by Lexi C. Foss
“So you wanna tell me why you haven’t fed in so many hours?” Giselle questions behind me.
When I spin to face her, she’s standing there with her arms crossed, watching my every move. She’s as intimidating as her husband, in a different way. I like it. Feel like I need to be closer now that it’s just her and I. My mouth pops open to reply, but the words never make it out, my legs carrying me forward of their accord. We’re almost chest to chest when she continues, “Do you do this often?”
“Do what often?” I’m surprised I even caught that at all when all I can seem to focus on is the beat of her heart, exposing her neck and—
What the fuck?
That train of thought stops me just a foot or two away from her. What the hell is wrong with me? I’ve known her for what? Two seconds, and here I am mentally savoring her blood. She’s right; I really need to feed. When you start tasting your own kind...yeah, that’s a problem.
Or is it, whispers a little voice in my head.
Pushing that thought aside, I drag my gaze up to meet her stare. “Do you starve yourself often?” she queries again.
“Essentially, yes.” No point in lying. She looks like someone who can read a bullshitter a mile away. Plus, it might get her closer.
And it does.
Her eyes flash, and just as quickly, she’s thrusting me up against the building’s side, brows furrowed. “Why? How? It’s only been a few hours for me and I’m famished.”
“I don’t like hurting people,” I admit. Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem throat punching a motherfucker if necessary, but I don’t actively seek it out. “I never wanted to be this. I was forced into this.” I leave out the part where I’ve been trained to kill our kind because right now, right here at this moment, the last thing I want to do is kill her.
Her expression softens, but not by much. “Name of the game, baby. Whatever happened to you, you were given a second chance to live your life. You do want to live, right?”
Long enough to see my mission through, yes.
I nod, that’s it. Nothing less, nothing more, keeping my stare trained on her. She doesn’t need to know the sordid details of my past, much less anything about my suicide mission.
Giselle smiles as if my reply pleases her, although it’s not a regular warm and friendly smile. It’s more mischievous and devious than anything else, those intriguing eyes darkening quite dramatically. “Don’t move, okay? I’ll be right back.”
I don’t have the time to respond. She’s gone in a literal flash, disappearing to the end of the alleyway and around the corner.
What the hell is she doing? Where is she going?
Or where did she go, I should say because I swear I blink maybe five times, and she’s back...but she’s not alone. There’s a man in her grip. He’s unharmed, but she’s clearly manipulated his thoughts, given the dazed look on his face. It’s like he doesn’t even see me. Hell, I’m not sure he’s seeing much of anything right now.
“Feed,” she instructs, lips spreading in a lazy grin. “He won’t feel a thing, I promise.”
“How… How did you do that?” I ask.
“I feed regularly, that’s how. I’ve already told you: When you deprive yourself, your abilities weaken. Look at what happened inside.”
That’s not what I meant, but I don’t bother countering. For what? I don’t want to manipulate people. That just makes it easier to hurt them, to lose control.
“C’mon, Loey, feed.” She shoves him toward me and presses herself behind me, trapping me between both of their bodies and the brick wall at my back. Her fingers thread into his hair, yanking his head aside. With his neck exposed, I’m instantly entranced by the steady beat of his pule. “Go on, do it.”
She’s coaxing me, and she’s doing one hell of a job. With each passing second, I’m finding it harder and harder to resist, fangs elongating as his heartbeat resounds in my ears. What seals the deal is the smell of his blood when she latches onto him. He doesn’t so much as whimper, enticing me all the more.
Feed, Loey, that dark little voice whispers again as my vision darkens, tunneling on the thin crimson stream pouring from Giselle’s mouth.
I didn’t think she could get any sexier, but when she looks up at me with those duo-toned bloodshot eyes, black veins rippling wildly beneath, I can literally feel the overwhelming sense of desire that blasts through my veins. I can’t stand my own reflection, hate the way I look in my vampiric form, and yet on her… She looks good enough to eat.
