Page 32 of Bloodbane

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

The Pull of the Moon

{ T H A Y N E }

“This can’t be... it’s not possible…” My eyes dart to the bed before flicking back to Eirik, but the vision of Ruby—almost naked, face down, grinding her hips into the mattress—is seared into my mind. “This doesn’t make any sense.”

My heart is a jackhammer beneath my ribs as I struggle to make sense of what my senses are telling me. Ruby certainly smells like wolfkind now, familiar but somehow different. The honeyed scent filling the air is like nothing I’ve ever known, teasing my nostrils, settling in my lungs, and filling my head—triggering something inside me, something deep and primal, as strong and inescapable as the pull of the moon.

“She can’t be…” I shake my head even as my gaze is drawn back to Ruby. This time, I can’t force myself to look away. “She’s human . I don’t understand. This isn’t possible.”

Ruby can’t be an omega. I would have known. I would have scented it before now—I would have felt it. I’ve been a hell of a lot closer to Ruby than this, I’ve tasted her for fuck’s sake, but she’d smelled human then. Delicious, but human. Something has changed. No, somehow, everything has changed.

“What’s not possible?” Eirik’s voice is hard, but his eyes are soft, fixed on the writhing, whimpering form on the bed.

Possessiveness flares white-hot inside me, a match to gasoline—roaring, burning, consuming me. It’s all I can do to resist bowing over Ruby’s body, shielding her from Eirik’s eyes. To drive into her, knot her, fill her, claim her. Ruby’s sweet, heady scent is triggering instincts I didn’t know I had.

“—yne. I need you to focus.”

“What? Oh. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she’s an omega. But omegas don’t turn, they’re born. Being bitten wouldn’t have done this to her.”

Ruby drags her face over the cotton pillowcase, leaving a damp trail of spit as she turns toward them, blinking slowly as if coming out of a daze. When dark eyes finally find focus, a trembling hand reaches up, but Ruby doesn’t shift her position or cease rutting against the mattress.

“Please, either of you, both of you, I don’t care, but please, please, someone fuck me,” she whines, each word stretched thin with need. “I can’t—can’t… I—ah—ah— ahh! ” Ruby’s back arches beautifully as the muscles in her body tense and shudder.

Finally understanding what’s happening, I squeeze my eyes closed and clench my hands into fists as Ruby comes. High-pitched moaning peters out into frustrated whimpers, and I can hear her rutting against the bed again.

“ Please, ” she sobs wetly.

The broken sound compels my eyes open again, tracking her tears as they well and spill over, dripping down pink-tinged cheeks. “Ruby…”

“Please, please—”

Eirik falls to his knees beside the bed. “It’s alright. Everything’s going to be alright,” he murmurs, running his hands through Ruby’s hair gently. But when he turns his eyes on me, all traces of tenderness are gone. “If the bite wasn’t the catalyst, then what in Hel’s name is wrong with her?”

I match Eirik’s dark look, but inside, a small ember of hope flickers to life, burning on a kindling of guilt. “I don’t know, but it looks like she’s—” I clear my throat roughly. “I think she’s in heat.”

Eirik’s face remains impassive for a moment before deep lines crease his perfect face. “Like a dog?”

I bite back the ‘fuck you’ with difficulty, throwing him a withering look instead. "More like a ferret, actually.”

Eirik seems unmoved by the correction. “Should I be holding my breath for the punchline?”

“Female ferrets go into heat, and they die if they don’t...”

“Don’t what?”

My slow exhale is drowned out by Ruby’s desperate moaning, coming quicker and louder now. The sound reverberates through me, calling to me. The tension in my shoulders pounds in my head as I fight the physical pull to go to Ruby, to give her what she wants, what she needs. It’s a hard-won, narrowly claimed victory. I shove my hands into my pockets to keep them away from the temptation of sweat-slicked skin.

“Mate.”

Realization blooms in Eirik’s eyes and heat races through my skin, burning a path from my cheeks to chest.

“You want me to believe you have to fuck her to fix her?”

I squirm on the spot, wishing I could speed from the room, or that the floor would just open up beneath my feet and swallow me whole. Eirik’s reaction isn’t unexpected. Hell, I had a remarkably similar one when Adams had sat me down and gone through the finer points of lycan biology. Still, it doesn’t make it any less mortifying now that it’s actually happening.

“Remember how I told you about the protein deficiency? It triggers a hormone storm in omegas, and the only way to fix it is to… ah, share my protein with her. Just like you need blood to survive, Ruby needs… something else. Look, I know it’s fucked up, okay? But it’s not supposed to be like this,” I snap, gesturing toward Ruby. “All I know is her body will absorb the protein, and the symptoms will go away. But that’s only if she is an omega. If she’s not, it could make things much worse.”

