Beautiful Danger

Chapter 19

“Bite me,” the hunter whispered in the vampire’s ear.

As aroused as he still was after making love to Lark for hours nestled within the soft sheets, Domingos’s cock stood up at attention at the sound of those two words. He slid down Lark’s lithe body, kissing every inch of her skin in his path, until he landed the spot he ranked as one of his five favorite places on her body.

“Right here,” he said, and licked the curvy underside of her breast. “You’ll taste so good here.”

The graze of her fingernails across his scalp sent good shivers down his neck, and the inner whispers took a little thrill from that, too. But when he nudged his nose against her breast, the whispers receded as his focus and desire increased. Her breast filled his hand, and the nipple hardened against his palm. She spread her legs, and he moved his hips so he lay between them and on her stomach. He loved when she hooked a leg up over his back and it didn’t hurt his damaged skin so much because, well, because all he could think about was tasting her blood again.

Poking his fangs against her skin, he nudged gently as if testing a balloon that might pop, and then slowly, taking his time because the sweet first droplets of blood hitting his palate were always the best, he pierced her.

Lark’s nails dug into his scalp, and her hips rocked. She rubbed her mons against his chest, working at the sensitive nub that would get her off, while he sank his fangs as deep as they would go. His lips pressed hard to her hot flesh, his tongue teasing at the wodge of skin his teeth dug up into his mouth. Normal vamps would now retract their fangs, but he had to physically lift them from her body.

As he exited her skin, Lark’s moan grew orgasmic, and the hot blood spilled into his mouth. It swirled over his tongue like wine, and satisfied his needs like ice water on a hot summer day.

“Fuck yes,” she said on a shuddering tone.

He sucked roughly, taking what he could from the area that was not rich in veins, but did serve him a taste. What he really needed was the vein, a nice thick one, like that on the inside of her thigh.

Biting into that one could kill her, the whispers cackled. But she’s a hunter, so...

“Domingos...” Just his name, as she reached orgasm and her body shuddered beneath his command.

Blood quenched his desires. Sweat meshed his body to her skin. The smells of spice and champagne and her brightness dizzied his senses as he, too, fell into the swoon. A delirious place of rightness and dark, courtesy of taking blood. And he free-fell, high-fiving the whispers, giving the finger to the yowling cats and manic violins and soaring into a sweet oblivion that no one could take away from him.

Blood on his tongue, metallic and bittersweet, Domingos swallowed and sighed against Lark’s breast.

More. You need more.

He closed his eyes to the irritating whispers and glided on the swoon, reaching to curl his fingers about the ends of her silky hair.

Don’t deny the hunger! Fight for survival. Without blood, you die, vampire. Do you want to die in a cage? Surrounded by idiot dogs?

He curled his fingers tightly.

Lark tugged at her hair. “That hurts, lover. Be careful.”

Careful? Careful is for the dead. And dead vampires are tossed in the Seine, a pile of ashes!

Gliding down Lark’s belly, Domingos licked her skin, already missing the taste of blood, and seeking a pulsing vein to renew the delicious swoon. An abrupt draw of the bow across the violin string screeched through his nervous system. His fingers twitched against Lark’s hip.

She reached for his hand, still panting and sighing from the tremendous orgasm she’d experienced. He pulled away from her seeking touch.

There, over her mons, which smelled of sex, champagne and heat, he then moved to her thigh, where the scent of blood racing through an artery drew him like a heat-seeking missile.

Without a second thought, Domingos jammed his fangs into the artery and swallowed the gush of hot blood.

“No!”

Lark’s other leg slammed against his skull, but the hit did not silence the insistent whispers. He growled, pulling out his teeth and lapping at the spurting artery. “Mine. I will not be defeated.”

“Oh, hell, it’s the madness. Domingos!” Her fist crashed against his temple. The hunter struggled for freedom. “Focus. Don’t let the blood—hell, it’s the blood. He can’t see beyond that.”

