The rest of the week falls into an increasingly familiar pattern. I wake up, wander down to the newly shiny kitchen for a meal and coffee, and then explore the house. At some point Malachi shows up and drags me to spar and train. When I’m shaking with fatigue, he bites me. I always orgasm. I always bite him back.
But he doesn’t kiss me or offer to kiss it better again.
Even as I tell myself to be grateful, my irritability rises with each passing day. I want him and I don’t want to want him, and it was easier to live in my head when I told myself I didn’t have a choice. Malachi is effectively undermining that narrative, and I’m not in the mood to be grateful. More, I’m mad at myself. I shouldn’t want this. I shouldn’t want him. Desiring Malachi is just playing into my father’s plans, which is the last thing I want.
I’m so distracted by my tumultuous thoughts, I don’t realize I’m not alone in the library for a moment too long. I catch sight of the blond vampire and jump off the couch I was sitting on, but I barely make it a step before he’s on me. He digs his fingers into my hair and shoves me back onto the couch, following me down. He gets a knee between my thighs and grins at me. “What a delicious little thing you are.”
Fear clamors in my throat, but I refuse to show it to this stranger. “I don’t know who you are, but you have five seconds to get off me or I’m going to cut your fucking head off.”
“So vicious.” He says it slowly, like he’s savoring it. “I like it.”
In the flickering light of the fire, his features seem exaggerated. High cheekbones. Hollow cheeks. Freakishly pale eyes which still seem encased in shadows. His blond hair is cut into a short mohawk, and though he’s smaller than Malachi, he’s still stronger than me.
I am so fucking tired of everyone else being stronger than me.
“Who the hell are you?”
His grin is a little deranged, flashing fang. “You can call me Wolf.”
Wolf. The name tingles a memory, but I can’t quite grasp it. Not when I’m in immediate danger of getting my throat ripped out. He’s not one of my father’s, though. I know that much. Which means he’s a wildcard and I can’t anticipate what the hell he’s going to do.
Except bite me.
That’s all but guaranteed with the way he’s watching my pulse thrum beneath my skin. “Malachi will kill you.”
“Nah.” He laughs. “We’re old friends.” Wolf raises his voice. “Aren’t we, Malachi?”
“Wolf.” I didn’t see Malachi enter the room, but then I’ve been more than a little distracted. I turn my head as much as I’m able and find him standing a few feet away, his hands casually tucked into his pockets as if he’s not witnessing a trespasser pinning me to the couch. “It’s been a long time.”
“Your choice. Not mine.” He transfers my wrists to one hand and turns to keep Malachi in his line of vision. “Imagine my surprise to find you’re accepting sacrifices from that jackal Cornelius again. Tsk, tsk, Malachi. No one likes a hypocrite.”
“Extenuating circumstances.” His gaze flicks to me. “You have something of mine.”
Wolf laughs again. The sound is downright sinful. It sounds like good chocolate tastes, decadent and a little bittersweet. “You’ve been alone too long, my friend. You’ve gotten greedy and forgotten how to be a good host.” He licks his lips. “I’m positively parched.”
Malachi hesitates for a long moment, and a traitorous hope whispers to life in my chest. Surely he won’t let this stranger bite me. Surely he can see how much I am not onboard with this idea. Surely…
“Help yourself.” He drops into the chair across from us. “Biting only.”
Wolf looks back at me, and the cruelty in his pale eyes matched only by the amusement lingering there. “Did you think he’d step in? Poor thing, you’ve really done a number on her, Malachi.”
“Wolf.” The warning in Malachi’s tone seems not to register.
Wolf runs a single finger down my neck. His eyes flick to mine, and his grin softens the tiniest bit. “Don’t worry, love. It’ll feel good.”
Which means he’s a bloodline vampire, too. I don’t care. “A chemical reaction. That doesn’t mean a single damn thing. I don’t want it.”
He contemplates me, pointedly ignoring the way Malachi tenses in the chair at the edge of our vision. He inhales and goes still. “Ah. Not a human at all, are you? Dhampir.” He settles down on top of me, using his body to keep me in place. He smells faintly spicy, like cloves and cinnamon or something similar. I hate that I don’t hate it.
Wolf nuzzles my throat, and then his voice is in my ear, so low I can barely hear him. “Look how quickly he gave you away. Doesn’t that make you angry? Do you see how still he sits? He doesn’t want me to bite you, and yet he’s not going to stop me. How does that make you feel?”
“Angry,” I bite out.
“Thought so.” His breath ghosts against the shell of my ear. “I’ll do what he didn’t. I’ll ask permission. Let me bite you.” He chuckles, low and decadent. “It’ll piss him off something fierce.”
He’s trying to manipulate me, but even knowing that, it’s working. I am furious at Malachi. Furious at myself for looking to him to be my savior when every other experience I’ve had with a vampire proves they can’t be trusted. I forgot, and the sting of that knowledge is what prompts me to do something I never would have otherwise. “Do it.”
“Wicked girl.” He doesn’t give me a chance to brace. He strikes, sinking his fangs into my throat. Instantly, pleasure pulses through me, heady and intense. Wolf’s grip on my wrists keeps me from reaching for him, which is just as well. It doesn’t stop me from arching against him and moaning. I’m angry enough that I don’t try to fight it.
Malachi wants to give me to this vampire like a host offering a selection of wine? Well, he can damn well watch it happen.
I expect Wolf to pull something shady, but even as his cock hardens against me, he keeps his hands exactly where they started; one around my wrists and another braced next to my hip. The only move he makes is to stroke his thumb along the exposed skin at my side where my shirt has slid up during my struggle. It feels like he’s touching me somewhere else. Or maybe that’s the bite doing all the work for him, each pull as if he has his mouth all over my pussy.
