“I’ll find Timber,” I thought I heard him say.
“Tell me you didn’t just say something about finding Timber. Another demon. I have one bite, don’t need two!”
“Good idea.” Ethan would agree with him. “He needs to reverse the protective tattoo on Hope, otherwise he really will die.”
“Would his death be so horrible?” Mason just had to say.
“I’m right here. Like an inch away from you.”
Mason growled.
I smirked in his general direction. “You’re just pissed because I’ve seen all of your little wolf fantasies.” And, because I was delirious, I added, “Tell me, is this whole Little Red Riding Hood thing new? Or have you always been obsessed with girls who carry baskets through the woods?”
“Let me kill him,” Mason begged the room.
And nobody answered!
“Thanks, guys!” A piercing pain shook my right shoulder. Great, it was spreading.
Hope was suddenly at my side.
Touching me.
I inhaled her scent, leaned toward her.
I knew she was probably touching Mason, and I didn’t want to see it. I couldn’t see it; it made me too angry, and any sort of intense emotional response would just drain me more.
I’d joked about sex, but that wouldn’t save me either.
I needed the bite to be gone.
It was parasitic by nature. And lucky me, sirens were the only race of immortals who didn’t just magically heal after a few days.
We had too much emotional essence, meaning the demon bite, once given, was in freaking heaven.
When demons bit vampires, it was like biting into acid, and I’d seen scars to prove it.
When they bit angels, they simply turned to dust.
And when they bit a Dark One, well, nothing really happened to either party other than severe pain since dark can’t really harm dark in that way.
I let out a yell of frustration as the stinging spread down my arm.
“I’ll return.” In a loud, annoying flutter of wings, Cassius was gone.
A soft hand pushed back my hair. “What can I do?” Why did she have to smell so good? The temptation to devour her was so strong I had to clench my teeth. See? Even at death’s door, all I really wanted was sex.
“That,” I whispered hoarsely. “As much as possible.”
Her scent wrapped around my body. “All I’m doing is caressing your face.”
Dare I admit that nobody had ever done that?
That my entire existence had revolved around sex? That the simple gesture of caressing my face or holding my hand held me captive in a way that brought me to my knees?
Dare I tell her, in my weakness, that love was something that eluded me, that my own parents didn’t love me?
That my life had started as one big pawn.