Library

Chapter 36

Thirty-Six

T en minutes later, they were in his lab.

It had refrigerators stocked with blood bags, telescopes, medical equipment, and beakers filled with chemicals.

A chill stroked the back of her neck as she nervously fiddled with Emrys's equipment. Now that she knew vampires were still alive, her scientific brain wanted to probe at them. She wanted to know if there was a biological difference between them. She also needed science to keep her from thinking about everything that happened, from the murders to the threading notes to wanting to kiss Emrys Avalon.

Keeping busy and focusing on her insatiable need to understand things would keep it all at bay, and it would keep her lust at bay. Quinn would touch him, and she would let him touch her back, but the investigation came first.

Besides, she needed to know if blood flowed through vampires' veins, if they had heartbeats, and how their powers and reflexes worked.

It was science, and it was necessary.

One day, she would be one.

But this was the first alive person—creature?—she'd ever examined. It was different. For one, she had to ask permission to do things before poking and probing. But before doing that, she needed to set up the equipment and control the sample.

She needed her blood.

Being relatively used to pain—as a dancer, she pushed her body to the edge of pain daily—she decided to prick her finger for a sample rather than draw it from her veins. She placed four drops onto a slide, her mind whirling with disturbing thoughts.

She kept going back to the threatening notes.

If Quinn didn't find the killer or the mirror in the next three days, one of her friends would die. It wasn't an empty threat. She knew it. But she was nowhere near getting answers, and instead of trying to find the killer, she was studying a vampire.

Her heart crescendoed, the pounding rattling her ears, and her hands trembled.

"What's wrong?" Emrys asked. "I can hear your heart racing, and your face looks like you swallowed sour milk."

Quinn placed her slide down, causing it to clink. "The killer threatened to kill one of my friends if I don't find the third mirror, and instead of looking for it, I'm studying you . . . And I am going to let you study me. It's foolish."

"Do you think you can find the mirror when you're frantic and upset?" he asked, his tone calming and smooth like honeyed wine.

"No," she said softly. She could barely spell her name while in a frantic state.

"And what calms you down?"

"Dancing."

"What else?"

She raked through her mind and settled on. "Science. Figuring out how things work."

"Precisely." He smiled. "That's what you're doing. You're not wasting your time being here and studying me. You're exercising your brain."

"Oh." How did he have the ability to put her so at ease and calm her down when he'd only ever been an irritant before?

"And I promise, we'll find this monster before the ball," he said, his tone a dark conviction.

"You can't promise that."

"No, maybe not, but I can promise I'll rip out anyone's throat who tries to hurt you or your friends." He placed his hands in his lap, like he was waiting for her to proceed with her examination.

But instead of asking him to draw his blood, she said, "Are you still choosing a wife tomorrow?" She tried to flash a warm, supportive smile, but it came off more like an uncomfortable grimace, which matched his.

He nodded. "I have to."

"Why?" she asked as she gathered the serums needed to test blood type. "You're not bound by the accords anymore."

"But my family is," he said. "Some of the vampires that I'm responsible for are bound to the third mirror. If our secret gets out, they die."

"Oh," she breathed. "How does it work? Obviously, Kiara is not your mother."

He visibly swallowed and played with his cravat nervously. It was an emotion she'd never seen him wear before and went against his whole careless persona. "We agreed in order to keep vampires a secret every twenty-five years I would marry a new bride chosen by the council to be New Swansea's next ruler. A couple of years after the ball, my new bride announced her pregnancy, and she always had a baby boy whom we raised in Aberdare to keep him away from ‘the corrupt city' until he turned sixteen. I use my glamour to age until I fake my death sixteen years after my son's birth. I then use my glamour to look sixteen while I return to the city and mourn my father's death. And so, the cycle repeats with different girls."

A new wife every twenty-five years, and he never got to choose them. He had no control over his destiny because he wanted to protect his vampiric family. It was a choice she didn't think she could ever make .

Quinn was too selfish. She needed to control her life and destiny.

"How does no one notice the pattern?" she asked.

"The mirrors erase people's memories if they get too close and don't know about the Accords." Now, her forgetfulness in the library made sense.

"Have you ever loved any of your wives?" she asked, not truly knowing why she wanted the answer. To satiate her curiosity?

"No, I do my duty." His voice was grave. "That is all."

"Are you happy?" When she was only met with silence, she asked a different question. "How many times have you been married?"

"Twenty-six."

