Wolf kicks out his heels and grabs Malachi’s shoulder when it looks like the larger man is about to speak. “We know you don’t like leaving the pretty little dhampir alone, but she won’t be alone. She’ll be with me.”
“That’s not the comfort you think it is.”
Wolf laughs. “We both know I’m capable of keeping her among the living. If I’m so inclined.”
“My last statement stands.” Malachi sighs. “But if you lay down a blood ward, I’ll consider myself comforted.”
Alarm blares through me. “No. Not another blood ward.” Not when one of those spells was responsible for keeping Malachi trapped in that rotting house for far too long.
“Don’t worry, love. I don’t know which one of my worthless cousins was greedy enough to be bribed by your father, but wards are capable of more than just containing. We can keep the enemy out with them.” He makes a face. “They’re not exactly fun to put in place, though, and feeding from you so soon after Rylan fucked things up is out of the question.”
Rylan startles. “That’s not—”
“Take the blood from me.” Malachi’s already turning for the door. “The faster we move on this, the better.”
“You’re no fun, old friend.” Wolf hops off the counter. “But you know what would make it more fun?”
Malachi’s sigh is fond. “We don’t have time for that.”
“There’s always time for that.”
I listen to them bicker as they move deeper into the house. Judging from the quick look I got at the layout when Malachi whisked me inside, they’re heading for the living room. It’s fully enclosed, without a single window, so the easiest to fortify. I hold out a hand when Rylan starts to follow them. “They’ve got this.”
“You don’t give me orders.”
I bite back a sigh. “No, I don’t give you orders. But they’re about to fuck, and unless you’re going to pull that stick out your ass and join in, you stalking after them is going to be distracting.”
Again, that tiny startle. He seems to give me his full attention. “It doesn’t bother you that they’re intimate when you’re not around.”
“Why would it? Their relationship predates me.” I pause. “So does yours.”
“Ancient history.” But the way he glances at the doorway gives lie to his words. I don’t know what happened with Malachi and Rylan. I haven’t asked, and neither of them has offered. Malachi and Wolf make more sense in my head. Theirs is a friendship that often includes sex, and they hold each other lightly in a way that suggests they aren’t heartbroken by the years they’ve spent apart. As if they’ve come together and parted over and over again through their lives. I don’t have confirmation, of course, but it’s there in the way they interact.
Rylan is different.
Wolf doesn’t seem to see me as a threat. I’m just another plaything for his amusement and pleasure when he’s around. Rylan looks at me as if I stole his only love.
Maybe I did.
“Rylan—”
“No.” He shakes his head. “Gods, you’re practically beaming your emotions into my brain. Stop it. I don’t want or need your pity.”
I close my eyes and try to shove the feeling away, grasping for something else to feel instead. Anger lingers just below the surface, just like it always does. I grab it with both hands and wrap it around me like a comforting blanket. When I open my eyes, he’s lost that nearly feral look. “Better?”
“Barely.”
I glare. “I didn’t know I was projecting my emotions. Malachi only just told me before we had to run.”
He shrugs, turning for the door. “It’s simply another burden to bear.”
That’s about enough of that. I grab Rylan’s arm. He’s too strong to move, so when I yank, I end up pulling myself forward instead of him back. He jerks away from me, but I’m not in the mood to let this conversation remain unfinished. I stalk him across the kitchen, barely aware that he’s retreating until I have him pressed against the counter.
Only then do I realize what I was doing.
I jerk back. “Sorry.”
Rylan catches my elbows, stopping me from backing up. “You want to be a predator? Stop second-guessing yourself.”
I yank, but he’s holding me too firmly. “I don’t want to be a predator.” I pull back again. Fail again. “Not with you three.”
“I don’t fucking understand you.” He says it so softly, I almost miss the words.
Just like that, my anger flares hot enough to scald. “Oh, because I’m not playing the part of the monster the way you want? Because I’m just as in over my head as the rest of you? Which part, Rylan? Please enlighten me so we can get past this bullshit.”
“There’s no getting past some things.”
We’re so close, we’re sharing the same air. I hate that I want nothing more than to press my body against his, to claim his mouth so I can swallow down his poisonous words, can take every part of him into me until we’re both a shaking mess.
I want to blame the bond for this. Surely I’m not so twisted as to desire a man that clearly hates me. Unfortunately, the truth is significantly less convenient. The bond is present, of course, but it’s not pulling at me the same way it did last night. I am firmly in control. Which means I have no one to blame but myself.
