Page 12

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JUDAS

F or a split second, the entire room froze with an eerie, suffocating stillness. Angela Rossi was dying before I had a chance to fix us and apologize to her.

I hadn’t been myself last night. The constant push and pull between us had finally taken its toll on me, and I…I didn’t mean to say those things to her…

I threw her leg over my shoulder, bearing my weight on my forearms. Her soft, supple body felt so fucking good beneath me, especially when I was folding her in half and teasing her. She dug her nails into my biceps, bucking her hips in anticipation.

“Are you going to take my cock, dolce ?” I taunted her. Angela was anything but sweet. She was stubborn, sarcastic, and a tease who lied to herself.

She hated how much she wanted me inside her, how much she needed me to wreck her. My little sweetness was acting sour, pretending she wasn’t as addicted to me as I was to her. Like her unfulfilled dark fantasies didn’t keep her up at night.

But I always knew. Her racing heartbeat never lied to me. And right now it was hammering against her rib cage in anticipation.

“Just fuck me already, Judas!” she snapped at me.

I sheathed myself inside her in one deep thrust. A strained moan left her lips as her eyes widened, peering up at me with such a molten desire. Fuck, she was so wet. So fucking hot. Her cunt already strangled my cock and I wasn’t even moving yet.

The sound of her blood rushing through her veins--rising to her skin as that delectable flush climbed up her neck—made me salivate. One taste wasn’t enough. Neither was a second one. Every time I fed from her I wanted more. I wanted to sink my teeth inside her and drain her fucking dry. Claim her and change her so she’d be chained to me for the rest of her eternal life.

I wanted her to think of me every waking moment and dream about me every night.

I pulled out, ramming myself inside her harder with each thrust, until she was drifting up the bed. She groaned when I wrapped my hand around her throat, squeezing just enough to keep her in place and demonstrate how I held her life in my hands. How I exhibited enough control not to irrevocably change her entire world with one bite.

She threw her head to the side as she screamed her orgasm, bearing her neck to me. As unintentional as it was, my baser instinct saw it as an invitation. I licked up her neck, letting my fangs prick her skin.

“Do it, Judas,” she rasped. “Taste me.”

“Hmmm, maybe,” I teased. Normally I loved making her cry and beg, but the truth was, I didn’t trust myself not to take it too far.

Every time I bit her, I got closer to losing control. I had never been this obsessed with tasting someone or turning them. Ever . Fucking her was walking the ultimate tightrope, and eventually I’d plummet.

I flipped us over, moving to sit against the headboard. I pushed down on her hips as she took her own pleasure. This position wasn’t any better. Seeing her breasts sway and rock in my face took my bloodlust to a frightening level.

“Please, bite me, right here,” she begged as she trailed her hand down her throat, drawing my attention to her smooth, warm skin.

Her words were too tempting. I rubbed her clit so she’d lose her train of thought, but that only made me focus on her throbbing jugular. The sound of her pulse. Fuck.

“Why are you making me wait?” she breathed as she plucked her own nipples and ground against me. “It feels so good when you bite me…especially on my pussy…my breasts…when you hold me down and take what you want…”

The fucking cosmos! I was hanging by a thread. Of course she wanted it. The venom vampires released felt good to humans; it made them relax and helped them forget the pain. For magical folk, it was like taking a direct hit of adrenaline. Angela had such a strong reaction to my venom that I sometimes suspected she may be my ? —

“Fuck, fuck, please!” she mewled, her thighs shaking. “I want to feel you come inside me when you drink my blood. Mark me.”

The thread snapped, and I free-fell. I slammed her to my chest, banding my arms behind her so she couldn’t escape. My lips instinctually sought the column of her neck, right over her jugular, and I sank my fangs in deep. I feasted on what she so willingly gave to me, taking pull after pull as we came together.

She vibrated in my arms, a sign I was taking too much, but I didn’t care. I wanted more. I wanted her, forever. She’d be mine for eternity…

“Judas!” she screamed. “Judas STOP.”

I snapped out of it, licking over the wound to magically block the blood flow. She shot out of bed, her hair a curly mess.

“You almost went too far…” she whispered with wide eyes and labored breaths. I expected her to be mad at me. She never had issues yelling at me or telling me exactly how she felt… But she was afraid.

