by K. A Knight
“Oh, honey, please, won’t you go see the doctor about your problem getting hard? I miss having a man between my thighs. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about, I’m sure lots of men only get it up when watching cartoons,” she whisper shouts, making sure the waitress hears. “Oh hi, thank you,” she says louder, grabbing the coffee.
The waitress glances from her to me, her eyes wide as she backs away with a shocked look. As soon as she’s out or range, I burst into laughter again. “Cartoons?” I ask.
Bella shrugs, adding milk and sugar to her coffee. “It’s okay, your secret is safe with me,” she teases.
Leaning close, I feel her shiver against me and smile as I press my lips to her ear. “Want me to show you how...hard I am for you right now? Especially if you need a real man between your thighs? I volunteer,” I rumble, licking the shell of her ear. She shivers again and I grin in triumph, but then freeze when I feel something pressed to my cock through my trousers.
I look down, spotting the spoon she was stirring her coffee with held like a knife to my crotch. “A spoon?” I choke.
“Don’t underestimate it. I can scoop your balls and your cock off if you try that shit again, lover boy,” she tells me casually, before tapping the top of my cock with the spoon and then pulling it away, placing it on the table, and leaning back while nursing her mug like nothing happened.
“Oh, Bella, our life together is never going to be boring,” I murmur, but she ignores me completely, something else I’m not used to.
“I need to pee, move,” she announces, placing her mug on the table.
Smirking, I lean back in the booth and look at her pointedly. She narrows her eyes on me, the stormy depths flashing dangerously before she throws her hair over her shoulder.
“Fine, that’s the way you want to play it, blood sucker? Game on,” she snaps.
Throwing her leg over my lap, she straddles me, staring down at me as she smirks. My hands go to her hips, steadying her and squeezing her curves as she leans into me, her lips nearly touching mine. “You’ll lose,” she whispers, her hand brushing down my chest and over my hard cock before she moves off me and saunters down the corridor where the toilets are labelled.
What have I gotten myself into? Usually I win every game I play, but something tells me my mate is going to blow that out of the water and have me begging after her like a pup in heat.
She comes back a minute or two later and does the same slide over me to get back into her seat. My cock jerks in my pants at the proximity, wanting to bust through the Italian material and reach her. Gritting my teeth, I throw some of the coffee back and grimace. The bleeding in my thigh automatically healed, but there is a hole in my trousers now.
“I’m going to need to feed again soon, especially with you stabbing me,” I point out, although it’s not true at all, but I want to see what she will do. Will she let me feed from her? My fangs ache at the thought of sinking into her pale skin, her sweet blood hitting my system as she rides my cock at the same time.
Shifting to rearrange myself, I drape my arm across her shoulders, and when she doesn’t shake it off I want to happy dance. “You need to feed?” she inquires, her tone sweet and I don’t trust it at all.
“Yes,” I hedge slowly.
She whips out her knife, pushes up her sleeve, and cuts her finger. My mouth drops open as she looks at me before dipping her bleeding finger into my coffee and swirling it like a stirrer. My fangs descend instantly as the scent of her blood hits me like a sledgehammer. My muscles bunch at the restraint of keeping myself still and not jumping her and tearing into her throat to get more. I’ve never had issues with control...until her.
She pulls her finger out, her eyes still on me, and licks it clean, showing me the cut has sealed before she puts her gloves back on and goes back to sipping her coffee like nothing happened.
“I’ve narrowed down what you are. There are only a few reasons why you wouldn’t want the council to know about you. You broke a law, you are a hybrid, or you killed someone important,” I challenge, watching her for reactions.
She grins, looking over at me. “Wrong.” Then she goes back to watching the others while I frown.
“What are you then?”
“Is the old nightwalker struggling because he has to know everything and can’t figure out what I am?” she taunts, and damn if she isn’t right.
“I’ve seen everything this world has to offer...you are something else. But what?” I press, leaning closer, her smell hitting me again.
“When you figure it out, let me know.” She winks.
Grabbing my coffee, I take a sip, and my eyes close and fangs throb as her blood mixed with the aromatic flavour hits my tongue, almost making me come in my slacks like a baby vamp. Licking my lips to catch every drop, I open my eyes and look at her to see her watching me with a hungry expression.
Raising my lip slightly, I lick at the end of my huge fangs and she shivers. “When you want to feed me for real, and you will, Bella, let me know,” I retort, winking at her and licking my bottom lip to catch a stray drop of her concoction before taking another drink.
She goes silent after that, and by the time the food arrives, I have licked every last drop from the mug, her blood is so addicting. She tucks into her pancakes, making this maddening groaning noise in the back of her throat which has me imagining bending her over this table and draping her over those fucking pancakes as I eat her.
I play with my food, wishing I was eating her instead. Fuck, this trip is wearing on my will power already. I’m not a man to beg. Never have been, but for her I think I would. I would get on my knees right here if it meant letting me taste her, hold her, fuck her. Not that I’ll tell her that, not yet. My mate is skittish, she would freak and run. She still thinks after our deal is through, I plan on letting her go, poor girl.
