Blood Rush: Book Two of the Demimonde

by Ash Krafton

  "Not a problem, now. The pet door is gone, along with some other unnecessary exits. I made a few security enhancements." He took another long draught, tipping the bottle as he did so. Blood coated the inside of the glass bottle like cough syrup. Big mouthfuls—he had to work his throat around them to swallow.

  Really? Chugging? Ugh.

  "You know I don't like him, right?"

  "I know." I drummed my fingers against the tablet on my lap. Two men always meant a conflict, even when love wasn't involved. For once, I'd like to experience harmony. "But I can't turn him out."

  "I wouldn't ask you to, even though I'd like to. It just seems so crowded here now. Too many people."

  Funny, I hadn't heard a similar complaint when Brianda stopped by. How would he feel when she and her partner moved in? Totally different, I'd bet. "He's only one more than before."

  "I know, but it seems like more."

  Seeing it would be pointless to try to convince him otherwise, I didn't say a word. Looking down at the text I'd been working on, I realized I had lost interest in writing—column work of the non-Sophia variety, on a topic that seemed trite with Rodrian in the room. I flipped my tablet shut and slid my pen into the spiral.

  "You're working." Rodrian sounded apologetic. "Don't let me interrupt but, mind if I stay awhile? I thought I'd go over the budget since I'll be too busy with Shy to do it next week."

  I waved a hand. "You don't need to ask. You know you belong here as much as I do."

  "I'm still not so sure about that."

  "Of course you are. I hate it when you're not here."

  He looked surprised. "Really?"

  "Sure I do. I know I depend on you too much. I'm trying not to rely on you, but I still look forward to seeing you."

  "We're family," he reasoned.

  "Yeah, I guess." He and Shiloh were as much family as I'd had in a very long time; Dahlia had stood by me when everyone else bailed, and Toby—well, he was more or less adopted. One big, happy family. Almost. "But it's different than that, too."

  He leaned against the bar, arms crossed casually, and swirled the nearly-empty bottle from his fingertips. "Different, how?"

  "I met you because of Marek, and we kind of fell into brother-sister roles. But I don't feel like that anymore."

  I felt his power quicken with curiosity tinged with something else. "Easy, pal. All I mean is that I see you as an individual. Marek made us like family but I choose you, on my own, as someone special to me. What I feel comes from within me, not from any duty to your brother."

  He nodded. "I feel the same, I think. Although, Marek kind of defined how close I could get to you. If it wasn't for him, I'd have jumped you long ago."

  Laughing, I tossed a pen at him, and he ducked it with a grin. Sometimes, his flirting helped these difficult ad-missions. "Should I be flattered?"

  "Maybe. Or relieved. Depends on how you look at it."

  "You're not going to jump my bones now, are you?"

  "Not with your watch dog sniffing around."

  "Rode..."

  He drained the last of the bottle and tossed it into the trash can behind the bar. "Don't be mad. I just feel like he's on my turf."

  "Turf? Isn't that a Were thing?"

  "No." He dropped onto the other couch. "It's a guy thing."

  I drew a deep breath. I'd known things were going to have to come to a head sometime. "If you're having guy issues, then we need to seriously talk about what's going on between us."

  Rodrian didn't even try to duck the issue. "Then we have to talk."

  "Okay," I said slowly. His directness put me on guard. "You go first."

  He took a deep breath. "You know how I feel about you."

  "I think I do. You don't always say what you mean."

  "Finding the right words isn't easy."

  "It's not easy because you have feelings that turn into issues and you try to cover them all up or explain them away as if you should feel guilty over them."

  He chuffed out a held breath. "Do you have any idea how hard it is for me? I have no right to pursue you, but I can't deny I'm attracted to you. But it's deeper than skin or blood. You're not shallow. It'd be wrong to have superficial feelings for someone like you. So then I try to figure out how deep my feelings should be, and I hit one of two dead ends."

  "Which are..."

  "Marek, for one. I can't stop thinking of you as my brother's woman."

  He made it sound like a title. Super. "Even though he stopped thinking about me as his woman."

