Page 28

Roman

G oddamn Luc.

The car was silent. Danny, normally so chatty, hadn’t spoken a word since their initial greeting upon Roman picking him from work.

Ever intuitive, he seemed to sense Roman’s need to think and was instead holding Roman’s nondriving hand quite firmly.

The contact with his mate soothed the restless rage Roman’s demon was stirring within him but just barely.

Goddamn Luc.

The police had apparently received a tip about some suspicious men loitering around the hospital. With the recent attacks in town, they’d taken the tip seriously, showing up in full force.

Soren and Roman had successfully compelled the police officers, convincing them the duo were just innocent bystanders.

They had avoided being brought in for questioning and even avoided giving any contact information for follow-up.

Roman was aware that, without Soren, he might have had a harder time doing so.

He wasn’t as skilled in compulsion as his older friend.

Luc hadn’t killed the man after all. A small miracle.

Roman thought that perhaps he had not had time to drain the human thoroughly and still make a clean exit. He must have been wary of facing off against both Roman and Soren in one go.

An ambulance had arrived shortly after the police cars to take the unconscious man away. Roman just now realized his mate might have seen him being brought in to the hospital, might even have taken part in his care.

He looked over to the boy beside him—brown hair mussed and brown eyes tired, but just as lovely as ever—and considered asking him but in the end stayed silent. The bitten man wasn’t his focus right now. That man was nothing.

But Danny. Danny was everything .

Luc had to have known his impromptu little trap wouldn’t hold them for long, had probably been only looking to stall so he could make his getaway. Which still left the question of his bigger plans for them.

Roman parked the car in Danny’s driveway, reluctantly releasing his mate’s hand to exit the vehicle. Just that simple act of forgoing contact had his demon raging again.

As soon as Danny was out of the car, Roman rushed over to grab his hand again and pull him into the house, still without a word. He knew he was being a brute, but was hard-pressed to care. His demon was pulsing in him. Needing to touch. Needing to protect. Needing to claim.

Ours. Ours. Ours.

As he tugged Danny to the stairs, they passed Soren in the kitchen.

“Rome, we need to talk.”

“Not. Now,” Roman barked out. He continued forward, pulling his mate up the stairs, ignoring Soren’s protests. Danny didn’t argue, seeming for his part content to let Roman be as much of a beast as he needed to be.

In the bedroom, Roman pushed Danny down to sit at the edge of the bed. He found himself pacing in front of the boy, unable to stay still. “Luc paid me a visit,” he managed to grit out.

“I see.” Danny’s voice was calm, gentle.

“I do not know what his end goal is.”

“I’m not sure he does either.”

That brought Roman up short. He paused his pacing. “What?”

Danny shrugged. “It’s just the vibe I got from him when I saw him. He seemed…curious about me. Threatening, sure. But it didn’t seem like he had some nefarious plan all figured out. He seemed a little…lost, maybe?”

“It does not make him any less dangerous,” Roman snapped, hating himself as he did it. Mon Dieu. He’d tried to be so careful, so controlled around his human, but he could feel himself unraveling.

“No, it doesn’t,” Danny agreed. He didn’t comment on Roman’s tone, didn’t censure him for his boorish behavior.

Roman moved with inhuman speed until he was only inches from Danny’s face. His sweet mate blinked but didn’t flinch.

Was the boy really so unafraid of him?

“I need…,” Roman started to say, but was unable to finish the sentence. His own inadequacies were forefront in his mind. He was no gentle human lover, no docile boyfriend. He was a monster with monstrous appetites.

He didn’t just want to touch Danny. He wanted to consume him.

Danny wet his lips with his tongue, and Roman found himself staring at the boy’s mouth in a way he knew was predatory but could not help.

“You need…,” Danny pressed him, voice a little hoarse.

“I—I don’t know if I’m capable of being at all gentle right now, little king. I need you. I need to claim you.” He watched in satisfaction as Danny’s pupils dilated and his breaths quickened.

“Then claim me,” Danny whispered. “I told you before: I don’t need gentle.”

It was all the encouragement Roman needed, all that his demon would allow him to wait for. He attacked the boy’s mouth with his own, tearing at his clothes, enjoying the sound of the fabric of Danny’s scrubs ripping under his hands.

His sweet mate was making little mewling sounds into Roman’s mouth—sounds that went straight to his cock. Danny’s hands were tugging at his clothes in turn, his movements matching Roman’s in ferocity if not in strength.

