Page 44 of Mortal Shift
“Do you always talk about your sister and fucking in the same breath?” I asked, trying to wrench myself free again and getting no further than I had the first time.
“Again with the fucking,” he murmured. “I’m starting to think youdowant it. And I can’t deny I’m tempted…”
He exhaled a dramatic sigh before I could decide whether it’d be smart to slam my knee between the legs of a powerful vampire prince…and what it meant that I wasn’t sure I wanted to.
“Alas, indulging in your more base desires would…complicate things more than I care to at this stage. But there is something else I desire, and you will indulge me.”
He skimmed his nose along the delicate flesh of my neck, raising a trail of goosebumps in his wake.
“Don’t you dare,” I snarled. Revulsion warred with terror in my gut, but I couldn’t make my feet move. And Ireallywanted not to be standing here right now.
“Oh, but I do dare.”
I opened my mouth to threaten him, but two needle sharp fangs sank into my neck, and my breath escaped as a sharp gasp. His lips formed a seal around the wound his fangs had carved into my throat, and he sucked the blood from me. I thrashed in his arms, but he was stronger than me, and I knew now he’d been toying with me that day I’d escaped him. He’dletme go…and he had no intention of letting me go now.
He kept draining me, drawing the strength from me, and my struggles and thrashes became weaker, and then more panicked again. My eyes popped wide open. He wasn’t going to stop this time. He was going to kill me. I tried to kick a heel between his legs but my foot glanced harmlessly off his thigh, and my panic doubled. I opened my mouth to scream, but only a whimper escaped.
Suddenly, it stopped.
“Don’t worry, sweetness. You’re far too delicious to kill.” His tongue swiped across the wound and my shudder was more of a tremble.
“Yeah… that duzzn’t reassure… me… atall.” My words came out slurred and sloshed together, and I tried to blink the fuzziness from the trees in front of me.
His laugh was a cold rumble in my ear.
“Someone’s a little endorphin drunk. I quite like you in this state. Maybe I should bite you more often.”
I tried to spin round and kick him properly, but I was as weak as a day-old kitten and my legs all but gave out under me, leaving me clinging to him.
His voice turned mocking. “Sorry, sweetness, clingy girls aren’t my thing.”
A high-pitched whine buzzed through my skull and I winced, and tried to flinch away from it, but it came with me. Couldn’t even escape from a sound. Great. That wasexactlyhow my day was going.
Thaden worked my hands loose from his shirt and I stood, swaying in the night air for three long seconds before my legs gave out again and I plummeted to the soft earth with a thud that was completely painless. Huh. Weird. But not as weird as the fact I’d never noticed how velvety grass was before. I stroked it with a splayed hand, playing my fingertips across the sea of soft blades.
Far above me, Thaden exhaled heavily.
“Fuck’s sake,” I heard distantly, and his voice echoed in and out of earshot, but I didn’t pay much attention to him. I much preferred the grass. “Can’t leave…alone…this state…Cole…”
I frowned at Cole’s name.
“Cole’s an… asshole,” I slurred. “Don’t wanna see him. ’s mean.”
“Well, that’s what happens when you mate the big bad wolf, sweetness,” his voice said, clear as day in my ear, and I pouted.
“He…duzzn’t want to…mate me. Mean. Stupid wolf.”
Hands wrapped around me and plucked me from the grass.
“Hey… no fair…” I mumbled in protest.
And then the world turned upside down, and I was staring at the monochrome grass from a distance, and something that looked suspiciously like an ass from up close. It was a nice ass, though.
That cold, mirthless chuckle sounded again.
“So glad you approve of my ass, sweetness.”
“You read my thoughts!” I accused.
