Dark Cravings (10 page)

“Ow! What the fuck!” Micah yelped.

Gem brought her blood-covered finger to her mouth and stuck
the digit between her ruby lips. I watched in rapt fascination. As if she were
tasting fine wine, she rolled the liquid around in her mouth. My fangs
throbbed.

“Demon blood, I can taste it.” With the curve of her nail,
she caught a line of blood on Micah’s stomach. She turned to me and held out
her finger. “Taste this, vampire, and tell your mate he is a demon, so we can
be done with this. I don’t think he’ll listen to anyone else.”

I looked at her finger, at the witch, then at Roy with an
expression I hoped conveyed my helplessness.

“Do as she says, Ella,” Roy instructed.

I glanced at Micah, then Eli. Why was everyone staring at me
like I’d grown a second head? Was it the fangs? Or were my blue, blue eyes now
red? When I forced myself to back away, it took two steps until my ass hit the
front door. I reached for the knob. My slick palm slid off the handle. I shook
my head, unable to speak.

Gem tilted her head, studied me. I could only imagine what
she saw. My tight, black clothing was torn and stained with mud and blood. My
hair was wet, tangled and probably starting to frizz. Then there were my eyes,
which felt as wide as saucers.

“Why are you so squeamish?” she asked. “I see your fang
marks on his neck. I smell you on him. Taste. Surely you can tell demon from
human blood. Even fledglings know the difference. The power you emit is far
greater than the newly turned. Taste.”

She thrust her finger at me and crossed the room. A tinkle
of bells followed in her wake.

“Let’s get a few things straight.” I stiffened my spine and
used the door behind me to keep me upright. When I spoke, I knew I was flashing
a fair amount of fang, but I couldn’t seem to make them go away. Not this close
to blood anyway. “I’m not squeamish, I choose not to drink blood.”

“You didn’t have a problem drinking my blood a week ago,”
Micah said. “You don’t need another taste. Tell me, am I demon or not? You know
I’m not. There is no way my father would have raised a demon, you know that as
well as I.”

Was Micah a demon? How in the hell should I know?

Vampire Queen and Demon Son. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

“I have no frame of reference. I’ve only had Julian’s and
Micah’s blood. Yes, he tastes different from the vampire. Is he a demon? I
wouldn’t know.”

Eli took a protective step closer to his brother. He looked
between Roy and Gem. “Roy, you know I don’t mean any disrespect, but…” He
looked at Gem. “How do you know my brother is a demon by the taste of his
blood?”

Gem’s smile changed her face from attractive to stunning. “Did
I forget to mention I’m part demon myself? On my father’s side.” As if to
demonstrate, her purple eyes began to glow. The otherworldly sight made my skin
crawl. She’d been camouflaging her aura. I hadn’t even known that was possible.

As one, Roy, Eli and I all looked at Micah.

“I’m not a demon!” Micah bellowed.

Gem shrugged her shoulders. “We should move away from the
why and focus on how you and Ella are going to cope. You cannot be separated.
If you do, you both may die.”

“Is the bond reversible?” Roy asked as if he really believed
Micah and I were actually mated on some metaphysical level.

Gem gave a wistful sigh. “There is no stronger magic than
what occurs between two soul mates. Demon children are raised to revere the
bond above all other.”

Soul mates. I snorted and used a push off the door to propel
me into the tiny studio apartment. I hadn’t noticed much when I’d first walked
in. There were no pictures on the off-white walls, only maps of the city, which
were pinned with different-colored thumbtacks to show a spiraling pattern. It
looked identical to the paper Roy had showed me days ago. Other than the
bookshelf in the corner, there was nothing else personal in the entire
apartment. No leather sofa. No black satin sheets. Just a tiny kitchen, a
square table with two chairs and the bed Micah was sitting on.

Who was this man? I realized, quite suddenly, that I knew
absolutely nothing about him outside of our hunting. Hell, he could be a demon
for all I knew.

“The quickest way to reverse the effects of your separation
is skin-to-skin contact. You need to get undressed and get into bed.”

I stopped contemplating the floor and looked up.

“Excuse me?” I squeaked.

Naked? Skin-to-skin contact? Wasn’t that what had gotten us
into this mess in the first place?

I cleared my throat. “What exactly is wrong with him that
requires me to be naked?”

“Wrong with both of you,” she corrected. “The two of you are
love sick. Micah is still half human and is feeling the effects more severely.”

That got my attention.

