by Tamsin Baker
My muscles locked and spasmed, trembling as I shot toward the pinnacle of release. I climaxed with an orgasm that shot from my clit to the outside of my skull. Someone screamed and I vaguely recognized the voice as mine as spirals of electric sensation rocketed through me.
I gasped, sucking in air with lungs that had locked, along with every other muscle in my body. As blackness edged my vision, Xander’s red eyes encroached, surrounding me, growing larger until they filled my sight. I was locked in place, neither moving nor even breathing.
His lips, stained with blood – my blood - curved and a look of blatant male satisfaction washed over his face. “Now, you are ours.”
Chapter Thirteen
I woke with a start and the book slid to the floor. I flinched when Cassius’s face loomed in my vision, momentarily confused before my surroundings came back into context. The books. The library. The snowstorm.
The three of them.
“It’s okay. It was just a dream.”
My forehead tensed with a frown. “How did you know I was asleep?”
I flattened my palm over my chest in an attempt to ease the erratic beats of my heart, but it didn’t do any good. My heart still wanted to thump its way out of my chest.
He placed his hand on my shoulder, his thumb playing over the pulse at the base of my neck. His gaze drifted down to that point before dragging back up to my face. I stilled, that heated touch sending spirals of awareness snaking through me.
I may have temporarily forgotten where I was, but I hadn’t forgotten my dream, so fresh in my mind I was sure my body still trembled with the aftershocks of my orgasm.
“You were groaning.” His mouth quirked, as though he knew exactly what I dreamed about.
There was no way he could know, but when I looked into his eyes, his pupils were so dilated, most of the green was washed out. If I’d had an orgasm, he looked as though he’d had one too.
His thumb rubbed tiny circles on my skin, so gentle he barely touched me. And yet it was just like he’d stripped us both naked and rubbed his naked skin against mine. I shivered.
“Are you cold, Ella?”
His warm breath washed over my face. I wasn’t cold. I was hot. Melting inside and out. “I…”
“Did you have a nightmare, then?”
Not a dream or a nightmare. The feelings stayed with me like they were memories. As though I’d been bitten by all three at the same time and had climaxed like I’d never done before. “I…”
But how could I explain what I’d actually dreamed. That what I dreamed about was so close to some internal, buried instinct so deep that it turned words to ash on my tongue. A dream? A nightmare?
Or a wish.
A need.
A pulsing desire.
“Let me help you forget about it, then.” Cassius slanted his lips over mine, his tongue sweeping inside my mouth without any hesitation. Without thinking, I responded. My tongue slid against his, dancing and chasing as I sought out the distinct flavor that was his and his alone.
He groaned, the sound melting me, churning me inside and out and igniting a part of me I never knew existed. He threaded his fingers through my hair, locking my head in place while he plundered my mouth.
His other hand skimmed my forearm when I clutched the armrests of the chair, then slid to my waist. He spread his palm, his whole hand covering the width of my stomach. My nipples tightened in awareness of his hand right beneath my breasts.
He deepened the kiss, while my focus was on his mouth and the hand I wanted to fondle me. His thumb brushed the underside of my breast.
I immediately arched my back, stretching myself towards his reach. He didn’t tease, for which I was grateful. His palm closed over my breast, massaging the sensitive tissue and tweaking my nipple with the pad of his thumb.
I couldn’t get enough of his touch, his taste, his tongue and fingers. Heat licked from the inside out. My skin prickled, my clothes itched. I needed him… no, not just him, I wanted…yearned…needed – all three.
I’d had them all in my dream, but they’d also done something else. Right before they’d noticed I was there.
Their teeth. White teeth dripping with blood. Mom. They’d done something to my mother in my dream.
Cassius moved. There was a sting at the side of my mouth. It was enough to shatter the sensuous web that had enveloped me. I flinched, doused in my cold reality. What the hell was I doing?
Cassius noticed because he broke our kiss, drawing away. I knocked his hand from my breast, throwing my head forward and almost ramming him with my forehead as I stood.
Something slipped to the floor with a loud thump. I bent to pick it up, not wanting to look at Cassius, or his dreamy eyes, or swollen, just-kissed lips.
If I saw him like that, I’d want to kiss him all over again and I couldn’t do that. Didn’t understand why I wanted to so fiercely. Didn’t understand why I had no control over this thing that was driving me into their arms so desperately.
I barely focused on the title, “Vampire Blood Curses,” before shoving it onto the coffee table and stepping so quickly away from Cassius I almost tripped over my own feet. He went to steady me with a hand to my elbow and I jerked out of his reach, covering my elbow with my hand, as though to shield myself.
“Cassius, I…” My mouth worked without words as heat crashed over my face. I’d kissed all three of them and I shouldn’t have kissed even one of them. I couldn’t even utter the apology that was on the tip of my tongue.
Because, the thing was, deep down inside, I wanted to kiss all three of them. I’d kiss them now if they were all in this room. At once, like in my dream. It would be so easy to give in to whatever dark need pulsed through me. Let their tongues, their lips, hands touch me all over. Let their cocks enter my body so that then, and only then, this unquenchable need inside would be eased.
