Cursed (25 page)

Jacob could only shrug at that. Maybe it was Sienna calling his name over and over that had finally stopped him, or maybe he’d stopped because something inside of him knew he was getting too close and was about to kill her, forcing him to stop. Whatever it was, he was glad for it.

“How are you feeling?” he asked Sienna. “Need a donation?”

His best friend shrugged a shoulder slowly.

Knox made a disgusted sound and stood. Walking around the back of the sofa he offered his now bleeding wrist to Sienna. She accepted. No jack-knifing this time. Weird.

This time when she’d finished, she seemed to have more energy, her voice sounding less lethargic as she said, “Ta.”

Knox nodded and sat back down.

“I really can’t become a vampire from drinking all this blood?” she asked hopefully.

The blonde smiled. “Sorry. Doesn’t work that way.”

She sighed. “Well, a girl can try, can’t she?”

*  *  *

In. Out. In. Out.

Greyvian sat cross-legged on the floor of his bedroom, eyes closed, body strong but relaxed, hands resting loosely on his knees, the mantra repeating over and over throughout his mind, helping to bring his world back to normal. For the first half hour he had allowed thoughts of Sienna to swirl around and around, giving them free rein inside his mind, but in the second half hour, he had banished them altogether. In/out the only two concepts he allowed to fill his mind. Only then had he achieved true peace once more—the numb state of emotion he’d had no trouble maintaining before meeting the human.

The world within which he functioned best.

This happy little state lasted for all of ten minutes once he stood and left his bedroom—right up until he caught sight of Jacob with a stupid drunk-looking grin on his face, and then came within smelling distance of him.

Her scent was all over him. He knew immediately that Jacob had drunk from Sienna and it shattered the cold barrier he’d managed to re-erect around his emotions like a rock thrown through a flimsy window. His blood heated, reached boiling point in a split second and then he went nuclear.

He wanted to beat Jacob’s face into a bloody pulp. To rip the grinning punk’s lips from his face, tear his tongue from his mouth. To think that Jacob had had his lips on Sienna’s neck, her blood flowing over his tongue, her body pressed against his…

“Hey, Dad,” Jacob greeted, weaving slightly. “What up?”

“Jacob, shit,” Knox cursed, shaking his head. “Shut the fuck up, would you?”

From the happy expression on Jacob’s face, the male had somehow managed not to kill her. This was the only reason that Greyvian didn’t stop, didn’t speak to the bastard, and didn’t tear his son’s fucking head off his fucking shoulders.

“She’s ok,” Knox called after him. As if he couldn’t tell that already.

He didn’t know where he was going until he was speeding along the freeway in the direction of the city. Didn’t care that he shouldn’t be there when he finally arrived at her apartment. Couldn’t stop himself from knocking on her door.

The waiting was torture. He didn’t know what he was going to do when she opened the door, but he knew he wouldn’t be going for her neck. He didn’t know what miracle had caused Jacob to drink without killing, or if a frypan was involved, but he knew without doubt that Sienna’s scent would be gone for now.

Sure enough, the door opened and all that Greyvian got hit with was an intense desire of the physical kind. She was wearing a dress—another little number that showed off her legs and breasts to full potential. A dress that he hadn’t fully appreciated earlier that day when he’d followed her from the café because her blood had been distracting him.

He wasn’t distracted now. In fact, he was fully alert and in the moment as his eyes met hers, the connection between them immediate and intense. He didn’t need to ask if he could come in. The welcome in them was clear for anyone to see.

Saying nothing, he stepped toward her, into her personal space, his hands rising, cupping her face, his mouth finding hers. He wasn’t gentle, but she didn’t seem to care. Her hands were in his hair, her body pressed tightly against him, her mouth moving in response to his.

They didn’t make it to the couch. His need to be inside of her was too intense for that. How they made it down to the floor was a mystery. Pushing the skirt of her dress up to her waist was the work of a moment. Getting his pants undone the work of another. Her underwear didn’t stand a chance and ended up in a shredded pile somewhere.

The instant he penetrated her body he almost came. The tight, slick canal trying to milk him for everything he had. It was sheer force of will that kept his body in check. That, and the fact that neither one of them moved for a long moment. They were both breathing heavily. Sienna’s legs were wrapped around his waist, her hands still fisted in his hair. His head was buried in her neck, fangs retracted, no desire for her blood right now.

When he was sure this wouldn’t end the instant he moved, he began to thrust. Slowly at first, enjoying the utter mindlessness of the sensation and the breathless little sounds that escaped from Sienna’s mouth. The pleasure was intense. Without effort, his mind was clear, free of the excessive baggage he usually carried around inside of it. He could focus on nothing but Sienna.

