The Black God (#2, Damian Eternal Series) (14 page)

His own taste was dark, exotic, a
combination of sweetness and musk, his full lips easing her into
the kiss with unexpected gentleness.

Ashley began to kiss him back, not wanting
to be outdone, even in an arena where she had practically no
experience. She had only ever kissed him, and it was so long ago,
she didn’t recognize his flavor or remember what kissing him had
been like. If it were this incredible, how had she forgotten?

Immersed in the sensations causing chaos
inside her, she didn’t notice their surroundings until the thump of
techno stopped suddenly.

Ashley pulled away from Jonny and looked
around. He’d Traveled to a beach. She was breathless, rattled,
thoroughly confused and uncertain whether she should slap him or
laugh.

Jonny gazed down at her, the intensity of
his focus too much for her to handle with her emotions. She eased
back while seeking something to say.

“Why … why did you do that?” she managed at
last.

“I wanted to see if it’d work.” He closed
the distance between them.

Ashley stepped back quickly enough to
stumble, and Jonny caught her arm to steady her. She felt almost
drunk on whatever was in her system. Lust? Shock? Anger? She didn’t
quite know what to call the fire burning inside her.

“I’d say it did,” Jonny said, sounding too
smug for her liking.

“You call that a kiss?” she retorted before
she could stop herself.

“It was a start. Could’ve been better.”

Her eyebrows shot up, and she stared at him.
Was he being an ass to her on purpose or was this who he was now?
Because his warnings and passive aggressive challenges were
starting to wear on her.

This time, it was Ashley who went toe-to-toe
with him. Without knowing much about kissing, she at least wasn’t
going to let him fuck with her about this when he was already
trying to curtail her vamp hunting. She reached up and took his
cheeks and pulled his head to hers.

She planted a kiss on his lips. Jonny
wrapped an arm around her and pulled her close once more, the
hardness of his body sending spirals of need through hers. This
time, his kiss wasn’t gentle. It was aggressive, demanding, and
sent her emotions and thoughts tumbling. The ocean breeze tickled
her sensitive skin, and every inch of her was too aware that thin
layers of clothing were all that stood between them.

Just as suddenly as it started, he broke it
off and whirled her. She had no chance to recover her breath or
senses before his magic drifted into her, preventing her muscles
from stiffening. Her eyes flew open, and she knew what was coming
before it happened. Jonny bear hugged her with both his arms, the
thick length of his arousal against her bottom.

With her heightened senses, his bite hurt
far more this time than before.

Ashley cried out as his fangs sank into her
neck, wriggling to be free and then going limp when his magic
forced her body into submission. Involuntary tears of pain sprang
to her eyes, and the sensation of warm desire was replaced by hot,
streaking pain.

She gasped.

He didn’t release her or withdraw for even
longer this time, instead focused on drinking her blood without
caring how much pain he caused.

Fear trickled through her.
What if he was done playing games with her? What if he didn’t care
about pissing off Xander anymore? And the
pain
… it was like fire piercing her
neck.

“You’re hurting me!” she cried.

Jonny broke off the penetrating kiss
slowly.

Pain throbbed through her, and she stood
immobilized against him. “I hate you,” she whispered.

“Good,” he responded in a roughened voice.
“What’s it gonna take for you to back the fuck off, Ash?”

Nothing under the sky will
make me back off.
She swallowed hard, not
about to utter the words aloud. His breathing was unsteady, his
arousal clear. He wanted her to back off but he also wanted
her
. Was this why he
hadn’t resorted to more permanent measures? Was there some part of
him that did care, even a little?

She shushed the line of thought. It didn’t
seem possible when he hurt her like this. Physical attraction
wasn’t the same thing as caring for someone, a lesson she had
learned from him before.

“You want me to make you my blood slave?” he
demanded. “Because that’s the next step.”

“Xander won’t let you.”

“He won’t let me vamp or
kill you. He said nothing about teaching you firsthand not to fuck
with me. He believes in letting people make their own choices and
mistakes and right now,
I
am your mistake.”

