Page 92 of Cloak of the Vampire
After my encounters with Margarita, Renaldi, and Cassidy, any patience or friendliness I had was used up. Now I was a ball of anxiety and nerves, and I felt like the room was closing in on me, the horribly familiar feeling of suffocation wrapping itself around my throat, threatening to take root and force me into creating a spectacle.
This was why I kept moving. I needed to stretch my limbs and physically tire myself so the hysteria would go away. Or so I hoped; to be honest, I had no tools to deal with these panic attacks I kept having recently.
In the first year after I left my hometown, I’d seen a therapist. She’d helped me get over some difficult emotions and guided me through the panic attacks I had back then. But these recent attacks had nothing todo with my past and had everything to do with stress causing me to lose my fucking mind.
As the walls began closing in on me with the more people I passed and the closer we got to the Auction itself, the more I began to truly panic. I searched the crowd, no longer content to simply watch but needing to find the one person I wanted—no,needed—to see.
Please,I begged silently, my eyes desperately darting from side to side.Where the fuck are you?
I reached the other end of the room and paused, and my eyes were drawn like magnets to the man leaning against a thick column. Unlike everyone else, he was dressed in a simple black tee, jeans, and his usual black combat boots as if he hadn’t a care in the world. His dark hair was pushed back, and his midnight blue eyes were staring ahead, hard and cold, as a petite woman with long sandy-brown hair, her back to me, seemed to be talking to him.
In my panic, a burst of rage made me see red. Howdarehe flirt with another woman while my future, my life, myentire fucking existencewas on the line.
And suddenly, I was through with it.All of it.
With my hands fisted at my sides, I strode toward Ragnor, baring my teeth in a low growl. He must’ve sensed my approach, because his head snapped toward me and his jaw locked, the only sign of emotion on his face. He murmured something to the petite woman with him, and she made herself scarce, hurrying toward the bar and leaving the path to Ragnor fucking Rayne open.
I stopped before him, beyond furious, beyond frustrated, and snarled, “It’s all because of you.”
His face remained impassive, but his eyes flashed. In a quick movement, he grabbed my arm and started walking toward a back door behind the column.
“Let me go!” I yelled, trying to push him off, but his grip tightened, and he kept on walking, dragging me along with him until we were behind the door in what seemed like a liquor cupboard.
Only then, he let go of me and faced me. Our gazes clashed, his growing brighter while mine was becoming far more desperate than furious.
The air became charged, and electricity sparked through my blood, making all the air leave my lungs. His eyes glowed; my stomach filled with knots, and almost simultaneously, we reached for each other, and our mouths collided.
The kiss was frantic and full of urgency. My hands were in his hair, and his arms were around me, one of his hands cradling my head while the other spread over the small of my back, pulling me forward so my front was plastered against his chest.
When his hands were suddenly on my butt, lifting me up so I could wrap my legs around his waist, a voice in the back of my mind whispered,This isn’t right.
But my body begged to differ, because this felt like the rightest thing in my entire fucking life.
I never wanted it to be over. I wanted it to last forever. There was something between us, something undeniable, butthisfelt like goodbye.
That voice persisted when he tore his lips away from mine and pressed them against my neck while he freed one of his hands in favor of squeezing my breast through the dress, making my thighs clench around him and a heat pool in my panties.
When his fingers were suddenly spreading my slick pussy wide open, the voice screamed,MAKE HIM STOP! HE’S GOING TO THROW YOU AWAY! DON’T LET HIM DO THIS TO YOU!
And this time, I listened. “Wait,” I breathed out and swallowed a moan when he inserted two fingers inside me and pumped.
“No,” he growled, and his lips were suddenly on mine again, taking me so strongly and hotly that I wanted to give in to the blazing inferno between us.
But the voice of reason refused to let up.He’s going to sell you,it viciously taunted me.He brought you into this world, and now he’s going to discard you like you’re nothing.
“Ragnor,” I moaned, conflicted as tension rose deep inside me the more he fucked me with his fingers. I forced his head back and looked at his glowing eyes as he fingered me faster, stronger, rougher. “Ragnor,” I whimpered, so broken by what I saw in his eyes. The absolute lust he felt where I was concerned.
This is just it.The voice of reason pushed relentlessly. Cruelly.All he feels for you is lust and nothing more.
Who can love a monster, after all?
Those last words finally did it. With tears in my eyes, I tremulously grabbed his wrist and plucked his fingers out of me and my panties. I then pushed at his chest, but he didn’t budge. Instead, he cupped my head and brought my eyes to him. “Why?” he asked gruffly, glowing eyes frustrated.
I shook my head, forcing my tears to stay in place. “Step back,” I said in a choked voice. “Please, Ragnor, step back and let me go—”
“I can’t.” He cut me off, his eyes searching mine in what would’ve seemed like panic on anyone else who wasn’t Ragnor Rayne. “Not until you tell me why—”
“How dare you!” I burst out, hitting his shoulders as, despite my efforts, the tears fled my eyes. “You have no right, Ragnor—no fucking right—unless you’re willing to promise me you’re going to buy me!”