“And I do mean that literally. He’s been separated from his
mate for too long. From the looks of you, you’re beginning to show signs of
distress as well. Let me guess, you haven’t been able to eat or sleep? It takes
most bonded pairs years to acquire the ability to be separated from each other,”
Gem said.

“You have not seen each other in what, a week? Very
dangerous. You have a powerful bond. I don’t think I’ve encountered anything
quite as unique.” She tapped her curved, dagger-like fingernails on her chin. “Why
is this situation such a shock? You both participated in the mating ritual, I
see his mating marks. May I look at yours?”

Micah spoke and his voice was bitter. “Look, lady, I
appreciate the help, but excuse me for saying, you’re crazy. There was no
ritual. We fucked, end of story.”

Crude, but true.

Eli’s mouth dropped open before he snapped it shut. “Micah,
not cool, dude.”

I waved off his concern. “I know it’s blunt, but he’s right.”

Had hell frozen over or had I just told Micah he was right?

“We aren’t mated to each other, the idea is insane,” I
continued. “We were attacked by some freakishly abnormal succubus who for some
reason left us alive and gave us his-and-hers tattoos. I’ve got a reason for
looking like shit and it has to do with the hole in my shoulder. Nothing else.
Maybe Micah just needs food or something. I’ve being eating and sleeping just
fine, thank you.” The lie tasted sour even as I said it.

Gem laughed. The bitch actually laughed at me! Almost before
I realized it, the cold steel of my Silverstone blade was in my hand, but Roy
strode across the room and took the knife from me.

Eli closed in on Gem and turned on the charm. The
transformation knocked about five years off his age. Cute dimples on either
side of his mouth deepened. His big brown eyes got just a little bigger. He
gave Gem a gentle, soothing smile and some of the crackling tension in the room
abated.

“Why don’t we all just calm down?” Eli looked around
hopefully. “Obviously, the situation is more complicated than we first
realized. Right now, Ella, it doesn’t matter what’s wrong with Micah, if you
two are mated, hell, if he’s a demon. What is important is that your presence
is helping. You haven’t seen Micah over the last week. Please go to him, do
what Gem says.” The plea was in his eyes. “He’s all I have. Hannah would want
the same thing. Anything it took to get you better. I know you hide it well,
but you’re hurting just as badly as he is. This will help you too.”

Damn it. I went all squishy inside. Eli was dangerous—I’d
just never realized it before.

Micah and I stared at each other. The silenced yawned.

“How bad are you hurt?” Micah asked in a gruff, unhappy
tone. “Even if you weren’t dripping a puddle on my floor, I could smell the
blood the second you walked in the door. Bandage, my ass.” He studied my
appearance and his eyes narrowed. “And why in the hell are you and Eli covered
in sand? We don’t have sand anywhere near here. ‘I slept just fine last week’.
Bullshit. I heard you were chained in your basement for two days.”

Micah threw back the covers and got out of bed. Whatever I
was going to say faded away when my gaze found its way to his chest, then lower
to his stomach and the pack of muscles there. Thick crimson lines flowed over
his skin and I couldn’t seem to look away from the thin cotton pajama bottoms
hanging off his hips.

Yeah.

I jerked my gaze up to his face and felt my cheeks get hot.
Roy and Eli had gone over to Gem. Their hushed whispers didn’t reassure me.

“Is this some elaborate ploy to get me naked?” I asked
Micah.

The concern in his eyes vanished. “Right, like it would take
some scheme to get you undressed. From the way you’re looking at me, I don’t
think it would take much effort to have you beneath me.”

I made a disgusted noise in the back of my throat. It would
be so easy to pull out my other knife and fling it at him. “Do you have to be
such an asshole?”

Micah’s jaw clenched. “You make it so easy. Get out of here
and don’t let the door hit you on the ass on your way out. Roy shouldn’t have
called you.”

With that parting shot, Micah turned his back, walked the
few feet to the bathroom and slammed the door hard enough to make stucco from
the ceiling rain to the ground.

Anger, more than hurt, stung my eyes. I’d been living in
some warped fantasy for the last week. I imagined seeing Micah again, and… I
don’t know. I suppose my thoughts never went past the stage where I buried my
face in his throat and let him take away the pain.

Roy stepped in front of me. His image blurred a little. My
head throbbed and the pain in my shoulder made me nauseous. Stars flashed in
front of my eyes and it took a lot of effort to blink them away. I just needed
to sleep and not deal with this crap.

“Give him some time, this is a lot for him to take in at
once,” Roy said.

