Dark Cravings

by Pryce, Madeline

  Micah clutched me tighter, fingers bruising my thighs where he held me still and flicked the point of his tongue over my sensitive bundle of nerves. He moaned against me as if he couldn’t get enough.

  “You taste incredible.” He freed one hand, thrust two fingers deep into my pussy and twisted. “So goddamn tight.”

  He curved his digits and tapped my G-spot while he used his mouth to suck on my hard little nub. I poured into his mouth in a sharp cry of ecstasy and Micah drank me in, consumed my essence, my power, my energy. Nothing had ever felt as decadent as the hot, velvet slide of his tongue and the steady in-and-out thrust of his fingers. The louder my moans of pleasure got, the harder he worked to please me.

  “Tell me you’re mine.” His voice was low and husky. He circled my clit. Nipped. Sucked me.

  I was so totally fucking his. The words were on the tip of my tongue but some dark, shadowed part of my soul demanded more than words.

  “Prove it,” I gasped and transferred my grip from the table to his hair.

  He withdrew from my pussy and his damp fingers trailed down my thigh. His tongue traced the path. Hard, quick, painfully erotic, Micah found the tender spot on my upper thigh and bit down.

  The rusty scent of my blood filled the room and eclipsed the musk of my arousal. Micah soothed the stinging wound with his tongue and lapped at the blood trickling from his mark. His mark. Something unwound from deep inside my core.

  Energy danced around us, weaving a thin crimson cord from me to him. I could almost see it shimmering in the air. Micah rose—tugged on his jeans. The button popped free. The rasp of his zipper sounded.

  His thick, hard cock sprang from the open V of his Levi’s. A drop of pearly come leaked from the slit and I licked my lips. Our eyes locked. Passion exploded. Lust like I’d never known flooded my already-saturated system. My pussy clenched with need as he settled between my thighs. If he didn’t fuck me in the next two seconds I was going to scream.

  I didn’t need to wait. He grabbed his cock with one hand, my hip with the other. He thrust inside and my body had no choice but to stretch for him. To submit to him. Scalding heat pressed through my entire core with his penetration. Micah cried out, raw and husky. The sound moved over me like a crashing wave.

  “Tight.” He pulled out. “Hot.” He plunged inside. “Wet.” Out. “Fucking perfect.” In.

  “Harder,” I moaned.

  He bared his teeth and pounded into me without mercy. Each thrust was painfully delicious. Nothing had ever been as right. I cried out at the deep, resonating sensations throbbing through me.

  “This pussy belongs to me.” His low, feral words spoken into my ear sent shivers running down the length of my spine. He nipped the side of my neck. “Say it.”

  “No.”

  He bit down, teeth sinking through skin. My body convulsed as orgasm stole my breath and my sanity. Pleasure consumed me.

  “Say it,” he demanded.

  “Yes,” I sobbed. “I’m yours.”

  In one fluid move, he scooped me from the table and I had only a second to wrap my legs around his waist to keep us connected. We tumbled onto the bed. The fast, hard rhythm of his cock never ceased. I shoved his jeans over his hips to his thighs and cupped the tight, round fullness of his ass. My nails dug in and Micah growled.

  He grabbed my wrists and brought my arms above my head. His grip tightened with each push of his hips into mine. I lifted my head and licked the blood dripping down his chin.

  Micah’s eyes darkened even further. “Give me your mouth.”

  And I did. Our lips crashed together. I moaned at the combined taste of not only my blood but of the lingering sweetness of my pussy. Every muscle in my body coiled tight and I tensed, teetering on the edge of another climax.

  The cord around us cinched tighter and some invisible force moved over me, through me. In those few precious seconds I felt Micah, sensed who he was, the pain, the loneliness, the need.

  The hunting gene was in his blood, just as the huntress was inside mine. We joined together, flowing in one smooth, connected line until I could no longer keep it contained. The power spilled from us. Micah pulled from my mouth and let go of my arms so he could lift my hips. The angle of penetration changed and he filled me deeper, fucked me harder.