When she has finished eating, the waitress comes over again, purposely not looking at me, and hands over the bill. Bella instantly pulls out some cash and passes them over, their fingers touching for a second. I see a flash of light as Bella gasps, her body turning rigid in her seat next to me. I growl, my eyes going to her, but she isn’t here anymore, I can feel it, her body is but she isn’t.
The waitress doesn’t seem to notice as she pulls away and takes the plates and leaves, but Bella is still frozen. I search the cafe for the reason why, but the cause seems to be…Bella. Grabbing her cheeks, I look into her eyes. A tear drips down her cheek and I growl, my heart ripping from my chest. Who dares to hurt my mate? I will rip them to pieces.
“Bella,” I growl, a warning. “Fucking come back to me,” I demand. “Now!” I nearly shout in her face, but it’s no use, she doesn’t notice.
Worry tears through me, panic on its heels, and I do the only thing I can think of to get a reaction—I press my lips to hers, hard. Licking at her mouth, I bite and nip and she gasps, letting me sweep my tongue in before she breaks away from me, scrambling back on the booth, warding me off with a hand.
Her face is pale and panicked, her body shaking.
“Bella,” I whisper, moving closer, but she shakes her head, her red hair flying around her.
“Please, no, stop,” she begs, her eyes pained, so I stop moving.
Her chest is heaving and she closes her eyes, slumping there, and as I watch she rebuilds herself. She stops shaking and her body straightens out. I didn’t even realise how much she had curled up into herself. Her eyes are dim, no longer flashing, and her lips are no longer thin and pained. She blows out a breath and sits up, looking away from me.
“What happened?” I question.
“Nothing,” she replies, but her voice is still weak.
“Bella, we can do this the hard way or the easy way. We are not leaving until you tell me what just happened,” I argue, panic still clawing at my throat. Something hurt my mate and I don’t even know what. I feel useless, my darkness wanting to tear from me and kill everyone to try and make it better, but she needs the charming, human
-ish side of me right now, not my monster.
She doesn’t look at me, and I want to grab her and force her to tell me, but after how she reacted when I touched her, I don’t want to cause her pain. So I try a different approach. “Bella, please, what happened?” I beg.
She looks at me, her eyes guarded, and I know whatever it is it’s a secret. “If I tell you, you could use it against me,” she whispers, and I know that someone has, someone hurt her with this before. I narrow my eyes, the blood lust returning for the idiot who hurt my mate.
“I will not, do you want my oath on it?” I offer.
Her eyes widen, and I realise then she knows what that means. So I nod. “I, Ciar, offer you my solemn oath. I shall not tell another living or dead soul of what you speak of, nor ever use it against you. So I speak it, so it be.” My voice rings around the space, the world holding its breath as the oath falls into place. If I was to break it, I would face pain and probably death, which is not something I would do, but if it helps her feel better I will pledge every day.
“Why?” she asks, her voice raw, but I hear the unanswered question—why do I care? Why do I want to know?
“I want to know everything that concerns you,” I confess.
She brushes that away, still not wanting to believe or trust the connection between us. “Fine. I have a power, it’s sometimes activated by touch. I see things,” she discloses, watching me fiercely, daring me to mock or scoff at her.
“See things?” I prompt, wanting her to keep going.
She sucks in a breath, obviously worried I wouldn’t believe her, and forges ahead. “When I touch people, I can see their pasts, future, or present. I can’t always control it, sometimes visions just come, warnings or memories. Contact usually triggers it, but I can be on guard and stop it…not always when bare skin touches.”
“That’s why you wear gloves and sleeves.” I frown.
She nods. “When I come out of a vision, I’m open, oversensitive, and everything floods in without meaning to, and when I’m touching someone...I can see things…”
“You saw a vision of me?” I whisper, wondering what she saw to pull away like that.
“Not at first, it was a memory from the waitress, one buried so deep.” She shivers in horror then. “So painful, then you pulled me back before it was done with me. It’s painful that way, being ripped from a vision, and my skin felt like it was being touched with acid and your gates were opening, so memory after memory bombarded me. It was too much, I was about to explode, I needed a moment to get my shields back up.” She shrugs.
My nails extend, ripping into the leather booth as I face her...I hurt her. I hurt my mate. “What else?” I growl.
“What else, what?” she inquires, looking around, but no one is paying us any attention.
“What else do I need to know so I don’t hurt you or something worse next time?” I force the words out of my closed throat.
“Nothing, there won’t be a next time.” She waves it away.
So I try another tactic, knowing if she closes down I won’t get anything out of her. “What was the vision?” I demand.
She shivers then, wrapping her arms around herself, her gaze going to the waitress who is reading at the counter. “A repressed memory...it has a darkness to it like someone erased it or made her forget.”
I freeze, my head swinging to the waitress. “Are you sure? There are only a few who have that power,” I murmur lowly.
“Yes, isn’t one a nightwalker?” she questions, her gaze on my face.
“Yes. The other isn’t someone you want to tangle with,” I growl, then gesture for the waitress to come over.
She presses a bookmark into the page and then wanders over. “Yes?” she asks, confused.