Fuck it.
Before I can convince myself otherwise, I fist the front of the man’s shirt and go for it, sinking my fangs deep in his neck. Euphoria, that’s where I’m transported the second his blood washes over my tastebuds. I could almost swear I hear Giselle moan, too, but I’m so lost in this feeling, sucking his neck in a nearly rabid state that I can’t be sure it’s real and not a figment of my imagination. In the very back of my mind, the part of me that’s still very much human, warning bells blare. Every pull of his life source leaves him weaker and weaker, and I know that I’ll drain him to his death if I don’t stop soon.
“That’s it, keep going.” She urges, snapping my eyes open. She’s watching me with the most satisfied expression I’ve ever seen. She’s not just satisfied, though; she’s aroused, too. Not only can I see it swimming in the dark depths of her stare, I can literally smell it, melding with this man’s blood in the headiest concoction that has me out of my right mind.
Instant trigger.
I take one last pull, effectively sucking him of every drop in his body, and toss him aside like some reckless beast. He lands on the asphalt with a thud, his lifeless eyes wide open, and before I can so much as take a single step, Giselle’s on me, keeping my flush to the building’s exterior. Her eyes follow the twin streams leaking from the corners of my mouth, and the next thing I know, her tongue lashes out against my chin.
“Mmm,” she hums, hands falling to my waist. “He tastes better off of you.”
As if she hadn’t provoked me enough, literally forcing me to feed and kill an innocent man, I yank her closer by the unzipped ends of her leather jacket and lap up the blood staining her beautiful face. I’m millimeters from her lips, tempted to steal a taste of them, too, when I catch a shadow beside us from the corner of my eye.
“Thanks for the invite,” Travis husks out, his booming voice hitting the pit of my stomach like a roll of thunder.
Giselle chuckles and turns her head toward her husband, effectively breaking the spell. Both her features and my own restore to their normal state, and almost instantly, I’m filled with remorse.
“She needed to feed,” Giselle explains calmly. “You saw her. She was minutes away from hitting the floor.”
Travis hums, another sound that runs right through me. I can feel the nettled heat of his stare, too, boring into the side of my face. “Yeah, well, it seems you two made quite a mess. Let’s clean this up and get the hell out of here before we’re spotted.”
2
Loey
I left with them.
Told Dex I wasn’t feeling too hot. He didn’t question me or give me shit about it, I guess because it was so late already. That wasn’t the initial plan, I should add. I thought Travis and Giselle were leaving, was fully prepared to watch them walk out the door and never see them again, but then Giselle invited me to come, too. At first, I didn’t know what to say. I mean, Travis didn’t seem too happy he’d found us seconds away from mauling each other with a dead body at our feet. Who can blame him? She’s his wife, not his girlfriend or some casual fling—his wife, who left him at the bar to run outside with another woman. Surprisingly enough, he didn’t seem bothered by her suggestion, claiming their home was just a few blocks up the road.
The man wasn’t lying, either. It really was just a few blocks up the road, although I never would’ve guessed they lived here. From the outside, it has that old warehouse vibe, small frosted windows and all. But on the inside? God, the
interior is gorgeous, one mass space made up of exposed brick, mismatching furniture that somehow flows nicely together, and original industrial pipes hanging from the ceiling. There’s a spiral, iron staircase off to the corner, too, that looks like it leads to a loft of sorts.
“You guys have a beautiful home,” I murmur in awe, spinning around slowly as I take it all in.
“Trav’s good with his hands,” Giselle states. “He did all of this. This place was completely empty when we bought it.”
“Wait…” Spinning around in a flash, I meet Travis’ stare from his place behind the island in their kitchen. “You built all of this?”
He nods. “Most of it, yes. There’s a few pieces of furniture we did buy, along with all of the appliances, obviously, and some of the fixtures as well. But for the most part, some old-fashioned hard work made this place what it is.”
Wow.
I’m impressed.