Looking down at her, he met her vibrant blue eyes, held them while he thrust into her again and again. There was something about looking into her eyes that calmed him, yet set him on fire with lust at the same time. He wanted her like he’d wanted no other female. She made him… feel. The good, the bad, the ugly—it didn’t matter what the feeling was and whether or not he was comfortable with it. The important thing was that he couldn’t hide from himself when he was around her and he had come to realise that he’d been hiding a lot these past few centuries.

Pushing that from his mind, he let himself go. For just this one moment in time, he was going to enjoy what life had to offer. What Sienna had to offer.

Once again his mouth found hers; his tongue tasted the honeyed depths within. Generally, he didn’t like to kiss the women he fornicated with—not because it was too personal—merely because he’d never felt the desire. Perhaps it was because his mouth was used for the even more personal purpose of sucking the life blood from a body. Perhaps he just didn’t like to kiss. With Sienna, it was different. He needed to kiss her. Needed to thrust his tongue into her mouth to the same rhythm with which he penetrated her body.

Too soon he felt the drive to reach climax. Pleasure heightened, his hips started to thrust faster and faster of their own volition, thought flew from his head. He was all sensation.

Lifting his mouth from Sienna’s, he buried his head in her neck, thrusting deep and hard with his hips in an attempt to stall the orgasm. Sienna’s hips rose to meet him with each thrust, her breath coming in quick pants that told him she was close. He matched her rhythm, going quicker only when she wanted it, until with a sudden thrust she went over the edge, her body jack-knifing beneath him, her nails digging into his back and ass, sending him into a climax of his own that robbed him deaf and blind.

Normally after a climax it was a monumental struggle to keep himself from following the physical pleasure with a feed, but, be it the lack of scent on Sienna’s behalf, or the fact that he felt truly satisfied for once, he felt none of the drive to taste her blood right then.

As reality came trickling back, he didn’t know whether to be happy that Jacob had drained her, causing her scent to disappear and making this whole thing possible, or if he should have another reason to want to kill his offspring—for making this whole thing possible. Nothing had changed. Sienna was still mortal. Greyvian was still a killer.

Pulling out of her was one of the hardest things he’d ever done. Closing off his emotions was surprisingly easy in comparison. Rolling away, he lay on his back and lifted his hips, pulling the leather back up over his ass. When Sienna tried to touch him, he pulled away and got to his feet.

She sat up but didn’t stand, choosing instead to look up at him from the hard wooden floor that hadn’t seemed so hard a minute ago. Her eyes were wide and luminous, full of fading desire and a grim acceptance of his inability to offer her the kind of loving relationship she deserved.

“This was a mistake.” He hadn’t meant to say anything, but the words were out of his mouth before he could stop them.

She opened her mouth to argue, but he cut her off.

“Goodbye.”

This time he meant it.

16

Whilst the absolute certainty that he could never see Sienna again was firm in his mind, it didn’t stop Greyvian from wanting it to be a lie. Didn’t stop him from wanting to tear the people around him apart with his bare hands because the torment of wanting what you can’t have was too much to bear. The pain of the emotion was on par with the pain of sixteen years of starvation.

Outwardly, he portrayed little emotion. Inside, he was a fucking mess. The worst part of it was: he had no idea how to deal with it. Had no idea what one was supposed to do when they felt like they were going to explode from their emotions. When he had felt remorse for the innocent lives he’d taken, he had dealt with it by making it his mission to repay that debt any way he could. Half-breeds just happened to be a big part of that solution. Problem solved for the most part.

But for this? For this, he had no answer.

“You’re leaving yourself open,” Greyvian told Lucas as he watched the male spar with Knox. There was a constant gap to his left side whenever he punched with his right.

Lucas nodded that he’d heard and fixed the gap for a while, but soon enough slipped into the habit of leaving it open. Instead of telling him again, Greyvian waved Knox to the side and replaced him on the floor. It took less than thirty seconds for him to plant a side kick into the half-breed’s jaw, thus proving that Lucas had let his guard down again. When the brunette finally landed halfway across the room, Greyvian considered the lesson learned.

Turning to Knox, he motioned for the male to come at him. If he couldn’t work out his issues with thought, perhaps a little physical exertion would do the job. At the very least, it gave him something else to focus on for a while.

By the end of the hour, all four trainees were lying on the floor nursing their various wounds and looking extremely sorry for themselves.

“You’ve been especially brutal these past few days,” Knox noted dryly, wincing and rubbing his shoulder. “Something you want to get off your chest?”

Too many words wanted to escape his mouth, each sentence more pathetic than the first, so he opted for silence instead.