The truth of his words left her
speechless.

“This isn’t a game, Ash,” Jonny continued.
“You’re putting you and Brandon in the line of fire.”

The mention of her brother made his words
hit home. “Let me go.”

“Not until I know for sure you
understand.”

“Fine,” she bit off the words. “I won’t hunt
your vamps anymore.”

“You won’t hunt
any
vamps.”

“Why do you care if I’m attacking the vamps
who betrayed you?” she snapped and strained to move away.

“Because you don’t understand who you’re
fucking with. You’ll get yourself and Brandon hurt.”

“Oh, so you’re concerned
about
me
now?” she
snarled. This time when she tried to move away, she succeeded.
Ashley put several feet between them.

“I know why you’re doing this,” he replied.
“I know I hurt you four years ago and you think you’re punishing me
by lashing out at my vamps. But the only person who’s going to get
hurt is you.”

“You have no idea, Jonny.”

“Let me guess. Doing this makes you feel
better for a day or two. And then it wears off and you’re left lost
once more and stuck with all that anger about not being able to
change what happened or go back to the world you thought you
knew.”

She eyed him, wondering if he had been
reading her thoughts.

“I get it, Ash, I do. You’re not the only
one whose life changed a few years ago.”

She remained quiet.

“Look, if you want me to apologize, I will,”
he added. “If that will stop you from this insanity, then I’ll tell
you how sorry I am for putting your family in danger.”

“I don’t want an apology,” she said.

“Then what do you want from me? You know you
can’t kill me.”

She debated what to say. Jonny was making an
effort tonight, and she sensed it was because he didn’t know how
else to handle her continued defiance. “I want to know if it was
real. If you ever really did care or if you were just using
me.”

“You’re serious.” He frowned. “This isn’t
about me hurting you. This is about … what? Me lying to you?”

“Betrayal is more accurate. And you did hurt
me.” She folded her arms across her chest, not dressed for an
evening at the beach.

He studied her, thoughtful and intense, as
if he were puzzling through something. “You don’t hate me, do you?”
he asked softly at last.

“Oh, I do,” she said. “I didn’t four years
ago but I definitely do now.”

He nodded, though she
suspected he wasn’t buying it. “You started out as a tool for me to
use to get what I wanted from Jessi. Along the way, I started to
like you for you instead of as someone I could use. But it wasn’t
enough. It wasn’t
love,
if that’s what you’re wondering. It was probably
more like … pity. I knew you had Xander to protect you, so I wasn’t
worried about you recovering from a schoolgirl crush.”

His honesty smashed her. She’d felt more for
him than he did for her. Until this moment, she was never able
believe it. The way he spoke to her now was like a million paper
cuts all over her heart. Pity? Schoolgirl crush?

“I cared about you, Ash, but not the way you
wanted me to,” he added. “What you’re doing is too dangerous. I’m
the Black God, Ash. My duty comes first and I won’t let you make
yourself a target over something that shouldn’t have meant this
much to you to begin with.”

Her throat was too tight to respond. Of
everything she’d ever expected to hear from him, this wasn’t it.
His admittance that he had cared about her – but not enough – was
so much more devastating than she imagined anything he could say
would be.

“Leave the vamps alone or I’ll have to do
something we’ll both regret,” he continued firmly.

She drew a shaky breath. It
had been a while since she had the urge to cry like she did now. If
he had said he loved her, if he’d had claimed he hadn’t cared at
all, she’d find this more bearable. But to say he’d cared and it
wasn’t enough –
she
wasn’t enough … She had to leave before she broke down and
sobbed.

“Okay. Thank you.” She turned away and began
walking, hugging herself. Had it hurt this much when he crushed her
originally?

“Ash …” Rare warmth was in his voice.

“I understand, Jonny. I’m
done,” she said without stopping.
It’s
over. For real this time.
She had gotten
the answer to the question tormenting her and yet felt defeated by
it.

