Page 26

T he next morning, Maddy sat at the kitchen counter, head in hands, when Dom walked in with his hair still damp from a shower. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

Madeline was settling into her Scourge form. Unhappily. Her fully formed, fast-growing, uncontrollable wings were her nemesis.

Tilting her head up, she glared at Dom, as if her problem was his fault. “Nothing.”

“Really. I admit I’m not sensitive to moods, but a mopey expression means something’s wrong.”

“I tried to fix breakfast, but these damn wings have other ideas. They’re heavy. They drag and twitch, knocking shit onto the floor. I fell earlier because they’re unbalanced. Of course, I’ve got fangs, too, and they keep cutting my lip.”

Dom slipped on cracked eggs beneath his boots. Catching himself, he avoided flying ass-first to the tile.

“Watch out for the floor,” said Madeline, following his ungraceful movement. “I may have dropped a few things when I tried to fix breakfast.” She returned to moping, head-in-palms.

After a quick cleanup, Dom retrieved a carton of unbroken eggs from the fridge. He set the coffee pot to brew and snagged a skillet from a lower cabinet, plopping it on the range. Chopping, dicing, and mixing, he made omelets. Coffee brewed, he planted a mug in front of Madeline, returning to his task.

She curled a finger into the cup handle, lifting the drink to her lips. “Ahh. I still like caffeine. I don’t even want creamer and blood added.”

Toast ready, counter set, Dom served up two omelets. Before sitting, he pressed his warm lips to Maddy’s mouth. “Good morning.”

“I guess I forgot to say that, too.”

They ate in silence since Madeline was not in the mood to chat.

While she downed the last of her coffee, Dom cleaned the kitchen. When done, he said, “Follow me. Flight training.”

She jerked toward him. “I’m not ready.”

“You are.” He beckoned her to the hallway with a crooked finger.

As she trailed Dom to the gym, Madeline’s wings scraped the tile. He signaled her to the middle of the floor mat, surrounded by weights and a few machines.

She frowned, shifting her left shoulder high to lift a damn wing. No go. It still dragged. So, Maddy shuffled onto the mat, her damn feathered accessories drooping and useless.

When she stood facing Dom, he spun her around. Though unable to control her new appendages, she felt Dom’s touch on them as he examined her.

“Now that I’m looking closely, your wings aren’t covered by a smooth leather-like skin.”

She twisted her neck to look over her shoulder. “Really? So, no bat wings.”

“Correct. You do have some leathery feathers. Not all. Many of your primaries and secondaries are blonde, like your hair but darker near the base and lighter at the tips.”

“What does that mean?”

He chuckled, pivoting her around again to face him. “Fuck if I know. Odd. But we’ll think about that later. More important things to do now.”

Dom shushed out his glorious black wings until they spanned wall to wall. And the gym was very big. “These are a web of bone and muscle. They allow you to control your flight, tightening or changing shape to give more lift, less drag, greater maneuverability.”

“Uh huh.” Madeline rounded her shoulders, trying to flip out her wings as Dom had. Instead of complying, they stayed limp on the mat. She thought the right one had twitched, though. “I understand, but I can’t do anything with them. Except screw up.”

“You can, but...” He swiped a palm down his jaw. “You can’t control them with the muscles you’re trying to use. These,” he tapped her breasts, “will lower your wings.” He grinned. “Not your breasts, which are lovely, but the pecs under them. But your supracoracoideus will raise them.”

“The what?”

He patted her back. “Think of them as a pulley with a rope that wraps around your shoulder blades. Focus on tugging the rope to lift your wings.”

She rolled her shoulders.

“No. It’s not your shoulders. The controlling muscles are beneath them. Not above. Concentrate and use them as a pulley. Try again.”

Madeline closed her eyes. She envisioned a cord that looped over her shoulder blades and connected to strange muscles. Mentally, she hand-over-handed it until her left wing wiggled, rising slightly off the floor.

“You got it.” Dom gave her an encouraging smile.

The wing flopped to the mat. “I felt it for a minute.” Excited, Madeline almost jumped up and down. “A kiss would probably encourage me.”

Dom curled his hands around her waist and lifted her for a brief kiss.

“That was fast.”

“But proportionate.”

“Stingy.”

Dom grinned, but then turned serious. “Each of your wings operates independent of the other. Each has a separate muscle to raise or lower it.”