Silence swirled around them in dark rivulets, matching his mood. The air in the room was filled with awkward tension. Somewhere in the last day, the nature of their friendship had changed. He'd saved her life and shared his deepest secrets with her, and she felt the urge to be close to him. To share with him parts of herself she didn't let others see.

But that also scared her.

To break the tension, she asked, "Can I sample your blood?"

"Yes," he said, and before she could get a needle to draw blood, he cut his hand, placing four drops onto a microscope slide.

Surprise laced her lips.

"It's fine." He answered her unspoken question. "It will heal in a couple of minutes. But if you stabbed me, it would take roughly an hour to heal."

"Is that an invitation?" she asked, grabbing a slide.

Emrys laughed. "Maybe another time." A devilish charm danced in his eyes.

She swallowed, concentrating on her work. "So, it takes an hour to heal from a stab wound?"

"Unless you expose the wound to the starlight." He tapped his fingers on the exam table he was perched on .

"What happens with starlight?"

"We heal at triple the rate."

Interesting .

Grabbing both slides, she added a drop of anti-A serum to one sample. To the second drop, she added the anti-B serum, and to the third drop, she added the Rh serum. The fourth drop she left alone. After waiting a couple of minutes, she checked the slides to see the reactions. Emrys's blood clotted in the anti-A serum and the B serum, meaning that he had type AB blood.

But the sample was strange.

The Rh clotted only partially. If Rh clotted, it would indicate a positive blood type instead of a negative. This might indicate that he had AB-positive blood, but there was something strange about the Rh sample. Quinn quickly turned on the microscope and peered at the blood on the highest magnifying level. There were A and B antigens and the Rh protein on the outer rim of the red blood cells. There was also another protein alongside, attached to the Rh. It was something she'd never seen before.

No one had an extra protein on their blood.

At least no human did.

Was she staring at the vampiric blood type?

Curious, Quinn checked her blood to see if it was normal. She anticipated that it would be. After all, she wasn't a vampire yet.

The results horrified her. She had type O blood, but her Rh matched Emrys's. Under the microscope, her blood also had the mutated Rh with an extra protein attached. Quinn's heart rattled in her chest. This was not normal.

Did her blood change as soon as she'd drank Emrys's?

Quinn dug her nails into her hair. She didn't want this.

As if sensing her dismay, Emrys asked, "What did you find?"

She told him everything.

"Interesting." He stroked his chin.

Wanting to focus on anything other than her sample, Quinn continued the examination. She strolled over to Emrys, who sat on an exam table and grabbed her stethoscope. "Can you take your shirt off?"

A cocky grin climbed onto Emrys's face. "I thought you'd never ask."

She didn't reward his arrogance with a response. Her traitorous heart marched to the beat of a war drum, climbing and racing in her chest. She noted it but refused to give in to her physical reactions.

He took off his shirt and exposed a chest of chiseled muscles. "That's a glamour, right? You're actually hideous."

"Tremendously so." He placed his hands in his pockets and dared her with his eyes. "Why don't you grab a mirror and see? It is the only way to see through a vampire's glamour."

She'd learned about vampire glamour in a picture book as a child. They were supposed to be stunning and draw humans in as prey. Just to wipe Emrys's arrogance away, she did just that and examined him through a mirror. The only difference was the scars etched across his face. But his abs, his perfect body, remained. Annoyingly, the scars made him more endearing and striking than his glamoured perfection.

But Quinn didn't understand. Her whole body healed when she was marked down to the calluses on her toes. "Why are they still there?" she asked. "Vampire blood heals. Starlight heals."

He averted his eyes as she placed the mirror on the table. "Every mirror has a cost."

He did not elaborate, and she did not press him.

"I think they make you beautiful." Quinn walked over to his shirtless chest, placed her stethoscope on a peck, and listened. The rate was very, very leisurely—just like him.

"What?" he asked, based on her reaction.

"It's so slow."

"Hmmm. And it's racing." Their eyes met, their breathing a bit ragged.

Quinn looked down and fiddled with her stethoscope and asked. "So, the normal heartbeat is even slower? "

"Yes," he whispered into her hair.

"But this is . . ." She counted the beats per minute. "This is twenty-five bpm. If this is fast, what is normal? A human's resting heart rate was between sixty and one hundred beats. "Are you even alive?"

He shrugged. "Hmmm, now that is the question, isn't it?"

