I bite my lip as she says my name. One of the things I’ve come to like about this place is the anonymity it brings me. At home, everyone knows the Castor name, and therefore everyone knows whoIam. Though, now, with my being gone for four years, they may have forgotten about me, which isn’t a bad thing. But here, most of the folks don’t connect me to my brother or my parents. It helps that I don’t look anything like them. If my brother and I hadn’t been twins, I would have wondered if I was a product of my mother’s affairs.
Here, people just know me as Wesley Castor, a rejected vampire with a fucked up condition.
Though I am the only vampire male here—and maybe even in existence—with a bloodheat, most people don’t bring it up, despite the fact I know they can smell it on me, which makes me feel self-concious as fuck. I’ve had a few vampiresses offer to help me through it, but I’ve always declined. Not because I don’t likepussymyself, I mean, I’ve fooled around with vampiresses before, and I didn’t hate it. I certainly didn’t hate the feel of their breasts in my hands, and I definitely didn’t hate when they jerked me off. I’ve just neverfuckeda vampiress and I’ve never really had the desire to. My desire when it comes tothat, it seems, is pretty niche.
But the moment Chloe says my last name, I can’t help but notice the way the vampiress’s eyebrows furrow or the way her shoulders tense.
“Castor, you say?” She swallows harshly. Chloe nudges me, and I reach my hand out to shake hers politely.
“Yes,” I say. “And you are?—”
Her cheeks pinken, and I get the strangest whiff of sugar. Vanilla. Cream. She smells sweet like candy and the scent alone makes my mouth water. My cock throbs once more, pulling my attention, and I shift my stance so as not to draw attention to my little issue going on at the moment.
This should definitely not be happening right now, given the fact I just unloaded this fucking thing barely a half hour ago.
Seriously, what the hell is going on with me? Is this a bloodheat thing? I wish I knew. Being the anomaly I am, the doctors at home told me there’s no telling how my body will respond or progress with thisissueover time. So I have no clue if this is just part of a natural evolution of my heat symptoms or if this is something else. But whatever it is, it’s freaking me out, and I need to get a handle on it. I can’t very well be sneaking off all day to jerk off in the damn bathroom or closet.
“Ivy. Ivy Reign.”
Ivy Reign… the vampiress my brother was promised to? If she’s here, that would mean…
Ivy takes my hand gingerly, and the moment her palm connects with mine, I feel a fire rush through my blood, igniting me like a live wire. That pull in my chest, that sharp sting hits me. Hard.
I suck in a breath, trying to remember to breathe because I swear I feel like I’ll pass out.
The sweet vanilla scent hits me equally as hard, along with something else. Something tangy, something familiar but foreign at the same time.
Energy hits me, ricocheting through me and I feel that familiar aching in my balls, and I barely have a moment to process what’s happening before I come undone from the near electrical shock of arousal.
I drop her hand quickly and move back slightly, shifting my weight. The moan of frustration that wants to leave me is hard to ignore, but I do.
“Nice to meet you, Ivy,” I say, my voice much darker than it should be.
Thankfully, that’s the moment Professor Morningside announces we’re about to begin, and I swear I’ve never been so happy for art class to start in my life.
Chloe takes her seat next to Ivy, and I take my seat one desk away from Chloe, if only to put some distance between me and Ivy Reign.
Princess Ivy Reign,I remind myself.
Before I hit my first bloodheat at fifteen, I was my father’s choice for succession, and as his choice, it was common knowledge that one day I would have to claim and bond a princess so that I could seed the next generation of our Castorian bloodline.
And the princess in question, at least at the time, was Princess Ivy Reign, a princess from a neighboring, rival kingdom. I didn’t know her, never saw her. I only knew of her by name. My father told me I wouldn’t meet her until I was older, when her father, King Centrece would officiallyofferher to me. I wasn’t opposed to the idea as a teen. If this was what was needed to further the benefit of the kingdom, I would have gladly done whatever my father required of me. Because that was mydutyas a prince. As the next future king of Castor.
And then my bloodheat came and everything changed. My mother knew. She’s the one who took me to town to see a doctor—without my father’s knowledge—and we’d been informed of what waswrongwith me.
She didn’t address it after that. She had her own secrets to keep, and there was nothing truly to do. I couldn’t becuredof this. I could only live with it. And in those first few years, I stupidly thought Icould compartmentalize it all. That I could still claim and bind a mate, and I could keep my bloodheat desires a secret. I could be discreet. Like my mother.
And then father found me in a most compromising position, and suddenly I wasn’t good enough to rule. I was a stain on our bloodline, and Wyatt became the true golden heir, and I was sent to R.I.S.E.
I can’t help but wonder why in the world Wyatt would have rejectedher.
He’s always been much more obedient than me, especially when it came to terms of rule sanctioned by our father. Part of me wonders if my father’s death has anything to do with it, but even so, it’s out of character for Wyatt.
On principle alone, let alone the fact Ivy is fucking gorgeous.
I can’t help the glances I take all throughout class; as if I’m convinced she’s going to disappear.
I find myself curious. About her, about my brother’s rejection. I catch myself staring, as I work on my drawing, at her side profile and how her dark hair falls over her shoulders. At the curve of her breasts, the way her pearls glint in the light. My cock jumps again and I know I’ve been staring too long. I adjust myself nonchalantly, cursing my damn cock that has a mind of its own. Fucking bloodheat.
