Page 4 of It's in His Bite

Rhiannon and her were polar opposites—not just in looks but in personality, too. Rhiannon was exuberant and rash where Tessa was restrained ferocity and pragmatism. And, just like my red hair was a sort-of middle ground between their blonde and brown, my whimsy and temperance was the third side of the triangle that balanced our friendship.

Tessa’s eyes sharpened as she saw the bandage on my neck, too.

“What happened?”

I took a step away from the kitchen and waved off her concern. “Nothing. Just blood hosted.”

Landon snorted. “Ah, yes, because the typical blood host has to use specialty wound tonic to keep from bleeding out on the kitchen island.”

Tessa and Rhiannon both froze for thirty long seconds. And then Rhiannon’s face changed, an excitement in them that wasn’t there before. She grabbed Tessa’s arm, and then the scene around them was changing as she took them somewhere alone.

The moment she stopped moving, she asked, “Wait, did you?—”

My cheeks flushed so fast I could feel my chest and neck warm, too. I swore to God, if she spilled my most damnable secret, I would literally die. Just let me melt into the floor now because there was no way I would be able to come back from that.

My reply was too sharp. “No!”

Landon glanced up, a single eyebrow raised. It felt like he was digging too deep again. My cheeks were so dark, they alone were probably betraying my crush.

Tessa pointedly cleared her throat.

“Rhiannon was just calling to let you know we’re all heading up together in another hour or so. We should be there a bit before dinner as long as they don’t close the pass.”

“Great,” I managed to say.

But I couldn’t tear my gaze away from Landon as he dumped the wound care into the trash, washed his hands, and reorganized the bin of supplies. His movements were smooth and precise but with a coiled power I’d seen radiate off of nearly every vampire I’d ever met at some point. It wasn’t much of a surprise that my bleeding had set off his own hunger.

Not muttering another word and without bothering to grab a coat, he opened the door and stepped onto the deck. He hopped over the railing, dropping out of sight. My breath caught, the rational part of my brain freaking out over the two-story fall despite understanding that all of us preternaturals were stronger, faster, and more capable than the humans around us.

“Have you gotten the email yet?” Rhiannon asked.

I forced myself to breathe deep, trying to rationalize it was just to calm myself down, to recenter myself after… all of that. But most of me just wanted one more chance to smell the musk and citrus blend that was uniquely Landon.

“Um, no, not yet,” I said. “Part of me thinks it won’t come until tomorrow.”

“Dang it.” Rhiannon’s curse is vehement.

“So you’re going to tell us what actually happened now, right?” Tessa asked, her voice sly. “Because we need to know why Landon fucking Rhodes was just cleaning up your neck, Harlowe. Now.”

With a breathless giggle, I pressed my bag against my belly and tucked into the window seat at the top of the stairs, happy enough to let my friends distract me.

Chapter Four

Landon

Iran, moving fast enough to not be seen by the humans that were in the scattered homes and cabins along the winding road, and did not dare slow for one second. The air was bitterly cold against my skin, but it didn’t touch the heat racing through my veins. My hands were thrumming with the entirely asinine desire to feel the smooth silk of her skin again. The need to turn around was almost too intense to ignore. The subtle fragrance of her shampoo or lotion—gods, it could even be a perfume—was imprinted in my mind, the fruity undertones and the stronger vanilla. I gritted my teeth and ignored the dual aches of my fangs and dick, forcing more distance between me and that kitchen.

Snow fell all around me, so thick it was nearly impossible to see through. The sharpened vision brought by my transformed gaze rendered every individual flake in irritating detail as iftheywere suitable options for slaking my hunger. Hunger that had been reasonably handled early this morning before getting to the Grants’ mountain cabin just before lunch.

Sure, smelling a person’s blood could heighten a vampire’s hunger, and there had been enough of hers to act as prop to a thriller movie. It certainly had impacted me. Except it wasn’t just her blood that had my body growing more thirsty with every passing second. Or even mostly. It was seeing the bite and smelling the other vampire all over her. It was, for one bare instant, the image of his fangs in her throat while she moaned under him. It was the way her breath shuddered with every swipe of the gauze like the bite was still giving her pleasure—which was something that could happen, though it wasn’t very common.

No, my eyes were sharpened and my fangs were pressing into my bottom gums because all I could see when that towel moved was the instant lewd daydream that they had been my fangs and hands and tongue that had marked her, touched her, caressed her.

Bloody hell, my body should not be thrumming with this kind of want. Not for Harlowe. Not for my best friend’sdaughter. I’d held her as an infant, for fuck’s sake, before Joshua and Mallory had returned to her family’s coven in America.

None of that seemed to matter to my body, though. It hadn’t stopped being this agonizing mass of twisted desire since Joshua had reintroduced us at a clan function last summer. Her bright red hair had been curled and pulled away from her face, leaving it to cascade down her back. Her heart-shaped face was lean, the column of her throat graceful. Her subtle curves and toned legs were a man’s fantasy. And the sparkle in her eye, like she knew a secret and just couldn’t wait for you to discover exactly what it was? All of it was a far cry from the awkward twelve year old I’d last seen a decade ago.

She was downright stunning. No one could resist her that night, each of the single men attempting to woo her at some point.