He patted my cheek and turned for the door. Eli and Gem both
followed.

“Wait! You’re leaving?” Had that panicked shriek just come
from me? “I don’t even have any dry clothes here.”

“Apparently you don’t need clothes. Other things require my
attention now that Micah is okay. You two need to work this out and come to
some sort of an understanding until we can figure how to reverse this bond.”

Every fiber of my soul wanted to argue. The look of utter
authority Roy gave me stopped me in my tracks.

“And for the love of Merlin,” Roy cut me with a lethal
glare, “have Micah take a look at your shoulder. You need purifying salt and
quite possibly some stitches.”

Then they were gone. Everyone exited the apartment, leaving
me alone with Micah.

My life was turning out to be just fan-fucking-tastic.

Left alone in a man’s apartment, when he didn’t want me here
in the first place, what was a girl to do? I snooped. Not that there was much
to look through. The apartment consisted of one small square table, two chairs,
a bed, a dresser and…not much else. I walked into the kitchen and gave myself
the full tour. It was over in a few steps.

The countertops were old but clean. The sink was scuffed up
a bit but empty of food and dishes. I had always thought Micah would be a clean
freak. At least I was right about one thing. I opened a few drawers and found
nothing exciting. Silverware, plastic Baggies, a few smudged napkins with
numbers on them and some miscellaneous pens. Boring.

I opened one faded, veneered cabinet door. I stared at the
panel, which was now off the hinge and in my hand. Whoops. Super strength or
cheap cabinetry? I looked behind my shoulder at the closed bathroom door before
rigging the door back in place. More cautiously this time, I opened the other
cabinet and found a set of mismatched dishes and a few cans of soup.

The rusted, squealing refrigerator didn’t hold any secrets
either. The cold air, however, woke me up a little. I poked around inside the
fridge, looking for something moldy or expired. All I found was juice, eggs,
fresh fruit and a carton of milk. Where was the beer? The leftover pizza?

“What are you doing?” Micah asked from behind me.

I jumped and smacked my skull on a shelf.

Turning, I rubbed the bump at the back of my head. “I’m
looking inside your fridge, what does it look like I’m doing?”

My mouth fell open. Micah stood in front of me in nothing
except a small towel that opened at his thigh and exposed his hairy leg. When
he crossed his arms under his chest, I closed my mouth and tried to force my
gaze away from the drops of water sliding down his stomach. The water droplets
drove lower, across tight muscles. I swallowed, looked up.

“I meant,” he said dryly, “why are you still here?”

“Because I need therapy.”

“That’s obvious.”

I lifted my chin and concentrated on standing straight and
still. Things were beginning to get a little fuzzy. I hoped the merry-go-round
feeling was just in my head and not caused by me physically teetering in a circle.

Micah’s eyes narrowed. He padded closer. “You look like
crap.”

“Thank you, Mr. Casanova! I must look as good as I feel,
then.”

“If you insist on staying, will you sit down? I’m getting
dizzy watching you sway. What in the hell happened to you anyway?”

I stumbled to the wooden chair. Before my ass could make
that blessed contact with something solid, Micah grabbed my arm and pulled me onto
the bed.

He grabbed the wrong arm. I cried out, pain clearing the
cobwebs. There was no choice but to follow. Any resistance I might have given
would only have resulted in more agony. I landed on the mattress and tried to
hide the pain.

“It’s nothing, really,” I lied.

Micah gave a little shove and I fell back so that I was no
longer sitting but lying on the bed. My eyes closed and I gave a little sigh
when the darkness began to close around me.

“Bullshit.” He pushed my jacket out of the way to look at
the claw marks cutting through my shirt and exposing my stomach.

He cupped my face in his palms until I reluctantly opened my
eyes. The moment my lids dipped shut, Micah gave me a light slap. He was going
to pay for that.

“Hey, fang girl, stay with me. Wakey wakey time,” he sung.
When that didn’t seem to work, he shook me until I acknowledged him.

Bastard.

“Don’t call me that,” I groaned and shoved his hands away. “I’ll
be fine in a few hours. I’m tired, really tired.” To my mortification, I began
to mumble. I heard the slurred words and couldn’t stop them. “Missed you. Can’t
sleep. The boogeyman is going to get me. Man, is he pissed. He wants in, but I
won’t let him. God, your bed is comfortable, it smells like you. I like the way
you smell.”

Shoot me.

Through my one open eye, I saw the smirk he was trying hard
to suppress. Look who else had cute dimples.

