Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 81867 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 409(@200wpm)___ 327(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81867 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 409(@200wpm)___ 327(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
So I stomp down the side alley to the front of the club where her bike is parked.
As Phoenix walks up to the bike behind me, I hear her on the phone. “Lock down the city. The murderer got away. No, I’m not slipping. She just did, okay?”
By the irritation in her voice, I assume she’s on the phone with her grandfather. “Yes, he’s here.”
She spins to hold out the phone to me, looking pissed. “He wants to talk to you.”
I take the phone from her and hit the “speaker phone” button. Even though I’m still pissed about what just happened, I want to keep things completely transparent. I know Phoenix hates it when Vlad tries to use the people in her life against her.
“Hello?” I growl.
“Have you put a baby in her yet?” he asks crudely.
I can see Phoenix fuming as she stomps away from the phone, but still within hearing distance.
“We’re after a dangerous threat at the moment. That’s not really the priority.” Even as I say it, my mind flashes back to the alley.
“Fucking my granddaughter should be your only priority!” Vlad’s angry voice comes over the phone speaker as if he can read my mind.
My eyes pop back open to see Phoenix’s livid face.
Phoenix snatches the phone away from me again. “We’re losing time. Did you lock down the city? If this monster gets away, that’s on us.”
“How did you let it slip through your fingers the first time?”
“My compulsion didn’t work. And it had…” Phoenix’s eyes flit briefly in my direction, her cheeks coloring, “Other skills that distracted us while it got away. But we won’t fail twice.”
“You better not,” comes Vlad’s voice. “It’s time to start focusing on your honeymoon.”
I can see Phoenix working to control her anger. “I’m having the honeymoon I choose. He’s here with me. We’re…” Her eyes unwittingly flash toward the back alley of the club, “… bonding.”
“The only bonding I care about is the kind that gives me more children to my name. Don’t forget, I hold a life debt over his family.”
“We’ll be in to check city surveillance,” Phoenix snaps. “Text me when the streets are locked down.” She ends the call, then glares at me as she fits the phone into the snug back pocket of her dress. “What?”
I hold my hands up. “I didn’t say anything.”
She lets out a furious huff that I assume is intended more for Vlad than me as she swings a leg over her bike and gestures angrily for me to get on. I shut my eyes to try to block out memories of the last time our bodies were wrapped together, but that only makes it more vivid. My teeth grit as I climb on the bike and try to ignore the way my cock stiffens at being near her again.
The monster inside me roars back to life with a staggering hunger unlike any I’ve ever known before. Because now I’ll carry the memories of what it felt like to have her gasping and squeezing on my cock. Like a starving man given a feast only once before being sent back into the cold. I have a feeling this is the type of shit to drive a man mad.
But then again, what’s a little more madness and torment to a monster?
Chapter Twelve
PHEONIX
10 Years Ago
Sabra chatters the whole way back to the city as I sit up front in her little Dacia with Layden stuffed in the back. He barely fits in the little European car. He’s so tall and now that he’s filled out after eating the deer, broad. I sneak a couple looks back at him, and each time, he’s shifting to awkwardly fold his long limbs a different way while also holding onto the ceiling, watching with wide eyes out the front window as Sabra swerves in and out of traffic.
I realize, holy shit, this has got to be his first time in a car. If he had been in the woods for two hundred years, he doesn’t know anything about the modern world. Which is when I also remember where I’m taking him.
I turn around to give him my full attention. “Look, you kept asking where I come from, and I should have told you about everything you’re about to walk into before you decided to come along.”
“It won’t matter.” He sounds absolutely confident.
“Fine, but you still need to know so you aren’t walking in blind. I’m not a vampire, but my grandfather Vlad is. So are the rest of my family, so you’re whole,” I wave a hand, “Famine thing shouldn’t be a problem. They don’t get hungry or eat food.”
“But never forget the most important rule.” I wave a finger in his face. “Never let him bite you or accept an offer of a blood oath from him.”