“He won’t sire me. Maybe staying as I am is the best option.”
Before he could argue with her, she jerked to her feet and rushed down the hall to her room. Well, Lucas’s room. She needed to be on her own right now. Even if Emily snored. Loudly.
She couldn’t deny the place was gorgeous. A huge-screen TV dominated one wall, and lush silver curtains blocked all traces of moonlight. The massive bed was outfitted with a cover of the same hue, and pillows were heaped everywhere. Obviously, the guy liked his comfort, and she was certainly reaping the benefits.
Since she’d done enough thinking for one night, sleeping was all that was left. She slipped into the nightgown she’d retrieved from home and situated Emily beside her in bed. With the disturbing events of the evening running through her mind, she wasn’t sure if she would be able to rest.
Luckily, she was wrong. Sleep claimed her like a greedy lover, then held her in its grip for much of the following day.
When she woke the next evening, Emily was stirring. “Shh, love. It’s okay. You’re okay. I’ll take care of you.” She flailed around a bit while Sydney crooned softly to her. Her skin was too pale, though the shadows under her eyes had abated. And she seemed weak, almost frail. Her movements against the sheets were as tentative as a newborn’s.
Sydney stroked her hair and rubbed her back, trying to make sure she was comfortable. Her reassurances apparently fell on deaf ears, however, as Emily soon proved by shooting out of her near-slumber to clamp her mouth around Sydney’s neck.
Her scream was instantaneous, borne more of surprise than fear. Emily’s mouth blazed like a fever, and her fangs burned the deeper they sank. But by the time Kellan burst through the door, his eyes wild and his face an almost unrecognizable mask of fear, Sydney had stopped feeling anything even remotely unpleasurable.
Far from it.
Sydney reclined against Lucas’s pillows, her nightgown slipping so far off one shoulder that the swell of her breast was almost entirely exposed. Emily’s hand covered her nipple, and she kneaded the puckered skin as she drank.
Guzzled was a more appropriate term.
“What’s going on here?”
Kellan’s voice was rough. Sydney could hardly blame him for becoming aroused. Emily hadn’t done anything sexual beyond touching her breast, and even that gesture resembled a kitten kneading its mother’s belly to get more milk. But she could only imagine how they looked sprawled over the bed, tangled together, her in green silk and Emily’s svelte frame clad in one of Sydney’s nearly see-through gowns.
“She was thirsty.” Trailing a hand through the brown spill of hair that flowed down Emily’s back, Sydney arched to give her friend a better angle. Both Emily’s fangs and her fingers picked up the pace.
“So you offer yourself to her.” The implication in his tone was clear. Exactly how much did you offer her, Sydney?
That he didn’t demand they separate or pull any other of his bullheaded nonsense went a long way to buffing any residual ire she had at his irritating dominance. She’d left him because of it, and she’d stayed away while she sorted out her thoughts on what had really transpired between them. But whether it was because of his hyponotic golden stare or the warm, sexual thrum in her veins as Emily drank from her, none of her reasons for holding him at arm’s length seemed to matter very much anymore.
Even if he couldn’t be her true sire, he could be her lover. As he already was her love, even if she still didn’t understand how that could have happened so quickly and completely.
“I didn’t offer. She took.” Slowly, Sydney lowered the other shoulder of her gown, revealing the twin of the breast Emily continued to massage. “But I’m offering myself to you.”
He said nothing for so long she began to wonder if he would deny her. Even through her half-closed eyes, she could see the rigid bulge of his cock in his jeans, but maybe he was thinking with his big head, instead.
“What do you intend to share with her? Your blood only? Or that which you would give me?”
Something about the way he spoke, the heavy intonation combined with the emotionless delivery, set off a line of sparks from the wound Emily had made, straight into her pussy. Fireworks that traveled along the ground before they exploded into the air.
“She can watch.” Emily finally lifted her head, her mouth stained bright red. “But she can’t touch.”
