25. Caspian

Isit in a bar on the motel's first floor. Noisy. Half-empty. Chaotic. Mortals crave enclosed, dank spaces, like rodents. They obscure their boring surroundings with cigarette smoke and drink liquid until they vomit.

Disgusting creatures.

Lonely creatures.

How I used to hunt them with excitement and glee. I used to enjoy those brief moments off my leash doing my master's bidding. Like a good dog.

I remember more now. Things I don't want in my skull. Memories of all the people I hurt and plied and seduced for him.

Recalling those memories isn't so fun in this realm. It's not so fun to remember what a monster I can be. The monster I am.

How greedy and desperate I was for a chance to run. Slip away. Bleed and bite.

I used to think I was being rewarded for being such a good boy for him.

Now I can see: I was being played with, like a toy within a game of many dancing toys.

Even now, with her…

She was another game for him. Another prey at my disposal for good old Cassius. I should go up there and kill her now. Kill her far away from the ceremony, where it will matter to no one but me.

No,I swear I can hear my old master shriek. No. No. You'll ruin everything.

I should ruin everything for him.

I stand, and as if to aid my plan the blond mortal comes skipping past, down the hall out of sight. I don't care where she's going or why she came here. I only care that she's gone.

No one to witness. No one to see. No one who matters anyway to watch as I creep up those stairs and toward the last room on the left. I grip the doorknob and breathe.

I can smell her in there, alone. Niamh. My Niamh.

No—his. She is his cog in a grand scheme. The object of his devious plans. What? I don't remember. Don't care to remember.

Something about the ceremony and the fae and rules. Something about control. Something…

Killing her will be within my control. I twist the knob and push the door open. I watch her there, thin and frail, curled up on her side, dark hair spilling out around her. She has a black pouch cradled against her chest and I know her bundle of things is inside of it.

I step inside. Close the door behind me—quietly. Not slam it like I want to. Like I should.

I move quietly. Inhale quietly. I watch her. I swallow. Observe her.

She remains lying still, deeply asleep. Not the fake, fitful slumber she struggled through in that shitty room atop the bell tower.

Her chest rises and falls, her dark eyes closed, her injuries faded to mere bruises.

I want to touch her. Rip. Tear.

Touch. I run a finger along her shoulder and grit my teeth.

Damn. She's so soft. Too soft. I finger a thick coil of dark hair. Lower myself to the mattress and inhale. So sweet. Sweeter than she was in that dank, dusty archive. It's as if the mortal air has stripped some of the stifling sadness on her away.

That stifling stillness.

Even mortal clothing cannot hide what she is. Pale skin. Magic sparkling in her flesh. Corrupted fae but fae all the same.

She stirs. Falls silent again. Still alive, her heart still beating.

Because I haven't killed her. Not yet.

I'll wait.

Another day to play my own game. Another day to stall going back. Cassius will come soon. I know he will.

I can give her one more day, though. Just one.

And she will give me more…

All that's left of her.

* * *

The blonde mortalcomes back once, tiptoeing down the hall and peeking inside. Her eyes are bloodshot with exhaustion, her hair a wild, coiled mess. She eyes me like I'm a dangerous creature crouched on the mattress. A monster, hungrily drooling over a fresh, willing fae.

I am.

She breathes a little sigh of relief when she sees the woman unharmed.

Her anger then rises to the surface as she glares at me. "I'll be nearby, vampire," she snarls in a whisper. "If anything happens to her, you will be reported. Your council has no sway out here, but we make our own rules."

She believes the threat will intimidate me.

Fuck her. It doesn't. Out here I can kill as I please. Take what I please.

She is already mine, mine, mine. I look down at her, my fae prize. All mine. My fingers are still in her hair and I coil the curl around and around. Let it fall. Slip my fingers beneath the hem of her stolen borrowed shirt. She's so damn soft, and she jerks at my touch, her eyelids fluttering.

I withdraw. Touching her is a new, wonderful, delicious game.

For now, it's better to watch her sleep. She enters a world I cannot follow. However, I am the one who shapes it. Twist and corrupt what she sees. I lower my mouth to her ear and whisper a command she'll have no choice but to heed.

"I want you to dream of me, little fae," I tell her. "Dream of me inside you. Fucking you. Wringing those little noises from your throat."

She shudders and whimpers, still asleep. Her pulse drums, her exhaustion heavy enough to outweigh any other emotion.

For now.

I lie there beside her, my mouth at her ear, and I watch her sleep. I listen. I chase her into that dream realm the only way I can.

But as the night goes on and the noise of fucking, drinking mortals ebbs and flows around us…

I don't wake her up. I let her sleep.

Jealously, I let her sleep until morning comes and her black eyes blink awake.

She watches me, our gazes locked, bodies parallel. Confusion dawns over her face, then she frowns as she remembers.

The mortal realm. I brought her here. I left her here. She nearly died here.

