Darker (28 page)

“
I won’t do it,” I said through gritted teeth. “I’m sorry my blood is some madness-inducing vampire candy, but I’m not responsible for your suicidal tendency. No matter how you come to your end, Kale, I promise you, it will never be me.”

I wanted to slap his hand away; I knew I should. Butterflies tickled my insides as his fingers slid over my skin. He brushed his lips ever so lightly against mine.

“
Are you sure about that?”

His touch was seductive, painfully so. I knew I could devour him. I wasn’t a prisoner this time, and he had no advantage. Though, I knew from experience, he would put up one hell of a fight.

Thinking too much would only succeed in furthering my role as his victim. Instinct was what made me kiss him. I pressed my lips to his, slipping my tongue inside his mouth to taste the human blood he’d consumed. I ran a hand through his hair, making a surprised sound when he bit my bottom lip. Sucking at the small cut, Kale held himself at a distance, his body shaking with the restraint.

The vampire’s will to control and manipulate others drove my actions. It wanted what it wanted, and the human side of me had no say in that. I was lost inside myself, a prisoner in my own body as a force bigger than I was made a slave of me.

My bloodlust had been sated, but my hunger was just getting started. I drew on his lust, feeding off the smitten vampire’s forbidden desires. The raw truth spilled from me as I whispered, “My love for you is selfish. It’s built on weakness. I see in you what I hate in myself. I can’t suffer alone. So, I choose you to suffer with me.”

He shoved away from me then. “Why me? What did I ever do to deserve to be a slave for you?”

“
You fell in love with me. I didn’t manipulate your feelings. I didn’t ask for this either, Kale. Do you think you suffer alone? Get your head out of your ass and look around you. There are two choices: submit or suffer.” I advanced on him, going so far as to toss a little power at him.

He toppled over the foot of the bed, narrowly missing the fallen body of the brunette. He was on his feet with a flash of angry energy, lashing out with a hit that I blocked with a hand.

“
Have you ever wanted someone you couldn’t have?” he asked, the darkness seeping into his mismatched eyes. “There are no choices in that kind of love. There is only misery and madness.”

Moving fast, he dropped for a leg sweep that knocked mine out from under me. I gazed up at him and waited for his next move. I was starting to get sick of Arys being right all the time, but in this case, he was. I would never again be safe with Kale.

He pulled me up off the floor and shoved me. I tripped on the leg of a corpse and caught myself before falling.

“
The first man I ever loved was a liar, a womanizer and an egomaniac. He was my mother’s lover. I’ve watched those I love desert me, betray me and die. You think I don’t know pain?” My voice caught.

My fingers tingled from the power running through me. I held back, unwilling to lash out at him again. I didn’t want to hurt him. I would never give him the true death he sought from me.

His eyes were hard to read. He remained silent for so long, a knot formed in my stomach. Slowly, he reached out to smooth the hair back from my face. His hand lingered; he caressed my cheek as though my skin was fire to the touch.

“
I always knew making love to you would drive me mad,” he said, his gaze on mine. “As much as I ache to touch you, I fear it as well.”

I caught his hand in mine and pressed my lips to his palm. “Please, Kale, let me help you.”

“
They tortured me in there. The FPA. With blood and women, they drove me mad, and all I could think about was you.”

“
I came for you, Kale. Twice. I tried to get you out.” There was a desperate note to my voice that made me flinch. “I tried.”

“
I know.” His expression hardened. He grabbed my wrist tight, his fingers dug into the dragon etched in my flesh. “You made a deal with a demon that sealed both your fate and mine. I begged you not to.”

“
I did it because I love you,” I shouted. “But, we can’t be together. We are terrible for each other, Kale. Look at this.” I gestured to the bloody room, the bodies on the floor. “We’re the Mickey and Mallory Knox of vampires. All we bring each other is more pain and misery. That’s what we share. It’s all we’ve ever shared.”