Sydney waited for Emily to say something, but she only glanced back and forth between them. She appeared drugged, though her gray eyes smoldered in a way they never had before. Her fingers had ceased moving on Sydney’s breast at the same time she had stopped feeding, and now she slid her hand away. But not demurely to her lap. Instead she scraped her short, serviceable nails up her own inner thigh, her target clear from the intensity in her gaze. Emily’s lips quivered open as her fingertips found her own wet flesh—Sydney could smell her arousal now, the smoke and the tang of it—and sank deep.
Sydney took a shuddery breath. Not so long ago, she would’ve been freaked out by watching her best friend masturbate. Now most anything went.
She nodded at Kellan. “Guess she’s okay with those terms.”
He walked into the room slowly, moving as a predator would. Ever watchful, each muscle tensed. His gaze skipped over Emily before landing on Sydney. “I smell you. Even over her, with her, I smell you. It lives inside me, that scent.” He stopped beside her and knotted his hands in her hair, turning her head so he could brush his lips over hers. “God, Sydney, I need you.”
She’d thought herself trapped. By her condition, by him. But now, locked in those gorgeous eyes that warmed her as surely as if he’d poured steaming candle wax over her skin, she felt free.
Loving him was a choice. And she was making it.
She trembled as her fingers crept under his shirt to stroke the firm, clenched muscles of his back. He stared at her, the emotion of the moment passing between them without words. Their pact had been sealed. First in lust. Then in blood.
He crushed his mouth to hers, his tongue hard and insistent as it sought entrance. Her lips parted and his groan flowed into her on the heels of his taste. Coffee. Her coffee. Rich, bold. And beneath, the metallic undertaste he’d introduced her to, the forbidden fruit she’d denied wanting but couldn’t stop needing.
She gripped his belt buckle, tugging him closer so she could coil her legs around him. Her gown rode up, exposing her where she already burned wet and hot. Beside her, Emily made a strangled sound deep in her throat, but Sydney didn’t break the kiss or halt her explorations of the definite rise beneath Kellan’s jeans.
He was her center now. The one light in the midst of so much black, the answer to all the questions she’d been afraid to voice.
Kellan slipped back, staying close enough that his breath hissed over her lips. “You’re not alone anymore.” The hand he’d cupped around her cheek tensed, his grip the sweetest pain she’d ever known. “And you’re mine.”
She nodded and rose to her knees to drag his shirt over his head. He was a wonderland of supple skin and bunched muscles. Her hands raced over his back, then swept the planes and hollows of his torso. She flicked the buckle open and yanked the belt free of its loops, tossing the buttery leather aside with a child’s glee.
Finally, he would be hers again. This time it was for life.
Moving quickly, she freed his straining cock and licked her lips as she eyed her treat. “Mine,” she growled, making sure her gaze reflected every ounce of her desire.
She waited, half-expecting him to spout some He-Man vampire spiel about how she was his woman, but that didn’t mean the reverse was true. But he only threaded his fingers through her hair, guiding her where she desperately needed to be.
Commands like that, she didn’t mind.
Sydney scooted down and bathed his cock with her tongue. Then she enveloped him, taking his silken-steel length until he filled her throat. Oh, yes. How she’d missed this. He filled her in a way no one else could. Overw
helmed her senses like no one else ever had.
It was time she returned the favor.
She sucked hard and palmed his sac, scraping his sensitive skin with her nails. His breathing quickened. How she loved watching his chest rise and fall. Knowing she was the only one who could make him feel this way. As his shaft pulsed with blood, an almost indescribable ache grew in her pussy.
And in her fangs.
She flexed her throat. His broken groan vibrated through her body as he started to pump his hips. Deeper and harder, he drove between her parted lips, and she took him, her fangs lengthening until their points dug into his stiff flesh.
Waves of heat drenched her until it seemed as if fire ate at her skin, burning her from the inside out. Sensations collided and coalesced in her mind, in her body. His salty liquid teasing her tongue, the subtle expansion of his erection as he neared orgasm. Her own endless need, so consuming she had to hold her thighs apart to keep from imploding.