  More. I needed so much more. I pushed my hands through his sweat-damp hair and yanked his head to the side. Surging up as Micah pushed into me, I sank my fangs deep into his neck. Hot, sweet, musky blood filled my mouth and flowed down my throat.

  We belonged to each other.

  The last shield Micah held around him dissipated. The intimacy of him fucking me into oblivion, of my teeth in his neck, wasn’t half as potent as the insight I got into his mind. Buried inside me, Micah felt as if he was safe, loved for the first time since finding his older sister’s brutally ravaged body.

  The emotions he tried so hard to bury oozed from the festering hole in his heart and into me. Heat seared my shoulder, my breast. Crimson ink blossomed under my skin like a bud unfurling into a beautiful flower. The same red lines spread over Micah’s hip, curled down his abdomen to surround his cock.

  Our eyes met and we shared a single thought: Mine.

  He withdrew from my pussy with a gasping pant. His glistening erection angled up, almost reaching his belly button. Before I could protest, he flipped me onto my belly. I fisted the sheets as he pulled my hips until my ass was in the air. Micah pressed two fingers inside my core before pulling out to trace the rosette of my ass with his wet digits. He pushed his cock back into my pussy in the same instant he pressed inside my dark passage with his finger. I surged back onto both.

  “Yeah, that’s it,” Micah moaned.

  He fingered my anus while he fucked me, and the duel sensations pushed me into a screaming orgasm. Micah thrust into me through it all. One finger turned into two and then there were three stretching me, filling me, preparing me for his claiming.

  When I was ready, he moved his wet cock to my rear entrance. The heat of his chest lined my back and his breath tickled my ear. He cupped my marked breast and whispered, “You. Are. Mine.” He pushed past the ring of muscles and finished his claiming.

  The stretching burned in the best way possible. Pleasure spread and my empty pussy clenched in the first spasms of climax. Micah must have felt it because he groaned and started moving. Flesh slapped against flesh and I came apart. Body, mind, soul, I was Micah’s and he was mine.

  The memory of our first time together faded and, as if on cue, the mark on my shoulder began to heat. Every bite, every scratch, began to pulse. I traced my fingers over the lines of my tattoo, moved to my thigh, the bite there. I touched each indent Micah’s teeth had left on my body. His gaze followed my every exploration.

  Micah met my eyes and we shared thought.

  What did you do to me? I asked without words.

  His jaw tensed. “You think I’m a monster.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You were thinking it.”

  Micah growled. The sound was a low, deep rumbling that tore out my heart. The air around him shimmered like heat drifting off hot pavement. He turned, too quick for me to see. He pounded his fist against the wall in three tracing flashes I barely caught. His shouts of fury sounded over the drywall raining to the floor.

  He kicked the table I remembered him fucking me on. Wood splintered. He ripped the mounted lamp out of the wall and threw it at the picture across the room. Glass shattered and the broken pieces crashed to the floor.

  The noise, so loud in the quiet, brought a new bout of tears. I’d started crying and now I couldn’t seem to stop. I let out a hiccupping sob, desperate to regain control. Jesus, I felt so weak. I crossed my arms over my chest, hugged myself tight. The recollections of what we’d done and the dark, horrifying memories Micah held trapped inside him ripped me apart and I couldn’t seem to put myself back together. It didn’t take a genius to connect his sister’s death to our situation. Micah mu
st have thought he’d raped me. He obviously had a different set of memories than I did.

  Self-disgust filled his red-rimmed eyes. Through the darkness, I watched crimson drops soak into the sheets from the splits in his knuckles.

  “I can’t be here,” he said.

  Micah ripped the sheet across his lap and tucked it around his body with angry jerks. He stood, sheet wrapped around him. He stalked to a discarded pile of clothes that lay crumpled at the foot of the bed.

  He forced a long-sleeved black shirt over his head. The blood-filled gashes I’d made with my nails on his back vanished beneath the cotton. Utterly silent, I watched him pull on his jeans, cover his eerily beautiful tattoo and shove his feet into boots without bothering to lace them. He walked to the door and pulled at the handle. The door opened and a rush of cold, early morning air drew my hair across my shoulders.

