by Marian Tee
If not for that kiss, he would not have to spend every waking night with other women, fucking hard and long just to erase Caylie’s scent in his memories. Without other women to chain him, Luka would have been long gone, doing the unforgivable and climbing into Caylie’s bedroom to take what he so desperately craved to possess.
Sex for Caros was a tool, an outlet, but for some it was also a weakness, an obsession that their blood instinctively yearned for. Unfortunately, it was so for Luka. Even worse, he was obsessed with having sex with only one girl.
His cock twitched at the thought, and Luka immediately withdrew to himself, taking advantage of the years he had devoted to hiding his innermost thoughts, feelings, and desires. Ah, God, nearly every moment spent with Caylie was an exercise of self-control, a battle between his brain and his cock.
Luka slowed down, and Caylie followed suit. She looked up at him glumly. “I know. Time to stop dancing and time to start working, right?”
“Good girl,” he murmured, ruffling her hair when what he actually wanted to do was run his fingers through the silky strands.
She sighed. “Fiiiiine.”
Just then, a couple danced past them, the blond guy glaring daggers at Luka. “Human trash,” he sneered under his breath just before whirling away.
Luka didn’t even blink. Caylie didn’t react visibly either but she subtly wove her fingers through his, a quiet show of support. Never wear your heart on your sleeve was their race’s motto, but it was something Caylie seemed to always love violating.
She tugged his hand for attention.
He looked down. “What is it?”
She tiptoed, answering him with a kiss that lingered on his lips. It was a not-so-quiet display this time, Caylie’s way of saying that she chose to be seen with him, never mind he had a human mother.
And then she was pulling away. “Later,” she said, eyes twinkling. And with a little twirl of her skirts, she was gone, a social butterfly whose wings would forever remain unclipped if Luka had his way.
He started to mingle, too, brandishing polite charm as he casually engaged Brethren officials with small talk. It was never too early to start building alliances. Ironically enough, he had learned that from a werewolf prince even though Lyccans and Caros had long considered themselves as ancient rivals.
Hours later, the ball had ended, and he was taking home a tipsy Caylie. Even though it was not yet dawn, Luka wasn’t taking any chances, instructing the chauffeur to take them through the basement entrance.
“This was the best night ever,” Caylie told him in a singsong voice as he led them into the candlelit underground passageway, with shadows playing on its red brick walls.
“Mm…” Luka flipped the lid for the security keypad open when they reached the heavy iron door at the end of the passageway. He punched the secret code, which only he and the Sonora family were privy to.
“Did you see how that European noble was talking down to me?” She wrinkled her nose. “I mean like literally down, like he’s trying to memorize the shape of my boobs.”
Luka had noticed. He had also been jealous as hell, and there had been nothing he wanted to do more than smash the other guy’s face. His fists clenched involuntarily. He still wanted to do it.
Caylie suddenly slipped under his arm, making Luka grunt in surprise. Emerging in the cage of his arms, she leaned against the door and pouted up at him. “You’re supposed to get mad and tell me you’re going to kill him.”
“I am mad and I will kill him.” He said it easily, knowing she wouldn’t be inclined to believe him even when she was clearly half drunk.
Caylie’s fingers landed on his heart before starting walking down his chest. “Why are you mad and why will you kill him?”
Luka’s body hardened at where her fingers were going, catching them in time just before she could slip her fingers into the waistband of his pants. “Because you’re mine.”
She beamed. “Right answer.”
His eyes darkened.
No, actually, it wasn’t. It was the wrong answer because it wasn’t true. But Luka also knew that it was the only kind of answer Caylie could accept.
When Caylie opened her mouth, likely to torment him further, Luka chose that same moment to twist the giant wheel, laughing when she let out a little shriek as the door behind her swung open. He caught her before she could fall, and he was still smiling as he quietly closed the large door shut, Caylie holding on to his arm as she attempted to regain her balance.
“You did that on purpose.”
He gave her a wide-eyed look.
Caylie rolled her eyes. “I’m not like all the other Caros, thinking you are such an angel, Luka. I know you.”
No, she did not. If she did then she should have known he had fallen in love with her, and it was getting harder and harder to keep his feelings to himself.
Caylie pulled away, dancing her way further into the vast underground lobby of her home and leaving behind her a trail of high heels, beaded bag, and furry stole. Those would stay there until a maid would return everything to her room in the morning. She was, without a doubt, utterly spoiled. They both knew it, and they both didn’t care. If it were up to him, Luka would spoil his bauble forever.
Caylie turned to him, every exposed inch of her beckoning him to touch. She smiled at him coyly. “Admit it—all those Brethren bores envied you because you had me as a date, right?”