Quinn ignored his mocking comment and continued the examination. She checked his muscles and reflexes. The latter, which she couldn't even see because they were so fast. All the while, she tried to ignore the fortissimo pounding in her chest and the wild carrion birds making havoc in her stomach. She found that keeping her eyes averted helped—a little.

Her hands studied his chest, and her toes curled because she knew it gave him permission to touch her there, too. But she needed to feel the muscles and see if they were different than human flesh. It would have been easier to study him if she could cut him open and see his muscles and organs, but she doubted he would allow that.

"Do you think becoming a vampire makes you evil?" Her voice shook. But it was what all of this was about—the examination. She needed to know what she was going to become. Would she be a monster?

He rubbed his fingers together as he thought. "I don't know. Possibly."

"I don't want to—" Her voice cracked like a rock hitting a windshield.

Emrys leaned forward and cupped her face. "I know."

"I don't want you to kiss me," she lied.

"I know." He dropped his hands, making it clear that he had no plans of kissing her. The absence of his fingers felt like torment. "I do believe you're the one fondling my abs. So, at the very least, you want me to touch you."

Glancing down at her fingers, which were indeed fondling his chest, she removed them as if burned. "I—"

"I wasn't complaining." His eyes sparkled with mischief. After a beat, as if trying to settle her embarrassment, he asked, "What's my diagnosis, doctor?"

"Definitely not human," she said through a tense smile.

His answering grin was leisurely and toxic. It was the type of smile that would make her forget her aversion to kissing him, the type of smile that made her knees weak.

A distraction—she needed one badly. So she blurted the first thing that came to mind, "Can vampires turn into creatures?"

"No," he said. "It's just another persuasive illusion like the fog and blood rain at the Royalle Ballet."

"Will you show me?

"Yes," he said as his form melted away, leaving a golden peacock in his place. She jumped back, alarmed, and her hand accidentally stroked one of its feathers. The bird tried to nibble at her fingertips, and she stepped back again.

Emrys was before her again in an instant, and the bird was gone.

"I felt it," she said softly.

"It's a persuasive illusion. So real it's nearly impossible to see through." The smile on his face was brilliant, like looking directly at the sun without protection. It was too much in his shirtless state. She averted her eyes and changed the subject again.

"Do you also control shadows?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Is that something all vampires can do?"

"No."

She brought her eyes back up to meet his. "How does that work?"

"Some vampires have special abilities that others do not." He conjured a shadow tendril from nothing, wrapped it around her wrist, and moved it up her arm, leaving gooseflesh in its wake. "I have shadows, among other things."

But he didn't stop there. Quinn shuddered, and her breath hitched because, if it were possible, the shadow felt better than his hands. And for one moment, she didn't want him to stop. She wanted to fall into him, and she didn't care if it was real, if he cared about her, or even if it was their new bond that made it so—although she doubted it was the bond. She had wanted him like this long before, and Quinn knew that if she wanted to, she could say no, she could refuse his touch and push him away, and he'd respect it, but she didn't want to because she just wanted him for one moment of bliss.

Quinn pinched her eyes shut and let out a sigh as the tendril climbed her shoulder and spread up her neck and into her hair, splitting into more shadows as it went. Quinn grasped the lab table for support and stifled a moan. The sensation was just too powerful. If he wasn't careful, he was going to make her cum without ever even touching her core. And that was something she'd never experienced before.

"Oh, gods, more," she whispered, her knees growing weak. "I think I like your shadows."

One of the shadow tendrils caressed down her chest, stroking along the crests of her breasts and under her corset, and when it reached her nipple, Quinn let out a cry, and her knees buckled. She would have fallen, but Emrys was too fast. With vampire speed, he scooped her up and placed her in his lap. She immediately felt the hardness of his cock against her ass as his shadows continued their ministrations.

Her head fell back into the crook between his neck and shoulder, and her lips parted with a moan as his shadows circled her nipples and moved south. She spread her legs to him, her dress inching up as the shadows roped around them but still never touched her core.

"Emrys, I want . . ." you to touch my clit. I want your full length inside of me. I want all of you .

He let out a low chuckle. "You are a greedy ballerina."

"Yes." She sighed.

"I am not going to give you what you want. Not yet, because you're not done examining me, and therefore, I cannot touch you. "

"It really feels like your touchin—" Quinn released a scream of pleasure as the tension inside her burst. She shook with her orgasm and leaned into him as he held her tight through it. When she finished shaking, she finally opened her eyes. The shadows had disappeared, and she was left in his lap, her head resting on his shoulders and her legs spread wide open to him.

