Just One Bite Volume 5 Read online

  Ellen spoke only a little bit of Romanian from what Nicolai had taught her during their long and passionate courtship. The note said something to the effect of, “The leash of the demon is in the heart.”

  Ellen had nodded sagely, utterly confused. The aunt’s brown eyes sparkled as she muttered something that Ellen had taken to be a blessing, and then she had left without another word.

  And then, Ellen had married the man she’d loved from the moment he’d smiled at her in the Accademia in Florence. He was brilliant and charmingly awkward, with wild hair, stormy grey eyes and a grin that never failed to make her heart flutter. As a studious, homely girl with plain brown hair and a ruddy complexion, she’d thought him a foolish fantasy, that she was deluding herself with impossible dreams of love. She was an old maid, already twenty-five with too much invested in acquiring education and too little invested in acquiring a husband. But he had followed her to England, courting her and her family both, encouraging her efforts to become a doctor despite Edwardian strictures. He loved both her body and her mind, and she adored him fiercely. Now, they were married, and he was hers, and they were so very happy.

  Months had passed, and he’d changed. He had grown more aggressive in life and in bed, though he’d never hit her. But he was more forceful in his academic arguments with colleagues in mathematics, and he’d destroyed a desk by punching a hole through it in the middle of making a point. He was constantly hungry and thirsty, but no amount of food or drink could sate him. She’d found him one day in the larder, staring at a raw side of venison and salivating, licking his fingers of blood he’d gathered from it. He never seemed tired, and heard the faintest whisper of sound. He worshiped her in bed, or in a chair, or over his desk, never letting her alone for more than a few hours – not that she complained. But it was not the normal sort of actions for a gentleman. She was equal parts fascinated, awed and terrified for the man she loved.

  Finally, after weeks had passed and he began to shy away from being outside during the light of day, she got up the nerve to ask Nicolai what the warning from his aunt might have meant. Then, he’d paled and shut himself away, and told her to leave him for dead.

  And she’d begun her research. The first time she’d forced her way inside his chambers, he’d begged her to leave, to not look at him and be repulsed by his shark-like teeth and razor sharp nails. He’d pleaded with her to go before he hurt her.

  But he was still within the altered shell, still her Nicolai. She pushed past the need for sleep and spent hours laboring over a medication to reduce the blood cravings that were driving him insane.

  The second time she’d come, she’d broken a window and climbed in to see him sitting in the corner, rocking back and forth and muttering to himself in Romanian. She had a gun in one hand, but she’d prayed to whatever gods would listen that she wouldn’t have to shoot her husband. He’d looked through her as though she was an apparition.

  “Nicolai, I need a sample of your blood. I’ll have something to help soon, I swear.”

  At the sound of her voice, his eyes grew huge and dark, and he looked at her with an aching need that she knew was not only about blood.

  “You…you are my mate.” His voice rippled with deep, ancient power, and she’d felt herself grow slick and wet in instant response to her lover.

  “Yes.” She’d whispered, and in an impossible moment he was on his feet, circling around her, not touching her but surrounding her with the sense of his power. He moved like a big cat. She was prey and she shivered with what should have been fear, but wasn’t completely.

  “You desire me.” His voice was next to her ear, and promised a slow, sweet death full of pleasures untold.

  “Always.” She did not think lying to him would change her fate.

  He was on his knees at her feet, his head buried against her skirts, his nose pressing into the parted lips of her quim. He inhaled deeply, his hands pinned her hips, sharp nails pricking her skin through the layers of fabric.

  She knew she was aroused, and more than that, her monthly was due, the scent of blood strong on her. Before she could think to flee, to try to escape, his nails had sliced through the fabric of her skirts, and with impossible strength he tore away anything that separated him from her core, leaving red scratches against her skin and wrenching a shocked scream from her throat.