Knox sighed. “Fine. Be that way. Just don’t expect us back for training this afternoon. I think we all need a little R&R after this week.”

Lucas nodded emphatically, his jaw one big purple bruise, left eye bloodshot.

A quick glance in Jacob and Katarina’s direction told him they were of the same mind.

“Suit yourselves,” he said, turning on his heel and leaving the room.

If he had not felt so volatile, he might have offered them sympathy, but an hour of kicking their asses hadn’t calmed him down—hadn’t burnt off his negative energy—as he’d hoped it would. Perhaps if one of them had possessed the skills to beat the living shit out of him instead, he might have found the whole thing more therapeutic.

If only he could blame it all on bad blood.

*  *  *

The store was quiet today, giving Sienna way too much time to moon over the fact that she’d had the best sex of her life the other night and that it was never going to happen again if Greyvian had his way. But it wasn’t just the sex that she’d never have again—it was Greyvian in general. She’d been depressed about the whole thing since the male had turned around and walked out of her apartment, leaving her to clean up the mess—both figuratively and practically speaking. What made it even more unbearable was the fact that she didn’t even have Carly here to listen to her moan about the whole issue, and Jacob wasn’t picking up his phone. How was a girl supposed to heal when she didn’t have anyone to talk to?

As if they’d heard her prayers, who should walk into her shop but Katarina and the boys. The only person she’d have been happier to see at that moment was Greyvian.

“Hey babe,” Jacob said by way of greeting, walking—or rather, limping slightly—over and leaning an elbow on the counter beside her. He smiled and winked as the others gathered in front of the register.

“Phew. I’d forgotten how potent you are,” Katarina said, drawing in a sharp breath and then letting it out slowly as she got within smelling distance.

Smiling in reply, Sienna noticed a faint bruise on the female’s cheek and frowned, about to ask what happened when Knox pulled her attention.

“How’s things?” he asked, and then winced, idly rubbing his rib cage as he waited for her reply.

She was about to reply when she got a look at Lucas’s jaw and hissed in sympathy instead. “Jesus. What happened?”

“Greyvian’s foot in my face, that’s what,” Lucas said dryly, and then at her questioning look added, “Training accident. I was leaving my guard down and he decided to show me what can happen if I do. Lesson learned I shit you not.”

“When was this?” The bruise looked fresh.

“About an hour ago,” Jacob supplied, looking a bit battered and bruised himself now that she looked at him closely. “Grey’s been a bit feral the past few days. Nothing you can quite put your finger on, or visibly see in his expression, but he hasn’t exactly been holding back during training.”

“A fact for which I am
not
supremely grateful,” Knox said wryly, rotating his shoulder like it was giving him grief.

She almost asked why they hadn’t healed already until she remembered that they didn’t have super-fast healing—only super-saliva. And then she realised what Jacob had said. Greyvian was feral.

Good. She hoped he stayed that way. If only to make him feel as crappy and depressed as she did. Son of a bitch deserved it for saying it was a mistake. How could anything so mind-blowing be a mistake? A bad idea, maybe, seeing as he might have ended up eating her—and not in a good way—but never a mistake.

Lost in her inner musings, she didn’t notice that the others had drawn back towards the front of the store until Jacob said her name, bringing her back to reality. When she looked at him, he was looking at her strangely. It was an odd expression. Not one she could put a name to.

“What’s up?” she asked, figuring there must be something on his mind.

“You wouldn’t happen to know where Greyvian went a few days ago after I came back from your place, would you? I got the distinct impression that he knew exactly what had happened between you and me when he brushed past me, his nostrils all flarey.”

Well, that came out of nowhere
. She could only stare at him with her mouth opening and closing as she tried to work out what to say.

“So he did,” Jacob said, nodding as if he’d already known. “You saw him.”

“Yeah, he came over.” Normally she wouldn’t have had a problem telling Jacob that she’d fornicated with a male, but there was just something in her best friend’s expression that had the words sticking in her throat.

He looked… jealous. But that was nuts, right? They’d tried that before with no results either side.

“What happened?” he demanded.

Her expression must have spoken louder than words because he grimaced and shook his head like she was the biggest idiot alive. “That was so dangerous, Sienna. He could have killed you; you know that, don’t you?”

“Not when you’d already drained the scent from me,” she replied, although she’d already had the thought herself.

“Not necessarily,” Jacob retorted, his eyes burning fire. “Feeding can be a sexual thing, so I’m pretty damn sure that if the sex comes first, then the feeding would want to join in on the action—desirable scent or not.”

She hadn’t thought about it quite like that, but when put that way, had to admit that it was logical. Still, Jacob shouldn’t be reacting quite this intensely to the fact that she’d had sex with Greyvian.

