Chapter 5: Axl

Chapter

Five

AXL

I ’m sure my heart has never beat so fast as it does at this moment in time. Despite the furious hammering of that organ, the rest of my body is frozen. That my feet seem to have taken root, here of all places—a room that I detest—is particularly troubling to me. For what if I am never able to move? What if this is the price Alexandros spoke of? To be trapped for eternity in a room with the two people I hate more than any others. The two people who should have offered protection, yet they did everything in their power to destroy us.

I sometimes wonder whether it was Frederik or I who suffered the worst fate. To have been left here without his warmth and love—in the company of naught but coldness and cruelty—that is surely a fate worse than any death.

“Axl.” Alexandros’s deep, velvety voice washes over me and somehow slows the erratic racing rhythm of my pulse.

My eyes drift upward, lingering over the bloodied corpse of the man who was my father, and then to the lifeless figure of my mother. I am unsurprised to find that she does not look all that different in death than she did in life. Finally, my gaze falls upon Alexandros’s face. Not even a trace of blood remains on his lips despite the ferocity with which he just feasted. Incredible.

“Two thousand years of practice.” His voice is calm and reassuring.

“You’re two thousand years old?” My incredulity feels at odds with the situation, given that he just slaughtered my parents in front of my eyes, but it is the question that falls from my lips regardless.

He places his finger beneath my chin and tips my head up a little further, and I am unable to escape looking into his black eyes. “A little over actually.” His tongue darts out and moistens his lips. “He beat Frederik over the head with a rock.” He says it so matter-of-factly, and I both hate and love him for it.

I wonder if he suffered for long. If he called out for me and wondered why I didn’t come. A sob heaves from deep within my chest.

Alexandros cups my jaw, thumb and forefinger gripping me tightly. “He did not suffer.”

That is some comfort at least. “Why did he do it?”

“Frederik was not his son.”

Closing my eyes, I let that wash over me. I suppose it explains why Margaret was so cold toward us. Why she never once defended us. Was she too overcome with guilt to be a mother? More tears leak from my eyes, and I curse my own softness as I scrub them away.

“I warned you the truth would come at a price, Axl.” His voice anchors me back to him once more.

He glances at their dead bodies, then back at me, his eyes searching mine. Does he think any of what little compassion I have left in my heart is for them? I roll back my shoulders and jerk my chin from his grip. “If this was the price you spoke of, then it cost me nothing.”

“I don’t want to take her with us. Evangeline,” I say as we reach the door of the expensive, upper-class lodging house in the heart of Whitechapel, having mulled on it the entire way back from Willesden Green. I want a new start. A fresh slate. Nothing from my past life hanging around my neck, and the girl is a part of that, no matter how fleeting our acquaintance. “That’s okay, isn’t it?”

He nods, although his countenance remains entirely unreadable to me. “I would prefer that you did not. It is much cleaner to leave her behind.”

So we leave them all behind? What does that look like? Unease sits upon my shoulders. Perhaps it has less to do with the fates of the three women inside and more to do with what happened at my childhood home. “What shall we do with them?”

He stops, his hand on the ornate brass door knocker. “They have caused us no harm. I see no reason to put an end to their existence. They are of the ilk that very few are likely to believe their tales of men who drank their blood. And even if they were to convince others of such a folly, we shall be long gone in any case.”

I nod my agreement. I do not care for the women upstairs, but that he isn’t an entirely cold-blooded killer with no thought for human life somehow brings me a small degree of comfort. Not that I have ever held much value in a life, even as a human, not since the only one that meant anything to me was so cruelly cut short. But I understand much more clearly now what Alexandros is and, by the same token, what I am. We are immortal and powerful beyond what any human can imagine, and my life and my destiny are inextricably linked to his.

Perhaps he gave me an impossible choice, but I reconcile the conflicting emotions regarding that by reminding myself that it was still my choice. For the first time in as long as I can remember, I see a future for myself. A future with him in the Promised Land of America, which is far brighter and more exciting than any I could have lived here beneath the shadow of my father and my failings.

Alexandros bangs on the door and checks his pocket watch while we wait. “We set sail for America in twenty-one hours. I have arranged for an additional woman to join us this evening, so we should both be fully sated by the time we must board the ship.”

Four women. Four juicy cunts, mouths, and asses to fuck. Four pliant, supple bodies, filled with warm blood. My cock stiffens, and my new fangs protract, aching to bite someone.

The door opens, and I follow him inside, up to the top of the house to his suite of rooms. The door to the master bedroom is opened before we get to it, and I recognize Kira. She is wearing a white gentleman’s shirt, which I assume belongs to Alexandros, but it’s unbuttoned, revealing her gently rounded stomach and full breasts. “Where have you been?” she asks, her voice taking on a sultry tone while a wicked smile plays on her lips.

“That is of no consequence to you, wench.” He slides his arms around her waist before pressing his nose to her neck and inhaling deeply. “All that matters is we are returned.” He smacks her ass, making her squeal with delight before he ushers her into the room. “Where is my new pet?” he asks with a growl.

“Here, sir.” A girl sits perched on the edge of the bed, her guileless, almond-shaped eyes unblinking as she stares at him. She wears a thin white nightdress that reveals the outline of her dark nipples. Alexandros stalks toward her, dragging Kira along with him. I watch in awe as, quick as a flash, he has Kira pinned to the bed by her throat while he feeds on the new girl. My eyes drift to the remaining two women, Scarlet and Evangeline, who stare back at me with the same adoring look in their eyes that they had for him last night.