He rolled his eyes. Caylie was also utterly vain—in a fucking cute way, but he did his very best to curb it from time to time, knowing if he didn’t no one else would.
She pouted. “You don’t agree?”
He said levelly instead, “It’s getting late. I better get home. Remember to wake up for school early tomorrow. You promised you won’t miss your class if I let you come with me tonight.”
Caylie was the one rolling her eyes this time. “Oh, no, serious Luka is back!” Still pouting, she walked slowly towards him, and Luka knew the seductive sway of her hips was deliberate. For a moment, he savored the thought of what Caylie would be once she turned eighteen and reached the flush of womanhood for Caro females. Even at almost-sixteen, with her birthday just weeks away, Caylie was already exquisitely alluring, with her sultry curls, sparkling blue eyes, and then there was her model’s body—all silken limbs and slim curves.
Two years from now, she would be magnificently irresistible.
Before Luka knew it, Caylie stood just a kiss away from him, and the mischief in her eyes made his narrow.
“No, Caylie, don’t—”
But it was too late for Caylie was again tiptoeing, her lips touching his, her tongue playfully nipping in, waiting for him to take possession.
For all the incredible strength, stamina, and mental acuity that Caros had, theirs was still a flawed race. They were slaves to pleasure, and every Caro had one great weakness to hide.
Caylie’s weakness was beauty, and she constantly cooed to him that he was the most beautiful thing she ever wanted to possess, and she’d never let Luka go because of it.
Although being called ‘pretty’ to his face made Luka grimace, he knew he would take whatever he could get if it meant Caylie would be with him forever.
The one chink in his armor was simple, a flaw that no one would guess from someone like him, renowned more for his intellect than anything else. Luka had a weakness for the flesh, and Caylie was the only one who knew it, indulged it, and toyed with it.
“Caylie…” Luka tried to keep all his senses intact even though the sinuous movements of Caylie’s body was already tempting him to forget everything and just give in to the demands of his own body.
“Come on,” Caylie whispered, biting his lip as her hands pressed hard against his chest. “I know you want—” She gasped as Luka’s arms went around her, followed by her triumphant laugh, yet its sound only served to tempt him more.
“Keep quiet,” Luka hissed even as his lips moved down her throat. “I don’t want to wake your parents up.”
He managed to keep himself from groaning when Caylie just arched her neck, stretching in his arms like a sensual kitten begging to be played with.
“I love your kisses,” she said huskily, and Luka knew she was deliberately disobeying him because she knew she could get away with it.
Warning bells rang in his mind.
Caylie liked to play, especially when it meant teasing him, but only up to a limit, never failing to pull away just when Luka’s obsession with her was making him forget that there were lines he could never cross.
Luka pulled away, looking down at Caylie more closely. And after a while, it hit him.
She was not just tipsy. She was completely, irretrievably, fucking drunk.
Since normal liquor could never intoxicate a Caro, her blood cocktail had probably been laced with something else, maybe an outlawed ingredient like poisoned steel?
“Luka.” She said it in such a throaty voice his body couldn’t help reacting, his brain in danger of shutting down at the sensual promise hidden in that voice.
Shit. This was bad. Caylie drunk was something Luka didn’t ever want to encounter. It would likely make her wilder than ever. “Caylie—”
A naughty smile on her lips, Caylie suddenly wriggled out of her dress until she was standing only in her black racy—wait, he meant lacy—underwear and heels. Her eyes narrowed like a school mistress and she crooked her finger at him, furious and flirtatious at the same time. “Come!”
Luka was on her in a second.
When she laughed out loud again, this time he didn’t mind, didn’t care—all he wanted was to take her, his beautiful, wild, sweet bauble. His lips took hers roughly, forgetting completely about being methodical and polite, the way everyone knew him to be.
“Yes,” she breathed, and Luka’s blood burned as her lips parted under his.
His tongue went in, seeking to plunder her mouth, and his body heated up as she moaned against his lips, the sweet sound making him harden even more.
Something was not right…but right now, he didn’t care.
Luka’s hands curved around her waist, but this time it was not enough. Slowly, he let his hands glide up until he could cup her completely. The weight of her made his fingers tighten around her flesh, and Luka was rewarded with another moan.
God, he had dreamt of this for so long—to have Caylie willing in his arms, to be in love with him as he was with her—
The thought arrested Luka.
Who the fuck was he kidding?
Caylie was not in love with him, never was, and maybe never would be.
With a snarl, Luka sprang away from Caylie, turning his back on her as his fangs extended at the force of his hunger.
Caylie only looked at him in blank confusion. “What’s wrong?”
His blood reached boiling point, drugging his mind, and urging his body to forget about everything that was right. Take her. Own her. Bite her.
