Page 56 of Eternally Bound
Refusing to be cowed by the memory of Joseph, she opened her eyes. Her heart sank when she realized Ronan was gone.
***
Ronan stormed down the stairs, heedless of his nudity. He moved swiftly across the marble foyer, not noticing the coldness of it beneath his bare feet as he made his way to the basement door, flung it open, and swiftly descended.
He stepped off the last stair and strode across the matted floor of the gym. He would head straight for one of the treadmills as soon as he fed. He’d run his body for so long and hard that he would be too tired to move, too tired to do anything but crawl into bed and pass out. He would be too tired to think about anything, especiallyher. Though, he suspected he’d have to be dead before he stopped thinking of Kadence.
“Some of us prefer clothes to work out in, but to each their own.”
Ronan ground his teeth together as the words drifted across the room from the stairwell he’d left behind. The last thing, the lastone, he wanted to deal with right now was Declan. Ronan refused to look back at him as continued through the set of swinging steel doors and into the storage room beyond. A tall, stainless steel refrigerator was set against the far wall. They kept emergency supplies of blood stashed inside, and with the way he felt right now, this definitely classified as an emergency.
Pulling one of the doors open, he snatched a blood bag from within. He ripped the top off it, and heedless of the cold temperature, downed the contents in one gulp. He crumpled the bag, tossed it aside, and grabbed another one. He drank it down before flinging it aside.
He had never required a third bag to sate his thirst before, but fire still raged through his veins. Seizing another bag, he consumed it and was reaching for a fourth when the doors swung open behind him. Declan’s footsteps sounded on the tile floor as he entered the room.
“Get out,” Ronan commanded.
He still wouldn’t look at Declan as he ripped the top off the fourth bag and drank it. The hunger continued to shred his insides with its incessant demand for more. For somethingotherthan this bagged shit, or rather,someoneelse. No matter how much he drank, he wouldn’t be satisfied until it was Kadence’s vein his lips were pressed against.
Throwing the bag away, he cursed loudly before slamming his fist into the fridge. Metal screeched as it crumpled from the impact of the blow.
“What did the fridge ever do to you?” Declan quipped.
Ronan whirled on him. “I saidgetout!”
Declan held his hands up as he backed away. Ronan barely glanced at whatever was hanging from Declan’s fingers before his friend tossed it at him. “Easy, Ronan, I’m not here to start anything with you.”
“Then why are you here?”
Declan’s nostrils flared as he scented the air. Ronan stiffened when he realized Declan had caught his scent, which meant he could smell what had transpired between him and Kadence.
“You’re in a feeding frenzy,” Declan said flatly, wisely choosing not to comment on his relationship with Kadence.
“Your powers of observation are astronomical!” Ronan spat.
“When was the last time you fed?”
“What business is that of yours?”
“You’re out of control. That makes it my business. If this were me in here, you would lock me away or destroy me.”
“Try it,” Ronan dared him.
“I’m not going to try anything. We both know you could kill me, just as we both know why you’re like this.”
Ronan turned away from him and removed another bag of blood. This time, he didn’t bother to tear off the top but sank his fangs into the bottom and drained the contents. He would drink every drop of blood in the fridge, and when he was done, he would return upstairs, take her again and drain her.
He stretched a shaky hand in for the sixth bag. In all his years, he’d never been this out of control.
CHAPTER 26
“When was the last time you fed?” Declan asked again.
“Two days ago.” He occasionally went two days at a time, never longer. When he’d been younger, he’d been able to go for almost a week without much of a problem. Now, he tried to feed every day to keep the part of him that craved blood and death at bay.
“You slept with her,” Declan stated.
Ronan’s head swiveled on his shoulders toward Declan. His friend edged back until his heel connected with one of the swinging doors. “That’s none of your fucking business.”