His mate smelled so goddamn delicious. With him naked, his milk-and-honey scent intensified. Roman tore his mouth from the boy’s lips, unable to help himself from licking and sucking his way down the smooth neck in front of him as Danny finished unbuckling Roman’s belt.

This neck. He could hear the blood pulsing beneath Danny’s skin, a current of ambrosia just waiting to be tasted.

But not quite yet.

“On your stomach,” Roman growled.

Danny complied immediately, scrambling to lie facedown on the bed, and Roman’s demon growled inside him in satisfaction at their mate’s easy submission. He pushed his own pants the rest of the way off and prowled on top of the bed to blanket the boy’s body with his own.

“So lovely. So sweet.” He kissed his way down Danny’s spine as he blindly reached into the bedside table drawer for lube. His demon was roaring at him now— take, claim, own —but Roman held on to just enough of a shred of his sanity to remember he didn’t want to hurt his boy.

Or at least, didn’t want to hurt him too badly.

A few bruises would only serve to enhance the loveliness of all the pale, creamy skin. He and his demon could agree on that.

Roman opened Danny up with rough, impatient fingers, placing blunt-toothed bites all along the boy’s upper body, deeply satisfied with the marks he left behind. Danny was writhing and moaning underneath him. “Fuck. Oh fuck. Please, Roman. Fuck me.”

His mate had such a dirty mouth when he was turned on.

As Roman pressed the blunt tip of his cock against Danny’s hole, his mate arched up beneath him. “Yes. Yes . Please, Roman.”

Oh, how he loved when his little king begged for him.

Roman pushed into Danny in one smooth glide. He didn’t pause, didn’t give the boy time to adjust. He knew he was going faster than he should, but his mate only keened in satisfaction, lifting his ass to meet him thrust for thrust.

Perfect boy. Perfect mate.

“You’re mine,” he growled, brute that he was.

Danny nodded frantically underneath him, panting out, “Yours.”

“No one else can have you. No one else can take you. Mine .”

Danny moaned into the pillow.

“Say it,” Roman urged, pausing midthrust. Danny whined in protest, but Roman held himself still. He needed to hear the words.

“Fuck, Roman. Yes. Only you. No one else.” Danny slapped the mattress. “Now fuck me. Please.”

Roman obliged, pumping his hips with abandon, making sure to hit the one spot guaranteed to drive his boy crazy.

It somehow still wasn’t enough.

“Bite!” Danny cried, his voice breathless but urgent. “Bite me.”

Yes .

Roman let his fangs descend and bit down on Danny’s neck, his mouth filling with the warm, sweet nectar of the gods.

Fuck. Nothing on this earth tasted as sweet as his mate’s blood.

Danny cried out at the bite, pulsing around Roman’s cock as he emptied himself onto the bed. “Come, Roman,” he begged. “Come inside me. Please.”

Jesus. Roman was powerless against his mate’s command, his vision whiting out as his hips stuttered, pumping his seed into the boy.

Now they each had the other’s essence inside them. His demon was purring at the thought.

Coming down from the high of his release, Roman licked lazily at the bite mark on Danny’s neck and found himself wishing he didn’t have to heal it. Wishing he could leave a permanent mark on his mate’s milky skin. A sign of their bond. A sign of ownership.

Fuck, but he was a brute.

Something in Roman was snapping with Luc’s murky threats on the horizon. His veneer of humanity was cracking, and Danny was going to be in the line of fire when the monster came out.

Instead of apologizing, he found himself growling out another promise. “Nothing is going to part you from me.”

“Mm.” Danny’s beautiful brown eyes were barely open—his mate was drifting to sleep already. Danny was always like this after working all night, barely conscious long enough to get into bed. It only made the passion he’d matched Roman with just now that much more remarkable.

How had Roman found such a perfect mate? How would he manage if Danny was taken from him?

He couldn’t take this fear, this vulnerability. Caring for Danny was like having his heart walking around outside his body, unprotected, mortal, fragile.

Roman needed to turn him. Soon. The human body was simply an inadequate vessel to house the most important soul in Roman’s world.

Still, Roman’s restlessness was momentarily soothed. The act of claiming the boy had eased something inside him, if only for a moment. He found the tightness in his chest loosening for the first time since his encounter with Luc.

Roman settled in to watch his precious mate sleep.

If he was going to be a brute, he might as well be a creep too.

It had only been a few hours of peace when Roman’s phone rang, breaking the silence. He rushed to pick it up where it had ended up on the bedroom floor before it could ring a second time and wake his mate.

Soren.

“Yes?” Roman whispered his greeting, knowing his friend would hear him regardless.