Alexa O'Brien 05 - Death Wish

by Trina M. Lee

  When Shaz looked up, he had a heartbreaking weariness in his eyes. “I think I knew. Somewhere deep down inside, I knew it would be him.”

  “It isn’t like that.” I went to him, grasping his hand desperately. “I always said you balance out what he does to me. It’s true. I need you.”

  I truly did. Shaz had always been my source of comfort, my wolf, the one who made me feel like I belonged somewhere. I had always felt that he was just as much a part of me as Arys was.

  “I am a danger to her, Shaz. It’s you that grounds her.” Arys’s expression betrayed nothing, though his tone held a somber note. “We’re bonded outside the natural scheme of things. If I’d remained mortal, I never would have known her. But, you still would have.”

  Shaz let out the breath he’d been holding. “This is a lot to process. It’s just so… huge.” He turned intense wolf eyes on Arys. “Why the hell did you wait so long to tell her?”

  There was silence as the two of them stared into one another. Shaz always rolled with the punches better than I did. Now that he’d accepted what we had told him, he wanted to know more. He stared expectantly at Arys who wore a mask of guilt.

  “I wasn’t sure I’d ever tell her,” Arys admitted. “But, some people know about us. And, it’s changing her. Keeping it to myself wasn’t going to stop that. I only wished it would.”

  I wasn’t surprised to hear that. “You’ve got to stop that shit, Arys. You can’t hide anything from me. It’s always going to come out.”

  “I know. Try to see it from where I’m standing. I never knew if I’d find you, and now that I have, I don’t want to lose you.” To his credit, he had the decency to look chagrined.

  His tendency to hide information and criticize my decisions was at the heart of most of our arguments. Seeing the raw emotion in his blue eyes made it hard to be angry.

  “I understand. As hard as this is for me, I got the better deal. I can’t imagine what it’s been like for you.”

  Arys gazed at me with those entrancing eyes. There was a seductive pull to his energy. It was manipulative, getting under my skin like a metaphysical itch.

  A frown graced Shaz’s youthful face. “It’s always about you, Arys. You already had her, and that wasn’t good enough so you blood bonded her. You made her what you are. And now, it’s devouring her. You’re a real piece of work, pal.”

  Arys tilted his head to the side and regarded Shaz with bitter amusement. “Watch your mouth, wolf. You were right there encouraging her to accept the blood bond. It was to keep her safe.”

  “Safe from everyone but you.” Shaz was fearless, rising to challenge the vampire with his cold stare.

  “Wrong!” Arys hissed. In a flash, he was up off the recliner, in Shaz’s face. “Everything I am was already inside of her. You saw signs of that before I ever bonded her. What we share isn’t about blood. It’s beyond life and death. My darkness tempts her, but you keep her wolf alive. You keep her human. But, you’re too busy whoring at The Wicked Kiss to see that.”

  Shaz growled and bared fangs. I shoved my way between them, forcing them apart.

  “Cut it out! Finger pointing doesn’t do a damn bit of good. I’d like you both to keep in mind that I am not an object. I don’t belong to anybody. I am my own entity, a person joined to you both in different ways but owned by neither. Got it?”

  Grudgingly, they each nodded. Arys didn’t believe it. I could see it in his eyes. He believed I was his to claim, and maybe if I’d been in his place, knowing what he knew for so many years, I’d have felt the same way. Still, I wasn’t above handing out an ass kicking to either of them.

  Swiping his dropped keys off the table, Shaz headed for the door with an angry stride.

  “Shaz, wait.” I hurried after him and grabbed his arm, trying to make him look at me.

  He shook me off and flung open the front door. “I can’t do this right now.”

  “Please? Don’t leave. Not like this,” I pleaded. Fear gripped my heart as the wall between us grew.

  “Sorry, Lex. I just need some time alone.”

  I turned away when he disappeared through the doorway. I felt ill every time he left my side. I couldn’t shake the fear that one day it would be the last time. I didn’t want to have that vision etched in my memory forever.

  Chapter Seven

  I returned to the living room to find Arys settled back into the recliner. He beckoned to me with a crooked finger.