“Let go,” I say softly. “We might not be able to control the fact that the bond requires us to drink and fuck each other, but if you really hate me as much as you say, then let me go right fucking now.”
Rylan’s grip spasms on my elbows. For a moment, his cold expression flickers and I get a glimpse of the feral creature within, the one more in line with the animals he can shift into than the smoothly cultured vampire he normally presents to the world. “I don’t hate you.”
“Could have fooled me.”
He still doesn’t release me. “Malachi and Wolf are too young to remember what your people did to ours, but I’m not. It’s not something I can release simply because you’re not acting like they did.”
I know this. Of course I know this. He might not have said as much in so many words up to this point, but his hatred goes far too deep to be directed at me personally. I don’t blame him for it. That doesn’t mean I’m going to roll over for him, either. “I can’t change what I am. I don’t know if I can change what happened, but I’m trying.”
He searches my face. “If Wolf can do what he says, the demon will demand a high cost.”
“I’m aware.”
Rylan shakes his head slowly. “I…” He takes a slow breath. “I don’t want to see you hurt, Mina. I hate this bond, but that doesn’t mean I want you dead.”
“I know.” And I do. If he wanted me dead, he wouldn’t have been so panicked when he took too much blood. That strange, soft moment in the shower wouldn’t have occurred.
Knowing that doesn’t excuse his shitty attitude, though. “Let me go, Rylan.”
Finally, he releases me. When I don’t immediately step back, his lips curl into something that’s almost a smile. “If you’re not opposed to the idea, I think it’d be wise to ensure the bond doesn’t get to the point of desperation again.”
“So formal.” I tilt my head to the side. “You’re saying you want to have sex again.”
“Yes.” The word is almost a sigh.
“Okay.”
Rylan blinks. “Okay?”
“Yeah. Okay.” I force myself to take a step back, and then another. “You irritate the hell out of me, and I kind of want to smack you on a regular basis, but I like fucking you, Rylan.” Now it’s my turn to hesitate. “However, I understand if you don’t want to throw your hat into the ring, so to speak. If you want to keep things to anal or oral to avoid the risk of pregnancy, that’s okay, too.”
Another of those slow blinks. “I don’t understand you.”
“You don’t have to understand me.” Part of me kind of wants him to, though. I wave a hand at my body. “No matter what else is true about this bond, babies change things. I’m not going to force you.”
He takes a step toward me, and some lingering prey instinct has me backing up. Rylan stalks me across the kitchen, his eyes bleeding silver, his movements going nearly feline. A bolt of heat goes through me when I remember his claws sinking into my skin. I liked that. I liked it a lot. “Rylan.”
“You might be pregnant already.” He pins me to the counter, the mirror image to what I just did to him. Except he doesn’t preserve that last little bit of distance between us. His hips meet mine, and there’s no ignoring his hard cock. “It will be weeks before we know.”
“Honestly, with the timeline, it’s likely to be less than a week.” I had my period right after we went on the run, and I tend to be regular.
He leans down and drags his nose over my throat. Directly against the spot he bit me last night. “No reason to deny myself then. Not until we know.”
My hands find his chest, but I’m not sure if I’m trying to push him back or pull him closer. “That’s faulty logic,” I manage.
“I can live with it.” He leans back a little. “Can you?”
I shouldn’t. No matter how much I desire this vampire, the fact remains that he’s got a boatload of baggage when it comes to the seraphim. He didn’t choose this bond, and he resents it more than the other two combined. Throwing a child into the mix is a recipe for disaster.
And yet.
And yet I can’t stop myself from sliding my hands down his stomach to the front of his slacks. “We shouldn’t.”
His hands brush my hips and then my shorts and panties fall down my legs in ragged tatters. I jolt and then whimper at the sight of his claws. “Why didn’t your claws come out that first time?”
“I didn’t lose control then.”
My hands shake as I undo his slacks and pull out his cock. “Why are you losing control, Rylan?” I can’t tell if I’m trying to taunt him or legitimately asking the question.
“You make me crazed.” He digs his hands into my hair and then his mouth is on mine. It’s no less vicious a kiss than it was last time, with the bond riding us so hard. The knowledge thrills me even as I got up onto my tiptoes to press closer to him. Knowing that this untamed version of Rylan lurks beneath his icy exterior drives me wild.
He hooks my thighs, his claws dragging across my skin, and lifts me onto the counter. “Can’t bite you,” he mutters. I barely have time to brace before he goes to his knees and covers my pussy with his mouth. He’s just as unrestrained in this as he was in the kiss. I slam back against cabinets with a moan.
