“As an extreme masochist, I sometimes shift the moment I reach the safety of my room. Something tells me you aren’t going to go that route.”
She shook her head. “No. What’s the worst someone’s done to you?”
His gaze clouded over and she scented pain and terror, but he kept his posture relaxed and merely shrugged. “It’s kinda like Fight Club. You don’t talk about it unless you’re there.”
She looked at the now-empty stage and flashed back to how she’d felt when she’d first realized the sexy-as-fuck vampire was Zander, whom she’d known her whole life as Uncle Abbott, her father’s best friend, the vampire who snuck her cookies andanswered her endless questions.
He’d represented safety to her, but that man on stage? That wasn’t Uncle Abbott. She’d seen the Master of Alaska, ancient and powerful and completely fucking untouchable.
What had she done to make him dislike her? She’d always thought she was one of his favorite people, when she was young. Was he disappointed in who she’d grown up to be? So disgusted by her actions and choices, he couldn’t bear to be in the same room with her?
But she had a four-point-zero GPA at the moment, and she hadn’t been in trouble on campus a single time. What would it take to convince him she wasn’t the brat with a princess complex who’d fucked her way around the world?
And why did it matter?
Chapter 6
Chase’s underground suite was all dark wood and deep burgundy leather, books lining every wall, the air thick with the intellectual weight of centuries. Emmy curled up in his reading chair while he poured wine, both already naked from the initial feed-and-fuck.
They were past the point of ceremony now. The initial bite had been quick and efficient, his fangs sliding into the soft curve where neck met shoulder while he took her against the wall, his dick in her ass. And after, he’d fucked her hard and deep, the kind of claiming that left her knees weak and her body purring in lazy satisfaction. No games. No power plays. Just the simple, honest exchange of hunger for hunger.
And so, she curled in the oversized reading chair, legs tucked under her, skin still flushed and tingling. Chase moved through the room with that deliberate vampireeconomy, pouring two glasses of deep red wine from a decanter that probably cost more than most people’s cars.
He handed one to her without a word, and she demanded, “Tell me about the eels again. I want details on his methods.”
He laughed and sat in a chair across from her. “Still fascinated by Albertus?”
“He believed dragons werereal. Of course I’m fascinated.” She took a sip of the wine and savored the fruity notes before swallowing.
Chase leaned back, one arm draped along the chair’s armrest. “Albertus Magnus wroteDe animalibus.A monster of a book, twenty-six volumes. He took Aristotle’s zoology, mixed in Avicenna and his own observations, and tried to make sense of the natural world without dismissing the impossible outright. He described serpents in detail — venom, movement, reproduction. Said their wombs were long like fish, that they laid eggs in a continuous stream during coitus. But the dragons…”
He paused, eyes glinting with amusement. “He didn’t call them myth. He treated them as a class of serpents. Large, fire-breathing, winged in some accounts, but fundamentally animals. Part of the great chain. Not devils, not metaphors, just one of nature’s many extremes.”
“Like the whales, the kraken, and t-rex.”
He shook his head and then leaned forward to run his fingers along her legs, slow and unhurried. “He got a lot right. Dissected moles while they still twitched. Noticed the way eggs developed inside birds. He was empirical wheneveryone else was still quoting scripture or Aristotle without question. But the dragons…” He shrugged. “He said he accepted the reports. Travelers’ tales, bestiaries, the old chronicles. He didn’t mock them. He cataloged.” He met her gaze. “I always wondered if he’d seen one.”
“By then, there were only a handful of shifters left. It’s possible, but unlikely, since the three I’m aware of mostly went to Faerie to fly.”
She set her wine on the side table and moved to sit in his lap. Her fingers curled around the back of his neck, pulling him closer until their foreheads touched. “You’re such a nerd.”
“Takes one to know one, darling.”
They talked for an hour about medieval natural philosophy while Chase’s fingers traced idle patterns on her skin. When he leaned close during a discourse on the things Da Vinci learned by dissecting humans, she took the opportunity to kiss him slow and deep, tasting the wine on his tongue, the faint metallic edge of her own blood still lingering in his mouth. He didn’t rush. Neither did she.
When he pulled back, she lifted herself and straddled him without preamble, knees bracketing his hips, the leather slick against her shins. His cock was already hard again, thick and cool between them. She wrapped her hand around him, stroking lazily, enjoying the way his eyes darkened.
She rose, guided him to her entrance, and sank down inch by slow inch. The stretch was perfect. He filled her completely, his cool length pressing against every sensitiveplace inside her, and she let her head fall back on a long sigh. His hands settled on her hips, and they moved together like people who knew each other’s rhythms. No frantic rutting. Not yet.
She rolled her hips in lazy circles, grinding down until her clit pressed against his pubic bone, sparks shooting up her spine. He thrust up to meet her, and one of his hands cupped her breast, thumb circling her nipple in slow, deliberate strokes.
Emmy leaned forward, braced her hands on his shoulders, and kissed him again. Deeper this time, tongues sliding, breaths mingling. She rocked faster, the wet slide of their bodies loud in the quiet room, the chair creaking under them. Pleasure built low and steady, a slow burn rather than a wildfire. She felt him thicken inside her, felt the subtle tremor in his thighs.
One hand slipped between them, fingers finding her clit, rubbing in tight, perfect circles. The pressure coiled tighter, hotter, until she shattered, her inner muscles fluttering around him in long, rolling waves.
He was close, but he must’ve decided he wasn’t ready quite yet, because the next thing she knew, she was on her knees before the chair she’d been sitting in earlier, her face in the seat, and his dick was going back into her ass.
She arched her back to give him a better angle, but he didn’t need it.