  But his tongue snaked between her thighs, finding her nub and sucking hard. As she widened her stance, helpless against his actions, his fingers, nails once again short, thrust deep inside her sheath. With all the knowledge of her body, he licked and thrust and pressed within her like a maestro, until she came shuddering, his name on her lips. He leaned back on his heels to stare into her face, his fingers in his mouth sucking on his ill-gotten gains, his eyes shifting between grey and black faster than she could imagine.

  “Nico…”

  He stood rapidly, his voice still that rippling weapon, “I’m not Nico. I’m not human.”

  “You are Nicolai Romanescu, my husband. And we will fix this so that you can live with it, learn from it.” Her voice was shaky, but her will was not. “I need another sample, and I do not want to risk contaminating it with sedatives.” She held up two glass vials, miraculously intact after their encounter.

  Sneering, he let his nails grow, and just as she began to be truly afraid of him, he sliced his own wrist, watching her flinch but saying nothing, holding the deep red stream over the vials until they were beyond full, and then healing before her eyes, leaving no sign that his perfect pale skin had been damaged.

  “Now go! Before I take more than the taste of your need!”

  She’d escaped, caring nothing for her exposed state. She resented the need to change clothing, and hurried to her workroom in the cellar to start work. Another three agonizing days and she knew she was close. A mix of iron supplements, exotic nutrients, advanced antianxiolytics -- it was a cocktail of desperation.

  This third time, she’d not bothered with clothes. A filmy nightrail in Nicolai’s favorite shade of blue, like a bride on her wedding night. On her own wedding night, she’d never gotten to dress in the seductive night clothes from her trousseau, for Nicolai had her out of her bridal gown and up against the door to their bedroom the moment they’d left the wedding luncheon.

  She walked through the hallways holding a full syringe and a look of determination.

  This time, the door was locked and barred, but she navigated the back passageways of the townhouse too many times in her youth to be stymied. The guest chamber he’d chosen had been plain and functional, but she knew it had been torn to shreds in the week and a half Nicolai had remained in seclusion. The sounds of his screams of pain and rage had rang through the house, and she’d given all the servants a paid holiday to get them away. She was prepared for the worst, but she would not give up her Nicolai to madness. Pushing open the concealed door, she emerged into a darkened room with no idea where her husband could be hiding among the wreckage, the room covered with splintered furniture, torn fabric and bloodstains.

  “Hello, Ellen.”

  The voice was so close, she whipped around to confront Nicolai, but was met with empty air.

  “You should leave. Let me go. Let me die before I take a thousand others with me.” The deep resonance of his voice echoed with sorrow, proof that within the monster was still the man. She still couldn’t see where he was hiding, but she was not about to run.

  “I’ve found something to try, Nicolai. It’s not a solution, but it’s a start. Stop tormenting yourself in this room and let me help you!”

  Her normally fastidious husband appeared before her as though from thin air, his clothes in tatters, shredded from the sharpness of his claws. His eyes were solid black, his skin impossibly pale in the dim light that filtered through the curtains.

  “I will not be able to control myself much longer, Ellen. Let me die.”

  “No!” she grabbed on to the remains of his shirt and pulled him forward, pulling him into a kiss d
espite the sharpness of those teeth. She tasted blood, but underneath it was still her Nicolai, and he kissed her with a passion both familiar and foreign and as exciting as it was terrifying. Somewhere, she had the presence of mind to jab the syringe in his neck and depress the plunger with a vicious efficiency.

  He reared back, his eyes enraged and claws far too close to her jugular.

  “I warn you, Ellen, I am very close to the edge. I could kill you…I don’t…”

  “Nicolai!” she held his face in her hands, his eyes changing back and forth between depthless black and grey blue. “You will not kill me.” It was a command, a plea, a desperate hope all wrapped together.

  He nodded. His teeth and claws retracted and he captured her lips in a kiss gentle and loving and soft. She relaxed, relief flooding her system. But he began to collapse, the weight of his body falling on to her frame.