And through everything, smoldering gold eyes leeched the last shred of resistance she had left.
“Do it. Now.”
Sydney knew what he wanted. This time, she understood what following her urges meant. She hadn’t decided to bite him on a whim. This was who she was, no matter how hard she’d tried to deny the fact. She was a vampire. Even if she hadn’t gone all the way yet, she would. To turn away from what she was meant to become would jeopardize the truest love she’d ever known.
She slid his erection from her mouth and rubbed the pads of her fingers in concentric circles to spread the moisture. Kellan’s hands clenched in her hair, then gentled as he bundled the damp tendrils and lifted them off her neck. She licked her lips again, letting the dark hunger fill her. The scent of his desire, the relentless pound of his heart, and the tension in his touch all made the need that much more powerful.
“Yes, do it. Please.”
At Emily’s breathless urging, Sydney shifted to watch her best friend push herself over the edge. Emily’s lips spread over her baby fangs as her own fingers brought her to the peak. She’d shed her nightgown somewhere along the way, and her firm, dusky-tipped breasts bounced with each stroke.
Arousal flushed her skin, danced in her gray eyes. Somehow even the blood that coated her mouth—she’d proven herself not a fastidious eater—and smeared her cleavage only enhanced her allure.
Syd smiled and met her lover’s heated gaze. She peeled her lips back to reveal fangs already distended. Slowly, she lowered her mouth to the engorged head of his cock, throbbing so temptingly with blood and more. Already she anticipated the salt mixing with the coppery liquid that would flood her throat as he came and came.
The last thing she saw was his smile. The intensity and the power of it. Such beauty in that smile. So much love.
Poised to strike, she almost missed the flicker of movement in the doorway. A lightning blur of black and blond streaked into the room just as Emily’s rapturous moans crescendoed into climax.
Sydney jerked back on a strangled cry as Kellan was ripped away from her. She blinked, sure that would make the scene in front of her change. As though it wasn’t her lover fighting with someone clad all in black, like death himself, despite the angelic blond hair waving down his back.
While punches and curses flew, Sydney leaped to her feet, hoping to get some help from Emily. But from the look on her face—an odd mix of fascination and afterglow—she wouldn’t be much help.
Syd gritted her teeth and whirled around to see the hand-to-hand hadn’t ceased. If anything, the fight was even more violent. Even more bloody. And the sounds they were making—
Dear God. How she could have been so dense? Kellan was fighting with Lucas.
She glanced back at her best friend. And the reason why was curled up like a satisfied kitten in the center of the bed.
“Goddammit, stop it!” She could handle this. On her own. For God’s sake, she knew Lucas. She’d slept with him twice. He’d listen to reason.
She’d make him listen.
This wasn’t Kellan’s fault. Or even hers, not really. Emily had brought the change upon herself, and Lucas would just have to come to terms with that.
The blinding white flash of fangs in the darkness shocked her into stillness. Somehow he’d pinned Kellan, who’d ceased fighting and now lay prone on the floor with fangs at his neck. Why wasn’t he fighting him anymore? He was incredibly strong, but he didn’t move from his supine position. Instead, he stared up at Lucas, his skin pale, his features drawn tight, as if all the fight had drained out of him.
Did he actually want to die?
Terror bubbled in her stomach as she quelled the urge to rush forward. He couldn’t kill him. They were both vampires. And Kellan was Lucas’s best friend—
Sydney stepped forward, but Lucas’s hiss in her direction nearly sent her to her knees. The absolute destruction in his eyes—eyes that blazed as scarlet as the blood that still clung to Emily’s lips—blasted through her.
She took his look for what it was. A warning. Stay back, or you’ll be next.
But when he again lowered his fangs to Kellan’s neck, she didn’t think. She reacted. Springing into a leap, she landed on Lucas’s back. He attempted to buck her off, as she’d known he would. But panic and love and fear had given her strength, and he couldn’t knock her free. And she sank the fangs she’d readied for Kellan deep into Lucas’s artery.