“How can I concentrate on two of these things? I can’t even control one.”

“Think of walking. You don’t worry about which muscles to use, do you? Your legs operate independently.”

“True.” Madeline squeezed her lips together to help her focus. Her left wing flicked out to the side.

“Great. Now, hold it there.”

For a moment, she did. When she exhaled, the wing flopped to the ground. “That’s hard, but I’m getting the gist.”

“Of course. You’ve never used those muscles before.” Dom combed fingers through his hair. “Maybe you never had them.”

“Okay.” Madeline chewed her thumbnail. “Let me practice. Go do something. Stop staring at me while I learn to move these fucking beauties.”

The wise man left her alone, wandering over to select a few giant weights from a rack.

Pull on the left rope. Pull on the right rope.

Madeline eyed Dom, distracted by him when he began his workout routine. He curled one arm at a time, his bicep bulging with the effort. His heavily slabbed chest rose and fell. Eventually, sweat dripped down his rigid abdomen. Her gaze flipped to the pulse in his neck. It pounded as blood flowed through his veins.

What the fuck?

With her concentration on Dom’s throat rather than her task, her left wing flicked out wildly, tumbling her sideways. Her fangs twitched, and she wanted to sink them into a tasty vein.

Focus.

Madeline closed her lids to erase the image of her mouth on Dom’s neck. Determined, she resumed her workout. Hours later, she was exhausted. When the skin on her arms tingled, she glanced up to see Dom leaning against a wall. He’d crossed arms over his chest and was staring. Her wings, which she’d been holding off the floor, collapsed to the mat.

Dom prowled toward her, a glint in his eye. Toe-to-toe, he bent and captured her lips.

Madeline broke off the kiss. “I’m sweaty.”

He caressed her shoulders, sending chills along her spine. “I love sweat. Besides, you’ve done very well and deserve more than a quick kiss.” Kicking out her feet, he took her down, making fast work of his clothes and hers.

“Here?” she asked.

“Yep. Here and now.”

Madeline got with the program, exploring his sculpted body. Her palms skated across his chest and slid down to his waist, his thighs.

Dom clasped onto one of her hands, guiding it to his heavy cock while he rolled on top of her. When she gripped him and squeezed, he moaned.

She stroked from crown to hilt, sighing at the thickness of his length. “Get on with it. Or are you all talk?” She rested the tip of his shaft at her opening but did not penetrate. “Your move. Fuck me.”

Dom teased, nudging her, pushing in, pulling out. Probing.

Two could play this game.

Madeline wrapped her legs around Dom, locking him in tight with her heels, forcing him further inside her. Another inch. Torturous. But sweet pleasure.

Her grim winged assassin tilted his hips. Forward. Backward. Forward, driving himself deeper. So deep his shaft throbbed inside her moist sheath.

Maddy’s inner muscles squeezed Dom as she began a slow undulation, rocking her pelvis upward to meet him.

He drew out mid-way. Then with a single thrust, he seated himself to the hilt. “You feel so good.”

“Too slow.” Madeline ground against Dom, begging for fast. Instead, he continued to set a leisurely rhythm, each stroke a slow caress. She steadied her hands on his back, shoving into Dom’s advances, forcing him to speed up.

Groaning, he clutched her hips, trying to gentle her, his neck muscles cording like stretched cable wires as he rose above her.

“No,” she snapped. “Faster.”

Dom leaned down to whisper, his hot breath fanning her. “You want my fucking cock, Maddy?”

“Damn it. Yes.” She shifted her pelvis.

“Work for it. This is the gym.” He grinned.

Wicked, wicked man. A tease.

She bared her fangs and snarled, tightening her legs around his thighs, her nails digging into his ass.

But he obviously insisted on control. He captured her wrists, slamming them above her head. “Don’t hurry me. Watch me take your pussy.”

She stared at Dom’s thick flesh as it disappeared inside her and reappeared slick with her juices. The sight was hot, but she was in no mood for a slow frolic. “Stop playing and fuck me.”

“What do you want?” he tormented.

She gasped, “I want to come.”

He kept up the measured dance, creating a maddening friction as his cock slipped in and out of her. Madeline groaned and pleaded.

Dom uncoiled her legs, flinging them over his shoulders, opening her wider. Then he got serious. He did what she asked, pounding into Madeline. His grip on her hips tightened, bruising her as he drove deep.

“Your wish, Maddy.”

