“Why ask me about my blood and not about why I struck the mirror?” He couldn’t hold that one inside any longer. If she had watched him strike the mirror and then suck blood from the wound only to spit it out, shouldn’t her first question have been about his reason for smashing the glass? He was sure most people would have chosen that as their starting point.
Her gaze held his, unwavering and unreadable, emotionless. “Because I already know the reason why, Snow. I know what haunts your soul.”
Snow swallowed hard, the action forcing his galloping heart back down into his chest. The way she stared at him, her cool impassive eyes looking deep into his, as if she could see beyond his physical form, down to the soul she claimed to know, set him on edge and made him believe that she spoke the truth.
She knew all about him and the wretched acts in his past that he couldn’t escape.
This angel knew his pain and he had the feeling that she had been watching over him for longer than these past few days.
She turned away again and the instant the link between their eyes broke, he sagged against the pillows and his mind raced with the possibility that this angel had been watching over him for centuries or longer. His gaze followed her, tracking her as she resumed her perusal of his room.
Her eyes leaped from one thing to another in his apartment, but never fell on him. In fact, she seemed to be avoiding him now, as though she feared gazing upon him for some reason.
He doubted it was because she had noticed the effect of her earlier words on him and how quickly his body had reacted to the thought of her watching him shower. He even doubted it was because she knew his dark past and that it still tormented him now.
Was it because he wasn’t decent? He refused to close his robe for her sake. She had come to his room, an intruder not an invited guest. She would have to take him as she found him or leave.
When she turned in his direction to study the cuffs attached to the posts at the foot of his bed, her beauty arrested him again, claiming all of his attention. Her strange eyes darkened as she opened and closed one of the cuffs, and even went as far as shutting it around her delicate wrist. Her nose wrinkled in a frown when her hand easily slid free of the closed cuff.
Even the ones for his hands would produce the same result. They were designed for his thicker wrists and larger hands, not the slender ones of a female.
Her eyes finally lifted and met his, and the longer he stared into their mesmerising depths, the calmer he felt. He wasn’t sure why.
She curled her hand around the post at the foot of his bed to his right and swung around it until her knees hit the edge of the mattress. Closer than ever. She was within five feet of him now and not a trace of fear flickered in her eyes. Even Antoine was afraid of him at times and with good reason too.
His stomach twisted and rumbled, his hunger rearing its ugly head. He needed to chain himself and sleep, not give in to his urge to feed. Taking more blood tonight would be a grave mistake. He had to wean himself off it again, dropping to the smaller doses that had proved effective at keeping his bloodlust under better control before he had fallen off the wagon in dramatic style by draining three canisters in a row a few months ago.
“Leave, before it is too late,” Snow growled in warning and sat forwards with the intention of securing his ankles.
His gut clenched violently and his hands shook from the pain that ripped through him, shattering his fragile control over his bloodlust. He glanced at the angel, afraid he would harm her if he didn’t shackle his wrists this second. He trembled as he lay back, his stomach churning again, twisting in on itself until he couldn’t draw breath. Blood. He needed blood.
His eyes fixed darkly on the female.
Her blood.
He would drink her dry.
CHAPTER 6
No. He needed to resist.
Blinded by the pain, Snow fumbled for the wrist restraint and slammed his arm into it. The cuff whipped shut and locked automatically. After the incident with Anya and the party, Snow had asked Antoine to custom order him new restraints for his wrists, ones he would be able to close himself without any need for assistance, and therefore no need to risk the lives of those he cared about by asking them to help him.
He flopped onto his back and brought his other arm down hard. It hit only mattress. He tried again and missed the cuff for a second time.
The female foolishly moved forwards as though she wanted to assist him, and he snarled and lashed out at her with his free hand, his blunt claws swiping the air just millimetres from her stomach.
She gasped, flapped her black wings, and shot away from him, towards the mahogany panelled entrance door of his apartment. She didn’t leave. Her wide luminous eyes locked on him.
Snow smacked his arm down again and hit the cuff this time, causing it to snap shut around his wrist. He breathed hard, fighting the hunger for blood and death, and swallowed. His insides burned with the need for blood, setting him aflame and pushing him to the edge of oblivion. Couldn’t lose it. Not again. Not when everyone was expecting him to come down later and be around the babies.
Not when the angel was perilously close to him.
She had moved to the foot of the bed again and was staring at him with pity in her eyes.
He cursed her in the language of his homeland for that and she flinched away, her jet-black hair falling down to mask her face. Her fear reached out and curled around him, tempting him into breaking free and slaking his thirst for violence on her.
No. Couldn’t.
“Feet.” He forced the word out from between clenched teeth and his fangs cut into his gums, flooding his mouth with the taste of his wretched blood.
She didn’t move.
Snow snarled and lashed out with his legs, hoping to show her what might happen if she was foolish enough to ignore his request.
“I presume angels can die?” he growled the words at her, throwing them like barbs in a black deadly tone.