I moan again. Distantly, I hear something crack, but I’m too invested in Wolf’s bite to try to look. He presses a little more firmly between my thighs. Not quite a stroke, but it doesn’t matter because it’s enough to send me hurtling into orgasm. I come hard, panting out each breath. Distantly, I’m aware of him slipping his fangs from me, and a little zing at my neck I can’t identify. Then his tongue is there, cleaning the last of my blood from my skin.
Finally, a small eternity later, he releases me and sits up, flopping back against the other arm of the couch with a groan. “Malachi, you’ve been keeping secrets.”
I turn my head, wondering at the lack of pain from the motion, and see that Malachi has completely demolished the arms of the chair where he’s sitting. It looks like he exploded them; there’s little more than kindling on the floor.
Petty satisfaction buoys me. There weren’t good options in this scenario, but I chose this and I hope he fucking choked on the sight of Wolf on top of me. I ease up and lean against the other arm of the couch. My head is a little fuzzy from blood loss, but when I lift my hand to my neck, there are no wounds.
Wolf gives me a grin that’s, well, wolfish. “You look surprised, love. Doesn’t Malachi close the bite marks with his blood when he tastes you?”
“No.” He lets me drink from him, which accelerates my healing. But I’m not in the mood to talk about this. I start to climb to my feet. “You are both assholes.”
“Stay.” The amusement disappears from Wolf’s voice. “We have something to discuss and it involves you.”
Even as I curse myself, I look at Malachi. He nods the tiniest amount. Not a command, but a request. It doesn’t change the fact I’m pissed at him, but I relax back against the couch and pull my knees up. Wolf is still too close, and his spicy scent is all over me. It makes me want to simultaneously purr and scream, and I don’t understand why I can smell him so intensely. He’s not wearing any scent. There are no artificial tones in there that would signify perfume. But my nose has never been this sensitive before.
Wolf props his feet on the coffee table. I belatedly notice he’s wearing a strange outfit. Fitted pants tucked into bulky black boots I suspect are steel-toed. A graphic T-shirt and a jacket that has a gothic feel to it complete the picture. He catches me looking and winks at me before turning his attention to Malachi. “You know the reason he sent her here instead of another one of those hapless humans is because he wants your bloodline.”
Malachi doesn’t move. “I’m aware.”
“The second you knock her up, Cornelius is going to come collect his daughter, and then he’ll have your child under his control—and as leverage.”
It’s exactly what my father has planned, but I can’t help looking at Wolf more closely. He’s given the impression of a vampire who’s been around long enough to lose some of his sanity. Now he’s lost the deranged tone and sounds nearly as serious as Malachi does normally. He taps his fingers on the arm of the couch. “You need to break the ward.”
The ward?
What’s he talking about?
I look at Malachi, but he’s acting like I’m not in the room. He leans back against his chair as if the demolished remains of its arms aren’t littering the floor at his feet. “Careful there, Wolf. One might start to think you care.”
“That bastard having access to more bloodlines is bad news for all of us. His success with you has made him bold. He’s hunting some of the others.”
“You mean he’s hunting you.”
He gives a blood-tinged smile. “He’s trying. Unlike some, I haven’t let honor get in the way of power.”
I sit perfectly still, my mind racing to catch up and fill in the blanks. Some of it is easy enough. My father is responsible for Malachi being unable to leave. I’d wondered at that, but not as hard as I should have. Vampires are eccentric creatures under the best of circumstances. It seemed entirely within the realm of possibility that Malachi was more than happy to stay in this house and have his meals delivered to him. Yes, there was some starving in the intervening years, but it seems strangely logical to suffer that than try to step out into human society with all the technological upgrades they’ve made in the last generation. I suspect that’s the main reason humans have driven vampires back, knowing about their existence or not.
Humans adapt and evolve. Constantly.
Vampires don’t. Oh, they’re capable of it, but it’s harder for them because their very nature is as entrenched as their immortality. Or maybe all immortals face the same challenges of being unable to evolve. I don’t know.
What Wolf is saying, though, contradicts my assumption. It sounds like my father trapped Malachi here with more than vampire guards to ensure he could take control of his bloodline. That he plans to do the same to the other bloodlines in danger of dying out.
Which means Malachi’s as trapped as I am.
Surely not. Surely I’m misreading the situation. “If there’s a ward, why not just burn your way out.”
Wolf’s the one who answers. “That’s not how wards work, especially not the ones your father uses.” He says father like it’s a curse. “He used a blood ward, and it would take a human sacrifice or a being more powerful than a vampire to break it.”
Human sacrifice. Being more powerful than a vampire.
My mind is spinning, or maybe it’s the room. I’m not certain. I’m not certain of anything anymore. “You killed the last woman he sent. Why not use her death to free yourself?”
Malachi makes a move that’s almost a flinch. “I didn’t kill her. She killed herself.”
“What?”
Wolf stretches and yawns. “Blood wards won’t hold me, which is the only reason that bastard hasn’t managed to trap me yet.”
If blood wards don’t hold him, that means…
I thought I was afraid before. I really did. Now, I can barely breathe past the terror clogging my throat. Even if I was never officially taught about the bloodlines and which power goes with which, or the members of the families still alive, I was taught this.
Seven bloodlines. Seven powers. The elementals; earth, air, water, fire. They’re dangerous, can turn the very world around a person against them. But the other three? Body, blood, spirit. My father is the latter, and I’ve seen what he can do with glamour and illusion when he’s angry. I’ve felt it, had my deepest, darkest fears dragged forth and shoved in my face. Had my very mind turned against me. If he can do that kind of damage with only the mind, what more can Wolf do with the blood?
I’m trapped in this house with two deadly predators, and right now they’re both looking at me like I’m a tasty snack.