Watching the pulse in his neck throb, she grew wild, meeting him thrust for thrust, wanting to bite, desiring his taste. She bent her head, her tongue flicked out, and she licked his skin. Delicious . But through force of will, she didn’t sink her fangs.

While her muscles clenched around his shaft, he hammered into her. Once. Twice. Three times.

“Dom. Yes,” Maddy shouted, no longer interested in his blood, fixed only on her release. Her orgasm built, rolling through her first as a gentle wave but then as an ocean storm. She cried out his name while he slammed into her trembling body.

Chasing his own relief, Dom rocked his frantic hips up and down. The muscles in his arms strained above her, his pulse banging in her ears. When he exploded, his seed spilled into her. Warm. Flowing. He shuddered, tossed his head back, and roared.

Their gasps for air filled the room. Their chests heaved. Once they calmed, Dom rolled off Madeline, collapsing, spent on the sweat-soaked mat.

After a while, she whispered, “I wanted to bite you.”

Dom’s eye flicked open. He gazed upon her with sympathy. “Can’t happen, Maddy.”

“Why?”

“It’s forbidden for Immortals to give their blood to a Leech willingly.”

“Why?”

“The OC doesn’t explain the reasons behind his laws. I always supposed he feared the Leech could transmit his malady.” He paused. “Even though we’ve been told the disease is not contagious.” He tugged her close, cupping her head to his chest, her hair tickling his palm. “If I could help you, I would.”

“I’ll control it.”

“You will.”

After about five minutes of quiet, steady breathing, he said, “I’m hard again . ” He clasped his dick, giving it a few tugs. “Get on your hands and knees.”

“Is that an order?”

“Definitely.”

She rolled to her stomach and pushed up, studying him over her shoulder. “I’m not a Syc anymore, but I’m happy to obey. Like this?” She licked her lips and shot him a wicked smile.

He grasped her hips, positioned her for his cock, and pistoned into her waiting sheath, burying himself in one brutal drive forward, his wings fanning out behind him. “So good. Nobody has ever affected me as you do, Maddy.”

He took her harder and faster than he ever had before. His groin hammered into her, his balls slapping against her ass. Dom pulled out and slammed in again. And again.

His fingers found her clit, rubbing and pinching. “Come now,” he ordered. She had no problem obeying him. What began as a tingling sensation roared through her as an explosion. Dom’s orgasm followed hers.

With both of them panting for breath, Dom rolled to the side, taking her with him and curling a hand around her hip. “Have I told you that you’re beautiful, Maddy?”

“I don’t remember. If you have, tell me again.”

He reached around and kissed her. Soft. Gentle. “You’re beautiful.”

Maddy’s mouth tingled where his lips had touched her. “Even with fangs?”

“Even with.”

“Even with ugly wings?”

“Yes. But your wings aren’t ugly. They’re fascinating.”

“As in weird.”

“As in, you’re the most unique female in OneWorld, and I care deeply for you.”

Was that Dom-speak for “I love you?” She hoped so because she was falling hard for the black-winged assassin.

****

T he week passed in a flurry of gym workouts, wing exercises, air-time, weapons training, and sex without Maddy biting Dom, thanks to many silent recitations of the Dewey Decimal System Classification.

Her wings didn’t drag on the floor, wobble wildly, or do the unexpected.

Whoopie. Success.

As Dom sat on a bench doing his usual arm curl routine, Maddy did what she always did. She stared. His biceps expanded. Contracted. Eventually, her gaze did what it always did. It slid to his neck, where his pulse throbbed with a rhythmic beat. A Tootsie Roll Pop to a little kid.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Madeline licked her lips, her tiny fangs tingling.

Stop it! Stop it!

But her self-talk had no effect. When she opened her eyes again, she zeroed in on Dom’s pulsing throat, gnawing hunger an ache in her belly.

Madeline sprinted from the gym, calling over her shoulder, “I’m off to the study.”

She raced along the tiled floor which led to her favorite room. Throwing open the door, she scanned Dom’s volumes of books, all in their proper place thanks to her OCD. She breathed in the scent of the ancient leather-bound tomes, a soothing odor.

When she’d originally wandered into Dom’s library, the books had been shelved haphazardly. She had no idea what organizational method he used, if any. Knocking the place into shape had become her priority. She used the activity to forget her changing life and Dom’s blood supply.