Numbed by her emotion, she ended up walking
home instead of taking the bus. She arrived shortly after midnight
to find Brandon in his seat on the couch. He was playing video
games this time and glanced up when she closed the door.

“I have a schedule for your hunting,” he
said.

“I’m not going.” Her words were lost in an
explosion of some kind in his game.

“What?”

“I said, I’m not going!”
She leaned over the back of the couch and wrapped her arms around
him. “I love you, Brandon. Like
really
love you not fake love you.
You know that, right?”

“Can’t return fire,” he complained and
wriggled his arm free so he could maneuver the mouse.

“I love you anyway. Even when you’re wearing
too much cologne.” Her nose wrinkled.

“I’m not wearing too much!”

Whatever.
She needed a hug after her night and held him
until he complained too much for her to stand.

Ashley went to her room and gazed around.
Her room was as bright and cheerful as ever, a funky combination of
purples and oranges. Her surroundings weren’t the problem; the hole
inside her was. She had lost her purpose too suddenly for her to
understand what was supposed to happen next.

Jonny’s claim was fresh in her mind along
with the pain that didn’t come from his bite. The part of her that
resented him had melted into sorrow, leaving her uncertain what
else there was in the world if not revenge and vamps.

She nudged the project due the week before
that sat untouched on her desk. Her grades were mediocre at best
again so far this year. She had time to change that. Her obsession
had been with training rather than studying, but her latest
confrontation with Jonny left her … deflated.

Ashley sat down at her desk and drew a deep
breath. She still had the urge to cry, and the sting of Jonny’s
bite hadn’t faded. She touched the light scars at her neck and
winced. He’d been trying to hurt her, to drive her off.

He didn’t want her around. What he felt for
her four years ago wasn’t enough for him to risk being with her and
now, nothing remained on his end at all.

Had anything ever hurt this much?

“No more vamps, Ash,” she whispered.
Exhausted and upset from her night, she flipped off her lights and
climbed into bed to cry herself to sleep.

She slept deeply and awoke long past her
normal wakeup time. After her night, she didn’t feel like starting
her day at the boxing gym and instead, wrapped a blanket around
herself and shuffled into the kitchen.

Brandon’s workstation and laptop were both
off and the apartment quiet. He often slept in until noon on a
Saturday. Ashley made her usual breakfast of scrambled eggs and
toast and sat in front of the television. She scrolled through her
phone to find messages from Jessi and Brandon both. Brandon’s was
nothing more than an alert from one of his apps. Whenever he left
the apartment, his phone texted her, and vice versa.

She leaned over the arm of the couch to peer
down the hallway leading to their bedrooms. His door was opened.
She’d been too sleepy to notice when she went to the kitchen.

“He’s up early for once and I slept in,” she
murmured. She finished breakfast before taking a quick shower and
getting dressed.

And then sitting back down on the couch and
realizing she didn’t have any clue what to do if she didn’t spend
the day in the gym or plotting Jonny’s downfall. She made a list of
potential activities, starting with focusing more on her schoolwork
and committing to the major she’d halfheartedly chosen. A new
hobby, helping Jessi with her kids, fixing up the apartment.

Nothing on her list appealed to her. It all
seemed so … normal. Boring. Unfulfilling. If she went to the
Guardians, at least she’d have tons of training and an assignment
somewhere in the field to occupy her.

Her thoughts drifted to Jonny, and she set
her pen down. Instead of anger, she felt sorrow without really
understanding why. The pleasure of their kiss was marred by the
pain of his bite, and she began to wish he’d done one or the other
but not both. It would’ve been easier to walk away if he told her
he loved her once and not anymore or if he said he’d never loved
her at all.

To say he cared but not enough to be with
her … it was torture in every way.

“Boys are stupid,” she murmured. She pulled
out her phone to text Brandon and see what he was up to. With any
luck, he’d bring her some donuts. She rarely indulged but it felt
like a day to eat a dozen.