Page 28 of Blood Sacrifice

I crept out of the room and to the bathroom down the hall. Once again I was dressed in a large T-shirt that came half way down my thighs. My panties were gone and I swear my lady bits still felt sensitive. Dried cum coated my thighs and ass, telling me which parts of last night were real. We may not have had full sex, but we’d done everything except that, including me rubbing myself on his cock until Salvator came all over my ass and thighs.

“What the hell am I doing?” I asked myself in a hushed whisper.

The woman in the mirror had lips still swollen from too many deep and penetrating kisses, her eyes were bright and there was colour in her cheeks. I stared at myself, waiting for the shame to arrive, but it didn’t. All I wanted to do was climb back into that bed and finish what we started last night. He was the only man I had shared my body with, and he had reawakened the sensual side of me that I had ignored.

After I cleaned myself up as best possible, I wandered down to the kitchen to make some breakfast, hunting through the cupboards and fridge in search of food. There were limited options, but I discovered he kept a well-stocked freezer in this apartment since he didn’t seem to use it often.

I was in the process of defrosting items when Salvator padded in wearing just his black underwear. Our rendezvouses in the past had been in the dark, some of them quick and passion-filled with both of us clothed throughout. I only got to see his body under moonlight, but he stood in front of me now, in nothing more than tight black trunks that did little to hide what he possessed.

His muscles moved as he trailed his fingers through his hair, yawning and stretching like a lithe predator limbering up to stalk its prey.

“Morning,” Salvator said, opening a cupboard I hadn’t investigated yet, and lifting out coffee that he proceeded to add to the sleek, black machine in the corner. He turned to face me when I didn’t reply. “You okay?”

I held the fabric of his T-shirt out. “I seem to be wearing your clothes,” I said.

“Yeah, you fell asleep on the sofa.” He continued to move around the kitchen, distracted in his search for food.

“I was wearing my clothes at the time I fell asleep,” I pointed out.

He had been bent over in a cupboard, and glanced up at me for a moment. “They didn’t look comfortable,” he replied. “I don’t like being restrained by clothing when I sleep.”

I released my breath slowly before I strangled him. “My panties do not restrict me when sleeping.”

He stuck a chocolate bar in his mouth as he straightened, biting into it, and ripping off almost half in one bite. “I didn’t take your panties off, Luna.” His eyebrows rose but he didn’t comment further.

I needed to find a separate bed to him because I obviously couldn’t behave when my inhibitions lowered in sleep.

Instead of continuing the conversation, I moved around the kitchen to create a meal out of what I had found in the freezer, trying to avoid the piercing intensity of his eyes. For four hundred years, I had imagined what life would be like with Salvator in it, and now that he had reappeared, I was confused and shy.

“Where do you live now?” Salvator asked, settling himself at the breakfast bar.

“I have various homes around the world,” I replied, pouring coffee and adding lots of sugar to his since I saw him making it yesterday. “But I mostly stay in Ireland.”

“Is it not cold?” His head canted to the side and stared at me as if he could see into my very soul. “And wet?”

I laughed, and for the first time in days, my reaction felt natural. “Very wet,” I replied. “It’s green for a reason. The trees are well watered by nature.”

He wrinkled his nose at the thought of getting wet, and sipped his coffee.

“The internet revolutionised the Chimaera Foundation,” I continued. “We no longer had to meet to convene a coven and share information, and the era of the lone witch evolved.”

“Lycans are still pack animals,” Salvator muttered, taking a longer drink from his hot coffee.

“We have vampires and lycans in our worldwide coven,” I replied. “And other shapeshifters. We’re basically there to help anyone who finds themselves lost in the ever-increasing human world.”

His dark gaze rose to mine and all my words evaporated with the heat that burned in his eyes. “And yet my pack has never heard of this worldwide coven?”

“It wouldn’t be a secret coven if everyone knew about it,” I commented, and lifted my coffee to take a sip, wincing at the bitter flavour. “We rarely enter the Americas unless we need to evacuate someone, as it is well known the packs have carved up this land and guard it fiercely.”

“And yet, here you are,” Salvator said.

I set my mug down and opened the oven to lift out the bread I had put in earlier. “This is still my home. I make a pilgrimage here every so often to pay respect to my parents and siblings.” I paused. “I returned a few years ago for the archaeological digs since I had been there when those souls were sacrificed for the ambitions of greedy men.”

He sat back on his stool. “I was meant to be there, but was called away because one of our wolves had gone missing. I joined the second wave of digs.”

Fate had been toying with both of us, teasing us with the possibility of finding one another. I placed a plate in front of Salvator, retreating to my own side of the breakfast bar to nibble at the crispy bread.

“I’ll check my computer and then we’ll head out,” Salvator said. “Someone doesn’t want anyone to know they murdered usyesterday. That house wasn’t in my name and had nothing to connect me to it. They had to have known you were with me.”

---