“
You’re right. That will never change. But, I can’t go on like this.”

He draped me in his power, exuding a heady pull I couldn’t resist. All of a sudden, he was kissing me with a desperate fervor, a dying man’s last gasp for air. There was so much in his kiss: love, fear and, ultimately, abandon. Whatever thin threads remained on his tie to sanity weren’t just snapping, he was cutting them. I understood. It’s easier to give in.

“
Kale, don’t,” I gasped between kisses. “Please, don’t let go.”

“
I can’t walk this line anymore.” His mouth was warm on mine, his hands lost in my hair. “One day, you’ll regret that you didn’t kill me when you had your chance.”

I should have stopped him. After worrying about him for weeks, to have him here, alive and in my arms, was a sinful dream come true. So, instead of beating the ass of the vampire who had violently abused me in a psychotic craze, I held him close while he surrendered to the calling darkness we all held inside.

“
You want me.” His lips moved upon mine as he spoke. “Right now, you want to consume every part of me. To devour my power until it is yours, to take all I am until there is nothing left but dust and to have me buried inside you as you do it.”

I said nothing. By refusing to deny the truth, I was acknowledging it.

Kale slowly trailed a hand up my thigh, just barely touching. He circled around to stand behind me. I sighed at the heat of his mouth on the back of my neck.

“
Perhaps you’d like me to take you from behind. You almost begged me to once.” To accompany his words, he dragged fangs over my sensitive skin, careful not to break the surface, not yet.

Willpower had left the building long ago. I yearned for Kale. The recent weeks we had been apart had made me miss this feeling, this certainty that he was mine. I reveled in it now.

I spun to face him. “Actually, I’d prefer to ride you until you can’t remember your own name. I want to look into those beautiful eyes while you beg me for more. And then, I want to make you hurt for it.”

A mischievous grin lit up Kale’s face. “If I could fall any harder for you, that would do it. We share something more than just weakness. You just didn’t know it before.”

“
The wolf,” I breathed.

“
I have been both wolf and vampire, as you are and will be. That’s one thing that neither of your men can claim.” He nuzzled me then, a wolfish gesture that was so natural, like he’d been wolf just yesterday. I gazed at him in wonder, and he laughed. “It never leaves you, even when you wish it would. Like a hybrid, it’s there but trapped inside. I’d hoped you would never know about me.”

“
Why?” I caught his face in my hands, peering deep into him. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“
It doesn’t matter now.”

“
Why, Kale?” A loud hum followed my demand as the electricity in the building surged along with my mood. “I’m terrified of losing my wolf. I don’t want to rise as a vampire if that’s what it means.”

He pulled away, refusing to provide me the solace he once offered. “I didn’t want to be the one to tell you. I couldn’t bring myself to break your heart that way.”

“
You could have warned me,” I sputtered as emotion overcame me. “I trusted you.”

“
You should know better than to trust any vampire,” he snapped. “Including your other half. You think he didn’t know you would lose the wolf?”

Angry energy spilled from me, and Kale reacted to it. His pupils dilated dangerously. I didn’t want to talk about Arys with him. Instead, I targeted the rest of what he’d just said.

“
Are you saying I was wrong to trust you all these years?” I wanted to reach for him but stopped mid-motion.

Kale leaned in close, fangs flashing threateningly. “Never trust a man that wants to bleed you as bad as he wants to fuck you.”

I recoiled in horror. His vicious words stung. “Get out, Kale, before I find a way to take your misery to a whole new level.”

His chuckle was like an icy hand on my spine. “I’m in you now, just as much as you’re in me. That’s why you can’t let me go.”

I was a mass of confusion. My body remained flushed with wanton heat for him. My heart was stone cold.

Kale pressed against me, close enough for me to feel his arousal. With a finger beneath my chin, he tipped my head back and bent to drag his tongue along the throbbing vein in my neck. I swooned, leaning into him despite the power I held ready.

