“Theo!” she screams out, her fingernails digging into my back. It stings a bit, but that hint of pain heightens the pleasure. Her hips meet mine through every thrust, wanting more, begging me with each rush of wetness and the purring in her chest to break her. ’ll give her that and so much more.
“What do you need, love? Tell me and it’s yours.”
“Mount me.” No hesitation. No shyness.
“So perfect,” I whisper, licking my mark on her neck before flipping her onto her front. She wants my beast; he’s hers. “Rise up and arms out. Show me what’s mine.”
And she does, lifting onto all fours with her head low and both holes on display.
In one fluid motion, I’m back inside and she clenches hard. Her walls clamp down at the intrusion while her juices run down my cock and balls. And she’s arching, back bowing deep while a scream rends the air, her nails destroying the sheets.
“My King. My love,” she moans, pushing back against me. Her asscheeks bounce, the supple flesh so perky and round. Smack. The sound is loud in the room, but her scream will be heard down the street. Another. And another. She can take it, and by the way she clamps down, I know she loves it.
“You feel so good, pretty girl. Your cunt was made for me.” Another punishing stroke and her body shakes, walls fluttering around me. “Again. Tighten like that again.”
“Please.” Her wail makes me grin, reminds me of all the times I fucked her while people walked the halls outside of my office back in Italy, the castle’s staff trying to make the least noise possible so as to not embarrass her. “I’m so close. I need—”
“Me.” I slam in three times in rapid succession and pause, ignoring her desperate yell. “Tell me you need me.”
“You’re all I’ll ever need. Just you.”
Those words hit me in the chest, my dead heart coming to life and beating for her. For the treasure I’ve been given, have killed for, and I would do it again if we always end here. In each other's arms. Breathing in the other’s exhale because it is what gives us life.
“I will never love another. You are the beginning of life and where it ends.” Then, I’m fucking her like she asked, giving us both the relief we need. My pace is near animalistic, every thrust harder than the last, and her cries are lullabies for me.
Moreover, I’m the man lucky enough to spend the rest of his life worshipping her. Listening to those cries again and again.
Slipping a hand to her front, I cup her neck with my fingers, touching her mark. The simple contact makes her tremble, her body shaking beneath me, and when her walls clamp down on me as she comes, I can’t stop myself from letting go.
Her come and mine mix, the heady scent permeating the air while I continue to stroke in and out, loving how she still meets each thrust. How she tightens and claws at the bed, losing herself to the pleasure only I can give.
But just as soon as one need is satiated, another arises, and I’m prepared for it.
I cannot wait to watch her feed.
40
Gabriella
There’s a burning sensation in my throat, this uncomfortable flame that seems to grow hotter and hotter with each passing second. I’ve gone from remembering my life to loving Theo and to now this need—hunger—I’ve never encountered before.
That I don’t know how to address or respond to.
My hand claws at the front of my neck, rubbing at the area, but it’s Theodore’s eyes I’m fighting to focus on. There’s a bit of amusement in them, yet so much understanding. So much love.
“The thirst is always the worst in the first month,” he says calmly, lying down beside me in all his naked glory, his release and mine still drying on his cock. “You need to feed, pretty girl. Once you do, it’ll abate. Not disappear, but it’ll be manageable.”
“Is it always this way?” I ask, taking in the subtle changes from over the last century. He looks tired. Like someone that carried the weight of world on his shoulders and is just now taking a breather. My poor love.
“It is.” For a few seconds he doesn’t say anything, as if he were waiting for something, and then I know why. There are two things in this house that are calling my attention; one is down the hall, while the other is downstairs and frightened, her mumblings getting on my nerves. “Are you ready to hunt?”
“You brought me food already.”
“That’s just the appetizer. Her mother is the main course.” My eyes turn to slits and I sit up, throwing my legs over the bed. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
“You’ll take that as the cue to clean up and meet me downstairs. I need to stop at my studio first.”
“Why first.”
“Because I’m not spending another second without your ring on my finger.”
“Good girl.”
“Always,” I say, and then lean over the bed to peck his lips before pulling back. “I imagine you have clothes here?”
“A suitcase full.”
“Of course, you do.” A giggle escapes me, and my eyes roll. “How often did you stand guard outside this house?”
“Never.”
“Never?” That’s shocking. “So out of character with the man I know.”
“It shouldn’t surprise you that I never left, pretty girl. My post was that wall next to the window each night.”
I leave him in the room after getting dressed and head straight for my studio. It’s calling to me, his scent meshing with that of metal, and they pull me toward a semi-open cabinet. The same cabinet that I once used to store the woman I thought to be my mother’s, a piece of crap locket that holds no true value.
Not anymore.
My real parents died so long ago, leaving my sister and I behind to face the hunting of my kind and the needs of our people. Because those with magic and powers are coveted like prizes and sought to control.
Isabella not as much as me.
Our younger brother isn’t as strong, but he holds himself with the same morals as our father.
I miss them.
Shaking myself out of those emotions, I vow to look for them after. Much after.
“Elise and her kin all need to die first.”
