Page 57 of Lucien

But Jamie must have been woozy from the explosive sex, because when he looked again, they were their usual black.

“They could have hurt you.” Luc’s voice was raspy from all the growling and snarling, but he sounded more or less like himself again.

“You wouldn’t have let them.”

“I need—” Luc looked dazed, out of it.

“What do you need, monster?”

“I need to send a text.”

fourteen

Lucien

Luccametowitha start.

His body felt oddly stiff, curled up in a strange position on Jamie’s overly soft couch. And his brain felt…foggy, in that way it often did after the monster took over for any prolonged amount of time.

Because the monster most definitelyhadtaken over. Had shunted Luc to the back of his own mind in order to protect their mate. And now it was feeling unbearably smug. Soothed. Calm.

The absolute opposite of what it had felt facing those fucking twins. Their fuckingthreats.

And then there had been Jamie. Fierce. Undaunted. Standing up for Luc when the beast’s rage had rendered him unable to even speak.

It was unfathomable that those bastards had entered his mate’s space unannounced, with no forewarning. Luc should have heard them. He should havesensedthem. But he’d been so immersed in Jamie in that moment. The inner wounds and scars he’d revealed so willingly. His looking to Luc—monstrous, horrible, Luc—for comfort in his moment of uncertainty. His scent. The taste of his skin covered in peach juice. There had been nothing else but Jamie.

And it had allowed them to sneak up on him. What a disgrace.

What if Jamie hadn’t been on Luc’s lap, within easy reach? What if he’d been by the door instead?

What if Luc hadn’t been able to protect him?

He’d never been so torn in his life as he’d been in that moment. He and his monster had both wanted to tear the twins’ arrogant fucking heads from their arrogant fucking bodies, to spray their blood across the walls.

But underneath that all-consuming rage had been the awareness that Jamie could be hurt in the cross fire. Luc had been screaming inside his own mind, willing the monster to listen.Don’t attack. Not here. Not now.

His mortal was breakable. So fucking breakable.

So Luc had been just…frozen. Completely. Unable to speak, beyond those first shouts demanding the twins leave. He’d been barely able to think clearly, his thoughts pushed behind the monster’s rough instincts.

But Jamie.

Jamie hadbargainedwith those redheaded assholes. He hadn’t backed down in the face of two vampires who could kill him in the blink of an eye. And then he’d gone and fucked Luc’s monster into submission, something Luc hadn’t even known was possible.

He knew his monster listened to Jamie, that it wanted, on some instinctual, animal level, to please him.

But Luc hadn’t realized the extent of it.

The monster had wanted more than anything in that moment to claim Jamie, to prove that he was theirs, that he was safe, that he was whole. But it had known that, in the state it had been in, it could have broken Jamie, used him too roughly.

Do you need to get fucked, monster?

What a fucking question.

Luc shifted, reveling in the unfamiliar sensation. He wasn’t sore exactly, not with his accelerated healing, but he could tell he’d been…used. A strange feeling—he’d never bottomed before. But Jamie had somehow known exactly what Luc and his monster needed.

And heavens above, had the human ever delivered. He’d been unpracticed, rough around the edges, but he hadn’t let it stop his…enthusiasm…driving into Luc like his only goal in life was to fill Luc up with his cum.

---