Page 57 of Deadly Cravings

My face heated when I saw the damp mark on his khaki pants where I’d rubbed my wetness all over him—and where he’d come. He was drenched.

“I-I’m sorry.” I said more from confusion than anything else. The look on his face made me feel bad, like I’d somehow wronged him.

Tobias pressed his lips into a thin line.

I stared at him as he rubbed his face with his palm, then he turned on his heel and left the bedroom.Hisbedroom.

My face heated, embarrassed by my wanton behavior. He seemed into it too . . . until he rushed away from me like I had a disease. I groaned and rubbed my nose with my palm.

It was best I stayed away from him; his mercurial behavior was confusing. Not only that. I needed to get it together. The job was completed. There would be no more vampires in my near future, but why did the knowledge make me want to cry?

TWENTY-THREE

tobias

I buttonedmy fresh slacks and strode out of the bedroom. An imbecile. That’s how I’d behaved.

Entering the kitchen, I yanked the fridge door open. My blood was gone. I snatched an empty bag from the side door. Asher could have had the decency to clean up after himself. As soon as I shut the fridge, a fist flew at my face. I braced myself and a sharp burn spread on my cheekbone. I needed that or else I would have turned right around and had my way with Catalina. Every delicious inch of her body would have been mine. Every drop of her blood . . .

My cock hardened from the visual and ache to fuck her even as pain radiated from my cheek.

Asher’s nostrils flared and the red evil tint of his eyes faded from sight. That famed relaxed visage returned and he rolled out his shoulders.

“What do I owe such an aggressive reaction to?” I leveled out my tone. Simply put, the aggression was out of character for him. A word vibrated through his head, faint and as if behind a veil.

Mine.

He raked his hair back.

“Her scent is all over you.” His fist flew at me again, and I avoided it, but not in time to evade the foot to my stomach. I groaned and slammed against the wall. The sharp sting at my spine lasted a split second before I straightened, brushing the lint from my black jacket with my free hand. “And that’s for placing her in your bedroom.”

The hard-on I’d had the entire night I’d held her must have broken records, and I hadn’t been able to let her go despite the fucking burn.

“Are you jealous, Asher?” This reaction was utterly out of place for him and the fury in his gaze pointed to only that reason. His possessive words and this anger he harbored in his gaze . . . he behaved as if I’d taken his wife—as if he were a cuckold.

But that could not be it, vampires did not love. We did not feel softness, we owned, we possessed, we devoured, we claimed.

There were no ‘soul mates’ as some deluded humans believed. With creatures such as ourselves, hell-bound and evil, selfish to the core, we were not given such a gift from God. But in my long, ceaseless life, I’d seen bonds formed between pairs,a Beloved, the chosen mate to a vampire. Their loyalty to each other was just as binding. He behaved as if she was his Beloved, but that was impossible, a human and a vampire would never work and she could never be turned into a vampire with the vampire illness running rampant. Evenbeforeblood-madness violated vampires, women could hardly survive the change.

Asher’s body tensed, the muscles along his neck becoming taut.My human,his thought shouted at me. He staggered back and then he snapped straight as if he hadn’t meant to react so viscerally. He masked the slight confusion on his brow with a smirk.

Too late. I’d seen it all.

“I never thought I’d live to see the day,” I said, raising an eyebrow.

Asher’s eyes narrowed.Hon var min. Bara min.The English he was thinking in switched to Swedish, which he well knew I couldn’t understand.

“She was mine first, that is all.”

“You’ve never had an issue with sharing.” There was a sharpness to my tone. I didn’t want to share Catalina if I could have her. I would not give him the pleasure of owning her. Not when they’d all shared Imogen. “None of you have.”

“She’s different. She’s mine.” Asher bared his teeth. I’d never seen him so tightly strung or possessive. It angered me. My fangs burned to spring out, but I ground my teeth to keep the show of emotion hidden.

“You know well there is no future for a human and a vampire.” I murmured, studying the tension lining his features. Such human emotions flickered over his face. The twins were the youngest of us all, so it would be within reason to believe they could be rash.

“She’ll be my blood-whore and if I don’t tire of her, I’ll turn her.”

I scoffed. “You’ll end up having to kill her regardless because of the blood-madness.” Even if it no longer existed, turning a female vampire had only a twenty percent chance of success.