But I didn’t say any of that. I couldn’t give in to any of that because I needed to leave. My mother needed me and with each passing day, it would become more and more urgent. She needed her medication, and to be fed and to be taken care of and if I gave in to these urges, I might just forget about my mother, the farm and my responsibilities.
I just might even forget about myself.
I stood mute, keeping my gaze trained on the floor at my feet, unable to move. Unable to speak. Trembling on the outside while a war raged on the inside.
“Ella. Please. Listen to me.”
His voice, filled with such anguish, snapped me into action. I held out my palm toward him. “I am so sorry, Cassius. I didn’t mean to kiss you.” I licked dry lips. “This. You. Me. Davon. Xander. It can’t…can’t happen. I don’t…don’t even know what to think. Just…don’t come near me, okay? Please, just don’t touch me again.”
“Ella!”
I nearly looked up, but right at the last second I managed to turn and bolt to the open door. “Don’t say it, Cassius. Please don’t say it.”
There was silence as I ran from the room but I didn’t leave my terror there. No, that would be too easy. I took it with me every step of the way back into the bedroom.
Chapter Fourteen
I leaned against the closed door, my breath ragged. I closed my eyes and banged the back of my head against the wood.
Why did everything I did not make any sense? Why did I kiss not one, but three men? Why did they think that was not just okay – but appeared to welcome it?
I seemed to be as drawn to all of them the same way they were drawn to me. All four of us connected by an irresistible tug of war that, if I didn’t get the hell away, was not going to end well at all. If I wasn’t damned by the Trinity now, I certainly would be if they found out about this.
It just seemed so right. My traitorous body wanted nothing more than all of them. Indeed, even seemed intent on over-ruling the logical part of my mind. It was totally unacceptable. Inconceivable. Completely unlike me.
I’d been in control all of my life. It would have been so eas
y if I’d capitulated to the Holy Trinity and lived my life like everyone else in the town. I would have friends. People to stand by me. Help with Mom. Maybe even the farm. They’d do business with me. Maybe I could have taken Mom to a doctor years ago. Saved her years of sickness.
But every time I wanted to surrender, something stronger inside me held me back. It kept the words in my mouth, took the actions from my body, the urge from my mind. Maybe in the back of it, I knew this small-town life was not for me, and if I engaged, even on some small level, I’d be stuck here forever.
Everything I’d fought for, thought about, taught myself, was to escape Conway, despite never managing to do so. Yet now, I was trapped in a mansion I’d had no idea about in the middle of nowhere. Which, in itself, was strange enough. I knew every hunting hut, every trail, every dip and turn of the road in, out and around this town. I’d traveled and hiked them all. Yet still, I’d never known about this mansion, let alone the men who lived within its walls.
I peeled open my eyes, my body sagging with exhaustion. My injuries and emotions were strained. Open curtains framed the window filled by the blinding snowstorm. I’d never known one to last this long. Or go this hard. I hadn’t even heard it coming through on the scanner. If it’s one thing the townspeople did well, and did include me in on, was the weather forecast, only because it meant if I was lost, they’d need to send out people and risk lives to look for me. Especially this time of year.
My Grimoire was on the end of the bed. I barely questioned why it was there, but the need to hold something familiar was too great to ignore. I sat on the end of the mattress and held it to my chest, inhaling the dry parchment. The familiar scent helped soothe my heart, but then I remembered the spell I was sure had never been there before. Not even my grandmother or my mother had read it to me when I was a child.
I opened the book and spent several moments rifling through the pages until I found it. The ink looked as dry and faded as the rest of the book, and yet it was unfamiliar to me. I read through it again, half surprised there was no more information than was there before.
I’d heard of mythical creatures, but only in fiction. Vampires called up images that were frightening, to say the least. Undead bodies brought to life by a virus that reanimated flesh without a heart or soul. I ran my fingertips over the letters. The ancestor who wrote this must have hated them for some reason. They seemed to me to be tortured beings, forced to drink the life-force of living things so that they could stay alive. Cursed, to be sure.
Minister Jeremiah would say they were sinners and condemn them forever to hell. I snorted, the sound brash against the background of the crackling flames. I couldn’t think that creatures were bad just because they were different than I was. That was a key word. They were different. Not bad.
In my dream, they’d done something to my mother, but they’d also done something to me that was both fearsome and heady at the same time. My body had sung. Felt in a way I’d thought impossible, maybe because I’d never known it to be true.
But that had been a dream, no doubt born of a tired, worried mind. I’d taken out my fright on Cassius. Shame crept around the confusion. They were probably wondering why I was reacting like I was.
They’d kissed me, and more, but they’d backed off when I’d asked them to. They’d also saved me from certain death and nursed me back to health. I’d been fed, placed in a comfortable room, given a bed and I’d treated them like they were the townsfolk, when they were nothing like them at all. I had to find some middle ground because we were stuck together for the foreseeable future.
I really should go and find them, talk to them, get to know them. Apologize. Tell them there’d be no more kissing and ignore what my body wanted because ultimately, my body wasn’t in charge. My head was.
