by Scott, Helen
Gideon sat up, and as he rubbed his chin, he murmured, “What’s really going on, Darius? This doesn’t sound like a case you could use against us for leverage?”
My smile was bitter. Gideon always was too smart for his own good.
“With bank robberies comes weapons. With weapons comes death.”
Keiran’s voice was quiet as he asked, “Who died?”
My stomach twisted as I confessed, “The President’s grandson.”
8
Marcella
Maker, my head.
The ache went so deep, so damn deep, that I felt like my ears were going to burst. The pounding of my eardrums was audible, the way my lips parted, my nostrils flared to taste the air and let it nourish my lungs, how my eyes flickered from side to side… all of it hurt.
It fucking hurt.
I wanted to cry, but somehow, I knew that was what had brought me to this moment.
Tears.
Baby.
A shudder whispered through me at the word.
Keiran? I knew that voice. Knew it so well.
We’re here, sweetheart.
Raven?
Yeah.
What in the ever-loving hell was going on?
A whimper escaped me and suddenly, I didn’t just hear them, I felt them. They were there. Keiran started crooning, some kind of song that made me feel like I was hearing someone pinging a harp too, because surely only angels could sing like this? Then, there was Raven. He was doing something to my head, something that made me feel like it was a massage of some variation, but this was the best sort.
This time, when I shuddered, it was in a good way.
What are you doing? I whimpered, hating how weak my voice was, but damn, the two of them working against me was intoxicating.
We’re waking you up.
It’s time to wake up, sugar, Raven confirmed.
How long have I been sleeping?
Five days.
Five days? Oh, Maker! What’s wrong with me? I demanded, panic lacing my words.
Keiran hushed me. There’s nothing wrong with you. You needed the rest, but we, my Sixth, need you.
Somehow, I knew he didn’t just mean need need. Like, he wasn’t saying, “Marcella, we really need you to shower because you stink.”
He was saying we fucking need you like we need air to breathe.
The words were so pretty coming from him. The way he spoke, he did something to his voice. It was like he tasted the words before they came out, and when they did, it was one-third croon, one-third song, and one-third purr. I’d heard him speak this way before, but now? At this moment? It was potent.
Potent enough to stir me awake.
Do you need me, Raven? I wasn’t sure why I asked the question. I was their Sixth. Of course they needed me. But I didn’t want them in that way. I didn’t just want to be their Sixth.
I’d been a tool, a slave really, all my life. Sure, technically in a Brotherhood the Sixth was in charge because she was the pureblood Vampire, while the Brotherhood were all just dirty half-Vamps. But I didn’t work that way, and Gideon was way too headstrong, Cade also, to just hand over the reins. But that was okay. I didn’t want total control over them. I wanted them to have their heads, so long as I had their hearts.
Pathetic, right?
I just…
I’ve never had love before.
Not for me, and you couldn’t force it, but what these men had done for me went so far beyond anything anyone else had ever done, that they had to love me a little bit, didn’t they?
I wasn’t asking them for that. Not yet. But to be needed? Yeah. That was just as important, an appetizer that would satiate me until the entrée was headed my way.
“Oh, baby, I need you like you wouldn’t believe.”
My eyes popped open as I realized I heard the voice, rather than felt it in my head.
“It worked,” Keiran said, no small amount of satisfaction in his voice.
“Yeah, yeah, know-it-all,” Raven jibed, but when I looked into his eyes, I saw the appreciation he felt for his brother, as well as the relief he felt when he looked at me.
Speaking to me as they slipped into my mind and my dreams, had obviously been Keiran’s idea.
“You took the pain away,” I rasped, my gaze flickering between the two of them. “How did you do that?”
Keiran tilted his head to the side. “The pain? You were suffering?” His jaw clenched and I could tell he didn’t like the idea of that.
“Y-Yeah,” I whispered. “My head felt like it was caving in.”