The woman suddenly slammed her thighs together, crushing his head between them, and with a deft shift of her hips managed to flip him to his back and kick away to freedom.

Domingos, empowered by the blood, scrambled after her across the bed, grabbing her by the leg. He swiped his fingers across his tongue.

“Not going to get away from me, hunter.”

Her heel landed on his shoulder, and she pushed away, which sent her reeling off the bed, to land in a catlike roll that ended in her pounced upon her feet and hands.

She studied her thigh. “Shit, I have to bandage this, or it’ll bleed out. Or if you could lick it to seal the wound—”

“I’m going to suck you dry.”

Domingos jumped from the bed and landed beside her, using an elbow to put her down and rolling on top of her. He struggled to get her hands in his, to pin her, but she was strong.

They’d danced this dance before, and they’d called it a draw. No one defeats you, idiot vampire pet.

“No one,” he growled.

A kick to his stomach hurt, and he hadn’t been prepared for such force. Domingos’s back and shoulders hit the bed. Lark managed to get up on her feet and raced into the bathroom, slamming and locking the door behind her.

Licking the blood from his lips, Domingos reveled in the sweet treat. A violent rage of noise clattered within him, begging for more. He banged his head against the mattress and gripped his fingers through his hair, tugging.

“Can’t let you win!” he shouted at the madness inside him. He shouldn’t have bitten her.

It’s what you do! You are vampire!

“Yes,” he mumbled in response to the demanding whispers.

Heaving, he felt his energy wane and he collapsed into a weary acceptance. No. Don’t give up.

With an agreeing nod, he crept up to his feet and made a run for the bathroom door. It was solid and did not give.

“I’m not coming out until you settle down,” she called. “Don’t let it win, Domingos!”

“Come out and play with me, hunter. What happened to your desire to stake me?”

“I love you, Domingos.”

“So she says.” She loves to tease you and tempt you with her blood. But she won’t give it all? “I won’t hurt you, I just want to make it all better.”

“Bullshit.”

He banged a fist against the door, clawing his nails down the wood. “Come out here!”

Silence pounded in his heartbeat. The air, heavy with blood and sex, taunted him, prodding up the voices, the maniacal screams and clatter and music. Why had he let back in the music?

Domingos slammed his head against the door. It hurt, so he did it again.

And the third time he aimed for the door, it suddenly opened to reveal a shivering woman. She stood there before him, arms crossed over her bare stomach and breasts. Tousled hair hung over one side of her face, and the other side revealed a wide, frightened eye.

Frightened? His mighty hunter feared nothing but falling.

You just pushed her over the edge. She’s fallen into your madness.

Heh.

And there, at her leg, she’d tied a white towel, yet already it bloomed with crimson. It would continue to bleed if he did not seal the wound. She would die.

“No, you can’t— Not you,” he gasped. “Not Lark. I... Lark?”

A tilt of her head and her lips, plumped from his kisses, parted.

“No, I didn’t want to do this.” He gripped his hands before him, unsure how to touch her, to make it better. The whispers had ceased. The cold reality of seeing his lover standing defeated before him shoved back the insanity. “No.”

He pulled her to him and wrapped his arms about her body. She hung lax in his embrace, her head falling to his shoulder, her body so warm and trusting against his.

“I’m so sorry. I—the voices—they wanted more. Oh, hell, Lark.”

He pushed her away and strode to the other side of the bed, where her blood spattered the thick white carpet. Falling to his knees, he bent to the blood droplets and let out an agonizing moan that scraped from his insides and forced up all the pain he’d felt since that first night of captivity.

The first time the cage bars had clanked behind him had stiffened his spine. The first fight, another blood-starved vampire stalking toward him had opened his veins and carved up his soul. Many fights to follow. So much blood. And the agonizing death screams. Until finally he had felt nothing. And each time the cage bars clanked he’d moved as if a machine, going for the veins to survive.