She visibly shook, her wide eyes darting to his before they shot to his ankles and then the cuffs attached to the heavy steel bedposts. Her nerves washed over him but she moved this time, bravely inching forwards. He tried to control himself but her proximity to him wreaked havoc and he kicked out again, trying to injure her to satisfy his dark needs even when he didn’t want to hurt her.
She grabbed the cuff in one hand and tried to capture his ankle with the other. He snarled, planted his left foot onto the mattress and used it as leverage to thrust his other leg as close as he could get it to her. The cuffs around his wrists bit into his flesh and almost jerked his arms out of their sockets, but the pain didn’t stop him from kicking out at her with his right foot.
She skilfully evaded the blow, snagged his ankle with a lightning fast strike, and had the cuff around it before he could catch up.
Her face set in grim lines of determination, she tackled his other ankle and easily captured it.
Snow hated feeling completely vulnerable and weak, he always had, and the feel of the cuff locking around his ankle sent him off the deep end. He thrashed wildly, bucking and snarling, pulling against his restraints until his bones blazed and his skin shredded.
Still it wasn’t enough to stop him from thirsting for blood and fearing he would escape and make a meal out of the angel.
“Come.” He jerked his chin, trying to entice her. He had broken restraints before when lost to his bloodlust and although these new ones had held him firm for three weeks, he wasn’t about to trust they wouldn’t give out if he used all of his strength on them.
She held her ground, refusing to budge, her eyes on his fangs. “No.”
Snow roared. “Come here or die! I will not harm you.”
Perhaps threatening her wasn’t his best move given the situation and his current condition. She shook her head.
“Collar.” He pushed the word out before another surge in his hunger overpowered his ability to speak and left him snarling in agony and bowing off the mattress. He
dug the back of his head into the black pillows and growled through the blistering wave of fire that rushed through his veins.
When a glimmer of sanity returned, the angel was standing at the head of the bed on his right, pity back in her eyes again. He snapped at her with his fangs and cursed her. She glared at him and struck him hard, the slap burning his left cheek.
“You dare speak to me that way again and I will leave.”
Good. He wanted her to leave. Snow cursed her again, blacker and fouler this time, calling her names that would have shamed his mother if she had heard them. The foolish wench had tried to raise him to be a placid, gentle man. Snow chuckled darkly. Placid. Gentle. Stupid bitch. He was vicious. Evil. Twisted.
The angel struck him again, hard enough this time that pain splintered across his skull like a spider web, driving him towards darkness. God damn it. Snow wanted another one of those blows. He wanted oblivion and unconsciousness.
Her eyes flicked to the thick steel chain attached to his headboard and the collar at the end of it.
“I will not put that on you.” She sounded resolute but the fear in her eyes said he could probably convince her to go through with it.
He tried to grab her, twisting his body towards hers, and she moved back a step.
“Collar,” he snarled.
“No,” she whispered, shaking her head, her beautiful eyes imploring him not to ask her again. “It feels wrong to do such a thing to a man.”
Snow snapped at her. “I am not a man. Collar me.”
He threw his head back and snarled again as a fresh wave of fire burned through him and his stomach cramped harder than ever, his insides feeling as though they were trying to tie themselves into knots.
Snow lurched forwards and in that moment, cold steel brushed the back of his neck and then closed over the front. Mercy. She had done it, and while he had been lost to his dark urges too. Foolish female.
He collapsed onto the bed and breathed hard, trying to edge himself through a coming episode without it hitting him fully.
Her soft warm fingers brushed a line across his throat, the action soothing him even as it stoked his hunger to a dangerous new level. She smelled so good this close. He could scent her blood flowing beneath her creamy skin. Saliva pooled in his mouth. His fangs itched for a taste of her.
Snow managed to turn his face away from her.
“You have marks that say you wear this collar often.” There was pity in her voice. “Why is it so necessary?”
Snow looked up at her and smirked. “I have a little drinking problem.”
As if prompted by his words, the thirst attacked him. He gasped and bucked, straining against the cuffs that barely gave him room to move a few inches. They ground into his wrists and ankles, digging into bone and blood vessels, making his hands and feet throb in pain.
Snow panted hard, fighting a losing battle against the consuming tide of his bloodlust, desperate to retain a shred of his sanity and fearing that if he didn’t, he would somehow harm the angel.
He screwed his eyes shut, not wanting to see her pitying look as he struggled like a snared beast against the bonds, fighting them with every shred of his immense power but failing to break them. He spat curses at them, foul words that a sliver of him hoped that the angel didn’t take as an insult to her. He wanted the bonds off him. He ached to be free.
Couldn’t.
He would rip the angel to shreds if he were free.
A blistering wave of fire burned up his blood, setting every molecule in his body aflame, and he rolled his eyes open and arched off the bed, his mouth opening in a silent scream. Couldn’t roar. If he did, Antoine would come. Antoine would see the angel. Antoine would harm her.
Snow growled low in his throat at that thought.
He would kill any who touched her.
His claws extended at the same time as his fangs, and the apartment brightened as his eyes changed, burning red around his cat-like pupils.
Snow fought harder than ever to break the restraints, driven by a mindless need to free himself so he could protect the female and by a dark hunger to drain her dry at the same time.