Now, with her fists propped on her hips, she strolled from bookcase to bookcase, admiring the extensive and organized collection, sometimes fingering the spines of beautifully bound books. She stopped.

I am not a victim. I will change what I can and accept the rest.

She would never, however, accept that she was evil. She whispered to herself, “I am taking back my life. Not my old one, but a new one. Whatever it is, it’s mine. I say who I am, what I am, and what I’ll do. I may be a Scourge, but I’m not the villain of my story. So what if I crave a little blood now and again.”

Stop the pity party. Start researching.

Madeline grabbed a few books from the shelf. Pulling out a straight-backed chair, she sat at the table, surrounded by tomes, all on the same topic—Scourges.

Growing up, she’d learned it was harmful to hide from problems, to stick her head in the sand. So she accepted she was a Leech even though Dom had explained her wings were unique and her tiny fangs were oddities.

When there was a scratch at the door, Madeline opened it.

Freki prowled inside. “Hey.”

“Hey back.”

“Don’t mind me. Just looking for a spot to close my eyes. Had a late-night party with a shapely female wolver. She wrung me out.” He crawled under the table, plopping onto his belly.

“Why do you suppose I can read these books? Aren’t they written in a different language?”

Freki lifted his head. “How the hell would I know? I’m a wolver. Books aren’t my thing. Think of me as a lover rather than a reader.”

She peeked under the table, grinning with the challenge. “But I thought you were smart.”

Freki snarled but gave in. “The written and verbal language in OneWorld conforms to each person. I don’t bother to question the process. It just is. Accept it. Now, let me snooze.”

Madeline shoved aside a leather-bound, worn book. She’d already read it.

She studied photos in another book. The fangs on the Leeches were huge. Dom was right. Hers were smaller.

She flipped through another volume, the usual banter about the cause of maladies. She didn’t care. Was it Chaos’s fault or the boredom of eternity? Neither of those reasons explained her situation. Somebody had to write a new book.

Here’s an interesting one.

It was about the winged assassins. She read the section on Dom and his friendship with Gareth. Though Maddy had pieced together bits of the story from Dom’s comments, the article filled in what had been too painful for him to share. No wonder she was a reminder of one of the worst moments in his very long life.

She opened a history on infamous Blood Leeches, not recognizing any names except Lucian’s. The writer called him a beloved Immortal who had surprised everyone when he led a rebellion against the OneCreator.

She read the flowery description of the revolt as recorded by Scribe.

The OneCreator sat on his throne, gloriously resplendent in purple robes. His long, blond hair fell about his shoulders, and his eyes were as knowing as the universe.

As he listened to a plea from a courtier, he turned toward a commotion outside his chambers, a room protected by a sturdy door at the entrance. The clamor grew louder, a group led by Lucian breaking through to enter the throne room.

Snapping his head in the Immortal’s direction, the OneCreator’s gaze momentarily froze the intruders. “Lucian, explain yourself.”

“I’ve had enough of your rule. Your cruelty knows no bounds.”

“And what do you intend?” The OneCreator arched a regal brow.

“To replace you.” Lucian drew his sword.

The ruler of Vast shifted in his throne. “Indeed. Think hard on this.”

“I have.”

“Why?”

Lucian uttered one word, “Kalia.”

Madeline paused in her reading. Kalia? Oh, yeah. The first Scourge.

“It was Chaos’s decision,” said the OneCreator.

“You could have stopped him.”

The OneCreator neither denied nor agreed with Lucian’s accusation.

When the much-admired Immortal lunged forward, the OneCreator leaped from his throne, landing in front of the rebel leader. Before Lucian could swing his sword, his head fell from his shoulders.

Madeline skimmed through the chapter until she read Lucian’s fate.

The rebel was taken to Angor, where he lay healing for one and a half millennia. The beneficent OneCreator, in recognition of Lucian’s age and status, did not sentence the Immortal-turned-Scourge to extinction. Rather, he doomed him to a life in Angor.

It is rumored he is a Blood Leech.

She selected another book that cited victims of the Blood Leeches, complete with images following their attacks. Madeline slammed the volume closed, swallowing hard.

Ugly pictures were seared in her mind. Fanged creatures tearing into a neck, blood splattered everywhere. An Immortal’s bitten and ravaged body. A Leech, fully maddened, his canines sharp, his eyes wild.

She rested her head in the palms of her hands and cried.

That is not me.