  “That went well.” Crawling onto the lounger, I squeezed in beside him. “Why the hell did Shaz come to you of all people?”

  His bare chest was slightly cool to the touch. He hadn’t fed recently. I ran my fingers over the hard expanse and down to the thin smattering of hair that disappeared below the waistband of his pants.

  “He came to ask me for help.” Arys paused, letting me wrap my brain around that before continuing. “I’m glad he did. It took balls for him to come to me.”

  “Agreed. Can you help him? I mean, what can we do?”

  “What drew him in was the rush of the power and the excitement of the intimate nature of being bitten. That started with us.” Our eyes met and we shared a look. “Shaz’s problem began when he started seeking out the same thrill without us. We had no way of knowing what was going on with him. He’s too damn stubborn.”

  I nodded knowingly. “He didn’t want to admit that he got off on being with you that way.”

  “There’s not a damn thing anyone can do for him until he’s ready. If he wants my help, Alexa, you need to be aware of what that might mean. If he were to come to me, if he were to ask for it…”

  Arys fell quiet, letting me put the rest of that sentence together. I shook my head. I couldn’t think about this right now. Sleep began to call my name, tugging at my eyelids. I didn’t realize I was drifting off until Arys touched a hand to my face and I jumped.

  The chair jerked as he closed the foot extension. Gathering me in his arms, Arys brushed a kiss across the bridge of my nose. It tickled and I laughed sleepily.

  “Bedtime,” Arys declared. “You don’t sleep enough.”

  “There’s no time to sleep,” I mumbled into his shoulder, my arms clasped around his neck. “My sister is alive, and I’m being investigated for murder by the FPA.”

  “You’re just full of surprises tonight, aren’t you?” Arys carried me down the hall to his bedroom. Spending the day in slumber buried in the fluffy marshmallow that was Arys’s bed didn’t strike me as a bad idea. As sleep crept in further, the worries of earlier slipped away.

  After gently laying me against the mountain of soft blankets and pillows, he stripped my clothing off and drew a satin sheet up over me. Arys shed his pants and crawled in next to me. The touch of his naked flesh against mine brought a sigh to my lips.

  It didn’t take long for sleep to claim me. Unfortunately, it was restless and disturbed. It was just past three in the afternoon when I couldn’t take the tossing and turning anymore. Arys remained in the slumber of the undead. He didn’t really need to sleep. Not often anyway. I think he just enjoyed the luxury of it.

  Once I tired of staring at the ceiling, I slipped from the bed and padded down the hall, through the living room to the kitchen. I dug through my shoulder bag, looking for Arys’s journal. I didn’t like to leave it at home where it could be found by anybody who might decide to bust in and paw through my stuff.

  I paused to check my cell phone for messages: one from Jez and one from my best friend and beta wolf, Kylarai, but nothing from Shaz. I’d hoped to find a text, something to let me know things were cool. So much for that.

  I slipped my phone back into my bag, grabbed the journal and headed back to the bedroom. Arys stirred slightly, reaching to touch me as I settled back in beside him.

  The pages felt so fragile. I turned them with care, skimming through as I went. There was more on Alice. It didn’t tell me anything I hadn’t already figured out. Harley’s name caught my eye several times. Morbid curiosity drew m
e to an entry I’d previously skipped over.

  Once I turned my full attention to Arys’s memories, recorded decades ago, I got caught up in his words. Everything else fell away but that night captured on the pages in my hands.

  December 5, 1849

  They were lovely really. Like usual, Harley’s choice. He has a weakness for virgins. Personally, I prefer a woman who knows what she’s doing and can appreciate the things I do to her. The virgins…they tend to scream. A lot. Of course, I have found virgins to be very quick to beg. And, that I just can’t get enough of.

  It was easy enough to lure them home. It always is. The right word or gesture, and they’re more than happy to sneak away from a party before their companions notice their absence. Harley can sniff out a virgin anywhere. He claims virgin blood to be the nectar of the gods, but I find it to be a little too pure for my tastes. These women though, they were divine. A blonde and one with deep scarlet hair who was surprisingly eager when I had her spread-eagle on the chaise lounge.

