Page 54 of The Brotherhood

“Take it.”

The urgency and hunger in his words smashed through her control and she scurried back on the bed more, panting with the crippling hunger.

He slowly moved his hand toward her. “Beth…” he pled carefully.

“Stop,” she gasped, when the back of the bed pressed into her spine.

“You know it’s right,” he said. “I don’t know why it is, but you know it is.”

“It’s not right,” she forced from her chest, shaking her head harder. “Only my husband!”

“Beth,” he again pled. “This isn’t for you.”

Her gaze snapped up and locked onto his, then lowered to his hand as he moved closer. The baby. He was saying it was for the baby.

****

The need to make her take the blood coiled in his muscles, tightening his frame as she hovered on the edge of her own panic. The weight of it all hung between them—his desperation, her hesitation, the raw current thrumming in the air like an electric storm.

“Beth…he needs it,” he urged, voice lower now, roughened by something he couldn’t name. But with every second, he knew it to be true. “Something’s wrong,” he dared, every moment a negotiation with her surrender. “Heneedsit.”

Her breathing turned more erratic, pupils blown wide, swallowing reason. Every fiber of her being screamed war—against hunger, against guilt, against the unknown force he could feel twisting in her gut.

And then she broke.

She snatched his wrist like a viper striking prey, sending a jolt through his bones, her lips sealing over his flesh. The second her tongue pressed down and sucked, an excruciating euphoria seized him. A strangled sound tore from his throat, caught between a moan and a curse, but it barely registered beneath the full-body paralysis that followed.

Nothing had ever felt like this.

The pull of her mouth, the wet heat of it, the aching drag of something deeper than hunger obliterated him. His fingers spasmed, grasping at nothing, at everything, at the invisible tether that now bound them together in something far beyond the physical.

Darkness fringed his vision, creeping in like an inevitable tide. The world warped and folded in on itself, reality thinning as a soul-wrenching pleasure swallowed him whole.

He didn’t know whose name was slipping past his lips anymore or how long he teetered on that edge. But as the world faded, one thought anchored itself deep in his collapsing mind. He was gone. And he never wanted to come back.

****

The faintest sound of a motor brought Seer out of his bed and to the lone window on his childhood shack. He peeked out, his pulse thumping at why his Pierre didn’t just call when he knew he wanted no company. Where the shack sat, he couldn’t see the dock then remembered Mr. C. checked traps near there.

The motor suddenly opened up and soon began to fade, taking with it all the tension that it had brought. He still wasn’t ready to see people.

He picked up his phone, looking for any new texts from Cherie. She was the only one he needed but couldn’t have. Ever since Sherrie and Raphael came to stay with them, things had been… strained. He found himself clueless in everything. How to talk to the boy, if he should, when and where. And that woman was near his age and his old celibate habits had him not wanting to give wrong signals and messages. Which meant no looking, no talking. He knew she was a good woman, but he’d learned when it came to the male/female dynamic, goodness had negative relevance. He was likely overreacting and over thinking that too but had no idea how to correct it or who to ask for guidance while the world burned with much bigger emergencies, demanding all the time and attention.

Eveque entered his mind, and Seer quickly shoved him back to God. He was still in no shape to be handling anything that required spiritual fortitude. He’d tried. The last time he’d taken this kind of a hit was when that woman took her life.

He added a couple more logs to the fire, his mind going back to Cherie. What all did she know about everything? Surely, the less, the better. And yet, he wanted to tell her everything. He missed being able to talk to her. She was the only one he could speak freely with. But she had enough to deal with.

A faint knock spun him around and he eyed the small door at the corner of the room, his pulse kicking up. He listened to the wind shaking the trees just outside. The winter storm had picked up speed.

Three hard knocks sent him hurrying to the door. “Who is it?” he asked before opening it.

“Cherie.”

Panic hit him and he yanked the door open to his wife, bundled up from head to foot, only her eyes peeking out through her scarf and hat. He pulled her in and shut the door.

“How’d you get here?” he demanded.

“Ruckus,” she shuddered, unwrapping her scarf and hurrying to the fire. “I asked him to bring me.”

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