Page 23 of Nocturne

22

LENA

K atya’s words echo, my brain fuzzy like cotton balls.

Callahan is going to fuck me.

“Yes,” Katya coos. “That’s what you both want, isn’t it?” Her hand is between my legs now, teasing, and I hear myself moan as Victor rises from the bed, moving toward me like a man in a trance. The man I want more than anything. I know that much is true.

He’s naked. Erect. His cock thick, stiff and wet, bobbing between his legs as he walks. His skin glistens with sweat or candlelight or both, and I feel a thrill of pleasure that is mine and not mine as he kneels between my thighs.

Tatiana perches on the edge of the bed, watching with eager eyes, her mouth curving into a satisfied smile. “Go to her,” she urges him softly. “Make her yours.”

Katya pulls away just as Victor spreads my legs wide, positioning himself above me with trembling hands. His eyes are wild with need, his breath ragged.

And then he’s inside me—slowly at first but then deeper, harder—a strangled sound escaping his lips as I arch up to meet him, as I feel every inch of him fill some dark hollow I never knew existed.

He thrusts again and again, each movement building on Katya’s earlier work until my mind spins out of control and my body follows it into freefall.

I hear laughter—Tatiana’s? Katya’s?—a high tinkling sound like breaking glass. But I can’t focus on anything except this man who once seemed so far away but is now closer than breath or blood or bone.

“Yes,” Katya purrs again. “That’s it.”

She stands over us, her gown falling from one shoulder as she runs her fingers through Victor’s hair with gentle possession. I should hate her for that touch—he’s mine , after all—but all I can do is cling tighter to him before everything else dissolves completely.

The candles waver in their holders; shadows flicker across the walls in long fevered arcs while Victor drives deeper still—while both of us hurtle toward another shared oblivion even more reckless than before.

“Now you understand,” Tatiana murmurs from somewhere beyond sight or sense. “This is where you belong.”

Callahan continues to fuck me, his rhythm unrelenting, each thrust more desperate than the last, the chaise lounge creaking under the weight of his movement, his muscles.

Katya’s mouth is on my breast now—biting, licking—sending sparks through the haze that threaten to undo everything. I cry out as Victor drives into me again and again, as we both teeter on the brink.

Then Tatiana slips behind him, her hands slipping down his spine and then lower with practiced ease, grinning at me. She plays with him like an instrument until he groans, until I feel him start to shudder inside me.

“You like that, don’t you Victor?” Tatiana says. “Something a man like you would have problems asking for, but as a vampire…”

From the way her head dips down behind his ass, I don’t have to guess what she’s doing. But through the fog of it all, I am stuck on the word vampire.

They know he’s a vampire.

What else do they know?

But the thoughts don’t stay around for long. Callahan’s grunt brings my attention back to his face, his beautiful face, strained with pleasure and the effort of fucking me. Because this does take effort, it takes work, the way his muscles ripple, his neck corded with each thrust, the way his veins stick out, their blood singing to me. A thin sheen of sweat builds on his brow, his breath ragged, his eyes glazed as he fucks and fucks and fucks.

“Let go, Lena,” Katya says, no longer at my breast but sucking on my neck. “Stop fighting it. Let go.”

Whether I’m compelled to, or whether I’m truly succumbing to lewd and crude instincts of my primal vampire side, same as everyone else in this house, I let go.

I adjust my hips to let Callahan in deeper. So deep it takes my breath away.

I give in to the pure pleasure of every heightened nerve.

Victor continues to drive into me, his body electric with need until there is nothing but sensation—nothing but this room and this moment and the mad possibility that none of it will ever end.

And I’ll die happy.

Just as we’re about to come together, Katya pulls back. “Wait,” she commands, her voice sharp enough to slice through even this madness. “Not yet.”

Everything stops—suspended between unbearable pleasure and something darker. I feel Callahan tremble above me; feel myself do the same. His breath is a short rasp, barely hanging on.

Then Katya digs a long nail into my neck—a flash of exquisite pain—and blood trickles down hot and wet across my skin.

She leans down and licks it up slowly. “Yes,” she says through a moan, her eyes closed. “Yes. Exactly what I thought.” She pulls back and makes another cut with that sharp nail edge, right above my collarbone, drawing more blood.

“Now,” she says, her voice silky with promise. Her eyes are on Victor’s as she speaks. “Lick it up.”

I see the hunger in his face before I feel it in the way he moves—the way he lowers his mouth to my throat with sudden urgency, tongue flicking out to catch every red drop. The taste makes him wild again; makes me wild too.

His hips start to move against mine and he fucks me harder now, deeper than anything should be possible.

In fact, I feel him grow bigger inside me, expanding against my walls, harking back to the other night when he came through my apartment window.

He’s becoming full vampire.

The blood—my blood—is turning him.

Fear threads through me, but Katya is not done.

She takes her nail and makes more cuts across my body, each one more painful and delicious than the last, ordering Callahan to drink from them before my skin heals.

Victor laps up my blood with frantic fervor—at my neck, my breast, my belly. Each new cut Katya makes sends his mouth to a new place on my body, the sharp thrill of teeth and tongue igniting every nerve ending.

He’s out of control.

I’m out of control.

The desire is unbearable, but this time Katya does not tell us to stop. Instead she kneels beside me and cuts her own wrist with that long nail, the blood welling up dark and rich. She holds it above my mouth—a sacrament—and I drink greedily, pulling her down to me like she’s the only thing I’ll ever need to survive.

Her blood is thick as honey, sweet as sin. It rushes through me like wildfire, fusing with Victor’s need until it’s impossible to tell where one ends and the other begins.

There is only blood and sex—blood and lust—blood and abandon.

The sounds we make would shame even the most decadent of mortals: moans that spiral higher, echoing into madness; ragged gasps as Callahan thrusts deeper than ever; cries wrenched from both of us when he finally lets himself go completely at last. He rattles and shakes like a man possessed.

Tatiana joins us on the chaise now, her lips everywhere at once, blue eyes blazing in triumph as she draws fresh lines across my skin for Victor to follow with ravenous devotion.

“Yes,” Katya breathes against my ear. “This is what you are. What makes you special.”

I feel a rush of power—not just from vampire blood but from something more primal—that surges through body and mind alike.

Victor sinks his teeth into my shoulder with desperate yearning, not quite breaking the skin but almost. I wrap my legs around him tighter still, driving him deeper inside me.

It’s too much—it should be too much—but instead it takes us somewhere beyond anything we’ve ever known before.

Then, a frenzied release. It plows through me like a train, shatters all sense of time or space—shatters everything except the wild certainty that I was made for this moment—made for him—and nothing can ever be the same now that we’ve crossed this line together.

When it’s over—or when it changes into something less consuming—we lie half on, half off the lounger, tangled in each other’s limbs, covered in blood and sweat and whatever remains of our sanity.

Tatiana reclines on the floor beside us like a satisfied lioness after the kill; Katya strokes my hair with unexpected tenderness while they both watch Victor expectantly—as if waiting for something that has yet to happen but soon will because nothing else could possibly follow what just did except more chaos…

I am lost beneath him but also found—in this moment where nothing matters except his body against mine and the pulse of my own heart pounding its reckless rhythm into every corner of my being.

Tatiana’s laughter swells around us like music rising toward crescendo just as I feel myself start to drift off to sleep.

“Rest now, Lena,” Katya says, sounding so far away. “The both of you need to rest.”