to the next, he became something else, the worst kind of monster.
I watched him run his tongue over the bite mark I’d left. He laughed when the woman shrieked, a low, wicked chuckle that stirred my own desire to life.
The man sprang up again, and this time I stopped him with a look. That was all it took for my intention to manipulate him. Without a word, I sat him back down on the bench and climbed atop him. I straddled him, feeling his immediate reaction and grinning with satisfaction.
“Do you want me to take you?” I murmured into my victim’s ear. “I can take you to places you’ve never dreamed of.”
He nodded, staring at me in dumbstruck wonder. So easily he’d fallen under my spell. While his lady screamed bloody murder in Kale’s arms, just the way Kale liked it, my victim offered me his neck.
I wasn’t ready for it yet. Building his lusty energy into a frenzy of bliss came first. Only when he was ready to explode with wanting would I claim him.
Grasping his energy with a metaphysical hand, I blanketed him with my own energy before drawing his in. It created a dizzying rush that I melted into. Just as I was chasing that downward spiral of euphoria, I felt it, a cold rush I would know anywhere. Arys.
My head snapped up, and I searched the night for him before realizing his presence was inside my head. A storm of emotions slammed through me like a ton of bricks. All of it Arys’s.
He was both delighted and horrified to find me in such a state. He loved it as much as he hated it. And he sure did hate it. Especially once he realized that Kale remained my partner in crime.
However, Arys himself was certainly no saint. The mental door between us worked two ways, and I saw very clearly that he was with Jenner, a woman stretched out between them as they feasted upon her. To be fair, Arys wasn’t as into it as his blood brother was. I got the impression that he’d been dragged along. Still, he was there, doing the same damn thing that I was.
There was the unwelcome sensation of attempted communication. Arys wasn’t content with just a look. But I wasn’t ready to allow him back in. Not yet. I forced him from my mind with more aggression than necessary. His shock and dismay lingered, leaving me with a bad taste in my mouth.
The moment had been ruined. My concentration had been broken, and the magic had faded. Arys would come. He could easily find me, and now he would come. I would not be around when he did.
Disappointed that my fun was over so soon, I jerked my victim’s head aside and plunged fangs deep into his artery. There was still a pleasant rush from the spilling of blood and the man’s arousal, though it was a far cry from what it should have been.
“We have to go,” I announced to Kale who had silenced the woman’s screams. She hung limp against him as he drained her.
He gazed at me with glassy eyes. For a moment he didn’t react, and I thought I’d have to tear the woman away from him. Then he dropped her. She hit the ground with the dull smack of flesh on pavement.
My hungry manipulations had been disrupted, but my longing for satisfaction didn’t fade. With complete abandon, I went to Kale and kissed him like I’d wanted to so many times since he’d carried me out of the graveyard before sunrise.
Maybe I expected some resistance on his part because I was mildly surprised when he kissed me back with a thrilling voraciousness. The taste of blood was intoxicating when he slipped his tongue between my lips. Several months of longing burst forth to drown us in a desire that had long gone denied.
His hands were in my hair, on my face, my waist. When his lips moved to my neck, I knew that we were crossing a line, and God how I wanted to.
“We have to go,” I repeated, unable to form any other words.
Before the writhing force that drove us could pull us deeper into its thrall, I dragged him along beside me, fleeing the scene without a glance back.
CHAPTER TWO
Once I released Kale from his self-imposed cage, he was ravenous and ready to terrorize the city. Somehow my transition to vampire had revived his self-restraint, a trait I barely possessed these days.