  Once Harley’s shy little blonde began shrieking, things really became interesting. Everything had been going splendidly. My little virgin temptress writhed beneath me as I pleasured her with my mouth. She begged for more, and I savored the heat of her womanhood against my tongue as I fed on the burning energy of her desire. It was intoxicating, a prelude to the moment when I would taste her blood.

  I had to pause, to focus on taking a breath. I realized I’d held mine while reading. The words sprang to life, pulling me into the scene as Arys’s memory of this night crashed into the front of my conscious thoughts. I was seeing it through his eyes, reliving it as if I’d been there myself.

  Screams rang out and my innocent beauty became alarmed. I assured her that there was nothing to fear. Drawn into the lull of my manipulation, she pulled me close, offering herself to me. Harley would have his victim screaming for hours if he could manage it. I wasn’t ready yet to make mine fight for her life. All in good time.

  Tight and warm, her body was resistant when I took her. The pained sounds she made as I filled her sent ripples of pleasure throughout me. Her soft whimpers gradually became cries of joy. I was drowning in the waves of her excited energy, drinking it in. I itched to bury my fangs in that delicate throat of hers. Patience is not a virtue I possess. I waited, hoping to time the moment with her climax, preferring to take all that she had to give at once.

  I sensed that she was close. My control snapped, and I bit deep into her neck. She screamed. Blood gushed from the wound, and I drank of it greedily. The spell was broken. Free of my thrall, she thrashed violently. I bit her again, pinning her arms above her head. I drank hungrily; her blood coated my tongue deliciously. Though aware that she was in a fight for her life, she couldn’t help but respond to my careful manipulations of her body. Buried deep inside her, I felt her inner muscles clench as climax shook her and euphoria claimed me.

  I could taste her. She was mine, and I couldn’t wait to taste her death. To be the bringer of it, the master of all that she was. I heard the shallow gasps for breath but didn’t recognize them as my own. I ceased reading as the memory took over.

  Arys had drained her completely. Her screams had accompanied those of her friend, and the vampires took their fill of blood and sex. She begged Arys for her life, pleading and promising. It only encouraged him. Her pleas were like fuel on an open flame. Arys killed her, and he loved every second of it.

  The scent of her was thick in my nostrils. Fear, lust and blood all entwined in one storm of sensation to overwhelm me. I was suddenly beside myself with need.

  “Alexa?” Arys’s voice was a distant echo, as if he were far away. “It’s not real, Alexa. Don’t lose yourself in my past.”

  I wasn’t seeing him anymore. He had faded along with the rest of the bedroom as I spun headlong into a memory that wasn’t mine. I saw the candlelit room with the cream-colored chaise lounge and the shrieking woman upon it. She was young, eighteen perhaps. She fought hard once she broke free of Arys’s powerful mesmerism. Some victims would smile happily as they died under his thrall. But others, they fought until that very last breath.

  There was a rush of white noise, almost deafening in my ears. I was lost in my kill, Arys’s kill, and my sense of reality shifted. My four fangs filled my mouth, and I reached with clawed fingers for a victim that wasn’t really there.

  I’m not sure how long Arys shook me, trying desperately to get me to come back to him. “Come on, Alexa! You’re not part of that world. I was. I need you in the here and now.”

  I mumbled something incoherent. Harley’s devious laughter echoed all around me. I heard his victim wailing. I wanted him to make her stop, to just shut her up. I couldn’t take much more. The screams, the blood and the erotic flavor of terror, it was all driving me into a frenzy.

  I was caught between myself and Arys. Feeling his hunger for her and his deep-rooted satisfaction as he drained her life away conflicted with the need I felt to be the one he claimed in such a powerfully intimate manner. My vision swam, alternating from Arys’s past to the present. I had always been a part of him. Even then, when I had yet to be born.

  Arys’s voice was firm when he demanded, “Do you want her? Or, do you want to be her?”

  It took a few moments before awareness hit me. I was lying flat on my back with Arys straddling me, holding my arms pinned above my head. It became clear what he was asking. He was offering me release from the grips of his horrid memories.

