A mumbled protest sounded somewhere.
I lowered my head to the prey’s neck and breathed deeply, preparing to strike, to feed.
Bergamot and lime. There was something about that combination that held me back, kept my fangs grazing the soft, silky skin instead of piercing it.
You can’t do this. The thought pierced through the fog of the hunt, sounding too much like my own to ignore.
“Lachlan?”
That voice…it belonged to someone I cared about. Someone I protected. Someone I couldn’t feed from.
“Lachlan, are you okay?” she asked.
She.
Valor.
My vision clicked back into normal parameters. That was Valor’s heartbeat in my ears, her scent on my tongue, her wide, terrified eyes looking up at me.
Valor. My mate.
“Fuck!” I sprung off the bed and backed myself into a corner of my bedroom, thrusting my hands out in front of me. “Get out. Now.”
“Oh, honey,” she whispered, the fear vanishing from those green depths as compassion took its place. “It’s okay.”
Drink. Drink. Drink.
I thrust my hands into the walls, busting through the drywall to grip the support beams. “Valor. You. Have. To. Get. Out.” Each word was a low growl.
“It will pass. Just give it a second,” she said softly, sitting up on her knees but staying on my bed. Her hair fell over her shoulder, and I couldn’t decide what I wanted more, to fuck her or feed from her. Yes, to both.
“Do you have any idea what I could have just done to you?” We were at the breaking point. She wasn’t safe around me.
“I have a good idea.” Her tongue skimmed over her lower lip, and I groaned, trying like hell to concentrate on staying where I was and not tackling her to the comforter and drowning in her taste. “I think I have a solution.”
“Does it include my fangs in your vein?” I snapped.
Her lips parted, and her eyes glazed slightly like she just might like the prospect.
Now you’re losing it.
“For fuck’s sake, woman—”
“I brought you options,” she said. “Are you under control?”
“You what?” My brow puckered, and maybe it was the confusion, but the hunger retreated slightly. I wasn’t fooled. It would come back twice as strong, like the wave that recedes from a shore only to return a tsunami. Valor had to get the hell away from me before it came back.
“I brought you options,” she repeated, studying me with a furrowed brow, then nodding as if she’d come to some decision. “Just wait right there.”
Like I was going fucking anywhere.
She slipped off the bed and strode toward the door, purpose in every step of those swaying hips.
First, I’d peel those shorts off her delectable body. Then, I’d part her thighs—
“What the hell are you doing?” I growled as she brought in a parade of humans. Four, to be exact.
“I brought you a buffet!” She grinned as she shut my bedroom door and motioned to the lineup. “I talked to Owen, who gave me some of your preferences.”
“You have to be fucking kidding me.” I’d never even had a human in my room before Valor, and now there were five. Their scents hit me all at once—garlic and mold, pepper and sweat, pungent fish, and…rotten eggs.
My stomach hurled, and I gagged, thankful there wasn’t anything in there to vomit up.
“You don’t want to feed from me—” Valor started.
“I never said that!” I countered.
“—so I’ve brought you Rose, who I believe is one of your brunette regulars.” Valor pointed to the first human like it was some kind of livestock show. “Stephanie.” The blonde eye-fucked me. “Hannah, whose red hair is natural, can you believe that color?”
“Valor,” I growled.
She walked to the end of the line. “And Chad, just in case you were in the mood for someone a little different.” She motioned to him like she was Vanna White.
“No.” I gritted my teeth. At least I’d slept in a pair of sweatpants, so my dick wasn’t hanging in the breeze. Not that it was exactly hanging with Valor in the room.
“You have to feed!” She glared at me, fear tinging her scent in a way that it hadn’t while I’d been poised at her throat. “I know what will happen to you if you don’t. You’ll either start going into stasis, or you’ll be driven bloodmad, and then your brothers will have to hunt you down. So please, Lachlan, feed!”
The high pitch of panic in her voice harnessed my hunger, forcing back the tide of craving, but my fangs were still long in my mouth, sharp against my lower lip, and not for any of them. For her. Only her.
“Get them out of here,” I demanded, my fingers digging into the support beams.
The women shifted on their feet uneasily, and the man’s gaze flickered between Valor and me, his scent shifting as adrenaline filled his veins. All four were from the Butcher’s Block, they were all willing feeders, but they weren’t the problem. I was.