Love is Fear

by Caroline Hanson

  If felt like a physical punch. “He’s lying to me?” She knew she was shaking her head. “He wouldn’t do that.” Yes, he would.

  “Yeah. He would and he is. I can get the procedure going. I just need some of your blood. You need to distract him for a while, and then you can come back, finish it and, voila, you’ve got the pet you never wanted.”

  “Wait. Why do you care? Lucas will kill you if you do this.”

  Rachel looked worryingly at the door. “I’m sort of counting on you making my continued existence part of your demands. Cause yeah, he is definitely thinking of killing me. If Lucas binds himself to Jack, it’s over. Jack will be his bitch for eternity. This is your last chance, and it has to be now. I need ten minutes, tops.”

  “What am I supposed to do? How do I distract him for ten minutes?” This was stupid. There was no distracting Lucas unless she what? Tried to fuck him in the hallway as they rolled around in a pool of cold wolf blood? Man, I wish I hadn’t thought that.

  Rachel grabbed Val’s hand, and she caught the glint of a knife, felt a sting of burning pain as Rachel cut her flesh open, shoving a cup under her hand to catch the blood. The cup filled quickly— she’d cut deep.

  “Gee, your blood does smell really good,” Rachel muttered, eyes focused on the gushing blood. “How do you distract him? Are you kidding? You’re an Empath. He’s desperate to get into your artery and you’re dripping with blood. Give him a taste. I can guarantee you that will distract him for more than a few minutes.”

  “What? No. He said it’s dangerous.”

  Rachel set the bowl of blood on the wooden table next to the bed, then closed her eyes, taking a deep breath as she turned back to Val. “You want to know the truth and how much he’s been lying to you, don’t you? This is your chance. Maybe your only chance.” Her eyes burned into Valerie’s, trying to convince her of her sincerity—and it was kind of working. Val made sure to look at Rachel’s forehead, rather than her eyes, so she wouldn’t be compelled.

  “I need a distraction or he’s going to bind himself to Jack. Nothing except your blood—which is dripping on the floor, by the way—will keep him occupied.”

  Val looked down. Shit, she’d bled through the towel. How fucking deep had Rachel cut? Rachel grabbed Val’s wrist, swiping blood from Val’s palm and slapping it on Val’s injury-free hand, then her neck, even her lips before Val could do much more than swear. “I look like fucking Carrie at the prom! Get off me!”

  Rachel licked her lips but took a step back. “Yeah, you’ve got a definite birthday cake vibe going on. Go! I need ten minutes, that’s it.”

  “Wait, wait.” This is happening way too fast.

  “He’s coming. Now or never!” Rachel went back to the little bowl, stirring the ingredients with her pinky as she started speaking in Latin.

  Val opened the door, stepped outside, and shut it behind her. Blood. Her hand still dripped. She wiped her palms together like a satanic version of Patty Cake, noticing how tacky the blood was. Her stomach roiled as if she were on a ship in a choppy ocean.

  Lucas came down the hallway and froze. His gaze sweeping her bloody form from head to foot.

  I am a birthday cake!

  His clothes were ripped, his hair matted with blood. Dark with it. His injuries were almost healed, and she wondered where he’d been. The wolves were in the same spot, but their heads were chopped off in a clean strike. So why was he coming from down the hall?

  “What happened? Are you all right?” His gaze was riveted on her hand. She knew the moment he breathed in the scent of her blood because he staggered backwards a step. His nostrils flared with desire, and he made a sound— half despair, half longing, then he slapped his hand over his mouth and nose like that would keep him from ripping into her jugular.

  This is a big mistake. WWJD? What would Jack do? He’d keep going. Risk death for what was right. Dammit!

  “I’m binding myself to Jack. Rachel is getting it set up,” Val said, studying him carefully.

  Lucas looked her over, his gaze roaming her from head to toe. “No. You cannot.”

  “She says I can do it.”

  “She is wrong. Get out of the way. Or I cannot be responsible for my actions. ”The words were a growl.

