Page 44 of Feathers From the Sky

The single line of blood has slowly dripped down from her knee, and it’s clear she doesn’t even notice it. She tosses the washcloth on the tile floor, and my eyes follow the curved line of her legs up to the apex of her thighs, where her hand is drifting.

She lets out the softest of sighs as her fingertips circle her clit. Her heart beats faster, and the knowledge of where her blood is swiftly moving gets me hard.

Fuck, Emile is right. If she’s comfortable enough to get off in the fucking shower, I need to put on the pressure. I resolve to do just that. Starting immediately after she finishes, because I’m rooted to the fucking spot. She slides her middle finger inside her for a moment, then pulls it back out to circle her clit.

Her fingertips are moving faster until they abruptly stop.

My eyes seek hers, and she’s staring right at me.

“Please, don’t,” she whispers, throwing an arm over her breasts.

“Don’t what, Gwyn?” I step forward out of the door frame.

“I don’t know. Just—”

The door to her bedroom creaks, and I don’t see him, but I react to Hannigan’s intrusion immediately. Fucking leech. He knew I was in here, even if I didn’t lock her bedroom like a fool. He’s halfway into the shower, and Gwyn has fallen to the ground in shock. His hand wraps around her ankle as I pull him off her.

He’s already sworn his oath to me, years ago, so when I shove him against the wall of the shower and tell him not to move, he is still as a statue.

Gwyn’s on her knees now, staring up at me and Hannigan, arms crossed protectively over her body. “Thank you.” The words are so soft, I wonder if I truly heard them at all.

Hannigan is still behind me, making inhumane sounds of need as I force him to be in this close of proximity to her.

“You’re in a good position to thank me in other ways.” She blanches as she stumbles to her feet. “But we can save that for later. I need to show Hannigan something.”

Before she can react, I’m on her, and I use my strength to hoist her up against the shower wall. Her head is touching the ceiling, and I wedge my shoulder between those luscious thighs. Licking the path of blood from ankle to knee, I give no warning before I bite the inside of her thigh. She hisses in pain, her leg flinching away from me. I groan as I pull that sweet sustenance into my mouth, and Hannigan is shrieking, pulling against the bonds of my influence. Adjusting, I bring both her legs over my shoulders as I suck from the wound I made. She’s still wet, and the scent of her while I drink her blood is making my dick throb.

“Roman!” Gwyn’s hands move lazily, drunkenly, into my hair. The paralytic feeling of a vampire bite is enough to usually make people immobile. But Gwyn and her hunter blood must fight against it to touch my hair like this. She groans and rolls her head back and forth against the wall.

I pull away for a moment, licking the blood from my lips and chin. Breathing deep, she’s intoxicating, and I’m certain I’m about to hear colors as her blood is an immediate hit to my nervous system. “It feels good, doesn’t it, sweetheart? Because you know you’re mine.”

I’m crossing lines I shouldn’t because of that spicy, sweet taste exploding in my mouth and down my throat. She says nothing as her fingers curl into my hair. I lap at the puncture wounds I’ve made on her inner thigh, and she lets out a soft moan. When one of her hands slips down to cup herself, I’m not surprised. I’m more shocked by my immediate possessive reaction. It’s one thing for Hannigan to see her naked; that damage is done. But it’s quite another for him to see her touch herself.

I growl at her, and she stops.

The interloper is falling apart where he stands against the wall, whimpering pleas punctuated with occasional howls of need.

“You see this, Hannigan? She likes it when it’s me hurting her.” He starts panting, high-pitched gasps echoing against the wet tile. “No one else hurts her, you understand me?” When he whimpers, I take it as acknowledgment. “Now, go outside and walk into traffic.”

He obeys, leaving as I suck on her leg, sunlit apple memories setting my taste buds alight as I hum in pleasure. I need to stop, but I don’t want to. I should never have drank from her, never drew her taste past my lips and let it sing on my tongue. Breathing deep, I take one last pull, and then let her slide down the wall.

It took everything in me not to fuck her with my fingers and tongue, and the tent in my pants proves that. I know now that if I fuck her, Margot’s insinuation will come true. I’ll never be able to let her go. Not back to her life with her family, nor to a death I would give her out of kindness.

I’ll keep her forever.

15

GWYN

I winceas I dab at the puncture wounds on the inside of my thigh. When Margot bit me, she had licked the wound after, and it had scabbed over within a few seconds. Some sort of healing properties in her saliva, I assumed. Roman never did that for me. Based on how everyone seems to react to my blood, I wonder why he wouldn’t. Is it some sort of penance for him? A torture to smell my blood and not be able to have it? But between yesterday and today, maybe he’s given that up. I’m still reeling from both interactions.

I’m panting, unable to catch my breath because of the quickly changing emotions I’ve just experienced. When Roman’s gaze had met mine, my fingers frozen, I hadn’t expected to see such unguarded lust. I should have felt violated, felt all the things his guarded captivity should make me feel. The harsh invasion that months of his watching and spying on me had wrought.

But I didn’t. I felt an ache instead, in more parts of me than I care to admit.

The soapy water runs down my inner thigh, erasing the blood, and I scrub the trace of his touch from my body. I wash away where his tongue had moved from my ankle to my knee, and I wish there was a way to forget the memory too. This is what I wanted, wasn’t it? To make him crave me? To make him feel such need for me that I could survive him?

How have I gotten it so turned around?

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