Then I would leave.
I ignored the way my stomach rolled, combed my fingers through my hair and went to the door. I lived in a town where people either flat-out hated me or didn’t understand me. Keeping three guys who had more testosterone than they knew how to handle at a distance would be a piece of cake.
They’d listen. And if they didn’t, I’d make them, just like I’d done to Gary and Dean and everyone else.
I threw open the door to see three startled faces peering down at me.
Chapter Fifteen
I squeaked, putting a hand over my racing heart and jumped about a foot back from the door.
“Tu… Ella. Are you all right?” Xander asked in his direct manner.
He looked as devastatingly handsome as ever. He wore his seriousness well, just like his impeccable clothing and the confident, assessing attention that was wholly focused on me.
I looked at the middle of his chest, needing to break the eye contact. “Yes. Yes I’m fine.” Surely if I told myself that enough I’d start the believe it. Fake it till you make it, right? “I was just coming for find you, actually.”
“Were you really?” Davon’s warm voice had me looking up to see a genuinely happy smile on his face, as though I’d done him some great favor. I couldn’t help my smile in response.
“Well, yes, but you’ve saved me the effort. Would you like to come in?” They crowded the doorway as though this wasn’t their room, but mine.
“We’ve come to alleviate your boredom.” Cassius was the first to brush past Xander’s shoulder.
“H…how?”
“Not in the way you’d like us to deep down,” Xander said
“Enough, Xander. He needs to lighten up sometimes. We’ve brought cards.” Davon waved a pack in his hand and stepped through the doorway.
All three men seemed to crowd the room, which was really quite spacious. Not at all like our dinky little farm house. Not like it at all. I stepped way, suddenly feeling more than a little overwhelmed. And overheated.
“So, what game did you have in mind?”
“Do you know Bouillotte?” Davon asked.
“Bouill – what?”
Cassius slapped Davon on his shoulder. “Davon likes to live in the past, but it is a good game. Would you like to try it?”
“The far distant past,” Xander muttered before seating himself in one of the great winged back chairs in front of the fire. I wasn’t sure if he thought I would hear him. It also seemed like something was bothering him.
I stayed mute.
Cassius and Davon arranged a table and chairs around Xander, the other winged back chair and the fireplace, where it was warmest. The flames danced as high as ever and I vaguely wondered where they kept the wood, or if it was a gas fireplace, before Davon grasped my elbow and led me to the comfortable chair next to the warmth.
I settled into it, not quite comfortable and not quite – not. They quickly arranged themselves around me and then Davon filtered through the cards, removing some and then dealing the others.
“You’re supposed to take out the queens as well,” Cassius said.
“Only if there are three of us. There are four now,” Davon said.
Cassius looked a little shocked before a smile stole over his face. “So there are. Carry on, then.”
This looked like a bit of a screwball game. “I might not have played card in ages, but don’t we need them all?” It had been literally years. Since life had become a series of hard decisions and too much work.
“This is a game of the revolution, played by gaming houses around the world,” Davon said.
“Except the British countries,” Cassius said.
“But we need not worry about them,” Davon said. “We haven’t for quite some time now.”
I picked up my cards, not quite understanding either what was happening or what they were talking about. “Don’t you guys game on PlayStation, like everyone else?”
Davon’s dark brows rose over blue eyes. “We don’t have those games here. Haven’t for quite some time, in fact.”
Xander pushed a stack of coins over the table in front of me, his hand staying splayed over the table. His pointer finger twitched.
“Sometimes the old games are the best, Ella. They’re the most fun.”
I managed to stifle the shiver that went through me at the sound of his voice. “But I don’t know how to play this one.”
Xander smiled, a flash of white. “I think you’re playing it very well.”
I swallowed down a dry throat, my whole attention riveted on him. “We haven’t started playing yet.’
He leaned back in his chair, sprawling his long, lean legs beneath the table and chuckled. He arranged the cards in equally long and lean fingers, swapping one or two around. “We’ve only been playing around, Ella. You’ll know when the real game starts.”
The shiver coalesced into a chill. The cards in my hand faltered. I straightened them at the last seconds, squaring my shoulders. I’d dealt with worse. Xander was a bully. An alpha and the only way to combat an alpha was not to show any weakness. “When the real game starts, you may find you won’t like being on the losing side.”
Xander’s eyes flew to my face but I refused to look away, even though I felt it like an actual physical thing. If I’d dealt with Gary all my life, I could deal with Xander.
But they weren’t the same, were they? Gary was an infantile jerk who cried to Daddy when he didn’t get his way. Xander exuded raw power, no tears shed. Just a certainty that whatever he said, would be obeyed. I wanted to avert my gaze, to seek relief from his focus, but if I did that, then I really would lose this game.
One side of his mouth tipped up and for a moment the seriousness lifted like a winter breeze gusting summit clouds off the peak. I blinked, startled by the change. A minute reaction but one that lessened the intensity of the moment. His eyes dropped to the cards, but the severity on his face had diminished. My breath expelled with softening lungs. I couldn’t help but feel I’d passed some test.
