Page 71 of Cursed to Be Mine
Rocking forward, I press my lips to his. It was meant to be a quick kiss that can’t tempt me to stay, but his fingers weave through my hair, holding me to him. His tongue sweeps inside as he steps close enough I can feel him hard against me.
And then he’s gone, having stepped back and lifted his head, as if he knew I did not have the energy to do it myself. He stands in front of our audience, completely unfazed about his erection. When he turns his head to Derek, nothing crosses his face, but I can sense a whole conversation passing between the two of them. A man’s conversation:I’m trusting you with my girl.
Derek nods sharply, then starts walking down the hall. “Come on,” he says, and I scramble after him, his long strides not waiting for mine.
Right before we disappear through the door to the public side of the police department, I look behind me.
Khalid’s standing in the hallway, exactly where I left him, his eyes on me. His mouth moves.
Call me,kira.
I will.
Twenty
HIM
It takes everything I have not to go after her.
Not to drag her into the nearest empty room and drop to my knees while she rides my face. The taste of her on my lips competes with previous memories of her pussy, and the desire to compare them in real time is making it difficult to stay standing.
My cock strains against my pants as my tongue rubs the roof of my mouth, mimicking the feel of hers.
“Ouch,” Vlad mocks as the door finally closes behind my girl. “She really told you.”
He laughs viciously, and I’m tempted to twist his heart completely this time with my magic. But I’m weaker than I want him to know, and if I use much more, he’ll smell the blood rising up my throat.
This entire place is infested with vamps. We might be at peace, but you can’t tempt pet sharks with bleeding bait and expect them not to attack.
“You pin this on her,” I say softly, not bothering to look at him, “and I will destroy your stone.” I might anyway given the shit he pulled showing her Hannah’s full face instead of just the half I’d left intact.
His hand clasps my shoulder, and I know he’s trying to get a sense for how weak I am. I would never allow him to touch me in normal circumstances. So with a pulse of my power, I drop him to his knees. My stomach twists with a pain of its own, but I lock my legs to stay standing, my pain tolerance a lot higher than his.
He grunts as his friend hisses behind me. But although two members of Blood Fang are at my back, I don’t turn. Isaac, the cop who showed Derek down here, is a sired vampire, and there isn’t a single one in St. Augustine that is older than forty thanks to Mother’s rampage sixty-odd years ago. They demand a lot of energy from a sire, and with only the head of a coven being able to create them, it took Aleric years before he could make more.
With age comes power and strength; Isaac has neither. He’s so weak he’s barely higher than a WALL member on the threat scale.
“It won’t change…” Vlad rasps as he leans against the wall to pull himself back to his feet. “...that your girl left... with another man.”
I still, my entire body relaxing like it does right before a kill. People think it’s anger that drives me, a terrible rage I need to expunge – the only way I can be reaper. But the truth is, it is indifference that pours through my veins. A numbness that turns people from living souls into merethingsthat need to be dealt with.
Isaac shifts backwards, unable to hide his cowardice.
Shadows pool around my feet, reaching out as I turn. Vlad jumps back, his fangs bared, shooting down past his lip. The door bangs open behind me as movement fluttersthrough the air.
Moira comes out too, a scalpel in her hands. Another sired weakling. So discounting her and Isaac, that only leaves six things for me to kill.
Vlad glances around the hall, his nose twitching, and I know he can smell the blood pooling in my mouth. A smirk curls his lips, but he doesn’t attack yet. Doesn’t break a treaty that will most likely see his Family dead. The wolves have already weakened them greatly; they cannot afford to fight us too.
Knowing I can’t make a move in a place so public, he straightens and hides his fangs, retracting them back into his mouth like a snake’s. “Everyone get back to work,” he says with a smile. “Khalid here is just throwing a tantrum because his girl –”
He falls to his knees, a hand clutching his heart. Gasps tumble out of his lips as I push heat into the doll I just pulled out of the shadows crawling up my arm.
“Say another word,” I suggest as I crouch down in front of him. Blood trickles out of my mouth as I talk, and my magic thrashes inside me, sensing my weakness, wanting to consume me just as much as Vlad does. I sacrifice a bit of my left kidney to push more magic into Vlad’s stone.
Hisses and growls erupt around me as everyone shifts, but no one moves, knowing damn well I will kill Vlad as soon as they do. His Family needs to keep the peace with ours, but ours does not. We still have the numbers to fight the wolves...for now.
Vlad’s eyes flash red with his anger and pain. His fangs start to poke past his bottom lip again. I tsk. “You should have better control than that. No wonder you all are being picked off one by one. Pathetic. Little. Lambs.”
