“To hell with blood. I have a better meal idea for you.”
Laying so much as a finger on the only “witness” that could prove Vincent’s guilt in the murder of Thomas Knight was a bad idea. I could admit that.
But at my core, I was a Knight vampire. While I resented a lot of things that had trickled down the genetic ladder, I was learning to embrace my inability to put up with evil traitorous bitches.
Plus, there was no use worrying about the consequences that might arise from indulging my monster. I’d decided that I would eventually give the council the same treatment I was about to show Miss Alexandra.
“You’re crazy,” Vincent muttered with a wicked bend in his timbre. He threw a glance down the hall where Lexi had been a breath ago before returning his attention to me. “Sterling’s going to kill us.”
I laughed lightly. “He’ll have to get in line.”
“You have to know, pain isn’t going to sate my fae side. If anything, it will make it worse.”
“Wow.Feral’s being the sensible one? Am I hearing this right?”
“I don’t give two troll shits if I shift. You’re the one who’s been so obsessed with pleasing Sterling lately.” He snapped his hand out, his thick fingers collaring my throat while his thumb stroked my freshest mating mark. “Looks like it’s paying off.”
I gave a light, taunting laugh with my mischievous smile still locked in place. “Aw, is my big, broody fae jealous that his hard-to-get brother claimed me three times? When he hasn’t claimed me once?”
He arched his spine, stooping so that his sneering lips were a kiss—or a bite—away from mine. “Maybe I haven’t made my mark yet because my little mortal mate is treating these like gold stars rather than the eternal pledges they are.”
The primal male’s heavy breaths pummeled my mouth, and his exotic scent of testosterone and ozone leached down my throat. As always, he was as intoxicating as a chloroform-soaked rag, and it was messed up how much I was into it.
“Fuck you, Feral,” I said, more of a challenge than a curse.
Maybe Vin was right.
I felt like I was slowly going mad. But what I’d been through in the last twenty-four hours, let alone the last month, was enough to make anyone nuts. At least I still possessed a fragment of my sanity to know that I needed to feel my monster. That part of me had the best shot at killing my father. The very least I could do was give in to at least one of the batshit things she was telling me to do. Then again, with the way Feral was looking at me—his monster peeking out at me through his eyes—maybe two batshit things she was pushing me to do.
“Maybe I will…” With one hand still collaring my throat, his other edged under the hem of my dress and wedged between my thighs to cup my center. “Maybe once we’re through making the demoness pay, I’ll fuck this pussy raw and have your screams for dessert.”
Caught up in the intense energy stirring between us, I threw my head back on a groan and arched into the hand that cradled me—which was so gentle against my core compared to the rest of him. “So I take that as a yes? You’re in?”
He stroked me through my panties, and when he hit my clit piercing, I groaned again, earning me a growling chuckle that had his chest scraping against my aching nipples.
“I’m in. I’ve been in from the moment I bowed to you as my queen and swore my eternal loyalty to you. And it’s times like these I find it especially impossible to tell you no.”
Heat wound through me. “Why?”
“Because you’re my beautiful monster with a mind as dark and twisted as my own and a pure, vibrant heart that makes the cold, dead organ in my chest green with fucking envy. You make love to your mates like Aphrodite, and you make corpses of your enemies like the goddamn Horseman of Death.”
He angled my chin so I could see the unguarded adoration in his all-consuming gaze. “Because you, little monster, are love and death incarnate. You are madness. You are rabid bliss.”
He arched, so his lips feathered over mine in the sweetest kiss the Feral King had ever given me. “And how can I say no to any of that?”
Chapter forty
Bitch Hunt
Iwasn’tareligiousperson by any means. My mom—fake mom—was a die-hard Christian in the weirdest ways. One of those crazy Bible thumpers who seemed to be into the whole thing out of fear. I guess having the spawn of the devil locked in your spare room would be one heck of a reminder that Hell was real.
Growing up, I’d thought little of her begrudging intensity with religion. TV taught me that adults did crap they didn’t want to do all the time. Go to work. Pay taxes. Go to church and schmooze God, hoping Satan doesn’t take a shine to you for raising what was essentially his granddaughter.
The thought made me shiver.
I still harbored some resentment toward my fake mom for lying to me. The thing was, though, we’d been close...or at least as close as two people could be without ever being in the same room. She was always checking on me, bringing me almost whatever I asked for, so long as it was within reason. My favorite foods. Werewolf romance novels. She’d even shared some of her favorite things with me. That’s how I’d gotten into older punk music. Sometimes when she’d caught me listening to the Ramones, she’d belt out the song with me in the corridor.
Trinity Baxter could have been a really amazing,goodmother...if it hadn’t been for fear in the shape of a door with more locks than Alcatraz standing between us.