“He can literally build just about anything,” Giselle adds proudly, sliding around behind him toward one of the cabinets. “Do you want a drink?”
“Sure.” I’m still holding Travis’ gaze, watching as he shrugs off his jacket, revealing two arms full of tattoos. My eyes bulge slightly. I’m kind of stunned. The jacket had obviously been hiding all that ink, but I never would’ve expected him as a man with two full sleeves.
Or maybe I should have.
After all, he fits the bad-boy stereotype.
“You live far from here? he asks.
I shake my head and remove my jacket, too, draping it over one of the couches. “Not really. I’m just across the park on the Upper East Side.”
“Ooooh, the Upper East. Fancy,” Giselle chimes behind him.
Shit.
“Yeah, uh, I got lucky there. The guy who owns my unit comes down to the bar a lot. He shaved off some of the price on the rent; otherwise I wouldn’t be there,” I lie.
Travis nods slowly, lips curled slightly as he regards me. It’s unnerving, to say the least, but I don’t flounder, throwing in a smile and a shrug for good measure.
“You play pool?” He tips his chin somewhere to my left.
Following the motion, I note the sleek, black pool table that I hadn’t noticed upon first walking in. It’s an interesting piece; black frame, black top instead of the usual green, and the pockets around the table have a distinguished silver claw encompassing their exterior.
“I’m not very good at it, but I do like to play,” I admit, making my way towards it.
Giselle meets me beside it, handing me a tumbler with at least three fingers worth of what smells like whiskey as Travis walks over to the display case housing all of the pool sticks.
“Rack ’em up, Ellie,” he instructs simply.
Ellie.
I like that nickname on her.
Giselle downs half of her glass and sets it on the table’s edge before flashing around the table to gather all the balls from each pocket. I think I blink and she’s done, rolling the rack around the black felt.
“Who wants to go first?” Travis questions, ambling over to us with two sticks.
“Why don’t we play two against one?” I suggest, not wanting him to feel left out again. “You and Giselle against me.”
“Ellie’s fine,” Giselle corrects me with a smirk. “I know I’m old, but Giselle makes me feel even older.”
“How old exactly?” I ask. Yeah, I know, don’t ever ask a woman her age, but it’s clear she’s been a vampire for a while.
“One-hundred thirty-two,” she answers, blowing my fucking mind. My jaw almost hits the floor. Nodding, she lifts the tumbler to her lips and downs the remaining contents. “I was twenty-nine when I died. Met Trav about three years later. We’ve been together ever since.”
Holy shit.
“And you?” I turn to Travis.
The very corner of his lips twitch. “One-hundred forty.”
HO-LY. SHIT.
I think my jaw does hit the floor as my stare bounces between them. “Well shit...now I just feel like a baby next to you guys.”
Giselle chuckles and takes one of the sticks in her husband’s hands, tossing it over to me. “Age is just a number, sweetheart. You’re as young—or old—as you feel. That’s one of the truest things I’ve learned in all the years I’ve walked this earth. Now let’s play some pool. Stripes or solids?”
Funnily enough, my mom used to say the same thing. Granted, she wasn’t immortal, but even pushing forty, she never let age hold her back.
Taking my place at one end of the table, I hitch a shoulder. “Doesn’t matter. You guys choose.”
“Stripes,” Travis calls, prompting Giselle to lift the rack and pass him the cue ball as he chalks up the end of his stick.
Needless to say, I never stood a chance playing against them. They take turns whooping my ass while I just set the cue wherever and hope the solid makes it into one of the pockets. Within twenty minutes, there are only two stripes left on the felt amongst almost all of mine.
“Wow, I really suck,” I quip, chuckling at myself as another solid slams into the side of the table, missing the pocket I was hoping to score by mere inches.
“I’m switching teams!” Giselle announces with a grin, pushing up on her toes to pop a kiss on her husband’s cheek. Then she glides around the table to my end and bounds up to me, bringing her front almost flush to my back. “Bend over, I’m going to help you shoot. You’ve got one right there, just have to hit it right.”
