Page 70 of Nocte
That stifling stillness.
Even mortal clothing cannot hide what she is. Pale skin. Magic sparkling in her flesh. Corrupted fae but fae all the same.
She stirs. Falls silent again. Still alive, her heart still beating.
Because I haven’t killed her. Not yet.
I’ll wait.
Another day to play my own game. Another day to stall going back. Cassius will come soon. I know he will.
I can give her one more day, though. Just one.
And she will give me more…
All that’s left of her.
* * *
The blonde mortalcomes back once, tiptoeing down the hall and peeking inside. Her eyes are bloodshot with exhaustion, her hair a wild, coiled mess. She eyes me like I’m a dangerous creature crouched on the mattress. A monster, hungrily drooling over a fresh, willing fae.
I am.
She breathes a little sigh of relief when she sees the woman unharmed.
Her anger then rises to the surface as she glares at me. “I’ll be nearby, vampire,” she snarls in a whisper. “If anything happens to her, you will be reported. Your council has no sway out here, but we make our own rules.”
She believes the threat will intimidate me.
Fuck her. It doesn’t. Out here I can kill as I please. Take what I please.
She is already mine, mine, mine. I look down at her, my fae prize. All mine. My fingers are still in her hair and I coil the curl around and around. Let it fall. Slip my fingers beneath the hem of her stolen borrowed shirt. She’s so damn soft, and she jerks at my touch, her eyelids fluttering.
I withdraw. Touching her is a new, wonderful, delicious game.
For now, it’s better to watch her sleep. She enters a world I cannot follow. However, I am the one who shapes it. Twist and corrupt what she sees. I lower my mouth to her ear and whisper a command she’ll have no choice but to heed.
“I want you to dream of me, little fae,” I tell her. “Dream of me inside you. Fucking you. Wringing those little noises from your throat.”
She shudders and whimpers, still asleep. Her pulse drums, her exhaustion heavy enough to outweigh any other emotion.
For now.
I lie there beside her, my mouth at her ear, and I watch her sleep. I listen. I chase her into that dream realm the only way I can.
But as the night goes on and the noise of fucking, drinking mortals ebbs and flows around us…
I don’t wake her up. I let her sleep.
Jealously, I let her sleep until morning comes and her black eyes blink awake.
She watches me, our gazes locked, bodies parallel. Confusion dawns over her face, then she frowns as she remembers.
The mortal realm. I brought her here. I left her here. She nearly died here.
It’s not anger or sadness that flashes across those dark, haunting eyes. Giddiness. Happiness.
Disgusting relief.