Domingos pressed his face against the carpet and clawed with his fingers as yowls of agony birthed from his core. And the music shattered the frail cage about his soul. Falling, falling away from sanity, and landing...

A bare foot appeared near his head. The touch of soft fingers upon his scarred back. She fell, more than knelt, beside him. Weak from blood loss, Lark leaned over his back and wrapped herself upon him.

“I’m here, lover. I’m ever here.”

Domingos sniffed away tears and turned to catch her limbs in his arms. Her eyelids fluttered. Her head fell heavily upon his shoulder.

“Screw my damaged soul,” he said. “If you die, I’ll never rise above this insanity.”

He tugged the towel free from her leg and bent to lick away the blood that had slowed to an ooze. And he licked the wound to seal it and stop the bleeding. It was different than his tongue pressing to the skin while he drank blood; this was a purposeful act that delivered his saliva over the wound until the blood stopped flowing. And he took no pleasure in the taste of it; he could not.

Lark’s fingers fell upon his hair and he moved with them to lie down beside her on the floor. Tears stained his lover’s pinkened cheeks.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “That was close.”

“Sorry.”

He nuzzled up against her chest, seeking the comfort that only she had offered him. A hunter had seen that he possessed light within a vast darkness. And he’d just punished her for that blind trust.

She would accept his apology and tell him she loved him. But was it so easy as that? Could he trust himself around her to never again go into a manic rage in quest for her blood? Next time he might kill her.

He couldn’t conceive of hurting the one good thing he had in his life.

Must he walk away from her to keep her safe?

“Never leave me,” she whispered, as if reading his mind. “We’ll survive this.”

He nodded against her body but couldn’t bring himself to speak the truth he knew without doubt—the vampire must leave the hunter.

* * *

When Lark woke on the bed, she spied Domingos sitting in the easy chair near the patio door, naked but for a pillow clutched on his lap. The curtains were pulled against the rising sun, yet his goggles sat on the glass-topped table, within reach.

Yawning and stretching, she inspected the wound on the inside of her thigh. It was ugly and ragged, but it would heal. Probably scar, but that mattered little to her.

He’d almost killed her. Yet she could summon no reason to run away from him in fear. She’d feared him for moments last night when she’d struggled to stanch the bleeding behind the closed bathroom door. And then when she’d opened the door, and she had looked into his tormented gaze, she’d seen him, the man who had promised never to hurt her.

He might fight the madness forever. She was strangely okay with standing alongside him for that fight. Because she had seen into his soul, and knew it was good.

Sliding off the bed, she tiptoed into the bathroom and turned on the shower. He’d didn’t join her, and she was sad about that. Space was probably what he needed. Because she suspected he was fighting his inner voices and his own morals right now. She twisted off the water.

Forgoing a shower for now, she answered the urge for distance and food. Dressing in the same clothes she’d worn yesterday, and wishing she had something different, she pulled her hair back into a ponytail, then padded out into the room and tucked her feet into her shoes.

“I need a decent breakfast, maybe something savory,” she said as Domingos strolled past her into the bathroom. “I’m going to head out and find a pastry shop. I know there’s a fancy one in the shopping center not too far away.”

“Yes, good. I’m going to shower.”

“I love you,” she tried, but the vampire closed the bathroom door without responding. “I really do.”

Closing the room door behind her, she headed out, wishing he’d answered with I love you back.

Exhaling deeply, she took a moment to get her bearings. Her body ached in that sweet way it did after a night of lovemaking, yet her thigh pulsed with real pain. She looked a mess. This would be a quick run for sustenance, a few breaths of fresh air, then back to face her lover.

They had plenty to talk about.

Lark didn’t get farther than ten steps from the hotel entrance when a sleek black limo swerved before her, blocking her from walking forward. From out of the backseat swung two knights outfitted in Order gear. They worked efficiently. One wrangled her arm behind her back while the other injected her with what she knew was a tranquilizer at the side of her neck.

Her eyelids fluttered, and she caught a glimpse of Rook sitting in the backseat before blacking out.