Page 42 of Vampire's Choice

“Wow, nice work.” She propped herself up on her elbows. “Can I see the bigger one?”

He handed it over so she could examine the release mechanism. While she did that, he sharpened the quill. When he was done, he took back the longer knife and handed her the feather. “Hold onto that and lie back down.”

When she complied, brushing the feather over her palm and testing the quill’s sharpness on the pad of one finger, he put the smaller knife back into the sheath of the bigger one and set it aside. Her attention left the feather as he put his hands on her thighs, slid them up to the fastener of her jeans and unhooked it, pushing down the zipper and then the denim to expose her thighs to her knees. He left her panties in place, though his gaze touched on the black cotton, the lace waistband. “Give me back the feather.”

When he reached for it, she switched hands, holding it playfully out of reach. “You took my other one.”

“No I didn’t. You threw it away. But despite that disrespect, you can have this one when I’m done.” His expression held hers. “Give me back the feather, Ruth.”

The words delivered a bouquet of quivering feathers inside her chest. As she gave him the one she had, he closed his hand over it and her fingers, gripping them firmly enough to send a brief pain through the joints. A warning that increased the tingling through her body.

“Hands behind your back, fists in a knot at the small of your back.”

She should refuse and get up. Leave him. She wasn’t that smart. Instead, she complied. He put his other hand over her mound, hidden beneath the cotton of her panties. His thumb caressed her clit through the fabric, then passed over the crotch below, a sure stroke with enough pressure to have her biting her lip. “Nice and wet,” he observed.

He settled lower, his elbow on the ground, forearm across her pubic bone and upper thigh as he held the feather like a pen. The sharp tip scraped her before he punctured her thigh, making her jump and a sound catch in her throat. He did it a few times, with deliberate precision. Each penetration made her wetter, more needy, her body arching, breath clogging in her throat.

He bent and tasted the tiny drops of blood. Moving between her legs, he put his mouth on her cunt over her panties. A firm, sucking hold, tongue tasting her through the fabric. A moan tore from her, her fingers tightening in that knot he’d commanded her to make against the small of her back. Her grip on her own hands, the press of her knuckles in her back, was as painful as his bruising hold when she hadn’t given him the quill right away.

He held the climax out of reach, tasting her thoroughly, inhaling her with nuzzling contact. Learning her scent, her responses. But more than that. She became aware he was drawing energy from her. He twined it around her, carrying her on it like she rode a cloud. A miasma with a fragrant perfume, her pure sexual response.

He was feeding on her.

Before she could decide how to react, he drew back. Sliding an arm beneath her, he lifted her enough to tug her jeans back up over her hips. Leaving them open, he tucked the feather marked with her blood under the waistband of the panties. The sharp quill pressed against the swollen flesh of her clit, the feather end teasing her flat stomach and tender indentation of her navel.

He rose, unsmiling. “Don’t give yourself a release. I want you wanting.”

Him standing over her, leaving her shuddering and aching for more, and worse, wanting to comply, snapped her into a different part of herself. She scooted away, rolled to her feet and snatched out the feather. She tossed it away, just as she had before, no matter the wailing protest from the part of her that wanted to do what he’d ordered.

“You don’t command my pleasure,” she told him.

He didn’t move, but he didn’t have to. His presence pushed against her, called to her. “But you want me to.”

“Wanting is not the same as needing,” she retorted. “And I know what happens when one gets mistaken for another. I’m no one’s fast food lunch. So fuck off.”

In a blink, he was close enough to haul her up to her toes with a clamp on one arm. She hit him in the face with her free fist, and twisted to break herself free.

He twisted with her, proving the move was ineffectual. But then he released her and shoved her back onto her heels. He could catapult her across the field, but he’d restrained himself so she stumbled but didn’t fall. She planted her feet, fists clenched and ready.

“They don’t know you can travel the portals by yourself, without detection,” she guessed. “That’s the problem. Isn’t it?”

When his sneer showed the lethal shape of his fangs, she wondered why he hadn’t used them to mark her flesh, instead of the feather. Maybe because incubi didn’t drink blood. But he’d seemed to enjoy the taste of hers.

“You think your threats will keep me from doing whatever I wish to you? I can feel how much you want me to overpower you. Make you behave.”

That mocking tone inspired reactions she detested. Uncertainty, guilt, anger, resentment. Confusion. But she was certain of one thing, and she had no trouble acting on it, no matter how much she might regret the things she had to abandon to do so. But if the choice was between that and her self-respect, her choice was made.

“They’re right about you. You don’t know how to treat a female you really want. Don’t come near me again until you do.”

She left him. Though she didn’t look back, his regard was a weight on her back, like the target the centaur kids had fired upon. If he retaliated, she likely wouldn’t have a chance to defend herself.

But the issue wasn’t whether she could win the fight. It was the choice to fight. And she would. Because she preferred a fight over fear.

Plus, a traitorous part of her really wanted to fight with him again. She informed it that the incubus angel thing was a total ass.

It told her that she hoped he’d prove her wrong.

She told it to shut the fuck up.

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