“Who’s the boogeyman?” Micah tugged off my boots and socks.
Dried mud shook off onto the carpet.

I sighed, snuggled into the scent of leather lingering on
the sheets. “Why, Julian, of course.”

His smirk turned into a scowl. “You haven’t slept because
you’re afraid of the undead vampire fuck? Did he do something?”

“He’s inside my head, ya know. Julian likes to invade my
dreams, mess with me. I can’t deal with it…so I’m not sleeping. He’s waiting
for me. Don’t let me fall asleep, ’kay?”

“I hate to tell you this, but that’s not a good plan. Is
your lack of sleep why you got tagged tonight by whatever sliced you up?”

“I got ‘tagged’ because I pushed your brother out of harm’s
way. He holds his own pretty good, though. I wasn’t expecting that.”

Emotion passed through his eyes. “Let me look at the wound.”
It wasn’t a request.

With his help, I sat up and blinked sleepily at him. He had
shaved the beard. The clean line of his jaw was strong and masculine. Why did
he have to be so handsome? I was about to ask him until he peeled the ruined
jacket off my shoulders. I wanted to whimper. Instead I bit my lip. He pulled
the heavy material from first one arm and then the other. The blood-soaked
jacket plopped to the ground.

Black like the coat, my ripped shirt was covered in blood
from the collar all the way to the hem. Where the blood had dried, the shirt
stuck to my skin. Wonderful.

Micah looked at the mess, then into my eyes. “A bandage.
Funny. Let’s go into the bathroom, I have a feeling this is going to get messy.”

He walked away and I felt the loss of his proximity like a
punch in the gut. Micah pulled open his top drawer and brought out a pair of
light-blue pajama bottoms, similar to the ones he’d been wearing when I walked
in. In one quick move, the towel was gone and I had about three seconds to ogle
the tight globes of his ass before they were covered. The man had a fine ass.
He pulled on a shirt and I almost told him to take it back off.

He helped me to my feet and put an arm around my waist to
steady me.

“You don’t have to do this,” I said.

His hot skin against me was delicious. I wanted to snuggle
into that warmth and just forget everything else.

“You’re right. I don’t have to do this. I’m not doing it for
you. I’m doing it for me. I don’t feel right fucking you when you’re injured
and covered in blood.”

My eyes popped open. “Excuse me?”

Micah’s rich, deep laugh rumbled against me. “It was a joke.
Jesus. Consider this a thank-you for saving my brother. Did the succubus kill
your sense of humor or what? Wait, you never really had one, did you?”

“You really piss me off.”

“Same here.”

The bathroom wasn’t much bigger than the kitchen. Instead of
a full bathtub, there was a shower stall with a clear glass door. Across from
the toilet was a sink, which sat upon a cabinet.

I slid to the floor and tried to prepare myself. Getting
patched up was worse than getting injured. “Start with my shoulder, it hurts
the worst.”

Micah knelt between my legs and I readjusted my body until
my knees were touching his hips.

“You’re not going to throw up on me, are you?” Micah asked.

I didn’t think so. Not yet at least. He pushed my shirt up
to expose the scratches etched across my stomach.

Before the night in the hotel room, my skin had been tanned.
Right now, where the maroon blood wasn’t dried and caked, it looked pasty. The
three red scratches now looked like pink, puffy knots of scar tissue. Each welt
had several purpling spider lines moving out from where the poison had spread.
Micah encouraged me to lift my arms so he could discard the now-ruined shirt.

No way. I couldn’t lift a finger, let alone my arm.

“You’ll have to cut the shirt off. Do you have any sea salt?
You’re going to have to purify the wound. I figure if you can get out most of
the poison, my body should do the rest. I’ve been healing faster since…”

“I’m a hunter. Of course I’ve got sea salt. And you know,”
Micah remarked, grabbing one of my discarded Brimstone blades, “of all the ways
I imagined getting you out of your clothes, none of them were like this.”

Despite how awful I felt, I smiled. “So you think about
getting me naked a lot, then?”

The black knife gleamed as it reflected light from the row
of large, round bulbs lining the top of the bathroom mirror. Even though two of
the bulbs were broken, the two good ones gave off a surprising amount of light.
Slowly, Micah drew the blade up, careful not to cut anything more than my
shirt. In a different setting, the act might have turned me on.

“Yeah, well, I’m only a man and you’ve got great tits,” he
mumbled.

Man. Demon. The verdict was still out.

“Pig.”