“Lean down,” I order, using my control as my brothers used to call it, or my charm.
She blinks but instantly does as she’s told. My voice turns silky. “Please do not react. Open your mind and allow me to see, and do not speak or make a noise.” I hold my hands on either side of her head and close my eyes as I work my way through her mind, careful not to leave any damage. There are a few spots of darkness where someone has wiped away memories or tried to at least, but they aren’t as powerful as I am.
“You’re right, someone has tried to wipe her memories, they are strong. Not as strong as me, though, this will just take a moment,” I mutter to Bella distractedly.
I grasp onto the blank spots, slowing peeling away the layers of charm and power still staining them from whichever nightwalker did this. It only takes a few minutes, and I don’t even break a sweat until the memories are mine. The waitress shudders in my arms, so I quickly block them so she doesn’t have to relive whatever traumatic events these hold.
The recollections are filled with pain, suffering, and blood. They echo with her screams, her humiliation, and pleas for help. They sicken me, but I force myself to watch, noting each and every face and what they did to this innocent human. Afterwards, I pull back, about to cover them once and for all, wiping them away. I don’t know how, but Bella must understand because her hand lands on my arm.
“She should have them, they are her memories,” Bella whispers sadly, and in her eyes I see the same pain and suffering I saw in those memories. Someone hurt her at some point.
“If I do, she will know about our kind. She will have to live with that knowledge, and if she tells anyone, they will think she is insane. It will isolate her as she has to come to the realisation of what happened to her and know that no one will ever believe her. Do you really want that for her? I can give her those memories back, the pain and suffering and humiliation, but she will never be the same again. She is happy, if not tired now, but she doesn’t know what happened to her own body. Tell me, it’s your choice, Bella,” I murmur, meaning every word. I will do whichever she picks.
“I saw a glimpse, and what I saw horrified me. Does it get worse?” she asks, her voice begging me for the truth.
“Yes, it gets worse, Bella. I feel a stain on my soul just from seeing it,” I admit. I have seen the worst of the world and people through the years. Acts and senseless violence that would make others cower, but what I just saw in this woman’s memories has carved its own mark in my brain, stamping it there forever to remind me just how dangerous our kind can be.
“Taking them won’t affect her?” she queries, worried for the stranger she barely knows.
“No, she just won’t remember a week of her life. She will go back to her reading and her child at home none the wiser.”
I hear her sigh. It’s so filled with sadness that my heart aches for my mate. “Take them, don’t let them infect her mind with evil.”
She summed it up so well. The darkness was lingering, seeping into the poor human’s mind. Decision made, I wipe away the memories, leaving no trace before pulling out of her subconscious. She sags into my arms and I stroke her hair.
“Shh, you’re okay. You will finish your shift, read your book, and go home to Keen. You will have a good life,” I whisper to her and she nods. I let her go and she straightens, flashing a smile.
“Sorry, did you need something?” she asks.
“No, thank you.” I nod and she turns and heads back to her book, oblivious to what happened. I turn to Bella to see tears in her eyes. I reach out and grab her hand and squeeze, and this time she doesn’t flinch, she just looks at me with such anger. She’s so fragile, not in the way that humanity is, but in the way a weapon is.
“We need to make them pay, we need to kill them,” she whispers.
I nod. “We do, fancy a hunt?”
Bella
“What did you see in her memories that will be useful?” I ask, needing to know how we’re hunting the bastards. What I glimpsed was horrifying enough, but what he must have seen? No wonder he wants blood.
“I saw where they were and which ones touched her,” he tells me, still holding my hand, but I don’t bother pulling away.
“Good, tell me everyt
hing,” I demand, needing to know. My own thirst for blood is rising after seeing what that poor woman went through.
“It’s a blood house, not common, but it happens. Usually the sheep, humans, want to be turned at some point or like the pleasure from the bites and sex. Most nightwalkers have their own stable or find a willing victim, but some places have blood houses for the...darker side of it. This is one, but not a legal one, the victims aren’t willing. They are kidnapping women, using them for a week, and then wiping them and tossing them back if they survive. Some don’t, based on her memories. They force them with their control, or charm, to be good little blood slaves, but it doesn’t take away their consciousness.”
“So, they feel it all and they are trapped in their minds, unable to control what happens to their own body,” I summarise, disgust and anger lacing my tone.
“Yes, nothing more than a blood bag and a hole to fuck,” he says darkly, and I flinch.
“Is that what you really think of them?” I snap.
He looks at me then, his eyes dark and dangerous, and I realise what kind of monster I’m playing with. I can feel the years of his power pressing down on me without him even meaning to. “No, I don’t, they do. What we will find there will sicken you. Humans aren’t sheep, they aren’t just a food source. They are their own species with their own rights.” His voice is sinister and threatening, but I shiver from it, and my pussy clenches from all that raw power and strength and the risk of violence hanging around him. Until now he’s been sophisticated, cocky, and flirtatious, but now he’s showing me the darkness, the monster inside, and I want to play with it.
I know my eyes flare gold, my power rising to meet his. “You know the place? Then let’s go.”
