Page 20 of Until the Heart Stops (The Oylen City #1)

I was dreaming.

It must have been a dream. Callum was between my legs, his low sighs ghosting across my skin and wide shoulders pressing my knees apart.

Heat snaked up my spine and my back arched as he lapped at the sensitive flesh of my inner thighs, teeth scraping across the crease.

My hips canted, searching for him. It was too much and yet not enough.

His low rumble vibrated through my core.

More, I needed more. Dazedly I drew my knees wider apart, moaning when he pressed closer, wet mouth sucking and lapping but not where I wanted it—where I needed it.

His name came out in a breathy whisper, a plea for release as the pleasure spiked higher and his tongue slid to my core, lapping and sucking as if he were starved.

That was it, goddess , yes. My skin tingled as I rode his mouth, my moan louder in my ears.

A fang scraped across my clit, sending a bright pop of fire ricocheting up my spine before his tongue delved into my entrance.

Slowly, I reached out toward the male I wished was really here, wanting to draw his face closer, for his lips to close over me again and lick and suck and fuck.

For those teeth to sink into my flesh and?—

My eyes flew open.

Soft hair beneath my palm, firmly here and present in my bedroom. I tensed, trying to understand what I was seeing before my eyes rolled back and I moaned. Callum’s mess of white-blond hair was splayed across one of my thighs. His mouth latched over my clit and he gave a slow, deep suck.

“Cal— goddess ,” I panted, hips jumping.

His mouth slid lower, tongue diving into my entrance again and again until I was writhing. I pushed up to one elbow as he drew back enough for those silver eyes to look up, a wild grin tugging at the corner of his mouth smeared with blood.

“I knew it,” he rumbled, two fingers sliding inside me and curling up.

Sweat dewed across my brow and I whimpered, head lolling to my shoulder. “W-what?”

He licked the blood off his lips and used his free hand to wipe at his chin before sucking his fingers. “That your cunt would be my only salvation. That here, between your thighs, I would find the thing human priestesses of the goddess speak so rapturously of.”

I was reeling. Even now the moment did not feel entirely real. Two weeks I’d gone without a word, save for the note he’d sent with Eamon, and now here he was between my thighs.

“And what is t-that?” I moaned, stuttering over the last word as his fingers pressed against my front wall, the signet ring on his index finger rubbing maddeningly, and stars burst across my eyes .

Callum’s head descended again, but not before he rumbled out his answer:

“Bliss.”

I fell back onto the bed as he lapped at my clit the way he had the wound in my thigh weeks ago.

Pressure coiled tight in my belly, my toes curled, and my heartbeat sounded in my ears.

And for the first time in days, Callum was there fully in the bond, his desire sending mine to new heights.

Flashes of my face slid across my mind, but from his perspective, the images tinged with so much devotion and longing tears slid over my temples and into my hair.

His name fell from my lips over and over as I shattered, my knees pulling together as though I could push him away. But his free hand surged up, pressing me open before he drew his other hand from my sex, blood smearing across my thigh as he pushed both apart.

“Mine,” he growled.

The release he’d pulled from my body continued until I was trembling beneath him, my moans melding from pitiful whimpers back into sounds I’d had no idea I could make. And though I was unsure if it was possible, that same pressure coiled tight, but now a hundred times more powerful.

“That’s it,” Callum praised, not even lifting his mouth from me. “Give me more, give me fucking everything .”

I tipped over the edge again, only faintly aware I was crying out until one long-fingered hand came up to cover my mouth, muffling my cries.

My body shook, a flush swept across my chest and cheeks, and there were long moments where I thought perhaps I could die from this.

I was sure my body would just shatter into a million pieces.

But of course, it didn’t, and Callum’s movements gentled.

The hand covering my mouth slid to bracket my chin, thumb pressing against my lip .

Slowly he pressed open-mouthed kisses to my hips, my belly, sliding my nightdress up to kiss my sternum.

When he pulled back, I realized my eyes hadn’t deceived me; my blood was smeared across his mouth.

But with the rapturous look in his eye, I couldn’t find it in myself to be embarrassed.

