Page 131 of Cursed Lifeline

More, her thoughts call to mine as a needy moan falls from her lips.I need more.

Her hand falls back between her thighs and she greedily searches for another release. Quickly, I turn my back and walk away. If I watch her chase another orgasm in my name it’ll break what little restraint I have left. I’ll not only go to her, I won’t be able to restrain myself from fucking her senseless.

She’s home safe. I’ve done my duty for tonight. But to ensure no one else hears or sees how many times she plans on pleasuring herself to the thought of me, I evoke the shadows of night to slam her window shut, lock it, and keep the curtains pulled tight.

A giggle drifts from her mind to mine before she continues riding out her next high.

Blocking out her thoughts, I stride down the street from her apartment and am about to turn the corner to take me back to my club when a dark figure emerges from a back alley. Defenses up, I come to a halt as Viktor steps forward and says, “You have more restraint than most men.”

“I’ve had over two centuries to perfect it,” I respond, eyeing him curiously as he comes further into the light. “As a gentleman, I’ll ask you to forget what you heard.”

“I’m no gentleman,” he grins mischievously. I eye him angrily, and he smugly adds, “Does that also include what I saw?”

I take a heated step forward and he puts his hands up in surrender.

“Already forgotten,” he chuckles. Tossing him an angry glare, I continue to stride down the sidewalk. He matches my strides and says, “Tell me though, do you think you can control yourself if she keeps this up night after night? Or will your tedious stalking finally come to an end when you inevitably take what she’s been offering you for two damn centuries? As desperate as over two hundred years of edging have made both of you, you’d be smart to claim her virginity soon, before she falls into the hands of someone else that won’t be so kind when coveting such a desired treasure.”

“Virtue, as it never will be moved, though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven,” I grumble under my breath. When my brother says nothing, I hiss, “I intend to follow Esme for however long I need to. Especially with brutes like you lurking in the shadows. Evangeline may think you’re safe, but I’m not convinced.”

If Viktor did in fact take a blood oath as a means to finding the cure to the curse, he’d know why I’ve never followed through on giving into my needs. Doing so could take me one step closer to repeating the sins of our parents.And even if he’s foolish enough not to believe the curse, I’m not.

“My blood oath to Ember is as good as broken,” my brother shrugs. “Evangeline holds control now.”

Shaking my head, I say, “I’m not too sure you’ll ever get the chance to swear that oath if Alfred has anything to say about it.”

“Alfred has no authority over meorEvangeline.”

“But he does have authority over Esme as her watcher, and if what the princess says this time is true, she’s here with one mission in mind. To break the curse. Which means whoever holds jurisdiction over the slayer, also rules over Evangeline.”

“Well,” my brother laughs. “We’ll see how the council feels about hisauthoritynow that he’s been bitten by one of us.”

Over taken with the sudden need to set boundaries, I demand, “Stay away from Esme.”

“Or what?”

“Or I’ll make good on the threat to run a stake through your heart.”

Picking up my pace, I’m several heated strides down the street when he says, “Evangeline was right, you know. There is only one way to break the curse. You’ve had over a century to accept it, and…”

Turning back around, I snap, “Why would I trust anything that pixie or you say. Especially since you were close to the enemy for the last two hundred years.”

“That’s exactly why you should trust me,” my brother seethes. “I know the enemy better than anything you could try to learn if you spent five hundred more years chasing for the cure.”

A tense moment passes between us. Eventually, Viktor shoves his hands in his pockets and shrugs, “She’s destined to die anyways, Felix. Why not have it be by your hand. Especially if it works and stops all this damn madness.”

“And if it fails?”

“Then she’ll be one of us.”

“I will never chance turning her into one of us.”

Shaking his head, he takes a step forward and says, “Look at it this way: regardless of the outcome of her mortality, you’d finally have what you both always wanted.”

“What I want is to give her a life no one else can.”

“Exactly,” my brother exclaims. “You’d be doing the girl a favor. She’s miserable going round and round the same damn hamster wheel in each of her cursed lives.”

“What do you know about misery?” I scoff.

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