Rylan spears my pussy with his tongue and I freeze at the feeling of it…growing. I stare down at him. “Rylan,” I moan.
He fucks me with his tongue, a wicked look in his silver eyes. He knows exactly what he’s doing to me, and he’s getting off on it nearly as hard as I am. The sheer wickedness of knowing that he’s shifting parts of his body while inside me has me sinking my hands into his hair as best I can and lifting my hips to fuck his tongue. “Please.”
He moves up to my clit, working me in expert strokes. My toes curl and heat licks through me. I’m dancing on the edge of a truly spectacular orgasm when he shoves to his feet and presses his cock to my entrance. I can’t be sure, but I think he might be bigger than last time. His claws dig into the counter as he wedges himself into me in short strokes.
“More.” I grab his wrists and he lets me pry his hands off the counter and put them on my hips. “I like your marks on me.”
Rylan freezes. A shudder works its way through his body and, when he speaks, he sounds like an entirely different person. “Fuck.”
He jerks me forward, impaling me on his cock, and then his arms are around me. Pain sparks on my ass and a twin prick on the back of my neck. He’s holding me entirely off the counter as he drives into me. Deeper and deeper, until it’s almost too much and yet not enough.
My earlier near-orgasm roars up and sweeps me under. I cling to him as I come, loving the pain as much as I love the pleasure. He thrusts into me almost brutally, only his hold on the back of my neck keeping my head from bashing against the cabinets. “More.”
“Take it,” I gasp.
And then he’s kissing me, claiming my mouth with his tongue the same way his cock is claiming my pussy. He growls against my lips. It’s the only warning I get before he orgasms, pumping me full of his come. I swear I can actually feel it inside me, but it must be my imagination.
Rylan nips my bottom lip and shifts to the side to drag his tongue up the side of my neck. Licking the blood from my skin. There’s a tiny spark and I know he’s healing me with his nicked tongue. I shiver. The urge rises to say something, but I don’t know what words to bring forth that won’t send us hurtling back into icy anger.
I hold perfectly still as he leans back. He looks down our bodies and watches his cock ease out of me, his expression strange. “Let’s get you some clothes.”
So we’re just…not going to talk about it?
Works for me.
“I didn’t have a chance to bring anything.” I hop off the counter, and my legs go a little funny.
“I know.” He grabs my elbow. Rylan doesn’t sweep me into his arms the way Malachi would in this situation. He doesn’t make any sly comments like Wolf would. He simply waits for me to find my legs and releases me.
I follow him in the opposite direction Malachi and Wolf went, to the back of the house where the bedrooms apparently are. Rylan pulls out a dress from one of the closets and passes it to me. It’s not necessarily something I would have chosen for myself—a floral sundress that reminds me entirely too much of the one I wore that first night I walked into Malachi’s home, soaked to the bone and filled to the brim with rage and fear. So much has changed since then, and yet so little at the same time. It’s not a comfortable realization.
I waste no time pulling off my shirt and tugging the sundress on. It fits perfectly, which just goes further to confirm my suspicion that one of them has been going ahead of us and supplying these safe houses. Every one we’ve ended up in has clothing that at least mostly fits us as well as food for me.
It’s only when I’m buttoning up the front of it that I realize Rylan is still watching me. “What?”
“Nothing.” He doesn’t turn away, though. “I keep waiting for this attraction to wear off, but it only seems to be getting stronger. It’s damned inconvenient.”
I laugh. It’s the only proper response to that understatement of the century. I run my fingers through my hair. I don’t think he got any blood on it. “If it makes you feel better, I don’t like you most of the time, but I want you, too.”
“Strangely enough, it does.” He gives me one of those razor-thin smiles. “Let’s check on the others.”
I don’t have to check on them to know what they’re doing. Wolf never hesitates to bring sex into any given situation, and Malachi might pretend that he’s the controlled one, but it’s plain to anyone who spends time in their presence for ten seconds that he missed the other vampire. “They’re fucking by now.”
Rylan stops in the doorway. “I know.”
I should leave it alone, but I wouldn’t be me if I wasn’t pushing. “Both of them would be thrilled if you joined in.”
His shoulders drop the barest amount. “I know that, too.”
I don’t ask him why he’s holding out. We have enough to deal with without me meddling in affairs that started centuries before I was born. I can’t help wanting to smooth things over and give these three vampires what little happiness we can find in this world.
It’s not my place.
Apparently I am capable of restraint.
I motion to the door. “After you.”