“So what if I had gone too far? Is that a bad thing? We could be together forever, Angela.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?! You don’t even want me. You said you ‘don’t do monogamy’, then you said my ‘mortality meant I wasn’t the kind of girl to settle down with’, and now you want to force me to be with you?” she screamed.

Fuck. I knew my words, no matter how untrue they were, would come back to bite me. I didn’t care about any of that shit—I was just scared of giving myself to her. Of committing to someone who’d break my heart again. The push and pull between us ended now, because the thought of existing without her drove me mad.

“I lied, not that it matters now, because what either of us want is inconsequential. You let me have a taste of you, but a taste will never be enough. You’re a greedy little slut for me. A foolish woman who dangled your irresistible blood in front of me like a carrot and created a damned monster, dolce ,” I spat the nickname she hated so much at her. “You’re mine already, it’s just a matter of accepting it and sealing the deal with a bite.”

The look of disgust on her face killed me, despite how justified it had been. I was a possessive, toxic monster for her, and the shit I said was…true. I felt it deep in my dark, still heart.

The stillness lifted, and noise came rushing back to me like a slap in the face. Everyone snapped into action. Diana and Ares charged for the vampires who killed her, ripping their throats out with their bare hands. The rest of Red’s vampires faded away before they met the same fate.

I rushed to Angela’s side, Bain and Apollo on the other. Azazel pushed them both out of the way to heal her…but nothing happened. I saw his silver healing magic seep into her wound, but her skin didn’t stitch up or close.

Bain picked up the knife, examining the handle. “The blade is spelled with some kind of malevolent magic. I don’t think her wound will heal.”

Diana’s sobs pierced my heart. Desmond gathered her in his arms, but she pushed him away, kneeling next to Azazel at Angela’s side. Her magic swirled around her, pulsating in an erratic rhythm.

“Honey, you have a minute to say goodbye, tops,” he gently said, as if she was a live grenade.

She was more than a grenade. She was a fucking magical tidal wave waiting to drown everything in her path.

“I don’t have to say goodbye! Bain, bring her back!” she demanded.

“Diana, bringing Desmond back was a risk. Angela may not come back the same person?—”

“Shut up!” she shrieked. “If you don’t bring her back right now I swear to Lucifer himself I will find a way to make sure you go with her!”

If anyone could destroy a bone whisperer, it would be Diana or her father. And if they teamed up on him, he was done.

I knew my old friend well enough to know he felt the change in her magic. I also knew Diana well enough to know that although she was a beautiful person inside and out…she had no qualms about becoming a villain to be the hero for someone she loved. She’d do anything for her people.

Bain shook his head, like I knew he would. The only option left to save her was to change her. To take her soul away and make her a creature of the night. A vampire.

As if he had read my thoughts, Quelier said “Please, save her,” to me in a desperate tone, his usual bravado gone.

I knew Angela didn’t ask for eternal life. She didn’t ask to have me as her sire—or to have the connection a sire has with their progeny. She didn’t ask for the deadly obsession I had with her.

But she needed it, and I wanted her way too much to let nature take its course.

My fangs elongated in anticipation of what I knew I had to do. Of what I had craved to do since the first time I tasted her sweetness. I plunged them into her neck and drank.

“Judas!” Lucifer shouted. He knew how many laws I was breaking, how I was violating the feeble trust Angela had in me. He created vampires, after all. He gave my sire’s sire the rules of creation. Rules I was willingly disregarding for the woman I didn’t want to live without.

I drank until I lost control of myself. Every drop of her blood turned me into an insatiable beast who should be locked away for everyone’s safety. After I drained her, I could feel her soul leaving this world. Bain saw it, too. He stared above her, and then followed whatever he saw as it floated away.

The Undead that resided in me multiplied and divided into two equal parts. One half stayed in me, and the other slithered to where her soul had resided and took root. This wasn’t how creation happened. Each vampire was supposed to create their own dark force…

If we shared the same darkness, then the suspicion I had for the past few months was correct… I sat up, Angela’s blood dripping down my face and onto my Section Leader’s uniform. The ramifications of what I had done crushed me like Sisyphus’ boulder.

How unfortunate was I? I sired my fated mate without her consent, and now she was going to hate me for eternity.