Page 21 of Nocte

“No. No blood.”

He hisses in annoyance. He doesn’t like that word: no. He must hear it a lot in the complex where they live—which is odd to consider. Vamryres are supposed to be one and the same. Yet his very nature is to resist.

“Then what?” he demands, his lips still pressed incessantly to my skin. As I remain silent, he deduces his own answer: what he can’t bite, he will touch. His hands turn into grasping claws, gripping at the fabric of my robes. He doesn’t discern between soft flesh and bone. He treats it all with the same rough, almost desperate groping. He captures a breast against his palm and squeezes it so hard I gasp. Then he’s onto prodding my ribs. Hips. My thighs.

A strange thought comes to mind: he’s never touched another. Not like this. Just to feel, with no care given to the body on the receiving end.

When he brushes a part of me that holds no interest—like my hands—he moves on with little attention given. But when he comes across a part he likes. He grips it, digging his nails in, making me wince. I’ll feel his hands on my upper thigh for days.

“S-Stop,” I choke out when he starts to wind up my skirts.

He does, panting, his head lowered, eyes downcast. “What?”

I don’t know. I don’t know why this feels so dangerous or why my heart is thundering like mad. I don’t know why the thought of him stripping this layer of fabric unnerves me so much. It feels wrong. At the same time. It doesn’t.

I want what he knows, and he wants… Something to do with contact. Feasting on me in a way that doesn’t entail drinking blood. Should be an easy trade.

But he is so hard to decipher. I don’t think he even knows exactly what he wants.

“Tell me about the other realm,” I try.

He scoffs and pulls away, bored already. Then he stops. Whirls around. Lunges into me, pinning me back against the hard stone.

“I want to know what a fae tastes like,” he counters, a challenge. His eyes glow, his upper lip quirked at an angle. “Let me taste?—”

“Can’t bite,” I insist, though what good would mere words do against fangs? I can see them, threatening to pierce the flesh of his beautiful mouth. He wields them carelessly. In fact, I wonder if he has ever bitten himself by accident.

“No blood,” he echoes, his gaze unreadable. When he pushes a knee between my legs, I freeze solid. He uses the foothold for leverage to bring his forehead to mine. When his lips descend, I’m sure he’ll ignore my request. Bite.

He doesn’t. At least not yet. He presses and presses, forcing my lips apart. His tongue shoves forward, brushing past mine. I stiffen at the contact.

He hisses, his mouth moving while still pressed to mine. “Do you fae not know how to kiss?”

Kiss.I should know the word. I think I do, but the meaning doesn’t come. My head is swimming, my body alight with the feeling of him. I don’t like this: kiss. It feels more dangerous than biting.

“Now tell me,” I choke out, pulling back as far as I can. “You got what you wanted.”

His eyes flash. He wants to deny it. But vamryres are transactional, or so I’ve read. It’s in his nature to accept this payment, whatever it was.

“Icouldgo to the other realm,” he says, and I feel my eyes widen. I half expected him to deny me my prize but here it is, an exchange for an exchange. “The process is easy. If I wanted to.”

Easy process. Easy. My brain won’t let go of those words. It feeds on them, and that greedy ache within me grows fervent. I need more. I need to know.

“How?”

“Now, now,youare owed something,” he says, sounding on the verge of a growl. “This is my gift to you: the ceremony…”

I suck in a breath. “What about it.”

“They aim to show you then,” he says with mocking derision. “Parade you before them all. Acknowledge. Does that make you happy?”

Does it? I don’t know. I don’t…

Stepping back from me, he laughs. “Until next time, little fae.” He adjusts his robes with a flick of his wrist. I know little about vamryres, but he should be disappointed by his inability to feed from me.

Instead, he smiles in a menacing way, sated by something else I’m too ignorant to understand. Perhaps he enjoys unnerving me and vamryres can also feed off of pain and discomfort. It would make sense.

Long after he turns and stalks into the darkness, I’m still thinking about it.

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