  His lips pressed against her neck, but there was no force behind his actions. It was as though his hunger had been the only thing keeping him conscious, and she knew that he needed more that the serum to keep him alive.

  He needed blood.

  She dragged him toward the half-ruined mattress atop the wobbling bed frame and lowered herself gently, cradling him to her like she still hoped to cradle their child one day.

  She pressed his lips against her throat. “Drink, Nicolai. A little will not harm me. I trust you not to take too much.”

  “Ellen…I can’t.” His voice seemed hollow, weak.

  “Damn it, Nicolai, you aren’t going to die on me from your blasted squeamishness!” She raked her nails over the space between her neck and collarbone, hard enough that a red welt grew and thinnest trail of blood erupted on her skin.

  His eyes flashed black again and he looked into her eyes looking for a trace of fear or repulsion. “You can’t…you can’t want…”

  “I will have this, Nicolai. You shall not deny me my curiosity. You never could.”

  He smiled, a shadow of his cocky grin, but still a great comfort. Then he grew utterly still.

  “Stop me. Any way you can, if I cannot stop myself.”

  He did not wait for her answer, but let his teeth elongate and plunge delicately into her neck. It hurt like nothing she could remember, but there was not only pain. Far from it…

  He drew in a long gulp, and another and another, his strength returning with each swallow. She fell slowly down onto the mattress and he followed, running his hands over her body, silently shredding her thin gown with those sharp claws yet somehow so careful and precise. He released her and pushed above her, hovering over her and looking into her face, searching her eyes as her blood stained his lips a brilliant crimson.

  She was lost in a fog, where she would give him whatever he needed. She’d pushed past fear, and she had found that her trust for Nicolai knew no bounds, no matter how reckless everyone else would think her to be.

  He wouldn’t kill her.

  He kissed her lips, soft and quick, then his head darted to her breast, his teeth delicately outlining her nipple and he bit and released. She screamed, and he sucked away the pain of it, loving her nipple and taking her blood in long slow sucks that made her toes curl and her pleasure crest impossibly close.

  The other breast, another bite, and more torturous pleasure. He used his knuckles to rub at her clit, unable to control his claws enough to stroke into her body. It was enough, and she came on a strangled moan.

  He moved up again, latching onto her neck as he thrust his cock impossibly deep within her. She wrapped her legs around him and clung to him, hands scratching welts into his back as he nibbled and sucked at his bite on her neck, drinking deeply only when they were both so caught up in the luscious rhythm of thrust and withdraw that thought or caution was impossible.

  She’d never reached such heights, and the world exploded in a torrent of wind and fire and Nicolai’s teeth at her neck and his cock driving inside of her. He came at her contractions, releasing her neck and growling so deep that the vibrations stretched her pleasure past the point of consciousness.

  She awoke from the velvet blackness surrounded by warmth and the soft sound of water lapping in the bath. Her eyes blinked open to the soft light of her own bathroom, the pale green ceiling obscured with curls of steam.

  “Good morning, Ellen. Although, it might be afternoon. I’m not entirely sure and I don’t particularly care.”

  She laughed and felt Nicolai kiss her throat with infinite gentleness. The events of the previous night flooded her mind and she felt his lips trace over the scar from his feeding, already mostly healed. He surrounded her, where she lay on his chest in the deep tub that he’d had installed after their wedding. His ankles wrapped around hers, her head lay on his shoulder, his arms crossed over her belly holding her as though he was afraid she would try to escape.

  “I told you that you wouldn’t kill me.”

  “You may very well know me better than I know myself.” He pressed a kiss to her temple and they lay in the comfortable silence.

  “How are you…” they simultaneously started, and the room was filled with the soft ripple of tired laughter.

  “I am better. I do not yearn to bite and tear and drink the blood of anyone nearby.”

  “Except for me.”