  Time slowed to a crawl, just long enough for me to glance at the figure on the other side of the doorway, fist raised as if he were about to knock. If I’d had time to process it, I might have wondered at the shock on Elijah McGregor’s face. What was Micah’s younger brother doing here? Eli’s dark gaze flickered to Micah, to me, back to Micah and then returned to me. The brown of his eyes became just a little bit darker when the pupils grew large. Was he staring because I was naked or because I was covered in blood?

  In the microseconds before all hell broke loose, I had time to notice the messier-than-usual mop of dark curls, which were long enough to reach Eli’s ears. I took in the dark circles under his eyes and the vines of red coloring the whites of them. Then the sunlight curled around his body and crawled into the room. My skin tingled and the warmth, for just a second, made me smile. I wasn’t truly a vampire. My heart beat. I didn’t have the unnatural blue eyes all normal vampires acquired after the turning. Sunlight, a fiery fatality to the undead, had no effect on me whatsoever.

  At least it hadn’t before the succubus had gotten me.

  I screamed. The ground was suddenly beneath my knees. The jarring pain of it didn’t compare to what bubbled up from deep inside. If I thought I’d known pain before, I was wrong. I pressed my closed fists into the sockets where the worst of the pain exploded and consumed. Searing, gut-wrenching, soul-stealing agony shot through my eyes and straight into me. The smell of burning flesh made my stomach roil through sensation after sensation.

  “Fuck, Eli, close the door!” Micah’s voice sounded distant and was drowned by my unrelenting shrieks.

  I clawed at my eyes, tried to rub out the fire. My cheeks were slick with moisture, but it was too thick, too hot, to be tears. Spine boneless, I fell. The stiff carpet abraded my elbows when my cheek collided with the ground. Strong arms encircled me. Hands gripped my wrists, forced my balled fists away from my eyes. I kicked, bucked and fought the panic as if it was something real.

  As Micah pulled me off the ground and cradled me against him, he secured my arms behind my back. I knew it was Micah holding me only because I felt his heart hammering with terror. The beat mimicked mine. In that moment I wished for death because the pain was more than I could handle. Micah panted against the top of my head, breath sawing in and out with hot gasps as he struggled to restrain me.

  I whimpered and writhed, fought through the unearthly pain. Micah and Eli were shouting something at each other over my screams. I could do nothing but give into the pain. For the second time in I don’t know how many days, the darkness took everything away.

  This time, though, I welcomed it.

  Chapter Three

  Whatever my offense to the karma fairy was, it must have been a big one. The next time the long, dark tunnel appeared inside my head, maybe I shouldn’t be so eager to dive into it.

  I brought a palm to my forehead and groaned. Yet again, I found myself waking up with a throbbing headache, a warm body next to mine and no idea where I was. Pain radiated from my eye sockets and streaked across my cheekbones. Now I knew how it felt to have red-hot pokers shoved into your eyeballs.

  A quick draw of breath gave me enough strength to scoot away from the person spooning me from behind. As I sat up, my lids fluttered. I cracked open my left eye. When nothing more stabbed through me, I opened my right.

  Through the rush of tears it was hard to tell how much damage there was. Everything was blurry and distorted. I could make out shapes, blobs of color, but not much else.

  The more tears I blinked away, the more the images began to clear. The first thing to come into focus was the rat’s nest of my sister’s tangled blonde hair where she lay sleeping at my side. Hannah muttered something in her sleep before rolling onto her back. Rings of black mascara shadowed the crescents under her eyes and shimmery pink lip gloss smeared across her left cheekbone.

  I’d never been so happy to see anyone in my entire life. I wasn’t blind. And if my sister was here sleeping, I was safe. I smoothed my hand over her silky-soft hair and looked up. Directly across from me was a wall of gleaming silver and black weapons. Ranging anywhere from four feet to six inches, my family’s generations of Brimstone knives and Silverstone swords shone in the glow of flickering candlelight.

  I was in my basement.