It's not anger or sadness that flashes across those dark, haunting eyes. Giddiness. Happiness.

Disgusting relief.

"You're here," she says, pulling herself upright slowly, as if afraid to shatter the moment. Wake up in a nightmare, back in that cold, dank crypt. Warily, she stretches out her limbs. Looks back at me.

Smiles.

I glare. She smiles. I glower. She smiles. Nothing I do can shake that expression: pink plump lips, upturned, bringing light to those fucking dark eyes. At least until I snatch her wrist. Pull her down to me where she belongs. Beneath me where she belongs.

Her body is healed, so when she shudders as I grip her waist it isn't out of pain. When she bites her lower lip to trap a sound low in her throat, it isn't one of agony.

Fuck her. I've thought about killing her with these very hands. I will kill her…

In spite of that fact, she lurches into these fingertips. Greedily, she chases my touch. Lets me peel the clothing from her flesh and gape and stare.

Because I own it, every inch. I own her, I do…

I don't.

She inhales and I go still, hand on her thigh, mouth near her throat. I know that sound. That noise.

Uncertainty. Regret.

"I gave you what you wanted," she says, her voice small. Pathetic. Sad? "I know you owe me nothing. I don't have anything else to bargain with. But…"

She lets that word hang in the air. But. But. It seems as though she has nothing left, yet she's willing to ask for more. To get me to stay. Desperation is evident in those dark eyes—desperation I created.

In spite of myself, I grind my teeth. Drive my fangs into my own flesh. Curse her.

Damn her. Fuck her.

Grabbing her hair, I make her face me to better interpret the look in those eyes.

Shame. She paid me her due. She gave me all she had. There is nothing left for me to take. She thinks the debt incurred is hers alone.

Stupid fae. Silly, stupid fae.

I press my fangs into her throat, almost biting. Not quite.

"I want more," I tell her. More. More of my mouth on her skin. More of her heat at my fingertips. "You haven't given me everything. Not yet."

Another valuable prize is locked inside that pretty head. In search of it, my hand ghosts over that slender belly, plunging between those thighs. She's bare there, with nothing to shield her from the finger I slip inside her. As she quakes at the intrusion, I add another. Another.

Yet I still want more.

A sound rips from her throat, in between a moan and a gasp. She doesn't understand. Considers the sex a one-time affair. Satisfied with having had her once, I should demand her blood next. Make her pay me day by day. Her body. Then her skin. Then her eyes. Blood. Bones. Soul.

I'll chew all of her up and swallow every last bit whole.

However, I'm not interested in sex alone. I need the one power she possesses—the ability to dispel Cassius. I can hear him still, gnawing away on my psyche.

Come back to me, Caspian! Caspian! COME TO ME?—

"Say my name," I tell her, once she's wet. A slavish, stupid fool, I've given her more than I've taken already. Using my thumb, I tap the bundle of nerves relied on by women to find pleasure. Her lips are bitten and her eyes are wild as she writhes. Her arousal is evident, dripping onto my fingers and the sheets beneath. "Say my name. Say it!"

She inhales raggedly, her gaze unfocused.

More convincing is necessary to entice her to make this trade. So I free my cock and thrust inside her. There. Her head falls back and her fingers fly to my shoulders, pulling tight. Pulling me close. Closer still. She's begging for destruction, grinding her hips into mine.

But she lied, the stupid, devious little fae.

She has what I want, but she refuses to give it. Not until I fuck her hard. Pin her body to the thin mattress as if I aim to shove her through it. Push us both through it.

There is no creepy male fae to watch. No master looming overhead. Here in the mortal realm, there is just my body and hers.

Even without Cassius' rage to tempt me, she feels so damn good. More than ever, I want her. Harder. Harder. Deeper. More. I take her until I see stars. Until her body clenches around me like a fist, squeezing out all I fucking have.

It's not enough.

I push deeper into her. When I put my mouth to her throat, I can taste the pulse that surges beneath the surface of her skin. I want so badly to bite.

But I can't.

She doesn't want me to. I can feel her intentions coil through me, snaking along my mind as if they were my own. Touching is important to her. She longs for me to caress her. Cradle her like the mortals Cassius plied would want me to.

Don't want to.

I must, if I'm going to get what I crave from her: another dose of her twisted, sinful magic.

I drive her into me by hooking my hands beneath her waist. Press my mouth to hers and kiss her deep. Only then, broken and hoarse, does she give me my payment.

"Caspian…" She whimpers against my lips. "Oh, Caspian."

She goes limp, her eyes closed, chest heaving.

But I'm the one grinning now. Grinning in triumph. Grinning in fucking hatred.

Now she may have some power, but one day I'll take it back. I'll make her as desperate to hear her name leave my mouth as I am for mine to leave hers.

Only I'll never give it.

She will never fucking hear it.

Never.