The crunchy outer coating gave way to the softest, fluffy center and I moaned out loud. Holy shit. What was this amazingness? “Holy hell, Bert. I’m leaving all these assholes for you, and we can run away together and you can make me deep-fried foods and really test whether vampires can get diabetes.”
Bert blushed and Beatrice cackled. “You like them? Good,” he grunted, and then hurried back to the kitchen. Beatrice patted my arm and went back to taking orders. I ate another cake ball and groaned. Honestly, these were amazing.
“You want to be alone with your deep-fried bakery goods?” Judge whispered in my ear. “Because if you don’t stop making that noise, I’m going to bend you over this counter and fuck you until my cock makes you mewl like that.”
My body shuddered as pleasure raced down my spine. He’d do it too. Judge gave zero fucks about propriety. I caught the same hot look in Nico’s eyes, and I bit my lip. He looked like he’d be happy to throw his reputation to the wind too in that moment. Instead of screaming yes like I really wanted to, I stuffed a cake ball into Judge’s mouth.
“You can’t understand my pleasure until you’ve had one of Bert’s sweet, sweet balls in your mouth,” I growled back, barely keeping my face straight.
Judge screwed up his nose and Nico threw back his head and laughed. I grinned, happy as hell in that moment. Nico would fit in with us fine. I didn’t have to worry about him tipping the fragile balance of our little love nest too much.
Chapter Four
My eyes shot open in the middle of the night, and it took me a moment to orientate myself. I was wrapped around Tex’s body, Walker at my back. I could hear the faint thud of his heart over Tex’s more rabid one.
But something still wasn’t right. I sat up and a hand slapped over my mouth. No, it wasn’t a hand. It was magic.
In the corner of the room, Miranda stood, dressed in a flowing blood-red dress. Her face was shadowed, but she lifted a finger to her lips. “Shh.”
I looked at her like she was fucking crazy. She was in my bedroom in the middle of the goddamn night and she thought I was going to be quiet about it? She’d lost her damn mind. Miranda must have read all that on my face because she rolled her eyes and pointed to the living room. Then, without a word of a lie, she levitated me out of the room and into the living room. I flailed around, but it made no difference. With the magic sucking my voice from my lungs and my body suspended in mid air, I was useless. When we got to the living room, she placed me back on my feet but didn’t remove the magic covering my mouth. I mean, I didn’t really need to breathe but my body still wanted to panic about it.
“I’m going to remove the silencing spell now. Don’t scream. I just want to talk. I have news.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. Miranda and I had a complicated acquaintance. Still, she hadn’t openly made any moves against me or the guys, despite their history with her. I nodded but she was nuts if she didn’t think I was going to scream my head off if she made one more shit move.
Miranda sat down on my couch, and motioned for me to do the same. I shook my head and she rolled her eyes again. “Fine. I just thought it would be better if we had this conversation without any of your… consorts.” She took a deep breath. “I did some magic on your blood. I wanted to know what it was about you. Even I can admit there's something different about you. I do not like unknown factors.”
Fair enough, I wasn’t a fan of loose ends either. “Okay?”
“Let’s just say your blood revealed something surprising. It explains a lot though.”
My heart started to pound, my fingers going tingly as they chilled even more. “What?”
“It’s unusual, because as a race they died out so long ago. But it was undeniable. Blood doesn’t lie. You should know that more than most.”
Gah. I wanted to scream at her to stop with the foreplay and just get to it already. But on the flip-side, I knew whatever was about to come out of her mouth, whatever she deemed important enough to sneak into a house of vampires in the middle of the night, was going to change everything. Again. Goddammit.
‘You are part succubus. No more than a tiny drop in your blood, that if you had remained human would have meant nothing. But I believe that when you were turned, the vampiric essence acted like a booster to your succubus bloodline. To anyone who has… tasted you, you become irresistible. Especially your blood, but other bodily fluids too would probably be enough to enrapture a person against their will. Even without the fluid transfer,” even Miranda screwed up her nose at that, “you would be extra captivating to someone who is sexually interested in you.”
I blinked. My mouth hanging open, gaping like a fool. What? Literally what the fuck?
A knife appeared out of nowhere and pulled tight to Miranda’s throat. X appeared in the darkness, his face the cold mask of a killer. “What are you doing here?” he growled, and the sound made the primordial part of my brain go haywire.
“Let’s not pretend you weren’t in the shadows listening to every word, X. You know why I’m here.”
X laughed, and it was a cruel, inhuman sound. “Spreading your poison.”
Miranda curled her lip. “It isn’t poison if it's the truth. Raine has the right to know. I was leaving the decision about whether she told you assholes about it entirely up to her. ”
The light switched on and Walker was there, naked as the day he was born except the gun in his hand.
“I think it might be too late for that now,” she grimaced.
My eyes flicked between them all. The word succubus went around and around in my head, echoed by the word enrapture. Then I burst into tears.
Fifteen minutes later, everyone was in my living room. X was still playing with his knife, scraping the tip beneath his nails and generally looking menacing. Even Brody had managed to make it here; he’d been on his way home already, but when Tex had called him, coupled with the fear and distress flowing through our bond, he’d broken several hundred road rules and made it here in record time. Now, I was cradled on his lap, his body curled protectively around mine. The bond was like a blankie I wanted to clutch close.
I felt numb. These guys and their unequivocal love for me had been the cement that I’d been holding myself together with and now it was crumbling. There was a life lesson that my mother had tried to teach me, probably directly after the one that said don’t hitchhike in foreign countries, even if it is Canada. That lesson had been not to use a man to determine who you are.
Apparently, I’d failed Feminism 101, and now it was coming back to bite me in the ass.
Even Nico was here, oddly dressed in pajamas with dachshunds on the pants. It was fucking adorable and it just made me want to cry more.
“Start from the beginning, if you please, Miranda,” Nico said, taking control of the situation.
Judge glared at the witch, and X looked like he was planning where to hide her body, so neither of them were of any use.
Miranda, despite the fact she was surrounded by dangerous vampires, looked more annoyed than scared. “This was meant for Raine’s ears only. What she did with the information would have been up to her. So before these two-” she pointed at X and Judge, “say I’m trying to undermine their relationship out of jealousy or some other sranje.”