Raven tutted as he began to rub my temple. “Ouch.” My lips curved at that, but he didn’t smile, and I saw his own anger at my pain flare up when the flesh around his eyes grew taut, like he was trying to contain his emotions and was failing.
They were close to me, I realized. But I hadn’t truly noticed, because their proximity felt right.
It felt good.
They were supposed to lay like this with me. It felt natural. Right. Their bodies were pressed on either side of me, and Keiran had his head on my belly, while Raven’s elbow was beside my ear almost, so he could lean over me while stroking my hair.
This kind of affection? Maker, I could get used to it.
I was like a flower that had been dying thanks to too much sunlight and not enough water, and Keiran was my cold glass of water and Raven was my shade. I felt like I could breathe with them so close to me, their skin touching mine—
Wait.
I was naked?
I tilted my head down and saw that I had only my bra and panties on.
When had that happened?
At my movement, Keiran murmured, “Blood.”
“Huh?” I asked.
“We’ve been trying to feed you blood, but every time we get more blood on your clothes than we do in you.”
My eyes flared at that, and suddenly, I remembered. “Darius.”
“Yes. Darius,” Raven grunted.
Neither of them spoke, neither of them reassured me that if I didn’t want him as a mate, then I didn’t have to have him. But they couldn’t. Darius and I were pursangs, and our matings? They were weird. I’d read about the mate bonds, and I bit my bottom lip as I whispered, “I couldn’t drink the blood, could I?”
Keiran stiffened. “No. It just seemed to pool in your mouth, and you never swallowed. Not even on reflex.”
I gulped, and if I’d needed further confirmation of what Darius was to me, I just got it.
Pursangs mated for life with other pursangs. That was the way of it. But those pairings were rare. Very rare, so it didn’t surprise me that even with Darius’s advanced age, he wasn’t aware of why I hadn’t been able to swallow the blood.
The only aspect of this situation that wasn’t fucked up, was the fact I wasn’t just a pursang, I was a Sixth. I was born to be a conduit, and the link that tied me to each of my men in this Brotherhood meant they could feed me too, which filled me with relief, because that level of intimacy wasn’t something I could deal with at the moment. Not with Darius. In those barely there moments of knowing him, he’d still looked at me as though he believed I was his everything, but also that I should be mopping the floor.
It was like he had two sides to him, and whenever I’d stared into his eyes, I saw that, and loathed it.
“You know something?” Keiran asked quietly, and I heard the tension in his voice.
I didn’t have to be a mind reader to know what was going on. They were bound to be fearful. A pursang had just bulldozed his way into our link, but they didn’t have anything to worry about.
“I’m a pursang, yes, but I’m a Sixth,” I rasped, my voice still husky after being silent for five days. “That means my nature is dual.”
Raven’s hand stilled in my hair. “What does that mean, Marcella? We’re salsangs. They teach us shit about pursangs.”
I tensed, hating the bitterness in his voice, and was well aware that bitterness was there whenever th
ey mentioned any and all pursangs.
Well, except me.
“It means that it’s rare, but I can have the Brotherhood and Darius as mates.” I blinked. “I remember reading about it, but it happened a long time ago, and the Sixth was unusual.”
“Unusual in what way?”
I shrugged because I genuinely didn’t know. Releasing a shaky breath, I admitted, “I read it in a journal, and after I read that part, there was a huge chunk of the diary that was just missing. Ripped out.”
“Sounds like someone didn’t want anyone else reading that.”
“Maybe.” I reached up and cringed as my arm protested being used. The muscles ached as I tugged and pulled at my bottom lip. “I can’t drink blood anymore.”
“What?”
“The hell you can’t?”
The two spoke simultaneously, and I had to hide a smile behind my fingers. The Maker only knew what the others would say. “It was okay before Darius came along, but because he’s pursang, the mating with him is dominant.” They stiffened at that, and I reached for them, settling one hand on Raven’s thigh and the other on Keiran’s head. “Stop that,” I hushed. “I didn’t mean the bond. I just meant the way we have to do things. His Vampire is pure so it brings mine out too.”