The dark greeted him as he climbed toward consciousness, but it wasn’t the cold bleakness he’d come to associate with a million other mornings. Because this morning, he didn’t wake alone.
Warm lips slid over his thigh, her kiss more a brand than a lover’s caress. Even without opening his eyes to see who had him, he knew.
Finally, she had come to him.
A slice of teeth, the flick of tongue. Both aroused and soothed simultaneously. Everything inside him reached out to her, his hips lifting off the mattress even as he fought the last vestiges of sleep.
Her mouth claimed him in one satiny stroke, and his hands clawed at the sweaty sheets pooled under his body. She lapped at him, bringing him from the unfeeling dark to the pinnacle of orgasm in mere moments.
Sweet hell, she knew how to suck cock.
She’d obviously done this before, and here he’d believed his woman was a virgin. Though he could hardly mind the experiences that had given her such incredible oral talents when he was on the receiving end of her expertise.
Groan after groan ripped from his throat at the masterful force of her suction. And then, just as his balls tightened in frantic expectation, she tore her mouth away.
He waited, not moving, hoping she just needed a breather. His body shook like a man caught in withdrawal and his dick ached so badly he feared he might combust, whether or not she finished him off. She’d been that good. But then the one thing occurred that could bring him back from the brink.
She started to cry.
Lucas’s eyes flew open. His curtains were drawn and only a single candle illuminated the room, but the murky light didn’t hamper his vision. He zeroed in on the woman balled up in the corner of his bed. Her dark hair shielded her face as she rocked back and forth, and what had been tears were now sobs.
“Hey, hey.” He started to sit up and jolted at the pull in his wrists. Heat arced between his shoulder blades as he yanked at his arms.
Fury burned through him like an inferno. Goddammit, they’d chained him to his own bed like some kind of animal.
Not her. She hadn’t restrained him. She wouldn’t. But them—his supposed best friend and his damn tramp—they would do anything, obviously. With or without his consent.
When Emily lifted her head and her swollen lips fell open, he saw a hint of sharp white teeth. His rage at Kellan’s betrayal sang through him anew.
He’d made her a vampire. Why, he had no clue. It made no sense. Kellan didn’t have designs on Emily, at least none he’d ever revealed. But Lucas had seen the three of them together—
He haule
d in a breath. Okay, he’d seen Syd and Kellan together. Emily hadn’t exactly been participating, but she’d certainly looked engaged by what was going on. She’d brought herself to orgasm while he’d watched, and her mouth had glistened from her fresh feed.
Never had he felt an anger so hot and pure explode inside him. He could’ve killed Kellan. Would have, if Syd hadn’t stopped him with her sure-didn’t-feel-like-a-fledgling’s fangs.
Without thinking, he tried to touch the wound he knew had already healed on his throat. But the cuffs held fast and he let out a furious growl.
Emily’s tears slowed and she stared at him as if seeing him for the first time. Her eyes were red and bleary, but her silver irises appeared as smoky as mist over the moors.
“It’s for your own good,” she said in a hollow voice.
“Says who?” He couldn’t keep the snarl from his words. “Him?” He wouldn’t use his name. “The man who changed you?”
She gazed at him as unblinkingly as an owl. Her eyes were too big for her face, and the knowledge in them, so much more than had been there even days ago, shredded his heart. “How do you feel?”
“Sore.” And he didn’t mean from the bite, either. He looked pointedly at his unwavering erection. “Your fault.”
She didn’t follow the direction of his gaze, but turned her head away so that her hair again curtained her face. “I have no control of myself yet. I’m sorry.”
“Did you hear me complaining?”
“You’re not in control of yourself, either.” She dashed at the tears that thankfully appeared to be drying. He couldn’t handle a woman unraveling in front of him. Especially this woman.
“I beg to differ.”
When he would’ve continued, she gave him a strange look. “You revived awfully fast. It’s been less than twelve hours. We gave you blood, but—” She gasped as his lips peeled back. “You already have fangs!”
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