Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 85552 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85552 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
My door swung open.
That’s the plan. He’ll know later.
Xander stormed into the room in a blur, sniffing the air. “Camille!”
“I’m okay.”
Xander’s gold eyes glowed. “What was that noise?”
“What noise?” I battled to not gaze up at the ceiling and see if Ian was still there. “You must be hearing things. It was nothing. You can go back in the room. I’m fine.”
“I can smell your blood in here. What happened?” Xander prowled my way. Black claws pushed out of his fingertips, appearing sharper than before. I studied them. They were no longer a dull black. They were now a shiny obsidian. It was still off-putting that he suddenly had claws in the first place.
How else will he change?
Xander inhaled the air. “I heard a noise from within here. It sounded like a vampire growling.”
I shivered in fear. “It was nothing.”
“Then, why is your heart booming?”
“Go back to sleep.”
He studied me, and I knew he was peering deeply into my thoughts.
Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it.
“Don’t think about what?” Xander leaped on the bed. The movement made me fall back. Pillows bounced around me. He climbed my way until he hovered over me.
His nostrils flared as he breathed me in.
Dear, Ambi!
He slithered up my body, his hot breath cascading over me like a wave. His nostrils flared and I felt like his prey close to being devoured.
Soon we were face to face with him hovering over me. “What don’t you want to think about?”
“Get out of my head.”
He inhaled. “Someone else was here!”
The level of his voice rocketed up, shaking the entire space. It was a booming, thunderous sound that I had never heard come from him before. It terrified me. The foreign tones reverberated through my blood with blind rage. “I smell your blood and I smell another vampire.”
“F-first. . .you have to calm down.” Slowly, I raised my shaking hands and placed them against his chest. His skin’s temperature warmed to boiling hot. Swallowing down my trembling fright, I cleared my throat. “I can explain everything to you. . .but you have to calm down.”
“Someone else was here and in this bed!” His eyes lit up like the two moons, so bright I gasped. He emitted a wild growl that caused the bed to rock. “Dust? I smell lots of dust. It’s on your chest, and your blood, I can smell it all over the room. Why?”
My voice cracked. “I won’t tell you until you calm down.”
His voice shifted from that deep foreign growl to a low tone that was dark with a murderous edge. “I think you’ll tell me regardless.”
And then the impossible happened. I didn’t know how or why, but I watched in horror as two black horns burst through his forehead, tearing away at his skin, and continuing to push through.
“X-xander?” My breath caught in my throat as the two horns continued to travel out of his forehead. They grew and thickened. It was as if something dark and monstrous had taken hold of his body.
I’d never witnessed anything like this in my life.
Oh my God. Oh my God.
Two enormous black horns, pointed and deadly. Each horn was easily over a foot long and curved backward at the tips, resembling the vicious weapons of a wild ram. The sight filled me with terror and dread as I saw the unbridled power vibrating within him.
Is this. . .more of the ripening?
My body quaked in horror. “X-xander?”
“Who was here?” His voice was unfamiliar. The mass of his arms enlarged into twice the size they normally were. The muscles ballooned and swelled. “Queen?”
“Okay. I’m sorry. I’ll explain—”
“Who bit you? Who tasted you?”
“Wait. I-it’s not as bad as you think—”
“Not as bad, Queen!”
“Y-you bully me with this new size and then call me your queen?”
He lowered himself over me until his face was only an inch away from mine. “This form that you see isn’t for you. It’s for your lover. The one that’s been making love to you tonight and drinking your blood.”
“What?” My mouth opened in shock for a second and then a delirious laugh captured me. I just couldn’t help it. Maybe it was Xander’s horrific image before me that pushed me into the realm of insanity or maybe it was due to the preposterous notion that I would ever think to sneak a lover into Xander’s bedroom and have sex with this person as Xander slept next door.
His voice roared out of him. “You laugh at me?!”
“I have no other lover.” I grinned. “I find it crazy that you think I would disrespect you like that.”
“But someone was in my bed with you, tasting your blood.”
“Not exactly like what you’re thinking.”
“Explain.”
“He sat on the bed next to me.” I shoved at Xander’s chest to get him to move away, but it didn’t work.