Slicing the fabric to the top, he peeled it apart as if
unwrapping a present. My breasts strained against my black bra and the sight
clearly captivated Micah. His eyes followed the crimson markings partially
hidden by the lace. After a few seconds, he looked away and focused on the
wound on my left shoulder.

“Jesus, Ella,” he whistled. “Maybe we should get Roy back
here.”

Shaking my head made me dizzy but it was easier than
talking. Seeing the wound always made the pain worse. With my right hand, I
cupped Micah’s jaw until he looked back at me. My thumb moved over the smooth
surface of his cheek. I missed his thick stubble more than I was willing to
admit.

“Since when do you care so much? If I really thought it was
that bad, I’d have asked Roy to look at it while he was here. You can handle
this.”

He closed his hand over mine. He was serious. “Don’t you
know I worry about you?”

“You’ve never given me any reason to think you worried at
all.”

He released my hand and moved his fingers back to my
shoulder. Micah delicately pressed down on the purple-and-black skin radiating
from the wound. The gash itself was a round hole, wide enough that, if he
wanted, he could have easily fit the tip of his index finger inside. Blood
still trickled from the place where the inner tissue was barely visible. From within
the hole protruded a thick ivory chunk of whatever had penetrated my skin. The
bastard demon had left a memento.

Experimenting, Micah looked at me and pushed a little bit
more firmly on what appeared to be dead skin. He met my eyes and my lack of
response confirmed I felt nothing. Not usually a good sign.

“Nothing?” he asked, pressing closer to the hole.

I tucked my lip between my teeth, determined not to cry out.
“Okay. That I felt.” I balled my hand into a fist.

“You know this is going to hurt, right?” Micah asked.

He reached to the side, his arm long enough to open the
cabinet and fetch the salt without actually having to break contact with me.

“You’re not man enough to do it?” I asked. “Do I need your
little brother in here to get the job done?”

Micah’s laugh reverberated off the walls, drawing a smile
across my face. Only Micah could look this handsome right after he’d been white
as a sheet and laid up in bed, ready to die, a mere hour ago.

The dark tufts of his hair were softly skewed from a cowlick
I’d never noticed before. At some point he must have dragged a hand through
those strands, because there was a streak of my blood on his forehead.

When he looked at me, his eyes sparkled from the challenge.
I couldn’t help how my heart beat just a little faster when he winked at me.

“That’s a low blow, Ella.”

Bending down, Micah nuzzled the side of my face. When he got
to my neck, his tongue just barely snaked out to lap at the bite, his bite,
that hadn’t healed on my neck. The only things my vampiric powers hadn’t healed
were his bites. Mates. I shivered. A needy moan escaped my lips, encouraging
him.

Light as a feather, Micah ran his hand up my side. He cupped
the back of my neck. Gently, he pulled me forward and tilted my head to the
side as if to kiss me. Good god, what was he doing to me? At the last moment,
when my eyes closed and my lips parted, he guided my-all-too pliable body
toward the floor until I was lying on my back.

He gently straddled my hips and pinned me to the shaggy
brown rug.

“I’m plenty man enough, haven’t I proven that already?” he
whispered.

“You’re a bastard,” I groaned.

I kept my eyes closed so he wouldn’t see how much I wanted
him. His heart was beating as fast as mine. Each pounding thud made me think
wicked thoughts. Rich, salty—I needed the warmth of his blood spilling into my
mouth almost as badly as I needed him inside me. I wasn’t normal.

What had the succubus done to us?

I knew what I needed, but I was too afraid to admit it. I
wanted blood, not just to replace what I’d lost, but also to fill a deeper
need.

“Ella, look at me,” Micah said, adjusting his weight so I
could move more easily.

“No.”

“Come on, don’t be stubborn,” he coaxed. When I opened my
lids and looked directly into his eyes, I knew Micah saw the hunger I was
trying so desperately to ignore. Had my eyes gone red?

“You need blood, don’t you?” he asked.

I struggled to push him off me and sit up. He lowered his
full weight on top of my hips. In a fair fight, I might have won.

“I’ll pass.”

“You’ll heal faster.”

I glared up at him. I was angrier with myself than with
Micah. He was too handy a target.

“Just because I asked for your help, don’t start thinking
you know what I need. Get off me, I’m going home.”

“You can’t even move your arm! Look, Eli told me that new
demon portals keep popping up all over town and Roy thinks it’s because of us.
I know you’ll heal faster if you drink. So drink from me.”