  I was flushed with desire for both body and blood. I couldn’t form a response. My mind was a mess of blood stained images. I don’t know what Arys saw in my eyes, but he didn’t wait any longer for a reply. True to his nature, he made me the victim.

  He slipped a hand between my legs, finding me ready. An evil light shone in the depths of his eyes, and a smirk tugged at his lips. “Hell, if I’d known that journal would make you so hot, I’d have given it to you months ago.”

  “You did this to me. You made me a monster.” I was rambling without thought, saying whatever danced onto the tip of my tongue.

  Arys leaned in close, his lips brushing mine as he spoke. “You were always meant to be a monster. I just make you enjoy it.”

  His kiss was gentle and soft, so contradictory to the tension I felt emanating from him. Nudging my legs apart with a knee, he positioned himself between them so that I was comfortably pinned beneath his weight. Every time I closed my eyes I saw her, the redhead sprawled out before him, bleeding and begging even as she enjoyed his touch.

  “Look at me.” Arys’s demanding tone startled me. “I want to see terror in your eyes before I bleed you.”

  I almost choked on the stifling sensation that flooded me. Fear. Arys had frightened me during such an encounter only once before. That same time he’d also threatened me. Once again, the promise of pain in his words made me ache for him.

  Burying his face in my hair, he pressed his lips to my neck and breathed deeply of my scent. He was encouraging my fear with the taunt of his fangs against my vein. I tensed, uncertain. The thick swell of his erection against me was both exciting and intimidating. I felt him draw on my energy, feeding on my bloodlust, fear and desire.

  Arys slipped inside me with a rough thrust, forcing a cry from me. He groaned as the power rose up to engulf us. His mouth was warm on my skin. I could feel him shaking with the strength it took to keep from biting me, to hold out for the right moment when it would throw us both headlong into the abyss that sought to claim us.

  There was a change in him, a shift in our dynamic that made Arys the aggressor. He often was aggressive, but never did I truly feel like a victim with him. Not until now. He peered down into my eyes, and all I saw was the predatory gaze of the wolf looking back at me. My wolf. It was an unsettling reminder that Arys had as much of my monster inside him as I had of his.

  “Please, don’t,” I heard myself say. I wasn’t sure what I was asking him.

  With every slick stroke of his body into mine, my p
anic began to subside. The energy binding us grew and writhed, wrapping us in its magnificent hold.

  He showered me with kisses on my lips and along my jaw. “You know me. You always have.”

  Conflict filled me as anguish over his words warred with comfort. Until I really knew what that meant, I could find neither solace nor regret in his words.

  I gripped him with claws that cut deep red ribbons into his flesh. Every time he filled me, he brought me closer to the edge. He was aggressive, as if he couldn’t possibly get deep enough. We were as close as we could physically get, and still it wasn’t the union I ached for. Despite the fervor in which he made love to me, his kisses were soft caresses. But, only until his patience ran thin.

  With a hand tightly entwined in my hair, he forced my head to the side and bit deep. My heart thundered in my ears at a deafening level as my blood poured into Arys’s mouth. I had a moment of clarity, and I wondered if my life would end in his hands. Maybe not today but one day. If our destiny was to destroy each other, that might only be fitting.

  I gasped for breath, unable to fill my lungs. Time felt non-existent. I had no conscious awareness of what time it was or how long it had been since I’d dropped the journal. All I knew was the pleasure and the promise of Arys’s mouth on my bitten neck and his body declaring me as his.

  He drove me headlong into the flames of passion that threatened to consume us. I was free falling through the throes of climax while my heart stuttered in an erratic beat. The metaphysical energy we’d called pulsed around and through us. It was too much for me. I couldn’t breathe nor could I escape it. It was inside me, part of me. And for a moment, I thought it would kill me.

  Blood trickled from my nose. My head felt as if it would burst. Arys’s name was on my lips, but I couldn’t speak. He sucked at my bloody neck. When he raised his head, my blood was smeared on his lips and teeth. Realizing that the power we’d drawn was more than I could safely conduct, Arys stripped it from me, effectively freeing me from its deadly hold.