I’ve never had much of a problem getting women into my bed, but it usually takes a little more effort than this. Is this all part of a vampire’s charm? Alexandros has some kind of magnetic pull; I have felt it firsthand. Do I have that same power? Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter right now, for the beast inside me needs to feed once more. He does not rattle at his cage the way he did the night before last, demanding to be sated, but he is hungry. Both my fangs and my cock ache with a deep, pulsing need to be inside a warm and willing body. Luckily, I have two delectable ones here, ripe for the taking. And I will take it all. Until they have nothing left to give.

I stalk toward the bed, undressing as I do. Evangeline pounces on me as soon as I reach her, her nimble fingers assisting me in unfastening my breeches. Alexandros is already fucking the new girl and has his fingers in Kira’s cunt, making her mewl and writhe on the bed. The sight of him with them only further stokes my own desire.

“Take off your nightdresses. Now!” I bark, and they both obey immediately while I finish disrobing. When all our clothes lie scattered over the floor, I push Evangeline flat to the bed and slip a knee between her legs so I can spread her wide for me. I swipe a finger through her slick folds. “You’re so wet, little minx.”

“Yes sir,” she whines, throwing back her head and allowing me unrestricted access to her creamy skin. I run my nose up the column of her windpipe, inhaling the heady scent of her blood combined with her arousal.

Notching the crown of my cock at her soaking cunt, I sink my teeth into her skin and drive my cock all the way inside her with one deep thrust. The cry she lets out is otherworldly. Intense euphoria shuttles through my body, igniting within my veins like wildfire. My being is flooded with her taste and her scent, but it’s not enough. Scarlet runs a hand down my back, and I lift my head from Evangeline’s neck. Pushing myself up to rest on my hands, I go on nailing her to the mattress, relishing her every whimper and squeal.

“Come here.” I jerk my chin, indicating Scarlet to come closer.

She dusts her lips over mine, and I shake my head and growl. “Not your lips.” Not those lips at least. “Give me your pretty cunt.”

She gasps but does as I ask, pushing up to her knees so her sweet feminine center is mere inches from my face. I latch my mouth onto her, plunging my tongue between her slick heat, but I need more.

“Sit on the pillow beside her and spread your thighs for me, Scarlet.”

She hesitates, glancing at Evangeline who’s still taking my cock like a good little whore. “Don’t look at her. Look at me,” I command.

Her hazel eyes fix on mine, and I offer her a smile, anything to ensure her obedience. “Sit on the pillow and spread those pretty legs for me so I can eat,” I tell her again.

She sinks her teeth into her lip, trying to appear coy, but she hooks her leg awkwardly beneath Evangeline’s head so she can comply with my request.

A growl, feral and unrestrained, rolls deep in my larynx. Holding myself up on one hand, I slip a finger into Scarlet’s soaking center and drag it in and out of her, basking in her satisfied moans and the way her eyes roll back in her head.

And when she’s dripping arousal down her thighs for me, I drop my head, burying my face in her creamy flesh as I devour her. Flicking my tongue over her swollen clit before plunging inside her cunt. She whines, needy and desperate as her arousal thickens.

The taste of her cum is no longer enough to keep me satisfied, so I pierce her flesh with my fangs. Rich, life-giving blood floods my mouth, and she cries out in pain but writhes in ecstasy, riding my face while Evangeline claws at my back, fingernails scratching my skin and her walls squeezing around my cock until I rut into her harder. She envelops me in her slick heat, snug and welcoming no matter how roughly I take her. My heart is pounding violently as my own blood hurtles through my veins at such intense speed it makes my head spin. I suck harder. Fuck harder. Taking and giving. Skin slapping against skin, clawing and biting and tasting.

I have the strength to go for hours, my cock never softening no matter how many times I find my release. My thirst for their blood ebbs and flows. And the whole time, my sire is there with me, feasting and fucking alongside me.

We allow the women to sleep for a time and then encourage them to eat some food before we begin the cycle again. We switch, Alexandros with Evangeline and Scarlet, and me with Kira and the new girl, Olivia.

Fuck. Feed. Repeat. Over and over. Fingers. Mouth. Ass. Cunt. On and on. An unending frenzy of ecstasy and insatiable lust, until the room is dripping with the smell of sex and blood and I am lost to the blissful oblivion of it all.

I tip my head back, looking up at the ship looming before us. “That thing is fucking huge. You’re sure it’s safe?”

“You are immortal, Axl.” Alexandros dismisses my unease, his trunk clasped in one hand and our tickets for passage in the other.

“Oh yeah.” That’s going to take some getting used to. “I still don’t relish the prospect of freezing my ballocks off in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean though.” I shiver at the thought.

He gives me a sideways glance, but his expression is unreadable. I go back to staring at the ship, awed by its size and its ability to remain afloat.

I think about the life I’m heading toward. Montridge University is a prestigious institution and will offer me an abundance of opportunity. Surely there will be much more for me in America than there was here in London. Still, I am apprehensive.

“Are you ready, Axl?” The professor’s voice breaks through my thoughts.

I take a deep breath. “Yeah.”

He places his hand on the nape of my neck in a rare show of warmth. “This is the start of something unique and incredible, Axl. You have nothing to fear.”

And as I stare into his deep brown eyes, which are darker than the deepest depths of the ocean we are about to cross, I know he speaks the truth.

For those of you wondering about Lynette’s fate?—

She obviously did not marry the duke, and she recalled nothing of her fateful meeting with two hotter-than-hell vampires. Upon hearing of the duke’s demise, she sought solace in her female friends and, in doing so, realized that her true love had been right under her nose all along.

Lynette’s soulmate came in the form of her best friend’s older brother, Benjamin—a skilled carpenter who was very good with his hands. They had a spring wedding in a beautiful small-village church outside of London.

And they lived happily ever after.

Are you ready for the final instalment of the Broken Bloodlines trilogy? You can preorder now:

Bound in Blood