Striding to the furniture, I smile to myself when I find the half-opened drawer with a small leather pouch inside. It’s familiar to me. The same one I used to carry the earrings my real mother gave to me a few months before her death.
I pick it up with a shaky hand and open it before pouring the content into my hand.
My ring is inside. The same one from when we said I do with the large ruby stone in the middle of a gold band surrounded by black diamonds.
The heart that no longer beats inside my chest gives a hard thump, almost restarting again as I slip it on my ring finger where it’ll never leave again. I also catch the light of the charm he placed there, and the date engraved holding a special meaning; the day we wed. He was always trying to make me remember. He truly never gave up. Tears brim my eyes but don’t fall, my chest expands on a shuddering breath that I don’t release as so many emotions hit me at once.
I died.
I suffered.
But he brought me back. He’s always been there. Here.
And I’ve never felt more loved in my life as I do now.
Rushing down the stairs, I pause next to Diana and snap her neck, not giving a single fuck about her. Her wants or what she has to say hold no bearing on me. She’s as insignificant as her mother, more so as a human who’s been fed bullshit all her life and bought into a reality that was never part of her destiny.
Her hate for me was clear back at Theo’s warehouse. Nothing had changed from now to then.
Their plan failed, and I’m here with my King and that’s all that matters to me.
“That was your meal.”
“I know.” Placing my hand wearing his gift over his chest, I grip his shirt and pull him down. Those amber eyes I love darken at seeing his ring there. “But first, I need a kiss.”
“Just one. You n
eed to eat.”
“No.”
“No?”
“I have time to drain her, but nothing will ever come before my need for you.” And then he’s kissing me, groaning into my mouth while destroying my clothes that lay in tatters on the floor while my legs are wrapped around his waist.
Our feet cross into the Alaskan wilderness twenty-four hours later after my first feeding. Her daughter wasn’t fulfilling in the least, and Theo procured a donation from the hospital to satiate his thirst and mine.
But now we’re in the territory where my brother-in-law reigns as Alpha of Alphas with Tero, Meera, and Marcia, who’s back to normal. For years she suffered because I couldn’t finish the words needed to bind her spirit to her human form, leaving the animal as her only choice of survival. A whisper, my hand over her chest, and Marcia walked on two legs again.
“Ready?” I ask Marcia, my knees on the ground beside her body. We’re in my backyard and everyone is ready to leave, but I refuse to do so without doing something a century too late. “Give me a nod, and I’ll say the words.” The movement is subtle, a small tear spilling from her eyes as I place my hand on her body and mouth against hers. “I’m sorry it took so long, sweet friend. Ligatus ad vescendum carnes.”
At once, her form slightly trembles as she retakes her human form. There are hisses from her that turn into screams, her shiny scales receding into human flesh while she gives into the pain. I know it hurts. Bounding her and then freeing her soul took a lot from me, too, but I continue to feed her my energy until I look into a set of eyes I haven’t seen since my death.
“Gabby,” she whispers, voice rough from disuse while I simply hug her. Cover her slim body with a blanket I’d brought out with me. “Please tell me my lessons are done?”
At that, I laugh, head thrown back as my frame shakes. I’ve missed her sass. “In my opinion, you’ve graduated and surpassed Tero, Marcia. I’m proud of you.”
“And I’ve missed you, My Queen.”
Cupping her cheek with my hand, I place my forehead to hers. “Not queen, Marcia. We’re sisters.”
“Are you ready?” Theo asks from beside me.
“I am.” He knows I’m a bit sad, but I also understand. They’re not here—my sister and her mate—having left to deal with a problem on the East Coast with a pack, but he left his Beta, Cain, to help us.
At one time, werewolves and vampires didn’t mix; hurting your mate is a sin, something you don’t do at any costs, and both races understand that. I’m a Queen. My sister is the Luna Supreme.
Two women whose destiny changed the supernatural world.
“Beta Cain,” I say, extending a hand out in greeting, which he takes. He’s gawking at me a bit, not in lust but surprise, and beside me Theo growls. “Stop it.”
“He’s staring.”
“You look so much alike. Not identical, but the resemblance is shocking when—”
“I know.” And I did. My death hurt more than Theodore and those of our kingdom, but my sister and brother—the races they oversee. “But it’ll wear off the more you see of me. I miss my sister.”
“And she’s lived in hell without you,” a soft voice calls from behind the Beta, and the warriors standing behind him move out of the way, letting the owner pass. At my first sight of her, a sob gets caught in my throat, tears that don’t fall gathering at my eyes before her warm body slams into mine. Isabella is stronger than before, the mark on her neck altering her slightly.
“Sister,” is all I can manage to choke out, holding her to me while she cries into my neck, hugging me back just as tight. “How? I thought—”
Pulling back, her blotchy face smiles at me. “If you thought I wouldn’t be here for this moment, you’ve become stupid in the last hundred years. Nothing could keep me from you.”
“Things change.”
