saw him lick it up I may be forced to try running away again. His skin was icy and slick.
'Breandan can never know,' I said and stepped away.
'This Breandan is who?' he asked curiously then stiffened. His voice was dark and angry, yet still, it stroked me from the inside out. He stepped closer and sniffed at my hair. Then he dipped his head and slid his mouth along the side of my neck, lips cold and smooth. 'He is the fairy I smell on you.'
'He'll kill you.'
I checked my forearm. It had healed and I fingered the two crescents now permanently scarring my skin. Good thing I wore my hooded jumper with its sloppy sleeves like a second skin.
'I have no plans to talk to this fairy. He will never know, not that it would be the first thing I would say should we meet.'
'What would be the first thing?'
'Nothing. We would fight and one of us would die, of course.' He sounded as if it were a simple, common thing. 'And now we talk, the night calls to me.' I waited silently, like a good girl, but he paused. Rather, he hesitated. 'Rae-'
We locked eyes and the blackness enveloped me. There was no more space between us, nothing to stop us coming together. He reached out, clasped my hip and pulled me into him. As my body molded to his, his lips nudged my head back and he tangled his other hand in my hair. The scent of him was inexplicably appealing. He still smelt like a vampire, but it was no longer repellent. He smelt like Tomas, a blend of minerals and wet grass. His face was no longer shadowed and ugly but mysterious and full of character. His skin was icy to touch. He teased my lips open with his, as my teeth nipped his bottom lip. He growled, and I responded with ferocity to equal his. I stood on my tip-toes to reach his mouth, press myself against him. Sliding his hands beneath my thighs he hoisted me up and pushed me against the wall. It was then my glamour dropped and my wings spread and curled down as I sought his mouth again. His cold tongue slipped between my lips and stroked mine. Then his fangs ran out and sliced by bottom lip open. He jerked back, but it healed almost instantly.
I ran my tongue over my lips and smirked. 'I'm not as breakable as I look.' I said.
He chuckled darkly. I found myself not afraid, but intrigued and I licked the sharp tips of his fangs. He groaned. Was it me? The feral and demanding girl with her legs locked round a vampire-boy's waist, digging my hands into his shoulders, dragging him closer.
The kiss deepened and I clung onto him, one hand fisted in his hair and the other roving across the nape of his neck. Tomas pushed forward, securing me into his solid frame, and ran his hands down my sides. My skin was on fire, my blood boiling. He broke away to trail kisses down my neck then was still, holding me. Both our chests heaved. I realized he was hot, hard and had his mouth at my throat.
He swallowed loudly then slowly, deliberately kissed my wildly jumping pulse, and leaned away.
We locked eyes again. I figured the look of shock and confusion must have been mirrored on my face. I so had no expected that. The biting, sure, that was bound to happen some time or another, but a kiss that flooded every vein in my body with fire? When did that become a possibility? Oh gods, what have I done?
'That was-'
'Different,' I said and swallowed.
'This is not normal, Rae. My kind and your kind do not mix.' His eyes travelled over my wings. He did not look repulsed but intrigued.
'I didn't expect I mean, I'm sorry if I have upset you.' He reached out and stroked my wingtip. I felt the caress down to my toes. 'Oh,' I breathed.
He nuzzled me and whispered in my ear, 'I am not upset.'
'I'm glad because I…' I blushed. 'I liked it.'
'You feel good to me too, but what shall we do now?' My legs were still around his waist, and the wall supported my back leaving his and my hands free. His wandered to the edge of my jumper, then swiftly pulled it over my head.
My face felt hot. Never had I been kissed like that before. Or treated like this. Breandan had been my first kiss and it had felt wonderful. But my second from this vampire had felt oh, it hadn't felt as nice as what his hands where doing now. 'That feels-' I sucked in a breath and my eyes fell to the body of the Lady Cleric. All the blood left my face and my eyes twitched back to his.
'Good?' he finished for me and raised an eyebrow.
He raised his head to kiss my neck and I couldn't help it, I arced myself into him.
There was a gush of air as the door crashed open. Splinters of woods flew like daggers and embedded into the wall around us. Breandan thundered into the room and launched himself at Tomas, knocking me to the side as he did so. They smashed through the wall and were lost to my sight.
I was curled into a small ball and reality was suspended. I found it hard to breathe right, my chest still felt too tight from the emotions that had overwhelmed me during Tomas's embrace. I waited but the hole in the wall remained, letting me see the night sky. I was feeling overwhelmed but it helped centre me. It was all so much it made me step outside myself and take control. The snarling, growling noises where getting louder. I rolled up, darted forward and looked down, carefully leaning on a patch of wall that looked solid.
Tomas and Breandan rolled around in the grass like two fools, but two fools with dangerous weapons. Breandan straddled Tomas, a shard of wood in his hand. The tendons on his arm and neck were bulging, and the deadly point of the wood was a mere jerk away from spearing Tomas in the chest. My vampire-boy was on red alert. He looked menacing with his fangs fully on display and his eyes glazed black; nostril's flared. Snarling up a storm his mouth snapped for Breandan's neck.
I grabbed my jumper off the floor and dropped through the hole. As I landed my already abused ankle twisted, and I dropped like a stone. Why it had not healed?
My emotions were wide open, and wildness seeped from Breandan's nature to mine. It rubbed me up the wrong way, and I found myself unable to stop the fight, because I was battling the more carnal of my urges. It was telling me a threat, a vampire was close and to attack. The conflicting feelings of hate and lust I felt for Tomas had my stomach in knots.
'Calm down,' I said through my teeth, and staggered up. 'Breandan, look at me.'
He didn't look, but his ears twitched and I knew he was listening. First I was going to try and talk him out of trying to stake my vampire then I was going to tear him apart.
I could hear voices around the corner. The noise of them busting through a brick wall had been loud and messy. We had woken the building up and it was only a matter of time before confusion made way for ruthless order. Three floors up there was a ragged hole in the side of my building leading into my room. There was no way I'd even be able to hide it. It had demon stamped all over it. The Clerics were going to piece it all together, and that would be it for me. The Clerics would come and find us. In fact, Lord Cleric Tu was probably up there with the body of his dead partner. He would know it was me in the forest. He would know somehow I had gotten demons past the Wall, and into the Temple. All of this passed through my mind in less than the time it took me to glance up at the hole then glare at Breandan, since he was still on Tomas like white on rice.
He turned his head to look at me, and his expression was wary. Damn right it should be. I was beyond pissed.
'I should have known,' he said to me. 'I smelt him on you, but I thought I was wrong.' I was going to have to start taking many more showers if it was that easy to figure out who'd I'd been with by a lingering smell. His eyes roamed the space, for he could hear the voices too then came back to Tomas. 'You are mine, not a dead things snack,' he hissed.
He hadn't seen the kiss. He thought Tomas was about to bite me. Well, I didn't know if I should tell him he had it all wrong, or to leave it alone. Correcting him would bring up questions as to why I was pressed up against the wall with the vampire-boy all in my space with his fangs out.
Tomas didn't say anything. He watched me. His gaze felt heavy and as I looked into his eyes I whispered, 'I want him alive.' Breandan made a short noise of impatience and I raised my voice. 'Get off him. Now.'
'I do not know what he has done to make you feel like you have to help him, but you must see he is-'
'You killed her!'
I spun round at the anguished yell.
Cleric Tu was red in the face and it looked like he had been crying. He clutched a metal rod in his hand. I remembered the drained body of the Lady Cleric and wondered how close they had been. Had Tomas killed his