When Luka faced her, his eyes had darkened past crimson, the uncontrollable desire raging inside his body taking him to the brink of forgetting all rational thought.
Kill her so she won’t ever be anyone else’s.
Luka took a step towards Caylie, the roaring of his blood impossible to ignore.
She smiled at him, utterly unaware of what he was planning to do, of what he couldn’t help but do.
And then…
She burped.
Her eyes widened. “Oh my—” She let out another giant-sized burp, the sound loud enough to reverberate around the foyer. It was so unlike Caylie, who was the epitome of elegance—and how could she not be when Luka himself had practically shaped her to be his ideal woman?
When her third burp came out, Luka could no longer keep his lips from slightly twitching even though he still sported a raging hard on that only a knife to his cock could relieve and his mind was still a confusing mess of murderously violent urges.
The continuous burping from an increasingly embarrassed Caylie slowly cleared the red haze in his mind. Just as slowly, Luka became aghast as he realized what his dangerously possessive instincts had been urging him to do.
He stumbled back, his face expressionless even as shock coursed through him.
Even drunk and plagued with burps, Caylie sensed his inner turmoil, her eyes seeking his. “Luka, what’s wrong?”
He couldn’t speak. It was true. The words were all he could think about. The legends were real. Like most young Caros, Luka had thought the stories of the twins were made up, concocted by the elders to keep them from doing something as shamefully gauche as falling in love.
But now he knew.
It was true.
He had almost killed Caylie.
Caylie was blinking furiously at him, and Luka knew she was doing her best to stay awake even though the toxic substance in her system was already lulling her to sleep. “Luka, tell me—” Burp. Frustration made her blue eyes brighten. “I don’t know why I’m—” Burp. Caylie let out a wail. “I can smell my breath and it’s awful!”
Even though he felt like there was a noose suddenly tightening around his neck, Luka couldn’t help but smile. Even this far, his heightened senses allowed the scent of Caylie’s breath to waft through the air and reach him. And it did smell awful.
She covered her mouth. “You can smell it, don’t you?” She mumbled the words against her palm.
A painful twinge pinched his heart even as his smile widened. Only Caylie could make him feel like this. “It doesn’t—”
Caylie groaned. “That’s your polite tone. You can smell it and you’re even trying not to wrinkle your nose!” Burp. Groan. Burp. Groan. “What’s happening to me?” Caylie wailed.
“You’re drunk on poisoned steel,” he murmured dryly.
She gasped in outrage. “Someone—” Burp. “—drugged—” Burpburp. “Me?”
Luka did not know if he wanted to laugh or groan, maybe a little of both. Caylie burping was hilarious, but the smell was indeed goddamn awful and only his impeccable manners kept him from pinching his nose.
“Didn’t I tell you not to accept drinks from strangers?” he asked unsympathetically. Poisoned steel had a mysterious effect on Caro blood, causing them to either lose consciousness…or—in Caylie’s case—suffer good old intoxication with a touch of digestive disorder.
“This is so humiliating,” she muttered. She tried to glare at him, as if blaming Luka for what happened even while continuing to fight off her drowsiness.
Luka didn’t bother saying anything as he bent down to pick her dress up from the floor, knowing Caylie wouldn’t remember a word she’d said the next morning. She wouldn’t even remember how he had almost taken advantage of her, as well as almost murdered her in the process.
Luka straightened up. He gazed bleakly at Caylie, knowing it could be the last time he’d have the luxury of gazing at her almost-naked body.
The immortal words of his kind blazed into his mind with painful clarity.
Let the blood flow, the flesh burn, but never let the heart decide.
He was only half-Caro and yet the torture of withholding himself was already beyond imaginable.
Caylie caught him staring mid-yawn. “What?” Her voice had become slurry.
“Come on,” he said gruffly, pulling her close so he could help her dress.
“Luka?” Caylie mumbled insistently. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he said shortly. “Arms up.”
She scowled even as she obeyed, always letting him help her, just as a bauble expected to be cherished by its owner or a beloved pet who had charmed its master to being its slave. That had always been their roles to each other, ever since he had started playing babysitter to her at age four. Most of the time, Luka had been content with the status quo. Even after the first explosive kiss they had shared, Luka had thought he would be strong enough to be with her, to wait for Caylie until she grew up and realized she was in love with him, too.
But now he knew he was wrong.
It was
true.
This murderous feeling would only grow worse for as long as his love remained unrequited.
“I’m sleepy.” Again, she said it accusingly as if it was Luka’s fault.
Luka didn’t bother answering as he finished pulling her dress back down to its not-that-respectable length. This wasn’t a dress, really. It was just a fucking piece of cloth masquerading as one, and with not enough fabric to cover her ass.
“Luka?”