“I don’t.” Raising my hand, she intertwined our fingers the same way we’ve done since we learned about our powers. She fed from me and I from her, exchanging our feelings and energies through touch. And right now, her aura is glowing with love and excitement, an exact mirror of my own. “By blood and by pact.”
“We are one.”
“We are one,” she repeats and then gets a devious look in her eyes that has gotten me in trouble many times in the past. “Now—we have someone to kill. Any preference, or are we going in there, guns blazing like the wonder twins we are?”
“Christ, I forgot how cheesy you can be?” I snort, which causes her to laugh. “That was bad.”
“Oh hush, just because I’m older doesn’t mean I’m out of touch with the youth here.”
Another presence makes itself known a moment later, and I’m not surprised as one never moved without the other before. “Alpha Xadiel, how have you been?”
“Her joy matches my own, Gabriella. We are all happy to have you back.”
The sincerity in his eyes brings tears to my eyes that will never fall. “Thank you, brother.”
“Okay…” Isabella claps her hands, winking at her mate and mouthing the words I love you. “First, did you push the meeting back?”
“I did,” my sister’s husband answers without pause.
“God, I love you.”
My eyes shift to Theo, who shakes his head. We are not that bad, pretty girl. It’s the part dog thing that makes them cheesy. I’m not going to respond to his mind link, choosing instead to turn back into the conversation my sister is leading. “And two?” I ask.
“Two, I know where she is. No one steps onto our land without us knowing.”
The small cottage Elise ran to is deep in the Alaskan wilderness and right near the border of Xadiel’s land. It’s far enough to not draw too much attention, while still being within the territory. It blends into the scenery, a little dilapidated, but enough for one person to hide.
I can hear her heartbeat from where I stand.
She knows we’re here, too.
The moment she sensed our presence, she panicked, the cadence of each heartbeat rising, and her breathing followed. Funny. For someone who’s the daughter of a proud general, she sure tucked tail and ran. She never did the dirty work, but involved her own offspring, lying to each to manipulate her narrative.
I also wouldn’t be surprised if she’d procreated with a human, knowing they’d be weaker—easier to manipulate than that of a full-fledged vampire/hybrid union.
“And she says I’m the weak one,” I say loud enough for her to hear and those around us laugh. “Come out, Elise. Don’t make me go after you.”
Nothing. Not a peep.
However, I do notice the small shift in the front window curtain and the two eyes that peep through. So sad. So pathetic.
“I won’t ask you again.” I’m positioned in front of the door, the only in and out the place has, except for a window in the rear that Cain is currently watching. To leave, she has to exit from here. “You have a minute before I enter.”
“You won,” Elise yells out from behind the door, and that pisses me off. Is this the kind of ire that Theodore feels when I’m wronged? When he’s disrespected? “You took everything from me and won…congratulations.”
“Thirty.”
“What more can you take? Let me live my life in peace here!”
“Nineteen.” My feet carry me closer, every step toward the cottage’s entrance making me shake. In anger. In disgust. “Ten.”
“I don’t want to fight anymore.”
“One.” Her steps retreat into the house, reminding me of a frightened rodent without an out. And I’m the cat in this scenario, kicking down the door with enough force that the wood shatters—the splinters flying across the room and one piece in particular embedding in her back.
She won’t die, but it does hurt.
“No…please. I’ll disappear.”
“You will,” I say, stepping over the threshold while the others stay outside. Not even Theo can be in the room, as we agreed. He wasn’t happy with it, but understood I needed t
o unleash my anger without distractions, and he is a very potent one. They also know to not interfere, no matter the circumstance. “I want you to regret your birth. To hate your father.”
Anger flashes in her eyes at the mention of him. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what? Call him out for being a piece of shit who treated women as commodities, trophies to own and use at his discretion?” Her features harden, lip curling over her much smaller fangs. “Does that hurt? Having it shoved in your face that he didn’t love you, or is it that he used you as a way to further his own agenda?”
“Shut. Up,” she seethes, her claws extending. “He loved us. He took care of us.”
My tinkling laugh fills the small cottage. “He wanted to sell you to the highest bidder. The problem was that who he wanted had no interest in you. Theo always saw you as weak and superficial, Elise. Just another social-climbing whore who tried and failed to take what’s mine.”
“I’m going to kill you.”
“Like I snapped your daughter’s neck or how Theo murdered your son?”
“You bitch!” she lunges, going for my head, but I sidestep her. I’m faster. Stronger. Her body flies past me and hits the wall where the fireplace is, shattering the mantle.
“Is that the best you have?”
“You’re dead.”
I don’t bother to answer, because technically, I already am. Instead, I crouch and take notice of her foot placement. Elise leans heavily on the right, and when she jumps to tackle me, I kick out her leg, forcing her to fall into a split. Then, I’m on her and use a trick I picked up from watching Theodore dismember Detective Consuelos.
Digging my new claws in, I tear through her flesh and twist, breaking the bone and tossing her leg behind me. “Ouch. That does look painful.” Her whimper is a sweet little melody that I want more of, and I tear the other in the same manner. “Do you remember that day outside the café when you backhanded me, threatening to do more than that?”
Little Lies Page 26