Eirik glares at me. “How much fucking worse can she get?”

I flinch at the uncharacteristic outburst. “It could kill her,” I answer softly, sinking to my knees beside Eirik.

Ruby bites at the pillow. It muffles her cries as she twists the sheet in her fists and rubs herself frantically against the mattress again. My resolve splinters. I run my fingers across her dewy skin but lift them immediately as she jerks away from my touch.

“She’s burning up.” Icy fingers of dread twist around my heart. I’ve seen this once before. The fever came, and not twenty-four hours later, she was gone.

Uncertainty tears at me. What if Ruby isn’t an omega? What if this is a side effect from the transfusion or from Eirik taking her blood—some kind of cross-contamination? My chest seizes painfully. I don’t know what the protein will do to a human. Phil had driven home the point more than once, in no uncertain terms, to never, ever take one. But I do know what will happen if Ruby is an omega and doesn’t get what she needs. It’s a risk I can’t take.

The begging pleas are coming faster now, tumbling off Ruby’s lips as she curls into a fetal position, tremors wracking her body.

Mind set, I stand and begin shedding clothes, focusing on the practical task rather than the storm of desire, revulsion, shame, and guilt whiting out my brain.

Eirik’s gaze shadows my movements, pressing in on me like a physical weight, prickling my skin with awareness. For the first time since my transformation, self-consciousness creeps through my veins. My body is so different now—all hard lines and corded muscles, the body I’d dreamed of, before, but Eirik… He had lusted after my smaller frame in ways that never made sense to me. Cool lips had burned over every inch of my skin, worshiping me, hungry eyes and ravenous mouth devouring me for hours before fangs ever pierced my body.

My tortured cock jerks at the memory, loosing a stream of precome into my jeans. Clenching mt jaw, ignoring the anxiety rippling through me, I unfasten my jeans, hook my thumbs into the waistband, and push them down in one smooth motion before kicking the fabric away. I stare down at Eirik defiantly, waiting for the reaction.

But Eirik’s eyes don’t chase the flash of motion or dart over exposed skin, remaining fixed on mine as he stands. Something flickers across that beautiful face, dark and dangerous, as we stand in too-sharp silence, and my stomach does a sickening somersault. I expected lust or disgust, but the complete disinterest knocks me off-balance.

The silence stretches and breaks as Eirik’s gaze flicks back to Ruby briefly before he brushes past me, heading for the door.

“I’ll wait outside.”

Eirik's gone in a blink, and I ignore the way the room feels somehow colder without him in it. But the ache of loss is better than the anxiety of trying to get through what’s coming with an audience. The last thing I need is judgment from Eirik, or worse, pointers.

The bed dips under my weight as I climb onto the mattress and position myself behind Ruby, so close I can feel the heat rising from her fevered body. Anticipation throbs through me, leaking from my cock, sparking a pang of self-loathing. I have to do this to keep Ruby alive; I should take no pleasure in it. But the knowledge doesn’t do a damn thing to temper my reaction. Despite drawing a steadying breath, I can’t stop the trembling in my hands as I grasp Ruby’s waist and roll her onto her back.

Ruby’s reaction is immediate and intense, thrashing on the bed, struggling to break contact.

“ No, no, no! ”

The odd feeling of air being displaced, like a phantom breeze in the closed-off room, is the only acknowledgment of Eirik’s return. Appearing in the doorway, the snow dusting his hair and shirt is the only sign he had left.

“What’s wrong? I thought you said fucking her would fix her.”

“It will, and I obviously haven’t fucked her yet. Jesus, Grayson, you’ve been gone two seconds.”

“Hot, hot, too hot,” Ruby mumbles, writhing on the bed, scratching at my hands.

I rock back on my knees, lifting my hands, watching as she calms instantly. I reach out, letting my hand hover a moment before pressing it to Ruby’s thigh. She jerks away from the touch immediately, scrubbing her face against the bed. I recall my hand and run it through my hair, ignoring the embarrassment creeping into my cheeks as Ruby calms.

Since my first moonrise as a lycan, I’ve felt the biological urges thrumming through me; the need to take an omega. The pull to rut and claim and breed had been overwhelming at first, but I’ve learned to control it, to ignore it for the most part. I hadn’t known if I’d ever have the chance to take an omega, but I never dreamed my first would be with an omega who doesn’t seem to know what she is, too strung out to string a sentence together, and too hot to accept my touch.

“Thayne?”

I turn to Eirik, bracing myself. “I need your help.”