Page 46 of Sweethearts and Savages
Kell
My phone flashed at 5:02 in the morning, the screen lighting up the darkness of the room. It made my heart pound and the blood rush straight to my ears. I was meant to be dark. No contact. No random messages in the middle of the night.
Which meant only one thing. Frost called itKaboom. It was his doomsday protocol that wiped his computers, his entire life, and he’d set it to send me one final message. I scrambled for my phone.
Opening it, there was just an emoji of an explosion. That was it.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
They’d gotten Frost.
I dragged myself off of the couch, panic running down my veins. Had they killed him? He was my friend, arguably my only friend, the only person with me in this fucking suicidal crusade. Had Enit’s vampire parents torn his throat out? Were they on their way here now?
Rage consumed me and I dragged Enit from the bed by her ankle. She screeched, and I ignored the way the sound made my heart lurch. All this had been for nothing. Frost’s death had been for nothing, and why? Because I’d captured a fucking girl and was too soft to make her talk. But her kind weren’t soft. They were fucking monsters and it was time I remembered that she was one too.
“Kell!” Her voice was scratchy with sleep, and it came out more like a distressed squeak than a yell, but I hardened myself against it. I picked her up by her arms, dragging her to the table as she kicked and struggled. I could almost feel the presence of her wolf in the room, only inhibited by the silver wrapped around her wrist. I twisted the excess chain around her, and she went limp.
“Tell me! Tell me how to get past Eden’s wards. How to get to the leaders. Tell me what their fucking weaknesses are so I can kill the bastards!” I screamed the last part and she was shaking and wide-eyed in front of me.
“Can’t.”
“YOU CAN!” I shouted it this time, the windowpanes rattling with the sound. Tears started streaming down her cheeks and my racing heart pounded in my ears. I dropped to my knees and grabbed her upper arms. “You can. You know. You said yourself, your parents are influential. They’d know the leaders of Eden. You know something!”
“No. Kell, no.”
Everything I worked for was crumbling. Everything. And all because of this girl.
Frost was dead. Because of this girl.
I had failed. Because of this girl.
I would have to run, have to hide, because of her.
“They killed him. Frost. I know they did. Just like they killed so many before him. Like they killed all The Hounds, and injured my father until he was twisted and bitter and cruel. It’s their fault. Theirs and I…” I dropped my head to my chest, because I knew that I couldn’t do this. Couldn’t hurt her for information. Couldn’t use her to get my answers. My body shook with rage and pain. Grief.
Enit bent forward and rested her cheek on my head, humming something that was probably meant to be calming but only made me want to cry for the first time in as long as I could remember.
“Be okay,” she cooed. “All okay.”
I looked up, straight into those sparkling blue eyes. Behind the terror, there was something softer. Something that promised exactly what she said; that everything would be alright. I lurched up and did the one thing I shouldn’t do.
I kissed her.
Not a soft and tentative peck. I kissed her like there was a hunger in my soul that only she could satisfy. I kissed her like she was the very thing that could make me live. That could save me.
She sat stunned and wooden underneath my lips and then suddenly, she was kissing me back. She reflected my anger, my rage, my grief. She fed it back to me with her lips and tongue, showing me her own sorrows. I stood, briefly breaking the kiss to unwind the chains. Once she was free, her arms snaked around my neck, holding me in her own chains as she curled against me. She took my lips again, kissing me back and I stood tall, dragging her up to my height as her legs wrapped around my hips.
I growled my appreciation, my hands gripping her tight to me as I walked back toward the bed. I pushed all thoughts from my mind and just felt. I revelled in the feel of her perfect ass beneath my hands, the soft little moans she was making against my lips that threatened to bring me undone.
She wasn’t a monster and I wasn’t getting revenge. In fact, she was my prisoner, and I was currently devouring her like she was a flame. Right now, I was the monster. I was stealing something from her, even if she thought I was giving her something in return.
I broke away from her lips and laid her down on the bed, kissing my way down her jaw, then her throat. When she turned her head so sweetly, I knew it meant something, so I sucked at her pulse point and she rolled her hips against me. I could feel the wetness between her thighs where it pressed against my tightening tactical pants.
Scraping my teeth against the column of her throat, I moved down, bunching the collar of the t-shirt in my hand, I pulled it lower, kissing along her collarbone. But I couldn’t reach and taste all the things I wanted in my mouth with that shirt in the way. I dragged it over her head, pulled it down the chain between us.
Her eyes flicked briefly to the chain, such a blinding reminder that she wasn’t free here. But I took her nipple between my lips and sucked, bringing her attention back to me. Her hands gripped my hair, holding me close, my own hands wrapped around her tiny waist. She was insubstantial in my hands, like if I squeezed too hard I’d lose her forever.
Moving to the other nipple, I bit gently and she screamed, her legs tightening like a vice around my hips.