I can feel Travis’ eyes on us as her arms slide around me to help position the stick as need be, but I don’t dare look at him. I focus on the cue, well try to focus on it. Not the easiest feat when Giselle’s body is practically molded against mine.
“Don’t tap it too hard. You see how it’s right near the pocket?” she murmurs.
I nod.
“If you hit it too hard, there’s a good chance it’ll bounce, and you’ll miss.”
Taking her advice into consideration, I pull back the stick and strike the cue only with enough force to propel it across the table. And wouldn’t you fucking know…it hits the blue solid, sending it right into the pocket.
“See?” she coos. “Do it again. That one over there on the left.”
So I do. I slip from her grip and walk around the table, repeating the process all over again. I get another two in following those, leaving me with only three on the table next to Travis’ remaining pair. I glance up at him to gauge his reaction, and to my surprise, he doesn’t have that keen look on his face. He’s actually smirking, making him five times hotter than he already is.
“I could use a snack break,” he states.
“Ohhh, I second that,” Giselle agrees, ambling around the table toward her man.
But not before grabbing me along the way, dragging me with her.
Positioning herself between us, she backs me up into the pool table and rakes her curly locks to one side, exposing her neck. Travis wastes absolutely no time, sliding his hands around her waist as his fangs drop and he sinks them deep in her neck.
Not gonna lie… That’s definitely not the type of snack I thought they were talking about. I thought they meant galavanting the streets to find a living source. Needless to say, my mouth falls slack. I’ve never seen two vampires share blood. I knew it was possible and that it’s very much a thing between mates, but I’d never witnessed it.
Had never cared to witness it.
I’m as hypnotized by the erotic image as her eyes had me back at the bar.
Giselle chuckles darkly, pulling my attention away from the way Travis feeds off his wife’s neck. “Have you ever shared, Loey?” The sensuous lilt of her voice matches the seductive trickle dripping down her neck.
I hate that I can even think that, that I’m turned on by the crimson beast I’m already prisoner to against my will, that I’m turned on by any of this. But I can’t help it… The way that tantalizingly slow stream flows over her collarbone, heading south toward the swell of her cleavage
, the more my mouth waters.
“No, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to taste you right now,” I answer, death-gripping the pool table’s edge as my stare remains fixated.
Travis unlatching breaks the trance, though. My eyes swoop up in time to catch twin droplets fall from his fangs, bedecking Giselle’s beautiful tawny skin. “She tastes as good as you’re imagining, I promise,” he taunts, flicking his tongue out along the mark he left behind.
It feels wrong to be making eye contact with him while he does it, but I can’t look away. His honeyed stare is just so intense and alluring, silently commanding me to watch his every move.
How he nips the curve of her neck, the shell of her ear, his able, tattooed hands slithering up her figure. “Do you wanna play with her, Ellie?” he whispers.
Giselle nods, prompting my attention back on her. Travis’ stare is penetrating, but hers? The two starkly different colors hypnotize me every time I look at her.
She’s fucking gorgeous, honestly.
“Can I pop your sharing cherry, L?” she asks me, dragging her fingertips along Travis’ bite, staining them in her life source.
Something about how she dirties them intensifies the sweetness of her scent, bobbing my head of its own accord by way of response.
There’s zero lapse in time following. She and Travis move as one, their combined energies nearly suffocating me as Giselle brings herself almost flush against me. Her fangs peek out around her bottom lip, those bloodied fingers lifting to my mouth. I don’t need her to vocalize what she wants me to do. In fact, I’m pretty sure that even if it wasn’t what she wanted, I’d still go for it anyway.
Sealing my hand around her wrist, I lash my tongue out against her index finger, lapping up her blood in a singular swipe.
Her delicious blood.
She’s so tasty, I move onto her middle without hesitation, locking my lips around it as the metallic tang blasts over my taste buds and my eyes fall shut.