  "You were a significant part of his life. How can I forget that when I still see him?"

  Frustrated, I looked away. "Dead end number two?"

  "You're the Sophia."

  "I should've seen that one coming. I'm not a national treasure."

  "You're closer to one than you think. I'm getting a fair amount of flack, you know, for doing what I've done."

  "What we've done," I corrected. This was the first time Rodrian had admitted our blood sampling was having repercussions. "I'm just as much a part of it as you are."

  "People don't understand. Marek wanted you safe and secure, which is why he wanted you here. I asked you to take Shiloh in for the same reasons. But people talk. They say I'm coercing you and monopolizing the Sophia for my own gain."

  "But it's not true!" Hearing those rumors made me angry. So did the realization that we weren't even worried about the same things. I thought he'd been agonizing over kissing me and tasting my blood, but he was worried about ownership of property. Men are from Mars, all right. "I do the same, if not more, for the DV since I moved here. You haven't monopolized me at all."

  "I have." His brows were lowered, shadowing his eyes. No friendly spark, just dark mystery. Rodrian's usually tell-tale eyes were closed off, just like the rest of him. "They can see it. You don't."

  "I guess not. So how have you?"

  "I've taken advantage of you. I never should have tasted you."

  Finally. We get to it. "It was my choice."

  "Was it?" He raised his head. His eyes simmered, a hint of the fire they were capable of holding. "You mean, you weren't the least bit seduced?"

  My face grew hot. I remembered exactly how seduced I'd been, and the memory left me with an uncomfortable mix of thrill and shame. "You never forced me."

  "I don't have to." A faint fog of sensation crept toward me. I'd become extremely sensitive to his mental caress, craving it and straining to experience it. He didn't need to hold the flame very long before my wick would ignite. "Perhaps I've never lain with you but I know the taste of your skin, the feel of your flesh, the sound of your breath when we're close. I know what to do to you, and I know how to dissolve your defenses. I'm good at it."

  He grasped my wrist, tugging it up to his mouth. I couldn't resist him. The reckless part of me didn't want to resist. He brushed his lips against my palm, tickling my skin, sending a shoot of thrill to spiral down through me. I felt his breath, the slip of his tongue. I wanted him to taste me. I wanted him to bite, to break my skin, to draw me into him. I wanted it with every quivering ounce of my body. I wanted—

  With a jerk, I snapped free of the compulsion, snatching my hand out of his grip and pulling it tightly to me, out of his reach.

  He just sneered. See? His eyes glinted with cruel playfulness. I told you, I'm good at it.

  "Shut up." Suddenly, I didn't want him to say another word. It wasn't sexy. It was mean. A sense of self-loathing made me think that what we did was dirty and wrong, instead of an innocent extension of what we already had. It made me feel so bare, so used, even though I knew it wasn't true. "Stop saying that, like I'm just another blood date. I'm more than that and you know it."

  "That's the problem. If it was only blood, or only sex, I'd have no problem taking what I want. But you're more to me than that." He pushed to his feet and paced to the fire-place and back. "I love you, Soph. I love you in so many ways. You're my mother, my sister, my lover, my best friend. You are my fucking
goddess. But no matter how I love you, it feels wrong."

  "Oh, Rode," I whispered. I looked up into his face, those beautiful amber-heated eyes, and pitied him for the distress I saw in them. "Love isn't supposed to be wrong."

  "No, it's not. See? See why I have issues?"

  "Yeah, I do." I nodded and took a deep breath. "You need therapy. That's one hell of an Oedipus Complex you got there. I can't believe you said I was your mother. You're, like, a hundred years older than I am."

  Rodrian stared at me for the space of several heartbeats, eyes wide with frantic incomprehension, until the joke finally sank in. He chuckled, his voice shaky from the tension, and he slowly allowed his anxiety to break.

  Gently I reached out Sophia's touch and drew away the worst of it, as if I stroked his worried brow with my fingertips. Rodrian closed his eyes, basking in the Sophia's touch, and responded, his power seeking and embracing me.