“Okay, so what does that mean?”
“It means that for nourishment, I’ll have to drink from you.”
“From us?” Raven demanded, then they both fell silent. “Maker, really?” he blurted out, and damn, if he didn’t sound excited.
My lips curved, even though there wasn’t anything funny about this conversation. In the scheme of things, I needed both blood and food for nourishment on a sixty-forty ratio. Now? That had just ratcheted up to seventy five-twenty five. “Yeah. Every day.”
Raven snorted. “That means sex. Every day. Marcella, you’re going to be sore.”
Something inside me unfurled at his words—they weren’t rejecting me. They were accepting me. What the hell? I’d just told them something of great concern and here they were, embracing it, not pushing me away. And yeah, Keir may have been silent, but he was hugging me so tightly, it had to hurt his arms.
“I think I can manage,” I whispered shyly, and nuzzled my face into his side. “But first, I really need to shower. I stink.”
“You don’t,” Keiran assured me. “But I can understand why you’d want to clean up.”
He maneuvered on the bed and helped pull me into a sitting position. When I stared down at myself, I saw the lines of blood on my body, the splashed droplets, the rivulets that had formed after blood had pooled between my breasts or in my navel.
“I look like I was attacked by a serial killer.”
Raven snorted. “Nope. We were just trying to nourish you.”
I squeezed his hand. “Thank you.”
“Maker, don’t thank us,” Keiran urged. “It’s our duty. Our privilege.”
The second word made me feel better than the first one did.
They both helped me onto my feet, and I hated how shaky I was. Being out of it for five days had taken its toll on me, and I felt it with every step toward the bathroom. I’d admit to being relieved when Raven moved ahead, and Keiran stayed next to me. I didn’t want them seeing my back. Not yet. Keir helped prop me on the side of the bath, while Raven tested the water until he liked the temperature, and then let it run.
As I watched him add soap to the wrought iron tub, I looked around the bathroom and let out a whistle.
“This place is fancy.”
The walls were covered in black marble, making it comforting and dark, with the golden orbs that hung overhead like stars that ran over the ceiling. There was the tub in the center, a vanity made out of the same marble so you only noticed it because of the faucet, and then there was a recess where the toilet was. Two mirrors above the vanity reflected the stars.
“The Cavalry doesn’t know how to do anything that isn’t fancy,” Keiran said drily, his hands on my shoulders as he made a move to stand between my legs.
The movement was proprietary, and if I hadn’t been exhausted and also, still a bit shy, it would have been the perfect position for me to grab his cock and tease him into doing something with it. But, as it was, he stood there to prop me up, and I appreciated that even more because damn, I was weak.
I’d been out for five days because I needed to feed, and not one of them had realized how to feed me.
Even though I wanted to ask just who this damn Cavalry was, I found I couldn’t. I didn’t remember to ask, not when Raven brushed against me, and Keiran helped me stand, their hands touching me with such warmth, such care, that it filled me with a sense of hope that made me focus on our future together.
Maker, I wanted that future. Wanted it more than my next breath.
When they helped settle me in the tub, after helping me out of my bra and panties—and I had no idea why I didn’t flush at that or why they didn’t fumble—the water instantly turned pink from all the stains on my body. I didn’t even have it in me to grimace, just closed my eyes and sunk under, trying to drench my hair.
Returning a few moments later, I saw they were both watching me with an undeniable hunger in their eyes. It rejuvenated me in ways I couldn’t begin to calculate because I’d never felt it before. Was that because—and as embarrassing as the phrase was—Cade had made me a woman?
I’d been untouched before him. That particular hunger unknown to me. But now? Now I knew what it was, recognized it, and theirs set off an answering call in me.
“How do you know so much about pursang matings?” Keiran asked, as he dropped to his knees at the side of the tub. I was surprised when he reached for some soap, pooled it in his hands, and began to bathe me.