Had that really been jealousy in his eyes? She decided to call him on it.

“You sound jealous.”

A muscle in his jaw ticked and he couldn’t look her in the eye.

“Oh, my God. You are!” When had the world turned upside down? She knew he’d gotten an erection while drinking her blood, but they’d joked about that afterwards. He hadn’t seemed any more inclined to want to date her then. What had changed?

Jacob still wouldn’t look her in the eye, so she made him. Taking hold of his chin, she turned his face towards her until he was forced to meet her eyes.

“Confess,” she demanded, something they’d done since childhood when the other was hiding something.

Jacob rolled his eyes and submitted. “Yes. I’m jealous. Satisfied?”

Dropping her hand from his chin, she gaped at him. “But… when did this happen?”

He let out a long breath and ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t know. When the memories of drinking from you wouldn’t go away? When I kept getting an erection every time I thought of you?”

Christ. This really complicated things.

“And now?” she asked, almost too afraid to get the words out. “When you look at me now, what do you feel?”

His tortured expression said it all, but she had to be certain.

“Do you want to kiss me?”

He huffed a laugh. “Oh, I want to do a whole lot more than that.”

“Fuck.”

“Precisely.”

She hadn’t meant it in the literal sense, but she supposed it could be taken as that.

“But you don’t feel that way,” he added, accurately judging her what-the-fuck expression.

If not for Greyvian, then maybe it would have been possible, but you couldn’t change what was. She shook her head.

“Great,” he groaned, rubbing a hand over his face. “Just great.”

That about summed it up, yeah.

For want of somewhere else to look, her eyes drifted towards the front of the store as she tried to get her brain to work and figure out some sort of way forward. It took her a long moment to realise what it was she was seeing, but when she did, her heart rate jumped into the hundreds as adrenalin shot through her body.

“Shit,” she said, her eyes seeking and finding Knox and Lucas who were trying to be unobtrusive against the side wall. They were blending as well as any two males in a female clothing store could hope to blend, but she didn’t see it holding up for long.

“What?” Jacob asked, starting to turn around.

She grabbed his arm and turned his face away from the scene at the front of the store, hoping like hell that the two males that Katarina was talking to were not the vampires she thought them to be.

“Don’t turn around,” she warned Jacob. “Katarina is talking to some guys at the front of the store. I think they’re vampires.”

“Shit,” Jacob swore, echoing her expletive.

“I think she’s trying to lead them away,” she told him, trying not to be caught staring. “They seem to be resisting for some reas—oh, crap—they’ve spotted Knox and Lucas. They’re coming into the store.”

“Half-breed,” one of the males said loudly enough for her and Jacob to hear. “What the fuck are you doing here? Last time I checked this was a female clothing store. Or are you cross-dressers as well as abominations?”

So, not friendly vampires then. When the main speaker looked her way, she quickly became fascinated in the cash register, hoping like hell that the two full-bloods hadn’t seen her looking their way.

“Christmas shopping,” Knox replied pleasantly, as if he had run into an old friend and the full-blood’s words hadn’t been coated in venom.

“Riiiiight,” the other male replied, clearly unconvinced.

“Patrick, weren’t we going to lunch?” Katarina asked, trying unsuccessfully to drag the first, and more aggressive of the two, away by his arm.

Patrick looked at her then, eyes narrowed in suspicion. “You’re here with them, aren’t you? Is this why you haven’t been home? Father has been thinking about sending a search party out looking for you and you’ve been with
them
the whole time? Are you sleeping with one of them?”

Katarina sighed loudly. “Patrick, just because you bear ill will towards the half-breed nation does not mean that I have to share your views. Yes, if you must know, I am here with them. What of it?”

The two full-bloods didn’t look happy—Katarina’s brothers if the family resemblance and the mention of ‘Father’ were anything to go by. The taller one who did all the talking—Patrick—said something Sienna couldn’t hear and then shot a glare in Knox’s direction. To their credit, the half-breeds didn’t bat an eyelid. If memory served, they were probably used to this reaction.

“Patrick, why don’t you just go home?” Katarina said wearily. “I’m a big girl and can take care of myself. I do not need you to tell me who I can and can’t hang out with.”

“For fuck’s sake, Kat!” Patrick exclaimed, sounding a little weary himself. “Why do you always have to do this? First it was the humans, now this? Why can’t you just be happy with your own kind?”

Katarina crossed her arms in front of her chest and glared at her brother. “Why can’t
you
be happy with the fact that they’re not so different from you and me?”

Sienna chanced a glance at Jacob, raising her eyebrows and smiling slightly. She knew an old argument when she heard one. Jacob made a face back at her and then resumed pretending to look through a magazine that he’d picked up from the counter.