  How wondrous, this connection—when everything else could disappear around us just because we sensed each other, felt the comfort and the familiarity. It didn't have to be blood—or hotness, for that matter. I needed the contact, the bridge to another person who really knew me and wanted the same things. We were entwined together, Rodrian and I, just for a single, splendid moment, before his power receded.

  "See?" His face was drawn with regret when he gazed at me. His amber glow illuminated sudden tears. "It's all wrong. I'm sorry."

  Rodrian left the room without another word, leaving me stunned. Shamed. I couldn't think of anything to say that might have stopped him, made him come back. I let him go.

  Bethany stuck her head into the den.

  "How many for dinner tonight?"

  I shrugged. "Eirene and Dorcas, if Eirene lets her even sit down once. Rodrian is in the office but I don't know if he'll stay. Shiloh isn't home yet. And Toby—"

  She raised her hand to interrupt. "I've already taken care of him."

  "You like him, don't you?" I grinned at her.

  She merely lifted her chin. "I have changed my opinion of him. He looks out for you. I will miss him."

  "Miss him? Why?"

  "He will soon be gone." She turned and left without embellishing.

  It took all my restraint not to chase her down and ask her. First it was Badness is coming and now it was Soon Toby will be gone. What if Bethany had some kind of foresight?

  I thought about that again. What if she did have fore-sight? Would I want to know? What if the next thing was about me?

  Digging my cell phone out of my back pocket, I dialed Shiloh to ask if she'd be home for dinner. The call went straight to voice mail.

  Figures. She was becoming more and more unreachable. Whenever she hung out with the new crowd, she pretended not to know me, let alone return a call. I heaved a sigh and sent a text instead. Couldn't give up just because she wanted to be difficult.

  Was this what it was like to be a parent? I felt like I was always on the losing end. Rodrian had asked me to move in so that I could help with Shiloh during her treatment. What had I done, besides nothing? I was supposed to be her emotional support, her friend and companion, her Sophia. I hadn't been anything lately because I hadn't been able to even get her to stay home long enough to talk to me.

  I missed our old relationship, back when we pretended I was her aunt, in love with her uncle. Now I was just some-one who provided the bare minimum of adult supervision to prevent Children and Youth busting down the door and taking her away.

  But Shiloh wasn't a child or a youth anymore, was she? She was seventeen, which, in her mind, was as adult as she was ever going to be. Part of me wanted to yell and lock her up in her room but then I remember my own seventeen.

  Seventeen was the year I had met the boy who became the gold standard of love to me. No one in my life had ever come close to Jared, until Marek found me and taught me I could love again.

  What if Shiloh had found her gold standard in Luke? I had to trust that she knew what she was doing because, at her age, I had known. Those feelings were real and life changing and they couldn't be dismissed.

  Although I wasn't Shiloh's mom, I loved her. I cared for her. I wanted the best for her and for her future. The difference between me and Shiloh was that she wasn't completely whole. The hypolution was taking its toll on her body and her spirit. Her health was on the line.

  I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands. This parenting thing was tough. No wonder Rodrian's mate was never around.

  And no wonder he called me to help him.

  My phone buzzed with an incoming text. I picked up the phone and unlocked the screen.

  Shiloh? Will wonders never cease? Maybe I was emoting so strongly she could feel me. If that was the case, she was probably telling me to knock it off because her friends could "hear" me.

  I wish that was what she had written.

  In the next moment I was on my feet, charging up-stairs and yelling for Rodrian.

  Trbl tell dad find me help

  Brain churning, heartbeat a buzz, I paced the office, while Rodrian made call after call. First was Caen, whom he told to meet him at the Tenth Street office. Then he went down a contact list, calling each of Shiloh's regular friends to ask if they knew where she was, who she might be with. Each call ended in frustration and the same damned answer: no. No one knew anything, not even who her new friends were. They all assumed she had been staying home, sick.

  His last call was the worst. I knew who it was even as he hit the name in the contact list because his power, for the first time, took on an edge of insurmountable worry and despair.

  "Brianda," he said, his voice tight. "Shy's in trouble. I need you to try and pin her down."

