Page 81 of Mortal Shift
A shifter out in the crowd threw his head back and loosed a human facsimile of a howl in what I took to be approval of my gibe, and a couple of others joined him. Tension rippled through the gathered vampires, but what the hell. They were already out for my blood—literally—and at least a couple less wolves hated me now.
“Careful there,” Thaden murmured in my ear. “Anyone might think you were trying to start a clan fight to get out of this.”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” I murmured back sweetly. “Drink, don’t drink, it makes no difference to me.”
“Very convincing.” He gave a low chuckle, and then bent his mouth to my neck.
“It should be,” I said, “because it’s true. I’ve donated at blood banks with bigger pricks than you.”
“Is that so?” His voice dripped venom that seemed to trickle down my spine, and I had the horrible feeling I’d gone too far.
Before I had time to dwell on it, he opened his mouth and clamped it to my neck. His fangs pierced the tender flesh and a moan left my lips. But it wasn’t a moan of pain.
Oh, shit.
I could feel myself getting wet and a ruby blush stole across my features, heating my face in tandem with the arousal heating my core and between my legs. Arousal that every person in this room would be able to smell very soon. I’d felt a euphoria from being fed on before now, but never like this.
“Thaden,” I whined softly, but my legs were already turning to jelly and I felt myself leaning back against him,pressingmyself against him. My hips twitched as he drew from me mercilessly, and I willed them to be still even as I craved the friction only he could provide.
Liquid fire pooled in my stomach and seemed to leech all the strength from the rest of my body. His arm wrapped around my waist like an iron band holding me up, holding me to him, and I opened my mouth to beg him to stop but all that came out was,
“More.”
Someone chuckled—a vamp, probably—and near the stage a shifter’s nostrils flared as he caught the scent of my arousal. His face pinched in distaste and his lips curved in derision and all I could think about was the fangs in my throat, filling me with a pleasure I’d never known before. If he stopped now I would die.
No, wait, if hedidn’tstop I would die. But students weren’t allowed to kill other students. It was all so fuzzy, and my arousal washed over all my senses, driving out everything except my warring needs—give in to the arousal, and resist it.
I clung to the latter. I didnotwant the entire student body to watch me orgasm on stage… Oh, but I didn’t care if they did. I flexed my hips back and felt a hardness pressing into me. Thaden released a sound around my neck that was half amusement, half arousal, and all primal.
And sexy as hell.
Ugh, like I needed more reasons to get turned on. With everyone watching. Couldn’t forget that part. But Iwasforgetting. With every second that his fangs were imbedded in my flesh, his arm wrapped around my waist, pulling me against his hard…abs…it was harder to focus on the gathered students watching this lurid show. All I could think of was Thaden. His touch. His dominance. His absolute power over me. And the tightly coiledneedtwisting in my very soul. He wasn’t my mate, and I didn’t care. I wanted him. I needed him.
I threw my head back and screamed as my orgasm crashed over me, soaking my panties and leaving me a panting, dizzy mess, clutching the vampire behind me, pressed up against the hardness between his legs.
Laughter roared around the room and the amused faces swam back into focus, and then torturously, blissfully, consciousness slipped from my grasp.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I didn’t die from blood loss, or from the humiliation of my very public orgasm at the hands of a vampire—though the latter was a near-run thing. For a few weeks the whispers that habitually followed me through the hallways became fake orgasmic moans, but I didn’t die from that, either. I did, however, lose what respect I’d gained from the wolves by sassing Thaden. Easy come, easy go, right?
None of it mattered. I couldn’t bring myself to regret coming back here, not when it meant my mom having the time and care she needed to finally get better. Not even when some asshole stole my textbooks and scrawled ‘blood whore’ in big red letters across their fronts in what looked suspiciously like Kallan’s handwriting. Because if that was the best he had, I’d take it. Name calling? It was playground stuff. And if his pack really declared war on Cole’s, it’d be the least of everyone’s concerns. But if his head happened to get ripped off in said war, well, let’s just say I wouldn’t consider it a total disaster.
I spent Christmas at the academy, holed up in the library with Ling, who also seemed not to have any place better to be, and neither of us spoke about what she was again. She seemed content just to have me back, and I was content just to have one person in this whole place who was actually on my side—whatever the reason for it was.
The weeks edged past, and Cole remained cold and distant, and Thaden kept taking my blood, and I kept hating the pair of them.
The instructors kept me busy, piling on the workload relentlessly, so that I barely had a moment to myself, which at times felt like a mercy. It was a handful of weeks into the new semester, one gloomy February day when I was—yet again—holed up in the library with Ling before I had time to pursue what had been bugging me for weeks. We had half a dozen books spread in front of us, though none had yielded what I wanted so far.
“I mean,” I said, gesturing vaguely to the latest stack of hand-written tomes, “there has to be some kind of record on the humans who’ve been here in the feeding dens.”
Ling rubbed at her forehead. “Maybe we’re wasting our time. Confidential information and all that, right?”
I snorted. “Right. Because vamps give a damn about humans’ privacy.”
“Maybe they keep the records somewhere else,” she said with a shrug. “Think about it, if they were here, then what would stop other vamps tracking them down off campus, and trying to lure them away to their own clans? Vampires can be territorial about the humans they feed on, right?”
If Thaden’s reaction was anything to go by, I’d have to say yes. And everything Ling said made perfect sense. Because if I’d been a feeding den human, I had no doubt that Thaden would look me up and track me down away from the academy. Which meant we were wasting our time. I exhaled heavily and quirked a brow.