She rushed forwards as the collar sliced into his throat, spilling a thick stream of his blood down his neck.
“You must calm yourself,” she whispered softly, those words laced with emotions that were beyond his grasp as the bloodlust seized hold of him again and her proximity drove him mad with a need to taste her. “You are hurting yourself.”
The note in her melodic voice told him more than she was willing to say. She couldn’t bear the sight of him hurting himself. The scent of blood filled his room and, even though it was his own tainted life force, it sent him back over the edge.
“I am unsure how to help you.” She hovered close to him and he managed to get his eyes to focus on her for a brief second, long enough to see the frustration that darkened her innocent features.
Snow growled, rolled his eyes back and snarled as he pulled harder on the chains. The steel bedposts creaked under the pressure. Agony shredded his insides, liquefying his bones and stealing his strength away, leaving him helpless. He still fought like a wild thing, ferocious and vicious as he battled his restraints, hungry to escape and taste the female.
“So much pain and suffering,” she whispered and he cursed at her again, telling her in the old language to leave him alone, hoping she would listen this time.
The need for blood became too much and he sank his fangs into his own lower lip and sucked furiously on it, ravenous and unable to stop himself.
The angel left his side and he couldn’t track her. The bloodlust dulled his senses. He opened his eyes again and followed her as she paced around the room, studying her every move.
If she came close enough, he would bite her. He sucked harder on his own foul blood, imagining it was the sweet nectar that flowed in her veins. He ached for her blood even as he ached to leave her unspoiled.
She searched his room, her air desperate, small hands clenching and unclenching in front of her stomach. “You must have some blood here somewhere. Where do you keep it?”
Snow released his lip and wheezed, “No use… like ashes… empty of life.”
She gave him another pitying look and then her dark eyebrows rose high on her forehead, something dawning in her incredible eyes, and she approached him.
She stood beside his bed with a calm and decided expression on her face and held her arm out to him.
Snow stared at her in shock and then turned his face away. “Do not touch me… I will taint you. You are pure… I am not.”
She huffed. “I am not as pure as you believe.”
She leaned over him and brought her wrist right up to his lips.
Snow swallowed hard and his gaze slid to the soft flesh on the underside of her forearm. He told himself to resist even as another part of him demanded he take what she offered so freely. No. It wouldn’t help him. It wouldn’t free him of his bloodlust. It would only make it worse. He had to abstain from blood until he was weak and then begin again with smaller quantities.
He had to drink.
He couldn’t deny that dark urge.
Snow struck hard, burying his fangs deep into her soft body. She cried out and slapped her free hand over her mouth to stifle the rest of it, the sound distant to his ears as her blood rushed into him.
It was warm and tasted incredible, like nothing he had ever taken before, sweet and bitter at the same time, imbued with power that shot through his system like a drug, giving him what should be an illegal high.
He drank greedily, powerless to stop himself from taking all that he could, desperate for more of her. His cock hardened painfully, his body coming alive with sensation that left him dizzy and hazy, lost on a warm sea of bliss.
“Enough!” She tore her arm away from him and stumbled backwards. She blindly grabbed the metal post at the foot of his bed for support and slid down it to land on the floor with a harsh thud.
Sno
w opened his eyes, craned his neck as much as he could and stared down at her, shocked by what she had done and how she had tasted. Tears streaked her cheeks and there were red marks on them where she had pressed her fingers into them when covering her mouth to stop herself from crying out in pain. She held her wrist to her chest, clutching it tightly, her knuckles blazing white. Blood already spotted her pristine pale dress, marring the pure fabric.
He had hurt her.
He cursed himself this time, guilt riding him hard and chasing him down from his high. He had tainted her and harmed her. He had made her cry with his vicious attack on her and his greed.
He should have eased his fangs in gently and sipped from her with the reverence she deserved. He should have made it pleasurable for her.
“Do you often starve yourself to the point of insanity?” She snapped the words at him like a whip, her innocence evaporating as she scowled, her eyes dark with the pain and fury she emanated.
Snow was quiet for a few long seconds, unsure what to say in response to that or how to make things better. Would she accept an apology? He had told her not to offer her wrist. She had seen him at his worst. She should have known he would hurt her.
“I had blood a short while ago,” he confessed, “but it tastes like death to me these days. But you… you taste like life. How?”
He hadn’t missed the little fact that drinking her blood had driven him right through the other side of his bloodlust and into the clear too. The way he felt right now, he knew he wouldn’t suffer another attack for at least a day, if not more. He had never felt this normal, not since before his bloodlust had first emerged.
“Do you suffer like this every night?” Her expression softened to reveal the innocence that he was coming to like about her. Her wide luminous eyes still sparkled with the tears that were drying on her pale cheeks, but they no longer held anger and darkness. They were soft and bright, inquisitive again. He nodded. Her fine black eyebrows puckered into a small frown. “There is no cure?”
“Only death.” Something he had long desired but had always been denied.
Unleash (Vampire Erotic Theatre Romance Series Book 6) Page 6
