Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Colletion_ Books 11-15 - Laurell K. Hamilton [262]
A roll of my eyes, and I could see him swollen and tight against the front of his shorts. I licked up the line of his thigh, licked closer and closer to that thin line of satin that stretched over the front of his body.
I tasted his pulse against my lips, but it wasn’t an echo from his hand. My mouth was over the pulse in his inner thigh. He let go of my wrist, as if now we didn’t need it, we had another pulse, another, sweeter place to explore. I could smell the blood just under his skin, like some exotic perfume. I pressed my mouth over that quivering heat, kissed the blood just under his skin. Licked the jumping thud of his pulse, just a quick flick of my tongue. It tasted like his skin, sweet and clean, but it also tasted of blood, sweet copper pennies on my tongue.
I bit him, lightly, and he cried out above me. I slid hands over his thigh, held it tight, so that the next bite was harder, deeper. His meat filled my mouth for a second, and I could taste the pulse under his skin. Knew that if I bit down, that blood would pour into my mouth, that his heart would spill itself down my throat as if it wanted to die.
I stayed with my teeth around his pulse, fought with myself not to bite down, not to bring that hot, red, rush. I could not let go, and it was taking everything I had not to finish it. I reached down those metaphysical cords that bound me to Jean-Claude and Richard. I had a confusing image of meat and viscera, and other bodies crowding close. The pack was feeding. I shoved that image away, because it wanted me to bite down. Richard’s muzzle was buried deep into the warmth of the body, buried in the sweet things inside. I had to run from those feelings, before I fed on Nathaniel the way they were feeding on the deer.
I found Jason lying pale on Jean-Claude’s bed, bleeding on the sheets. Jean-Claude’s blood thirst was quenched but there were other hungers. He looked up at me, as if he could see me. His eyes were drowning blue, and I felt it, the ardeur had risen in him. Risen in a wave of heat that left him staring down at Jason’s still form with thoughts that had nothing to do with blood.
He spoke, his voice echoing through me, “I must shut you out, ma petite, something is wrong tonight. You will force me to do things I do not wish to do. Feed the ardeur, ma petite, choose its flame, before another hunger comes and carries you away.” With that, he was gone. Gone as if a door had slammed shut between us. I had a moment to realize that he’d slammed a door between not just himself and me, but between Richard and me, as well. So that I was suddenly cut adrift.
I was alone with the feel of Nathaniel’s pulse in my mouth. His flesh was so warm, so warm, and his pulse beat like something alive inside his skin. I wanted to free that struggling, quivering thing. I wanted to break it free of its cage. To free Nathaniel of this cage of flesh. To set him free.
I fought not to bite down, because some part of me knew that if I once tasted blood that I would feed. I would feed, and Nathaniel might not survive it.
A hand grabbed mine, grabbed mine and held on. I knew who it was before I raised my face from Nathaniel’s thigh. Damian knelt beside us. His touch helped me get to my knees, helped me think, at least a little. But the ardeur didn’t go away. It pulled back like the ocean drawing back from the shore, but it didn’t leave, and I knew it would come back. Another wave was building, and when it crashed over us, we needed a plan.
“Something’s wrong,” I said, and my voice shook. I held on to Damian’s hand like it was the last solid thing in the world.
“I felt the ardeur rise, and I thought, great, just great, left out again. Then it