SWNOVELS Forged in Blood: Chapter 28
Listening to her soft moans when Xavier made her come in the back seat of my car was exquisite torture. The scent of her arousal flooding the air around us had my cock aching like never before. As soon as we pulled to a stop outside the house, I dragged her off his lap and carried her inside, then threw her onto my bed.
She pants for breath, her pert tits rising and falling, the shape of them clear even in the loose hoodie she’s wearing. Her plaid skirt is bunched up, offering me a view of her panties and the unmistakable wet patch. I growl, desperate to taste her.
Xavier flops down on the bed beside her, hands behind his head as he waits for Malachi and me to take our turn. We’ve shared plenty of women before, but none that we were forbidden from biting, and none nearly as irresistible as this one.
Malachi crawls onto the bed on the other side of her and runs a hand over her stomach, pulling up her sweater and her tank top and revealing an expanse of creamy white skin. She tries to push her clothes back down, but that only makes him yank them higher.
“Don’t ever stop me, sweet girl,” he warns with a growl. “You’re fucking beautiful, and we all want to see you.”
She presses her lips together, like she’s desperate to disagree but won’t disobey him, and fuck me, but I love that this feisty, fearless little pyromaniac is unexpectedly submissive with her body.
I peel her pink panties down her legs and toss them onto the floor, then run my hands up the inside of her calves to her thighs. I follow their path with my mouth, inhaling her intoxicating scent. She’s always smelled so tantalizingly delicious to me, but now, with her arousal thick in the air around us, I’m crazed with the desire to taste her. I want to bite her, to suck her blood and let that rich coppery goodness overwhelm me, but my oath to Alexandros prevents me from acting on that particular impulse. So instead, I focus my attention on her wet pussy.
Spreading her thighs wider open, I allow my gaze to linger on her center, which glistens with the evidence of how much she wants us. I drag my pointer finger through her folds, causing her to whimper into Malachi’s mouth. “You’re soaked for us, Pyro.”
Her thighs tremble, and white-hot anticipation shudders up my spine. I’m so eager to taste her. Fuck her. Make her scream my goddamn name. From the moment she caught us in that alley, she has belonged to me. To us. Our little pet to toy with as we please. And toying with her like this … it’s the best kind of torture. I inch the tip of my finger into her tight cunt, and her hips buck while she cries out. The sound is swallowed by Malachi, who keeps his lips sealed over hers while he squeezes her breasts and rolls her hard nipples between his finger and thumb. Trailing my lips up her inner thigh, I growl, aware that I’m going to devour her whole once I get a taste of her. I’m going to make her come on my tongue and then fuck her hard.
I edge my finger deeper inside her, groaning at the way her tight heat squeezes around me. She wrenches her lips from Malachi’s, and her cry is full of pain and pleasure. Exactly what I love to hear. I swirl my tongue over her pulsing clit and sink my finger deeper, and she goes on moaning until Malachi captures her mouth in another forceful kiss. Working my finger in and out of her tight channel, I feel her juices run down into my palm while I suck on her clit. Closing my eyes, I savor the taste of her, my tongue dancing over her flesh until it joins my fingers at her dripping entrance.
Her arousal coats my tongue, and pleasure surges through my veins. She’s sweeter than nectar. Like nothing I’ve ever tasted before in my life.
Fire burns through me. Fire and power. Unsurpassable, transcendent, life-affirming power. Feeling invincible, I bask in the incomparable rush and wish I could live in this singular moment forever. Her juices flow down my throat. My fangs pulse painfully, and my tongue is coated in more than just the flavor of her cum.
“Alastair!” Alexandros’s voice slices through me, and the fiery grip of his rage curls like a vise around my heart. My head snaps up, and I lick her blood from my lips. How did … I know for fucking sure I didn’t bite her.
Ophelia gasps, scrabbling for the covers to hide herself from him, but I already know without looking that Alexandros’s eyes are firmly on me. I tasted her blood. And it was like nothing I’ve ever experienced in my life.
I spin around. “I swear I didn’t bite her.”
He bares his teeth, but he must know I didn’t bite her. If I’d disobeyed him, he would have already torn my head from my body. I glance down at my fingers and notice a faint line of red streaked over my knuckles. Holy shit. Ophelia being a virgin was a plot twist I didn’t see coming. But all I can think about is her blood thundering in my veins and how the slightest hint of her taste has lit my insides up with pure euphoria.
Alexandros scowls at me from across his study, his face darkening with rage. “You disobeyed me, Axl.”
“I did not! You ordered me not to bite her, and I didn’t. But you didn’t say anything about fucking her. I swear I had no idea she was a virgin. I didn’t know she’d bleed. If I had …” I run my tongue over my lip, and the mere memory of her taste has my own blood coursing through my veins like lightning-laced wildfire.
He scrubs a hand through his hair and sinks into the worn leather chair behind his desk. “I warned you, Axl. I warned you not to … You should not have tasted her.” He shakes his head, a thick vein pulsing in his neck. He’s livid, but fortunately for me, he seems distracted by something else.
I’m unable to shake the uneasy feeling that whatever happened here tonight has fundamentally changed something, even if I have no idea what or why. I inhale a shaky breath.
He pinches the spot between his brows and sighs. “And before you brought her here? What happened at the river? I felt your rage. All of you.”
Fuck. With the whole Ophelia thing, I’d forgotten about that added complication. I crack my neck and take a deep breath. “You remember you said we weren’t supposed to let anyone else fuck with her or taste her?”
He plants his elbows on his desk and leans forward, his dark eyes narrowed to slits. “Yes.”
