Page 47 of Pleasantly Undead in Dark River

Blood oozed between the stitches with every slow thud of his heart. I bit my wrist, tearing open a vein and holding it above his lips.

“It was close to severing the spinal cord. He’d lost so much blood by the time Lucius got him here that I thought it was too late.” I noticed Judge had his own ragged gash in his arm and was deathly pale. Walker moved toward him, severing his own wrist and holding it to Judge’s mouth. “Drink. We need your medical expertise.”

Judge was a field medic in the Civil War, so he knew how to handle battlefield wounds. He said he didn’t have X’s finesse, but I wouldn’t know because the only time any surgery had happened in Dark River, it had been X on the table.

My blood pooled and dribbled over his lips as he didn’t swallow. I could see his body trying to heal itself little by little, as Judge cauterized wounds and Nico stitched flesh back to flesh, muscle back to muscle. I wanted to throw up, but more than that, I needed X to swallow down some of my blood so he’d heal faster.

“Come on, you stubborn bastard. Drink,” I whispered in his ear. “Drink!” There was power in the word, and then he was wrapping his lips around the wound on my wrist, sucking in deep mouthfuls. Thank God. “That’s it,” I cooed softly. “I need you, so heal good because otherwise I’m going to nuke all my tea in the microwave forever. And drink it way too hot. And cry because you mean too fucking much to me to just die.” I whispered the words, but by the way Nico leaned down and kissed the top of my head, everyone heard.

Judge stood, and Nico did the last few stitches. “Hopefully that's enough,” Judge said, his mouth still smeared with Walker’s blood. Lucius walked to the fridge and took out half a dozen blood bags, passing me two and I downed them like a shotgunned Bud.

X’s eyes popped open, but there was none of the funny Brit in their dark depths. Just feral predator. Faster than I could follow, and too fast for a being that had been on the brink of death a moment ago, he had dragged me onto the operating table, pulled under his body and had his fangs in my neck, drinking straight from the carotid artery in my throat. Nico stepped forward to peel him off, and my eyes caught on Lucius. His face was set in a snarl, like he was prepared to tear X apart. I held out a hand, and it was still dripping blood onto the floor.

“Wait. Leave him,” I croaked out, the pressure in my throat insane. “He’ll come back. It’s okay.”

Lucius stepped forward and licked the blood from my wrist, healing the wound. When it was clean, he didn’t let it go though. I ran my other hand over X’s short hair, so soft against my palm. “X, you gotta come back to me now. You’ll feel like a right shit if you murder me,” I said in a terrible British accent and someone snorted. X didn’t stir, just continued gulping me down in huge mouthfuls. “Come on, Baby. Ease up now.”

Someone held another blood bag to my lips and I sucked it down. X clung to my body, holding me to his chest like a feral animal guarding its food. But his hips rocked against mine, and my body responded despite the fact that X was probably trying to kill me. And when his venom coursed through my body, I no longer cared if he exsanguinated me completely.

“Holy Queen’s balls,” I gasped as I curled my body into the rough material of his pants. “X, I need you to come back to me so I can fuck you properly, you pain in my fucking vagina!” I gasped as another orgasm washed over me.

His body was responding to mine, but he didn’t hear me. I could feel it in the hard way he held my body. I stuck my finger in my mouth, slobbering it up good, and then poked it in his ear, swirling it around good.

He reared back, looking down at me with horror. The cut around his throat was puckered and scary, the skin tightly held together with stitches, the ends poking out like tiny spider legs. It was gruesome, and made me want to cry. X blinked several times, orientating himself.

“Love? If anyone should be poking damp things repeatedly into any hole, it should be me.” He rasped, and leaned down, licking my face. It was then I realized I was crying. Just then, another orgasm rocked my body. A crying orgasm is not as fun as it sounds.

I grabbed X’s shoulders and pulled him down to me, holding him close as the adrenaline finally started to hit me, my hands shaking. “You’re okay. You’re okay.” I whispered it over and over again, and X grunted as he saw the mess he made of my neck. His tongue lapped at it repeatedly until the wound closed. “Sorry. That was a little rough, even for me.”

He sounded guilty, and I squeezed him tighter. “I would have taken more if it meant you didn’t die.”

He nipped my chin. “It sounds like you care, Love.”

I wrapped my arms around his chest and buried my face in his neck. “Of course I care. I love you, you giant asshole.”

X stilled, hell maybe the whole room stilled, but he pulled back and looked down on me, his face more serious than I’d ever seen it. “And I am the luckiest fucker in the world for it.”

He kissed me again, his hold on me no longer territorial, his hands gentle and searching. We were about to have sex right here, on an operating table coated in his blood. Walker cleared his throat.

“If you’re good, I’m going to see what I can find out about X’s attacker before the trail runs cold.”

Judge murmured something into X’s ear even as he kissed me, and I thought for a moment that X would drag him into this crazy near death sex fest we were going to have. But Judge just ran a hand across my hair, and Nico leaned down and kissed my head. X worked his way down my jaw, unbuttoning Walker’s bloodied dress shirt as he went.

“I’m pretty sure you’re every vampire's wet dream right now,” he murmured against my nipple.

That was the moment I realized Lucius still had my hand clasped in his.

Lucius’ eyes looked wild; not with madness, but with lust. “I don’t trust him not to bleed you dry,” he muttered.

X rested his head on my sternum, his eyes narrowed as he stared at the older vampire. Then he shrugged. “Fine. But I get to tie you up one day.” It wasn’t a suggestion. It was a statement of fact.

I moaned softly as I pictured this ancient vampire, wild and violent, tied to my bed head. At my mercy. A man who hadn’t been vulnerable in centuries.

They both inhaled deeply. “Done.”

X’s grin was pure wickedness. “Then the top half is all yours.”

With that, X was pantless quicker than it took me to suck in a breath as Lucius sucked my nipple into his mouth, his teeth scraping the sensitive flesh. As he bit down, X sank inside me, his cock impossibly hard considering he’d just leaked most of his blood over the floor. I had a brief moment of indecision about whether we should be doing this, considering he was so close to being dead-dead ten minutes ago, and almost drank me dry, but then he pulled out and slammed home. My morals and ethics got subsumed by the pleasure burning through my blood.

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