Shadow smirks.“No doubt he went down on her to lap it up.Any kind of young female blood drives us into a frenzy of lust.Those are two of the most potent driving forces in life.Hunger for food and sex.”
Settling into the chair, he states the facts in a business-like tone.
“There is an enzyme in our mouths that dulls the pain and heals the bite site afterwards.And we can accurately gauge how much to drink from the way the heart beats.The minute it starts fluttering, we know to stop.”
Flicking the end of my nose with one cold finger, he teases me.“You have no idea how mind-blowing it is to fuck and suck at the same time, Luna.”I feel his fingers tickle my skin as he strokes my neck and collarbones.“To have a man grinding himself into you as your pussy floods with warm juices.And as he pounds you with his hard cock, you feel his mouth suck you right about… here.”
I jump with shock as he gives the vein in my neck a small nip with his fingernails.
“Shit!Don’t do that without warming—I mean,warningme first, Shadow!Tell me how come Tempest did not die from all that sucking and fucking you’re talking about?”That slip of the tongue betrays my fascination.
“You’ve been reading too much fiction, sweetheart.A li’l pint or two of lost blood ain’t gonna kill you.”
“But it will make a woman sick!”I remember what Ben told me.“And it can make her infertile!It would be the same as someone going to donate blood every month or something!”
There’s that darn smirk of Shadow’s again!
“You lose a pint of blood every month anyway, Luna.”
Consider my mind officially blown.
“Are you talking aboutmenstrualblood?”
Shrugging his wide shoulders, Shadow acts cool.“Focus, darlin’.You forget that blood loss didnotmake Tempest infertile, unfortunately for us.”
My mind is all jumbled as I begin to figure it out.
“Ifan got Tempest pregnant?But how is that possible?Aren’t you all… monsters?”
Standing up so suddenly that I almost tumble to the floor, Shadow begins pacing like a wild jungle cat around the living room.
“We were once men!The infection that lives inside us never asked our permission before entering our bodies!You cannot hold our dark natures against us.”
I wait for him to simmer down.The red rage boiling inside him is on the cusp of turning Shadow into a maddened, feral creature.
And yet I am not afraid of him.If it’s possible, I find him even more alluring in this moment.
“When there is no bond with a female, all our rules allow us to do is visit a woman’s bedroom in the middle of the night to feed on her until the heart flutters like a captured bird.And only after she has invited us into her house.It’s why the system has always worked so well for us in Landslide.At first, we set ourselves up as lawmakers, going from house to house pretending to keep the peace.All those women used to living on the prairie never suspected anything.They opened their doors wide to invite us inside…”
Yes, I can see that happening.A hardworking housewife hears a knock on the door at night.And when she opens it, she sees a rangy, raunchy cowboy dressed in chaps and a Stetson hat asking her for a bed for the night.Her husband’s on the mainland and the kids are asleep.Oh my.
Shadow shoots me a devilish grin.“You get the picture.”
I most certainly do.
Leaning against the wall, Shadow continues.“A small nibble of her wrist or ankle.She wakes up sore, and when she looks more closely at the site, she finds it slightly inflamed and tender.We have gotten away with our aberration forcenturies, Luna, because the darkness hiding inside us is so elusive.It leaves no mark, and our visits are remembered fondly as nothing more than a delightful nightmare.”
My short gasp punctuates his story.
“So itwasyou in my dreams, Shadow!And… and you were feeding on me?”Rubbing my skin, I try to get the sensation of being violated off me.“Ugh!Haven’t you ever heard of asking permission first?”
“That wasn’t me giving you delightful nightmares, Luna.”
He leaves the rest of the statement hanging.
Wait a minute.Maybe I should get things straight, because my mind has hit a brick wall that is making me refuse to believe.It feels as though I’m talking outside of my body as the words come out of my mouth like bitter bile.
“Where is Tempest’s and Ifan’s child!?” Their half human, half beast child.