Each touch, each skim of his hands over my legs and belly and breasts, stunned the hell out of me. For endless seconds, I couldn’t do anything other than absorb the simplicity of how he was washing me, but it was more than that—there was tenderness behind each stroke of his hand.
I was hard pressed not to shiver, especially when I saw the lust in Raven’s eyes as he watched his brother tend to me.
When Keiran approached my sex, he slipped between my legs with an impersonal touch that, for the exact opposite reason, made me so horny I wanted him then and there. He was just cleaning me. Just making me smell good, and yet, Maker, that innocent touch made me want to drag him into the water and fuck him. Hard, fast, wet.
Ugh.
But before I could do any of that, I needed blood. I had no energy, it was why I was content to just lay here. If my mates hadn’t been walkers that could infiltrate sleep and my mind, I wasn’t sure if I’d even have been awake now. They’d drawn me out of my subconscious, which had embraced me to protect me.
I rocked my hips down as he ceased cleansing me there, then he moved back to my feet and this time, I let out a shaky moan as he began to rub my feet.
Maker mine, what kind of torture was this?
It felt so, so, so good!
Raven laughed softly. “Keep it up, Keir. She looks like she’s going to start purring soon.”
Keiran didn’t reply, didn’t smile or laugh, just carried on touching me, even moving onto my other foot. Except, this time, when he dug deep into my arch, Raven’s hand slipped into the water, and unlike Keiran, his touch wasn’t impersonal.
He attacked my clit like it was his enemy. Touching the nub roughly, rubbing it hard and fast until I was thrusting against his hand, and climax was exploding through me all of a sudden. It was unexpected, and it shook me to my bones as I shuddered in the water, making it splash against the sides as Raven moved down to slip his fingers into my wet core.
“We made her wet, Keiran, and it had nothing to do with the bath.”
Keiran hummed as he moved onto my calves, and Maker, they were even more tense than my feet! When he hit a knot that had me jolting, it did something to me. Something that triggered an internal response, making something I wasn’t sure had existed before
Darius, rear fully formed to life.
The Vampire in me, that beast who required blood and powered me as I trained, surged to the fore and before I knew it, Raven’s forearm was in my hands and my teeth were buried in the fleshiest part of it—which was no easy task, considering it was as muscled as the rest of him.
He flinched in surprise at the move, but didn’t try to separate himself from me. Not that he’d have won in that particular battle. As the blood sank into my parched mouth, I released a groan that was as throaty as the one that had just escaped me a few moments before, as Raven had fingered me to an orgasm I was still feeling in my bones.
I felt the blood settle into my parched tissues, nourishing me, making me flushed from the combination of the heat of the bath, his blood, and my climax, as it filled me with his warmth.
Small grunts escaped Raven as I sucked his vein and fed from him, and I could scent his arousal.
I was still hungry when I pulled back, but I didn’t want to take too much from Raven. He was a brother and one of my protectors. That meant weakening him would be endangering all of us. Especially when Kieran was watching, his eyes heavy, dark, and filled with intense heat.
Flopping back into the water, I felt a small wave surge over the side. They didn’t curse, even though the move had to have gotten their feet wet.
Raven shuddered. “Maker, that felt good.” He ran a shaky hand through his hair, and I saw the puncture marks where I’d taken from him, a possessive fist wrapped around my heart at the sight.
Silence fell between us as Keiran carried on with his ministrations, tending to me, touching me. When he moved to rub my hands, I bridged my fingers through his for a second, and he shot me a look. “Thank you for this.”
“You’re my mate,” he whispered, dropping down and pressing a kiss to my hot, sweaty brow. “It is my honor, my pleasure.”
Raven snorted. “You were hot as fuck to watch, Marcella.”
I had to laugh because the two were so different, whereas Raven and Cade were both as crude and as crass as each other, Keiran was slightly like Barclay in that they were both gentlemen. Inside and out. They were also, I was coming to see, romantics.