“Well, that girl, Penelope—” I pull at the collar of my T-shirt and twist my neck. The faculty doesn’t take kindly to us killing the humans. Not unless it’s necessary. This was necessary. All I can do is hope he sees it the same way. I roll back my shoulders and look him in the eye. “She lured Ophelia to the river tonight. The bitch was planning to kill her, sir. My best guess, she was gonna make it look like a suicide.”
That sure gets his attention. “She was planning to kill Ophelia?” His voice vibrates with unsuppressed rage, and the unguarded reaction fills me with relief. Maybe he won’t punish us for the lives we took tonight.
“They went to high school together, did they not? Did she have anything to do with the incident before the fire?”
“Yeah. She humiliated her in front of the whole school at the school play or some shit.” I still can’t fucking believe how juvenile it was. Who gets that angry over something so trivial? I’m a fucking vampire with anger issues, and I don’t even get it. “The fire started after that. Funny thing is she transferred here two weeks after school started. And she was the one there the night of the fight too.”
He gives me a single nod. “I recall. So where is this girl now?”
Here goes nothing. “In pieces in the parking lot out by the crystal caves. We’re gonna go back and clean up. Make it look like two car wrecks.”
He hums, giving nothing away yet. “How many people were there?”
“Five.” Pausing, I swallow. He might not tear me a new one because of the humans, but this could be the thing that tips him over the edge. “Two of them were Onyx pledges.”
As I expected, this is a more problematic turn of events. His outward demeanor remains calm, but his rage grows palpable in the small room. I close my eyes and take another breath to tamp down my own frustration before I look at him again. “What were we supposed to do? Let them kill her?”
He inhales a deep breath, his nostrils flaring like he’s trying to keep himself from ripping off my head. Or at least tearing out my throat. Fortunately, he does neither. “I will speak to the faculty heads about the humans. And Professor Ashe about the pledges.” His voice drips with the fury he’s suppressing, but he knows we did the right thing.
He also knows there is something special about Ophelia, and I suspect he knows what that something is. For some reason, he’s withholding that information from us, and after over two hundred years with him, I have zero doubt that he’s doing what he feels is best for everyone—especially Malachi, Xavier, and me.
But I’m starting to chafe at the secrets he’s keeping from us. From me. “What the hell is she, Professor?”
He runs his tongue over his lip, avoiding my gaze now. And my question.
I persist, undeterred. “She’s not human. I’ve never felt a rush like it.”
His eyes return to my face, and they pierce my soul. There’s something behind them, something deeper than rage. Curiosity, perhaps. “What did she taste like?” he asks.
I take a step closer to him. “You felt her. That’s why you came to my room. Tell me what she is.”
He growls, revealing a glimpse of his fangs. Experience tells me I should back down, but I can’t. I need to know the answer more than I need air.
He hisses out a breath, and it’s enough to make the hairs on the back of my neck stand to attention. “Tell me how she tasted,” he commands once more.
I lick my lips, desperate to taste her again. But she’s already gone, and the memory of her is not nearly enough to satisfy the building craving that’s already snapping its teeth at me. I haven’t experienced bloodlust since I was turned, and it’s not an experience I wish to repeat. But that’s the closest sensation I can compare this to. “It’s hard to explain. Sweet as fuck. Addictive. But it was more than that. It was the way she made me feel. Like there was literal fire running through my veins. Fire and immense power. What is she?”
His jaw tics. “A witch, maybe. A powerful one.”
I shake my head again. He’s lying. “I’ve tasted witches before. That wasn’t it. What the fuck is she, Alexandros?”
He rubs a hand over his thick beard and sucks on his bottom lip. “I do not know.”
“You don’t know?” I scoff. He’s thousands of years old. There is no creature on this earth he hasn’t tasted.
He glares at me, that low growl simmering in his throat.
“So taste her for yourself. Taste her and tell me.”
He’s out of his seat in a flash, and he wraps one strong hand around my throat, pinning me against the wall, his fangs exposed. The swiftness of his reaction takes my breath away. “No! And you are forbidden from tasting her again. Do you understand me?”
The beast inside me responds on my behalf. A growl rips from my chest, and my upper lip curls back, baring my own teeth. He wants to taste her again, even if that means my certain death.
Alexandros slams me against the wall. “I said, do you understand me?”
My throat works beneath his palm, and I grit out, “Yes.”
He releases me, and I rub at my raw skin, twisting my head from side to side.
He returns to his position behind the desk and slumps back into his chair. “I know you are thirsty.” Through our link, he can easily feel the need for her coursing through my veins. “But tasting her again is not going to slake that thirst, Axl.”
How about I don’t give a fuck if it slakes my thirst. I need to taste her again, even if I die trying. But I don’t say that, and I suspect I don’t have to. He knows what this feels like. “You speak like you know from experience.”
The vein in his temple throbs. I have lived for over two millennia. There is very little I have not experienced. The anger in his tone comes through even more keenly with him speaking into my mind.
Yeah, he knows. Of course he does. “So tell me what she is.”
He shakes his head. “As I said, I do not know for sure.”
So taste her! That beast inside me taunts him, and I growl at him to shut the fuck up.
Alexandros snarls. “Keep your bloodlust under control, Axl, or I will be forced to do it for you.”
Closing my eyes, I twist my head from side to side and try to drown out the ravenous hunger pervading every cell of my body.
His hands are on me again, this time on either side of my face, and his voice is gentler. “You are stronger than the beast inside you. I taught you better than this.”
I gnash my teeth. I know.
I reopen my eyes, and he gives me a single nod before turning back to his desk. Go clean up your mess.