• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

“Just like that,” he said.

I nodded. “Just like that.”

“I saw it in your eyes. Cold, dispassionate, like someone else was looking out. If I was sure I could kill coldly, it wouldn’t scare me so much.”

“I wish I could promise you that you wouldn’t enjoy it, but I can’t.”

“I know that.” He stared at me. “I couldn’t kill you. Not for any reason.”

“It would destroy something in me to lose you, Richard, but my first reaction is to protect myself at all costs. So, if we ever have another misunderstanding like we did tonight, don’t help me up, don’t come close to me, until I’m sure you’re not going to eat me. Okay?”

He nodded. “Okay.”

The energy rush that Jean-Claude had given me was fading, calming. I stood up, and Richard’s body touched mine. I felt an instant rush of warm energy that had nothing to do with the vampire. Richard’s aura enveloped me like a breath of warm air. His arms slid behind my back. I slid my hands around his waist and laid my cheek against his chest. I listened to the deep throbbing of his heart, running my hands over the softness of the flannel shirt. There was a measure of comfort in Richard’s arms that simply wasn’t there when Jean-Claude held me.

He ran his hands through my hair, putting one on either side of my face. He pulled me back until he could see my face. He bent towards me, lips parted. I stretched on tiptoe to meet him.

A voice said, “Master.”

Richard turned with me still in his arms, so we could see the door. Jason crawled across the white carpet, dripping crimson drops as he moved.

“My God, what happened to you?” I asked.

“I happened to him,” Richard said. He walked over to the crawling man.

“What do you mean, you happened to him?”

Jason abased himself at Richard’s feet, face pressed to the carpet. “I’m sorry.”

Richard knelt and raised Jason to a sitting position. Blood ran down his face from a cut above his eyes. It was deep and would need stitches.

“You threw him into a wall?” I asked.

“He tried to stop me from reaching you.”

“I can’t believe you did this.”

Richard looked up at me. “You want me to be pack leader. You want me to be alpha. Well, this is what it takes.” He shook his head. “You should see your face. You look so damned outraged. How can you want me to kill another human being and be upset by a little rough and tumble?”

I didn’t know what to say. “Jean-Claude said that killing Marcus wouldn’t be enough. That you’d have to be willing to terrorize the pack to rule it.”

“He’s right.” Richard wiped the blood off Jason’s face. The cut was already beginning to close. He put his bloody fingers into his mouth and licked them clean.

I stood there, frozen, staring, like an unwilling witness to a car crash.

Richard bent close to Jason’s face. I thought I knew what he was going to do, but I had to see it to believe it. He licked the wound. He ran his tongue over the open wound like a dog will do.

I turned away. This couldn’t be my Richard, my safe, comforting Richard.

“You can’t stand to watch, can you?” he asked. “Did you think that killing was the only thing I had refused to do?”

His voice made me turn back.

There was a smudge of blood on his chin. “Watch it all, Anita. I want you to see what it takes to be alphic. Then you tell me if it’s all worth it. If you can’t stomach it, don’t ever ask me to do it again.” The look in his eyes made it a challenge.

I understood challenges. I sat on the edge of the bed. “Go to it. I’m all yours.”

Richard brushed the hair on one side, exposing the wound on his neck. “I am alpha and I feed the pack. I spilled your blood, and now I give it back to you.” The warm rush of his power spilled through the room.

Jason stared up at him, his eyes rolled almost to white. “Marcus doesn’t do this.”

“Because he can’t,” Richard said. “I can. Feed on my blood, on my apology, my power, and never stand against me again.” The air was so thick with power it was hard to breathe.

Jason rose on his knees and put his mouth over the wound, tentatively at first, as if afraid he’d be turned away or hurt. When Richard didn’t say