How had he done that without touching her clitoris? Oh, gods, this man had magical abilities.

Embarrassment hit her like a ton of bricks. She'd been wanton again, and she knew it was all her and not some silly bond because she would have wanted that the night of her rite, and she did get a version of that the night of their kiss. But more than anything, she knew that wasn't the bond taking over because while she wanted to take orgasms from him, over and over again, she also wanted to punish him for marking her and calling her one of his girls after their first kiss, and a bond of obedience would never allow that.

However, even though that realization happened, she was still utterly embarrassed. Because that was twice now, he made her cum so damn easily. Twice, her body proved she wanted him. And that would not do.

Scrambling off his lap, she placed her feet on the floor and readjusted her dress, which the shadows had crumpled and displaced.

"Um, thank you for that demonstration." She swallowed hard. "I assume not all vampires have that talent."

"No." A way too satisfied smile stretched across his face.

Quinn suddenly understood why he was one of the most sought-after lovers in all of New Swansea. He made her cum without even touching her clitoris.

"So, back to studying me?" He wiggled an eyebrow. "There is one spot on my body you haven't examined." His eyes fell to his groin. "Are you sure you don't want to study that?"

Quinn inhaled sharply. I want more than to study that. Her cheeks warmed. Oh, he was going to be the death of her. Emrys was a dirty, hurtful, talented flirt. That was it. "Do you want me to examine your corpus spongiosum ?"

"Is that the scientific word for my penis?"

"Yes."

He shook his head. "Of course, it is."

Quinn gulped, bit the inside of her lip, and picked up her notebook as if she were about to write some vital research in it. Quinn wanted so bad to fuck him. Especially since her heart and breaths hadn't calmed down from what he'd just done to her. But if she touched his cock, she knew they would fuck, probably on this exam table. But she wanted to mean something to him, and that would never happen. Emrys Avalon was an ancient, highly skilled vampire who probably slept with hundreds . . . if not thousands, of women. What was Quinn compared to them?

Nothing.

She was an inexperienced girl with a scalpel and dreams of being that kind of desirable.

But she never would be.

At least, not for him.

Quinn traced a finger along the side of her notebook. Quinn wouldn't fuck him today because, more than any of her other reasons, she wanted to prove that she could resist him—that being marked hadn't changed her. "I think . . ." Her voice was still too breathless and filled with need, so she paused to reel it all back in. "I am okay. I've read enough books. I know how that particular appendage works."

"Do you?" His eyes sparked as he raised a sculpted eyebrow.

"Yes, of course I do." She slapped her notebook shut. "I think we're done here." She averted her eyes and changed the subject again. "You don't have your shirt on." Her voice was mechanical and pragmatic.

"Well, I could remedy that for you."

"You should." Her heart quaked.

Emrys moved like lightning and was dressed in moments. Shaking out her shoulders, she sighed and let her body relax like a balloon slowly releasing air. Emrys disappeared in a blink before returning 2.5 seconds later. She counted, to be exact.

"There now, you won't be able to ravish me." He winked. "But I do remember you agreeing that anywhere you touched, I could also touch, and I don't think we're done with your lessons in passion yet for the day."

"I am fairly certain you just did way more than touch me."

"My shadows don't count," he said, exposing a dimple. "Besides, I plan to touch you with my mouth this time."

Quinn's breath hitched, and shivers snaked through her core. It took everything in her to say the next words, "Actually, no." A devious smile climbed Quinn's cheeks. If he could play with her, she could also play with him. "Let's take a raincheck on that."

"Ginger . . ." He raised an irritated eyebrow. "Are you telling me you're a liar?"

"Of course not." She wiggled her nose. "The first rule of bargains, dearest vampire, always specifies a timeframe."

"I highly doubt that is the first rule of bargains."

"You didn't specify when you would get to touch me, and so, I say, it is not today."

"As you wish, Ginger." He disappeared with his vampire speed and reappeared behind her shoulder, his lips at her ear. "But trust me, you will come to regret this." A shudder stroked up her spine. "One day, you will beg me to touch you again."

Comments

0 Comments
Best Newest

Contents
Settings
  • T
  • T
  • T
  • T
Font

Welcome to FullEpub

Create or log into your account to access terrific novels and protect your data

Don’t Have an account?
Click above to create an account.

lf you continue, you are agreeing to the
Terms Of Use and Privacy Policy.