  She pushed back against the door, blocking it as he took a step towards her. “You’ll have to go through me,” she said, the stupidity of her statement obvious.

  Lucas must have recognized the ineffectualness of her comment, because he smiled at her indulgently. Like a man who was about to take his lover to bed and who would not be stopped for any amount of gold or reason in the world.

  His head tilted to the side as he took a step closer. “What are your intentions?” he murmured gently. And she knew this was an amusing game to him. He wasn’t afraid of her. He trusted himself and his ability to resist her completely. And that pissed her off. What was it with these men? If he stripped off his clothes, she’d have a hard time refusing!

  He was going to drink her blood. There was no other option. He wasn’t binding himself to Jack. .

  “Look at me,” he said urgently.

  “Why, so you can do your mind-Voodoo on me? Hell, no!”Val said unhappily and pushed her fingers deep into the wound on her palm. Tears welled in her eyes, and she looked away so she wouldn’t be sick or faint.

  Blood poured out of the open wound and she wiped it over her again—neck, hands, lips. If he wanted into that room, he’d have to go through her. He was going to drink her blood, and she would know if he was lying to her. Jack ’s life depended upon it. She wouldn’t fail.

  This is a stupid fucking plan.

  Lucas looked around the hallway like the walls were closing in on him.

  Maybe not as confident he can resist as he wants me to believe.

  He swallowed hard.

  “Get out of the way, or I will harm you,” he said, voice gravelly, eyes fixed on hers before dropping to her hand and the blood that dripped from it. Watching it fall. It was odd to be wanted for something so unusual. Her blood. Like being a kidney donor or something. The stress, fear and surrealness of the situation combined within her, making her feel jumpy.

  She licked her lips nervously, tasting blood on her tongue. His shoulders straightened, his whole body hard and angry. She felt his energy change, could see his decision in the slight readying of his posture.

  Lucas stalked towards her, slowly watching her and her hands. Almost casual, belying the importance of the moment. Trying to lull her into thinking he was relaxed. His voice was smooth and deep, as though he were going to tell her a secret. A look similar to a condescending sneer crossed his lips. “The trick to combat is in watching the center of your opponent’s body, looking for the shift and tension so one knows where they will move. Are you watching me? Can you even move fast enough to make an impression?”

  Okay, definitely condescending.

  “Tell me, my little Valkyrie, what do you think you may accomplish? Make me drink your blood, and then what do you want? A declaration of love? To have Jack and I both? To be my Valkyrie in truth and lead me from the field of battle into the gates of hell?”

  He was trying to distract her, make her mad. Why didn’t he just back down? Jack wasn’t his concern. “I want the truth. And I don’t know if you’ve been giving it to me.”

  He licked his lips. “There are other ways. Ask me. Trust me of your own volition,” he said, the tone of his words soft and coaxing. He’d closed half the distance between them but waited several feet away, like he didn’t want to come closer if he didn’t have to.

  Lucas was breathing rapidly, his pupils wide as he watched her. He was hard and huge with desire, looking from her lips to her chest, absorbing all of her.

  “I have to know that you will tell me the truth!” She held out a palm towards him, like warding him away. Her breath was shaky, and she shifted on her feet.

  His hands fisted at his sides and he took a step back. “I will,” he said. A promise.r />
  What if it’s a lie?” Drink my blood. Let me inside you, so I know you’re telling me the truth.”

  He shook his head slowly back and forth. “No. After all the time we have spent together and what I have explained to you—what this may do to me— you want to force the issue now? When enemies surround us? When Jack is vulnerable? Who will protect him if I am insensible? Rachel? She will kill you as soon as look at you. She is not loyal, Valerie. No one else is strong enough to see us out of Cerdewellyn’s realm. This is not the time. If you need answers, I will give them to you, but not here or now.”

  “I think you wanted him dead. I think I can bind myself to him and that you’re lying to me because you don’t want the competition. How can I trust you?” she whispered, determination wavering. He looked to the side and somehow that gesture gave him away—he was not going to let her be with Jack.

  He rushed her, but she saw it coming, had a bare moment to guess how he would try to get past her, and reach the door. He was afraid to let her touch him, she knew it. Right or left? She had to decide.

