that it was not important. There was no point though. She had lowered her guard and now it was written all over her face. Skilled a liar as she could be, it just wasn’t worth the effort. Or maybe she just wanted someone to actually talk to about this. Someone who could offer her an opinion that wasn’t completely blinded by this red hot affection she felt for him.
“What do you mean check on him? Do you understand that we are under attack? Us. Your clan. Your family, dammit --”
“So are they.” Nora dropped slowly to a chair.
“Are you fucking kidding me right now?” Elise stared at her, standing in the middle of the room, ready to pace and scream, or at least speak in an agitated hush. “Athos will have your head if he finds out about this.”
“I don’t know how to explain it, I just needed to make sure he was fine.” Tears sprang to Nora’s eyes.
There was more to it than that, thought. Somehow, Nora had known that Fletcher was okay all along. It made absolutely no sense, but it was like she could feel his heartbeat in some part of her still laced with his blood. Like she could feel his lungs filling with air and even taste the fear he was sinking into as time went by. She couldn’t explain that either, though, so she chose not to mention it until she could figure out what it was about Fletcher that she was so finely attuned to. It hadn’t been that she needed to see he was fine, she had just needed to see him.
That urge to lay eyes on him had been as strong as the urge that drove her to hunt. How can anything compare to that? she wondered. It was unfathomable to think that anything could be as vital to her as the need for blood. It wasn’t something that she could explain to Elise. Not right now when everything seemed to be up in the air.
“You can’t go there again,” Elise told her, her expression the most serious it had been in the several lifetimes they had known each other. “This needs to stop, and you need to be the responsible and reliable person you always are in a time of crisis, because I need you. Not some silly human. Me, your sister.”
“I know,” Nora nodded, feeling stu
pid for even needing this explained. What the hell was wrong with her? This was her family that was in danger and all she could do was think about some random young boy she couldn’t even have a future with. It wasn’t just the timing of it. Measures would probably be taken as soon as the elders found out that there was a human who turned out to be immune to their venom. “You can’t tell anyone.”
“Of course I can’t tell anyone. Thanks for that, by the way.” Elise was angrier than she had ever been and she had every right to be.
Nora had always been the reliable one. The one who knew what to do, what to say, how to act, and what choices were best for not just her, but the entire clan. She was being groomed as a leader for a reason, and Marcel had trusted her implicitly for so long that it was hard to believe that she could be involved in some stupid little affair with a boy. A boy who couldn’t even begin to grasp the kind of woman he’d stumbled into – the powerhouse.
Elise was the one who did this sort of thing, begging Nora to help her, and Nora could tell that she resented having her rightful spot as the younger brat stolen. In fact, Nora wasn’t entirely sure that this whole lecture wasn’t about that instead of the clan and their place in the world. Elise had never cared much about where it was they were as long as there were parties to go to and cute boys to dine on. She had no interest in being anyone’s leader and even the new vampires were advised not to go out hunting with her until they knew how to control their hunger. She just wasn’t much of an authority. Or a problem-solver. It wasn’t that she couldn’t do it, she just didn’t want to be bothered with any of it; not the training of new generations, not the educating of new generations, and certainly not the making of new generations.
Kindred Souls: Entire Series Books 1 - 5 Page 7