  “Were you so repulsed by it, Ellen? Are you terrified to be married into a family of blood demons? I swear, I thought it was a legend, an insane tale to explain the disappearance of my ne’er-do-well father and the odd proclivities of my uncle for raw meat. I never would have risked…”

  She spun around, slithering over his naked body to look into his eyes as she held a finger over his lips. “As long as you feed on no others, I think I will be able to bear the horror of it.”

  He grinned that devastating smile, and she felt his cock already half hard against her thighs. “In other words, it turned you into a quivering puddle of yearning and you can’t wait for your blood cell count to reach the range in which we can indulge again?”

  Damn, the man knew her far too well.

  Red in Tooth and Claw

  by Kim Knox

  “Red suits you.”

  His voice was little more than a growl and it warmed my skin, fluttering excitement deep into my belly. Shadows surrounded the high backed chair in which he sat. Flickers of light from the fireplace caught his sharp profile, shifting, lighting the burn of his silver eyes. My mark wasn’t quite human, I was sure of it. The remote hall, the obvious wealth, the secrecy. He had to be one of the rare preternaturals.

  “Thank you.” I didn’t know what else to say. My being in the hall, in this starkly empty room with him was…hazy. The reason was important, I felt it down to the bone and something about that made me glance at the red silk of my cape. It was the only thing I wore. I frowned. I didn’t remember driving up to the hall, slipping out of my street clothes, changing… Heat from the fire warmed the silk, distracting me and the material brushed against my bared legs like the kiss of a lover.

  I forced a smile to twitch across my mouth and lifted the thick sheaf of paper in my hand. The splotch of a broken seal gleamed along its edges. Not that I remembered snapping the seal open. I glanced at the heavy copperplate lettering that simply stated my name, a time and that day’s date. “The…agency hasn’t given me your name.”

  “Balthasar.”

  “Balthasar…?”

  “My last name isn’t important.” He sat forward and firelight licked his features.

  My chest tightened and I stared. I hadn’t expected him to be quite so…beautiful—all hard male planes and those silver-edged eyes that burned into me. His black shirt clung to his chest, his muscled arms, bare, browned and dusted with hair. Strong hands flexed. A dark ring gleamed on his right hand.

  “So…” I took a step towards him, my bare feet soundless in the deep pile of the rug. I wet my lips. “What do you expect of me?”

  His gaze drifted down over the length of my body and made me too aware of the brushing silk of my
long cape. “I expect to fuck you.”

  My belly tightened, nervous fear and that insane touch of excitement skittering through me. He was just another job, wasn’t he? This was what I did, gave pleasure, sweet joy with my body, letting it overwhelm both of us. And this Balthasar was so very beautiful. It wouldn’t feel like a chore at all.

  I stepped between his legs and his hand stroked the red silk, letting it fall between his fingers as he teased along the length of my thigh. “This stays.”

  “If you like.”

  “I like.”

  I touched his cheek, the heat of his skin, the smooth texture forcing a slow ripple of need under my skin. My belly hollowed and my mouth dried. Was this my usual reaction to a mark? The fuzziness of my memory should’ve worried me, but it didn’t.

  “Sienna…”

  The warmth of his voice wrapped around my name and swelled the raising heat. Firelight caught in his eyes, the gleam of gold and silver almost mesmerising. “What beautiful eyes you have…” I flushed, but the words felt somehow…right.

  He mirrored my touch on my own cheek, slipping lower to skim the silk and glide beneath to find by bare skin. “All the better to see you with.”

  A thumb brushed my peaked nipple and I gasped. “Is that what you want? The fairytale?”

  His fingers and palm paused in the delicious, tormenting exploration of my breast. I bit my lip and his narrowed gaze moved there. “Fairytale?”

  “The gauche girl in red. And the…” My words trailed away. I could say it. It blocked and burned in my throat. “The…”

  “The what?”

  A darkness held him. He was a predator. And that fact sharpened the continuous ache in my belly. I didn’t understand anything. My reactions, my lack of memory and why this man—this stunningly beautiful man—needed to buy my time. I forced out the word. “Wolf.”