  She threw her palms up in front of her, stretching her arms out like anticipating a hug, while throwing her body forwards, jumping outwards to meet him, in a split second, deciding he would come at her from the left.

  He moved at full speed, but he was weak, slower than usual, so she could almost catch everything that was happening. Her chest slammed into his, her forehead cracking against his jaw, hard.

  He made a harsh sound at the contact, and she twined her arms around his neck desperately, gripping him hard around his neck with all of her strength, tilting her head back in an effort to reach his lips. His hands reached up, clamped on her arms, pulling her off of him. Her lips slid along his, brushing, her tongue pushing at the seam of his lips, begging him to kiss her. She arched closer, forcing him to take her weight, trying to push him off balance.

  Keep him close for a moment longer. Each fraction of a second like an hour of temptation. How long could he resist when each time they came together, the need grew? When it was what they both wanted.

  Please. Everything seemed to pause as she waited to see if he would break. Always. He could always resist her. And she feared he would do it again. He would jerk back, move away, toss her aside, maybe even laugh at her, then go in to see Jack and change all of their lives forever.

  Please, she thought again. Desperately, like that painful declaration of love when one didn’t know what the response would be—a moment of endless waiting and yearning that was filled with hope, terror and an openness to devastation.

  The only action was the slow slide of her bloody lips on his. He was frozen and cold. On the outside and the inside, both his heart and his body. What did he want? What did he really want from her? To be warm? To love and feel? Excitement? Or was it just control? If he could walk away from this, she’d know the answer.

  He trembled, hesitated…broke.

  His arms closed around her, and he jerked her hard against his cock. She gasped against his lips, and his head tilted to the side, mouth opening under hers, taking her blood inside him greedily. She knew the moment that he swallowed, felt it like a door banging open inside of her, her power sliding into him, pouring down his throat and into him. He kissed her hard, sucking her lower lip into his mouth as he swallowed, tasting her lips again and again, seeking more of her.

  The blood on her lips was cold, but his kiss became hot. The fire of their connection blazed between them. The kiss softened, wasn’t as frenzied but became an exploration, an end in and of itself.

  Lucas didn’t just give in but surrendered. The urgency left him. His kisses turned languid, and he moaned in a way that made her body spasm in desire.

  His legs collapsed, and he sank to the floor, breathing hard, like he’d just sprinted to her from the depths of hell. His head bowed before her, like a knight before his Queen, forehead resting on her stomach, his broad shoulders slumped in defeat.

  He looked up at her, and she caught his gaze, caught the hungry look in them, felt like she was compelling him. His hands were on her hips and his fingers clenched as she raised her hand, extending her palm towards his parted lips.

  She saw the fight in him— it was still there, after all— a little flicker of fire in a snowstorm. His eyes were vivid. A deep, dark, blue like the ocean after it had claimed a ship full of men.

  A hundred things passed through his eyes as they stared at each other, like she was looking into a small window of his soul. He cradled her bloody palm in his hands, brought it to his lips like a cupful of water, his tongue swiping across her flesh. His fangs pierced her hand. He bit deep, and she cried out at the pain.

  Blood welled into his mouth, and he swallowed it in quick gulps, pulling so more blood welled out of her, like she couldn’t bleed fast enough. As though he would gulp it all down no matter how fast it pulsed out of her… and he would still want more.

  She hadn’t seen anger in his surrender. Nor defeat. No love or tenderness, either. There was no room in him to feel anything else besides need and desperate blood lust. Obsession and self-absorption coalesced into the gravest, most primal hunger possible.

  Maybe he hadn’t even really known it was her. I could have been anyone. Val looked down at him, watched the way he worked her, then swallowed audibly, cradling her hand flush to his mouth. There was nothing but instinct there. An instinct so long denied that he was now lost to it and no longer himself.

  He was desire. Desire for blood. For feeling. For everything that had been gone for hundreds of years and that he had never thought to see again.

