Page 142 of Dark Flame
“I’ve been wondering about something.” She adds no further explanation before parting her lips and taking me down her throat, no longer worried about mortal limitations such as a gag reflex.
She slides back to the tip before turning her head slightly and dragging her fangs down my shaft in a move that would render a human male in extreme pain. Once she has me filling her mouth again, she sinks her teeth into my cock, drinking the body’s worth of blood that filled my cock the instant she flashed her pretty, little fangs.
You’ll destroy me, Hellion
Does this hurt?
Hurt? This is the furthest thing from pain. This is…paradise. This is…I don’t fucking know because my words aren’t exactly working but remembering she asked me a question that if I don’t reply to will make her end this, I say,Fuck no. This is everything.
She sucks harder.
Pleasure sweeps me away and much too soon, she’s destroying all my self-control as I thrust a final time into her mouth, my cum joining the blood in her throat.
She keeps sucking until she’s swallowed all the blood that made my erection and cleans me of every last drop of cum before lifting her head, her grin adorable and carnal.
I reach for her, yanking her up and over me until kissing the taste of me from her. It’s primal, possessive, and I fuckinglove it.
Love her…if such a thing is possible.
With a contented giggle, she slides off me and into my arms, her head on my shoulder. “What a fucking day,” she murmurs. “I feel like I lived three lives today.”
“I do as well. Including a death. Ready for a life entirely in the nighttime?” I stare at the star-splattered sky, the moon nearly full and mourn the sun for her. She’ll never feel its heat again. Never see daytime again outside of my castle with its sunproof windows. She’ll be trading the sun for the moon.
She pulls from my arms to sit up, staring at the twinkling stars. “Strangely…yeah. Since I was homeschooled, I missed out on having a regular life, like others my age. In a way, I was always in the dark, so this won’t be any different. Except you’ll be by my side.”
Always,I slip into her head, earning a smile. I reach for her, fingering the ends of her hair, marvelling at the fact she’shere, even when hours ago, the bond dissipated with her death.
But she’s here. Alive. Fuck, more than alive.
“What happened tonight?” I won’t go much longer without the details ofhowall this came to be. How did I not pick up on the familiar scents in the shop or at their gravesite? They would have been the same of what I smelled in their bedroom but I suppose, the months passing since their deaths faded their trace enough.
She sighs, shutting her eyes as she talks. “There was a note in the kitchen, which I assumed was from Morgan, asking me to go to her shop. When I got there, the place was unlocked but empty. I wandered into the backroom and got ambushed by my parents instead. Woke up in a cave, cuffed.” Her attention drops to her scarred wrists—marks she’ll carry forever. “Same cave they used when I was a kid.”
“How were they alive?”
She recounts everything about Arthur and Violet’s plan, the murder of her birth parents, her kidnapping, what changed to them raising her. Everything they told her about her powers, their deception, and the night of their “deaths.” Freya mentioned some of this, but she neglected to mention that the fire didn’t kill the right people, that they were alive.
“I killed innocents,” she finishes, her expression somber. “I don’t even know who so I can’t even apologize to the family, give them something…or something.”
Killing humans isn’t anything special to vampires. They’re on a different level than us; they’re prey. Food. For some, entertainment, though I was never so bored. One day, Harlow may see her stress as pointless but for now, she retains her human moralities.
“It doesn’t matter.” I sweep her hair away from her face. “I don’t mean to sound callous, but it’s long over. And you weren’t at fault. Arthur and Violet tricked you.”
“Still…no wonder Darkness latched onto me so easily.”
“It doesn’t mean you’re evil, Harlow. It means you might lead a grimier path than others, but so have I. So will you again, but now, our paths are aligned. Your magic—both kinds—have embraced you. It’ll be okay. You’re powerful as all hell.”
She glances at the spattering of stars. Ones that’ll soon disappear with the coming sun. Morning’s a few hours away, and we should seek cover soon, but I also don’t have it in me to move quite yet. “Do you think Hecate has officially forsaken me now that I’m a vampire?”
Their deity means nothing to me, but I know it means everything to her. “Your goddess doesn’t seem like someone who’d be judgemental. You still have your element, so I assume you still have her. Hell, who knows if she’s ever turned away from anyone who’s gone Dark. Perhaps they turned from her, but she’s still waiting for them to find their way back.”
She purses her lips. “You might be right. Good insight for a non-believer.” Her gaze goes between the trees, toward the crumbled house in the distance, now a resting place for one of the souls who lived there in another life. “I’m sorry for your friend.”
“Seems he stopped being my friend a while ago.”
Cedric’s betrayal twisted the blade in parts of me I didn’t know to exist. A friend who was once like my brother, who loved my sister, wouldn’t have chosen himself over my Bride. Just like if roles were reversed, I’d damn well do anything to protect his mate.
Immortality is long. And so many things—people included—are fleeting. Cedric, like Cora, is now someone from my past.
