Page 58 of Dark Desire
With a feral growl, he pushed me flat on the table by his unrelenting grip on my throat. I grabbed the edge in my hands, needing something to hold on to when he tapped into his vampire speed, pounding into me with savage possessiveness and raw desire to claim what was his. I tried to focus on his face through the white spots of pleasure that were building behind my eyes and found him in full vampire form. His eyes were scarlet, matching the colour of his hair, and his razor-sharp fangs were visible through his parted lips as he grunted. Fuck, he was so hot like this. He was always hot but seeing him so feral, so hungry for me was a new kink unlocked.
He loomed over me, his tongue possessing mine in a fierce kiss, and when his fangs nicked my lip causing my blood to surface between us, he growled a low, guttural, starving sound that pushed me to the brink of an earth-shattering orgasm.
“You want it this rough?” he rasped, his breath ragged against my lips. “Because I swear to the Gods, I don’t have it in me to be gentle. Not now. So if you don’t want me to bite you while I fuck you like this, tell me.”
“Gods, I want it like this,” I moaned, my fingers curling into his shirt. “I want you like this, Zoran. I don’t want gentle. I want to feel you burn for me. I want you to take what’s yours. Make me yours, Zoran.”
Without warning, his fangs plunged into my neck and I cried out, not with fear but with pleasure at the intensity. The bite was deeper than the other times. It felt like he had fully sunk every inch of his fangs into my flesh and latched on like he wasn’t intending to ever let me go. My hands clawed down the back of his t-shirt as his hips slammed into mine, his punishingweight holding me beneath him with every violent thrust as my vision dotted with ecstasy and pain twisting together in blinding euphoria. The table gave way and we crashed down onto the floor with it, causing me to squeal, but he didn’t stop fucking me. If anything, it only made him wilder, pounding into me harder.
A warmth spread through me as he drank my blood with greedy gulps, prolonging my orgasm with every possessive pull on my vein. As the pleasure subsided, I felt the shift in his purpose. He was no longer drinking for pleasure but groaning. His fangs pulsed in my neck. Something thicker and foreign flooded through my veins, a strange electric feeling of tingling spreading through every nerve ending. His venom. He shuddered on top of me as he came with one final deep thrust and an angry growl before he released his bite. I blinked up at him, dazed and breathless, as I stared at his blood-covered chin and lips. My gaze met his and I managed one delirious, sated smile before I passed out.
I lifted her in my arms and carried her to the sofa, resting her head on a pillow and gently lowering her skirt. I ran my fingers softly over the bite marks on her neck before leaning down and placing a gentle kiss on them. Her heartbeat was slow and faint, yet still there as a reminder that she was alive.
’This had better work,’ Ambroz hissed in my mind, his doubts causing anxiety to grow quickly. Had we thought this through?Not really. I had acted impulsively, jumped onto a theory, the only one that seemed to have any legs. But there was still doubt. The Fates held the cards of life and death. What if they refuse to let her turn?
‘It will work. It has to,’ I answered, trying to convince both myself and him. There was no way I’d spent the last five centuries believing I’d never be lucky enough to find my soulmate to lose her now.
Every muscle in my body tensed as I felt the temperature drop sharply, and my breath became visible from between my lips. Drawn by a magical presence beckoning me to the window, I slowly stood and moved towards it. In the middle of the graveyard, like hooded grim reapers, three ghostly figures in white robes that concealed their entire bodies, including their faces, stood. Nothing was visible to identify who they were, yet I instinctively knew.
The Fates.
My nostrils flared as I stared at them, fighting the suffocating ripple of oppressive magic they exuded with my rage. My vicious eyes narrowed when the figure in the middle pulled out a gold hourglass filled with blood.
My heart pounded. I knew little about The Fates, but Mama had been a firm believer in the gods and loved the legends and myths that followed them. The Fates were made up of three divine entities, each responsible for one element of life. The first granted the blessing of birth, the second measured an individual’s lifespan, and the third ended it.
My eyes flicked down to the ancient blood-filled sand timer held by the middle Fate. Its ghostly hand passed it to the one on the right, who reached for it. The lower chamber was nearly full, with only a trickle remaining at the top. Darcelle’s hourglass was being passed to death. I glanced over my shoulder at her. It wastoo soon. I needed her to wake up to know if I’d used enough venom to infect her successfully before they killed her.
Using my vampire speed, I zoomed out of the church and halted abruptly on the porch, glaring at the three immortals.
“Why?” I snarled, just as the third fate reached for the hourglass. Its hand hovered in mid-air, seconds from grasping the golden handle. My question was enough to halt them, and when the death giver lowered its hand, I exhaled a subtle breath.
“She broke an oath of life. That must be repaid. There is no other way,” the middle one spoke, its voice sounding eerily distant yet echoing all around me. I lifted my chin, keeping my gaze steady and ignored the overwhelming urge to submit to their power that tried to infiltrate my soul.
“I know that,” I growled, my fury igniting with every word. “I want to know why you sent her back to that night. You must have known this would happen. I’m her soulmate. Even if she wasn’t aware because she’s a witch, you must have known she would feel the urge to save me. You must have known she’d break her oath.”
The one in the middle tilted its head slightly, as if considering the question carefully. “We only know what fate determines must be. A person's choices may alter the course of an unseen fate. We must protect the balance.”
“So you didn’t know she’d save me?” I growled as I stepped off the porch into the graveyard. I could feel their power radiating and repelling me from coming any closer, yet I fought for one more step just to prove my point. They didn’t intimidate me. “But you had to know we were soulmates?”
“Darcelle’s order was to remain out of sight until the smoke turned black and rose to the sky,” the first said, dodging my question completely. My jaw clenched and my hands curled into fists at my sides. “Your fate was to die that night. Hers was never to know you existed.”
“That’s sick,” I spat, feeling Ambroz’s pure aggression and fury forcing its way to the surface. Unable to hold him back, I allowed him to share control with me. “You sent her on a mission to retrieve my grandfather’s necklace the very night you knew her soulmate would die. And she’d never have known if she’d followed your orders.”
“That was her fate.”
“Why give her a soulmate she’d never meet?” I roared, losing my temper.
“We do not grant soulmates. Those are blessings from the gods. We control the fate of life. Not love,” the first fate answered.
“And you did meet. When you were children,” the middle one answered.
I closed my eyes, shaking my head slowly with an angry grimace on my face. Why would Veles gift me a soulmate I was never destined to have? How fucking unfair was that? I was supposed to be one of his chosen children. A direct descendant of his first creation, Demonksi Upirs. Why would he…
My eyes snapped open.
“This was always his plan,” I whispered, staring at the faceless entities. “Veles changed my fate by gifting me Darcie as a soulmate. She was the only one who could have saved me that night.”
’And in doing so, he knew The Fates would kill her but that we would find her first. He wanted us to turn her into one of his vampires. Veles is on our side. He was protecting us,’ Ambroz whispered in my mind.