“
I am going to make you so crazy, Alexa, that the only way out will be to drive a stake through my heart.” With that, he released me and left the room without a backward glance.

Chapter Seventeen

I stood there stunned. Then, with a surge of venomous rage, I went after him. I caught up to Kale in the hall and, without a second thought, slapped him with a psi ball heavy enough to take him down.

Kale lay on the floor in the hall, staring up at me with a combination of surprise and amusement. I stood over him, hands on fire with the power rippling through me.

“
No fucking way. You don’t get to pull the dramatic exit. I’m sick of you vampires and your dramatic friggin exits.” My voice rose, and several light bulbs in the hall exploded in a shower of glass. “You can clean up the mess you helped me make. I get to make the unnecessarily over-the-top exit. Got it?”

I didn’t wait for a reply. Instead, I stormed out the back door, ignoring those who surfaced to see who was making all the noise. I kicked the door open and raged through the parking lot. I was spoiling for a good fight. What I most needed was a good kill of the supernatural kind.

A basic vampire kill would do little to ease my appetite for violence. I wanted Lilah, but rushing back to her simply because Kale had pissed me off would be stupid. I needed to do a little planning first. So, I went to the next best place where I could let off a little steam and get my head together, a dance club down the street from The Wicked Kiss. With the bloodlust appeased, I was free to walk among the heavily packed human bodies and enjoy the energy that a crowd hopped up on booze and music gave off in abundance.

I wasn’t yet ready to join my vampire brethren in drowning my sorrows in blood baths and mayhem, so letting loose human style was just fine with me. I told the bartender to keep the whiskey coming until my vision swam. Then, I slipped onto the dance floor and remembered what being human felt like.

The steady beats kept coming as the DJ successfully packed the dance floor with writhing bodies. A few guys approached me, seeking someone to take home. I merely smiled and shook my head before dancing away. They didn’t know it, but I was the last woman in the building they wanted to go home with.

Music is a force as powerful as any other that goes unseen. Like love or the exhilarating sensation of leaping from a plane, it was one of those entities that might exist outside of you, but their real power was born from within. Though trendy dance beats weren’t my general cup of musical tea, that night they set me free.

After an especially wild song ended, I slid onto a bar stool and signaled the bartender for another shot.

“
You started without me,” came a voice to my left. Willow clinked his beer bottle against my shot glass in cheers. “How the hell can you dance in those things with a bottle of whiskey in your veins?”

I followed his gaze to my heeled boots and laughed. “It’s a talent possessed only by women—and some gay men.”

“
You look happy out there, being one of them.” He nodded toward the dance floor. “Do you miss it?”

I watched the people dancing the night away, each one of them here to leave something behind as they did so. Being human didn’t make one void of trouble or pain. If anything, it made those things worse.

“
Yeah, I do. Mostly, I miss the ignorance, not knowing how bad things really are. I miss that.”

Willow wore a sour expression. “I know what you mean. Seeing the dark from the inside is a fucking ugly experience.”

“
Why do you always show up when I’m miserable?” I asked, sucking on a lime wedge from the nearby dish.

Willow shrugged and drained the beer bottle dry. “Just lucky, I guess.”

He ordered a round of tequila shots, his favorite. I curled a lip in disgust; the drink didn’t agree with me.

“
Did you come to talk me down? I didn’t think I tapped enough power tonight to draw attention.”

“
You didn’t.” Sliding a tequila shot in front of me, he flashed a lopsided grin. “I dropped in at your club to talk about last night. You weren’t there, but a couple of bodies were along with one hell of an angry vampire. I thought you could use some drunken shenanigans.”

“
Shenanigans,” I repeated. “Funny word coming from an angel. What did you have in mind?”

He continued to nudge the tequila shot a little closer until it was bumping my hand. “We could start a bar fight. Or, steal a car off the Ferrari lot. Maybe even try some illicit narcotics and spend the rest of the night staring at our hands.”