  Without wanting to, I did an automatic search for Micah. I had no idea how to interpret the need filling me. I had to see him, to touch him. Under the lingering scent of Hannah’s jasmine perfume, the rich scent of sage clogged my senses. The herb filled the room. I detected no leather. No spice. No Micah. The only heartbeat pounding through me aside from my own belonged to Hannah. I listened more intently, with more desperation, until I picked up a third beat. Whoosh, thud-thud. Whoosh, thud-thud. The distinct sound of Roy’s heart murmur was unmistakable.

  I tensed at the disappointment. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Micah wasn’t in the basement or in the rest of the two-story house. Why should he be?

  Because he belongs to you.

  The darkness deep in my gut pulsed with the stray thought, almost as if the unspoken words had belonged to it, not me. Oh no. I pictured the misty shadow intertwined with my soul, uncoiling like some great big viper ready to strike. My heart hammered. Despite the cold chill stealing over my body, I wiped sweaty palms on the blanket. Something was alive inside me like it never had been before. I was connected to it on a visceral level. Whatever the darkness was—my inner vampire maybe—I got the distinct impression it was displeased.

  Too fucking bad.

  Footsteps echoed against the concrete floor and resonated off the walls. They thudded up one side of the room, then down the other. I stopped my blind search for Micah and brought my uncle’s short, stocky frame into my clearing vision.

  When Roy began to pace, smart people hid. A pissed-off wizard was a scary wizard. Magic radiated from him in pulsing currents and caused the two dozen candles in the room to flicker. The blaze of light dimmed and flared with each step. The last time Roy had been this worked up, he’d found out about my relationship with Julian.

  “I will not stand for this, Richard,” Roy snarled into the phone clutched in his hand.

  The floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lining the entire back wall of the cellar rattled. Dust plumed. Multicolored spines danced on the shelves.

  Unmindful of the havoc he was making, Roy pushed a hand through the thick wave of his half-gray, half-brown hair. The too-long strands stuck straight up, like he’d just stuck his finger into a socket. Despite the pounding in my head, I found his resemblance to Albert Einstein charming.

  “They were attacked by a demon, put under a spell! He is just as responsible. No, you cannot hold what happened against her.” There was a long pause. Three candles blinked out. When the knives vibrated with his fury, I really started to worry. “I’d like to see you come down here and try it.”

  If Roy didn’t stop yelling, either my head was going to explode or weapons were going to start flying around the room. I wasn’t waiting to see which would happen first.

  “Could you maybe, I don’t know, not yell so loud?” I croaked from the cor
ner of the basement.

  The moment I spoke, Roy spun to face me. The relief in his whiskey-colored eyes warmed my heart. My lower lip started to tremble.

  “She’s awake. I will only continue this conversation with the rest of the council.”

  The phone snapped shut. I would have felt relieved if it weren’t for the firm, straight line of his mouth. His short legs carried him across the room in record time. He crouched before me, his knees popping, and settled his serious gaze on my face. I tried not to dwell on the new lines that made his eyes droop. For a man in his early fifties, he looked closer to seventy. I’d done nothing but make this man’s life difficult. Roy cupped the side of my face in his warm, gentle palm and used his thumb to stroke my cheek.

  Before I could stop it, a tear rolled from the corner of my eye. I had the oddest urge to hurl myself in my uncle’s arms and let him hold me. I wanted him to tell me everything was going to be all right. The last time I’d sobbed my broken heart out on his sturdy shoulder was the night ten years ago when my father had been murdered. But I wasn’t fifteen anymore.

  “How do you feel?” Roy’s gaze might have been aimed at my face, but he wasn’t looking me in the eyes.

  My defenses went on high alert. I straightened my shoulders and pulled away until I no longer had the comfort of his touch. Over my shoulder I glanced at Hannah’s closed eyes and tried to determine if she’d managed to sleep through Roy’s outburst or if she was faking it. Considering a category five hurricane probably wouldn’t wake her, the slow rise and fall of her chest was most likely authentic.

  “How bad a situation are we in?” I asked. I recalled the succubus, the hotel room, the new marks on my body and finally the cruel, cruel sunshine.

  “Bad?” Roy huffed. He didn’t sound amused. “For the first time in a long while, I don’t know where to start.”