Page 96 of Kick the Candle (Knight Games 2)
Shit. So, Bathory wanted me dead. Great. "One more question. Why don't you want the book, Julius?"
He stood, leaving his glass at the desk and folding his hands behind his back. With a stony expression, he paced toward me, approaching the bed like a predator. I noticed for the first time that his low-slung jeans and silver waffle weave shirt concealed an impressive physique. Smarmy, yes, but at one time Julius had been an attractive specimen of a man. I briefly wondered how he'd become a vampire.
He stopped at my side. "I do want the book, Hecate, as much as I want the blood that courses through your veins. You have no reason to trust me. You shouldn't trust me. I was a bad man, and I've become an even worse vampire. Even now I am tempted to drink your blood until I can feel the suction of your veins collapsing and hear the fading rhythm of your heart. Watching you pale would give me great pleasure."
I stiffened in his bed. He was too close. His face lowered toward my broken body.
"But you see, my dear witch, I find myself in the unenviable position of needing to keep you alive. For as much as I want the book, Anna is the older, more powerful vampire. If she gets her hands on it, we will all become her immortal slaves. I'm not willing to bow to her or lose my coven."
The cold curl of his breath forced me back on the mattress. He was in my face now and his fangs had dropped. His blue eyes fixated on my neck.
"Then you'd better keep me alive."
"If the house has already sold, maybe it doesn't matter." A trace of evil permeated his voice, his previously congenial tone swept away by a hungry, lascivious glare.
"Better safe than sorry."
"I best not kill you," he said, more to himself than to me. His icy cold hand swept down my arm to my bloody and bruising wrist. He lifted it above my head, pressing it into the pillow.
I whimpered. The injuries caused by Bathory's ropes throbbed under his touch.
At the sound of my pain, he inhaled deeply. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed him adjust himself in his jeans. He was hard, and I was in trouble. Flattening my back to his bed, I was too weak to do much else. He collected my other wrist and pinned it above my head.
"They say a witch's blood tastes like silk and gives the energy of ten humans." He parted my knees with his own and stretched out on top of me, propping his weight on his elbows as he restrained my arms. He settled his hips between my legs.
"Please don't." My heart was pounding. My rib ached as his body pressed into mine. With no energy to fight back, a tear rolled down my cheek.
His tongue lapped over my jugular.
"You need me, remember? Don't do it, Julius."
Cool breath chilled the wet spot he'd left on my skin. "Just a taste. I can stop."
I braced myself for the strike but nothing could prepare me for the pain. Unlike with Rick, my flesh didn't part for his teeth; it fought the invasion. I screamed in agony as he ripped into me. I cried in earnest, the sounds of his swallowing bringing back memories of my last death, when Marcus had killed me.
My chest felt heavy, heart struggling against the loss of blood. I was tired. All I had to do was close my eyes and I might never wake up again. "Julius, stop," I rasped.
"Mmm." Julius groaned into my neck. He wasn't going to stop. He was going to kill me.
Rick, help me, I thought one last time. I fought to remain conscious.
Suddenly, a section of the ceiling exploded, wood beams and brick blowing into the room. Light poured through the hole, sending Julius fleeing to the safety of the shadow behind his desk. Sweet sunshine washed over me, around an impressive silhouette. I didn't have to see his face. Deep inside, the most instinctual part of me knew it was Rick. He'd come for me. Even though he hated me, he'd come for me.
To the sound of Poe's caw in the background, Rick hastily swept me up into his arms. What happened next wasn't his fault. He didn't know he shouldn't have moved me. As he folded my body in half, all of the blood rushed from my head and my rib slipped. I couldn't draw a breath. And then I was gone again. I'd lost myself.
Deep, buried under the darkness at the bottom of an ocean, I was drowning. I gulped the salt water, filling my mouth. Too late. It was too late. I'd never reach the surface. Arms flailing, I struggled. It had been forever since my last real breath of air. Was I already dead?
"Mi cielo, breathe, breathe darling."
Rick. I swallowed what was in my mouth. Not salt water, but blood. His blood. A reflexive gasp broke my lips, and I cranked my good eye open. The sun poured in. I absorbed its energy into my very soul. Pain screamed through my body, Rick's blood working from the inside out. As unpleasant as the hurt was, the ache told me I wasn't dead; I was healing. I was alive. I was alive!
My Caretaker
A warm, wet cloth blotted my skin, tugging me awake. My eyes fluttered open. The slosh and dribble of a cloth being rinsed and wrung was enough motivation for me to keep them open. I was in Rick's bedroom, stretched out next to him on his bed, his broad shoulders hunched over a basin of water.
"How are you feeling?" he asked. He ran the cloth back up my arm, rinsing the remainder of dried blood from my skin.
"Heavy all over. Like a truck hit me."