  She was on his tongue, sliding down his throat in spurts as he drank and drank, wishing it would never end. She slid inside of him and hit his stomach, radiating outwards like a tsunami hitting land, into his veins and bloodstream, riding his blood as it pumped through his body and worked its way to his heart.

  Yes.

  She knew the moment it hit—transforming him into something new. He gasped and fell forward, collapsing to the floor, arms too weak to catch himself, his shoulders and head hitting the ground hard. Lucas closed his eyes, looking like he had survived the most draining passion.

  And that was exactly how he felt. She was inside him and she knew. Val smiled darkly. He was the princess who’d touched the spinning wheel. He had avoided this moment for what seemed like all of his life, and now that it was here, it had sucked him under.

  Utterly destroyed him.

  Her soul was in his mind, twisting through the little pathways of his brain, broken images like white noise coming back to her as her blood made a circuit through his body. She was so deep within him she ached.

  It was hard to orient herself inside of him. Val forced her energy to pump through him, past his heart which was filled with chaos— like a bar at midnight. Emotions carousing inside him before she reached the quiet peace of his mind. She knew what she wanted to know and called the information forth, ‘Tell me about Jack. ’ She left the question open-ended. Not wanting a filter, unsure why it would work, but certain it would.

  She saw a silent movie of his intentions and what had occurred in the hallway before she and Rachel had arrived.

  Jack attacking Lucas and the moment he decided to put Jack between himself and the wolf. His relief when the wolf ripped Jack apart and inflicted the mortal wound so he wouldn’t have to.

  She could bind herself to Jack, that knowledge was there. How close it would bring them and how much he didn’t want that to happen.

  Wolves. A memory drifted towards her like a ribbon on the breeze and she caught it. Examined it. She was screaming and Lucas carried her into a room, tossed her onto a bed, straddling her, grabbing her chin, compelling her to forget all that she had learned in Cerdewellyn’s castle—what he had done to Empaths, to the wolves.

  He told her not to be afraid of him, to trust him, made her believe it blindly. And then there was another pause, a hesitation as the ribbon slipped away. She tried to grab it again—he wa
s struggling. Didn’t want her to see the next part—

  They were still on the bed and she was looking at him blankly. He stared at the ceiling for a moment and then looked back down at her, ‘forget what he told you, what you learned, trust me, know that I will get you out of here…and you will love me for it. ’He finished the compulsion and she saw herself through his eyes, how beautiful he thought she was, the way she awoke, innocent of his treachery, her kissing him, not wondering why they were in a bedroom or how they had gotten there.

  Nothing had mattered except him.

  He told me to love him.

  Val felt sick and angry. Wanted nothing more than to get out of his mind and leave him here, but there was something else. A dark area, like a shadow. She willed the darkness away, like pulling aside a curtain, and reached inside, reading the events of her life through his memories.

  The vampire, Roberto, had returned to Lucas after killing her mother. Lucas, as he drank her mother’s blood from Roberto’s neck. Collapsing in joy. And then—something she never knew, never even suspected—Lucas coming up to her at eight as she played outside, as he dulled her grief and took it away, wiped the image of Roberto and that day from her mind. So that when she thought of what had happened, she wouldn’t be too sad, couldn’t see it clearly or know exactly what had happened. He’d taken that from her, and she had never known.

  It was like a bullwhip stripping off her flesh, peeling open her skin down to her beating and vulnerable heart. Her mother’s death had brought him more pleasure than he’d felt in hundreds of years. And in that moment, Val’s fate was sealed. He would have had her, pursued her, taken her willingly or by force once he realized the pleasure she might bring him.

  No matter how ugly, boring or awful she might have been, he still would have wanted her. Being near her was the most exhilarating battle he’d fought in a millennia: him versus himself, the desire for her blood at war with his determination to abstain.

  She tried to pull out of his mind, disengaging from him, but it felt like they were tied together with Saran Wrap. She pulled, and the connection stretched but it was too thickly wrapped to break. She wanted out and imagined herself stumbling away from him, putting distance between them. Tried to bring forth the wall of her mental shields but couldn’t remember what a wall looked like.