Especially as he sucked his fingers into his mouth one at a time, silver eyes fixed on me until they fluttered with pleasure at the taste and suddenly my core was clenching again with need.

We stared at each other for a few heartbeats and I saw what I hadn’t before.

There was a hollowness in Callum’s eyes that hadn’t been there when I’d seen him last. I realized there was also a pronounced tremor in his left arm he tried to hide by placing his hand on my thigh, thumb stroking gently against my skin.

I sat up slowly until I could touch his face and trace the sharp line of his cheekbone. “What’s happened?”

He shook his head, but he leaned into the touch, grabbing my wrist and holding my hand there. “Nothing.”

Through the bond I caught small snippets of fear interlaced with pain forcing my heart to clench. I lifted my other hand until I was cupping his face, tilting his chin up so I could look fully into his eyes. “Where have you been?”

Callum closed his eyes, shaking his head a fraction, but he didn’t pull away.

I shifted to my knees without letting go so I could scoot closer to the edge of the bed.

He was tall enough even with him kneeling on the ground I could easily touch my forehead to his.

Uncertainty crashed through the bond in a wave, tinged again with fear and unbridled need.

“It is not safe,” he murmured. “But I…I couldn’t stay away.”

“Then don’t stay away.” I rocked my forehead against his. “Don’t leave. ”

“It is not safe,” he repeated, drawing back enough I could count each eyelash, each speck of bright silver in his gray eyes.

My brows ticked up. “For who?”

The hands around my wrists tightened a fraction and new images splashed through the bond. A vampire male with a shock of white hair looming. Dark stained stones beneath pale trembling hands. Pain, so much pain it was unfathomable.

“For you?” I pressed.

But Callum shook his head. “For you , Lilith. He cannot know what you—what we…”

His throat bobbed with a swallow but his grip relaxed, sliding up my arms and over my shoulders until he was drawing me into the circle of his embrace. I went willingly with a sigh, resting my head on his chest, and he cradled me close, nose buried in my hair.

The nighttime sounds of Oylen slipped through the room from the crack in the window.

Voices rumbled on the street, wood popped and crackled from the communal fires, and a little farther off a violin began to play.

I should have been at the market, but after two weeks of pretending I was fine, of restless and sleepless mornings, Adrienne and Noah had all but forced me to stay home to try to catch up on the sleep I’d missed for fear I would get sick.

When Callum did not explain what he’d meant, I took a deep breath. “Do you mean the bond? I would be in danger if he found out you gave me your blood?”

He ran a palm over the back of my head, drawing me tighter against him. Silence hung thick in the air for a beat too long. “Yes.”

But it wasn’t everything, I could practically taste it. “Don’t lie to me.”

All the muscles in his body locked into place.

A tremor slid down my spine, but before I could do more than squirm in his arms, he relaxed until I could pull away enough to see his face.

A furrow appeared between his brows and his eyes flicked back and forth between my own.

I wondered what he could feel from his end of the bond—was it my confusion?

Or perhaps it was the mounting dread climbing hand over hand up my chest.

Gently he touched my cheek, an awed sort of look crossing his expression as if he couldn’t believe he was allowed to do so. He brushed my hair back from my face and I realized he was memorizing my features, committing this moment to his mind so he could recall it with perfect clarity.

“If Mael knew what you were, he would use you to control me. I would be a puppet and he the master, able to manipulate me to deliver his madness into this world. Right now, he knows he has no such hold and won’t risk an outright rebellion.

But with you in his grasp?” He shook his head, wincing as if he saw it in his mind at it physically pained him.

“With you in his grasp I would be nothing.”

“I don’t understand. You barely know me. I don’t deserve that level of loyalty.”

There was a connection between us, an attraction that went beyond merely the physical. But for Mael to have such power over him if I were taken? I couldn’t fathom the reason.

“Yes, you do,” Callum breathed. “I wasn’t lying before, when I said that you are the flame to which I hold my candle of immortality. Because you, Lilith Searah…”

Callum dipped his head until we were eye to eye, his voice so fierce, I finally understood why he would do anything if it meant keeping me safe, even if it meant bending to the whims of a monster.

“You are my blood mate.”