  I covered my mouth with my hands, dropping my shields lower and reaching out to Rodrian. The Sophia had been humming behind my shields, tasting but not drawing away Rodrian's pain. I couldn't bear it any longer. I knew how hard it was for him to tell Brianda her little sister was in trouble. He had lost his son long ago but decades had passed before he'd begun to heal. Now, he worried he'd lose his daughter. The pain threatened to return.

  His agony swelled like a flood surge. I opened my gates and welcomed it all, despite the pain it caused me. I took it in, took it down, and sealed it away where it couldn't hurt anyone ever again. He turned to me, his relief evident. "I'll be okay, honey," he said into the phone. "I've got Sophie. She'll take care of me."

  He said goodbye and hung up. "I've got to go. Caen is waiting for me."

  I wanted to frown at the sound of my old pal's name, but if Caen could help bring back Shiloh, I'd hug him to death. It would be a win-win for me. "What should I do?"

  "Stay here in case she calls or shows up. Call me if you hear anything." Rodrian tilted his head at the doorway and walked out. I trailed behind him to the den, where he went behind the bar. Stooping down in front of the fridge and pulled out two of his bottles. "I will keep you updated."

  "I can't just sit here, Rode. Shouldn't I be doing more? Like, what if I sent out a Sophia SOS to all the DV?"

  "Don't. You don't know who's involved. Just sit tight." He stood and walked back over to me, pulling me toward him and squeezing my shoulders. "I don't want you to worry."

  "I can't do anything else but."

  "Yes, you can." He let go of my arms and backed up a step. "I need a favor."

  "Anything. You don't have to—"

  I was interrupted by the shrill ring of his cell phone. He glanced at the number before picking up the phone to answer.

  "Caen. I'll call back—" He listened. "Right. Wait for my call."

  I could hear Caen's voice protesting even as Rodrian slid the phone shut and dropped it on the bar. "Did he find out something?"

  "This is more important. Listen to me. I need your blood. You probably understand already. Your blood gives me a boost. A power shot. I need that now. I have to get my girl back home safe, and I can't let anything keep me from doing it. Your blood can give me the edge I need."

  "Do it,
then." I would have done anything he asked. Just please, God, let Shiloh be okay. His need overrode my qualms about the issue itself: it was all so naked, now. I didn't want to believe I'd become a water fountain of power, so I concentrated on Shiloh, on Rodrian's desperation. On the Sophia and my ability to help.

  I offered my upturned palm but he shook his head. His eyes were lit, searing bright. "Too slow. I don't have time to linger. I need it now, and I need it fast."

  Dropping to his knees in front of me, he lifted my shirt, exposing my belly and the bottom edge of my bra before I could protest. Tilting his head back, he gazed up at me, lips parted, as if wanting to say something. Instead, he sent a sensual touch. It was gentle, at first.

  Then it swelled. It was a constriction around my deep belly, and I reached back to the bar, holding myself up. I closed my eyes and swallowed. Slow, deep waves of pleasure. Building. His breath on my bare skin, lips brushing against the curve of my waist, fingers gripping tighter, digging into my hips.

  He wasn't going to be gentle.

  Thrill and worry thumped my heart, thumped in lower places, thickening my breath. He inhaled my scent, groaning softly. When he broke the skin, I came dangerously close to having a real good time.

  My barriers fuzzed out as I drifted on the ebbing tide of sensation, and I followed the stream of my Sophia-laden blood that flowed into him, a tingle of out-of-body sensation. I cradled his head to my side and dug my fingers into his hair while he took three strong swallows. My center of gravity shifted, my knees dipped, and he pushed me against the bar for support. His tongue lapped firm lines along my side, rapid strokes to smooth the flesh closed. The bite was deep. It would bleed if he didn't fix the wound.

  When he stood, he covered his mouth, closed his eyes. Flexed his power, let it expand. Rolled his shoulders and stared into my eyes. His DV glow was tiger-bright and dangerous. His half-smile was ragged, a cocky hint of reckless intentions, as he pulled my chin up and pressed a kiss onto my mouth. It wasn't as chaste as it could have been but, as I was backing down from a breathless edge, I couldn't resist him.