Forget About Midnight (8 page)

“Don’t question it,” I said. “We both know this isn’t our forever. That would be too easy, and people like you and me, we don’t get to take the easy road. So if all we get is a few nights of passion, we’d better make it worth it. Let’s make a memory.”

Before he could reply, I sank to my knees before him and proceeded to blow his mind in a way he would never forget.

We spent the day in Kale’s bed, tangled in the sheets and each other. Trapped inside the house together, it was the best way to shut out the rest of the world. I lost track of how many times we made love. At some point, I even stopped thinking about Arys. For a while.

He haunted me. His voice echoed in my head, and I couldn’t always tell if it was real or a memory. Separation had never been good for us, even before we found one another. It was starting to eat at me. Eventually, it would drive me crazier than the bloodlust ever could. I knew. I’d seen it happen to someone else.

Being apart was going to break both Arys and I down. I could feel it already, threatening to take everything that was left of me until there was only him.

“What are you thinking?” Kale asked. He was pressed against me, a leg thrown over one of mine and an arm around my waist. He kissed my shoulder, but his gaze was on me. “You’re frowning.”

“I guess it’s a good thing I can’t get wrinkles now, huh?” I quipped, stroking a hand up and down his thigh. Touching him so freely was surreal. The strange tension between us was still there, lurking in the background, waiting for a chance to shatter our fragile state of comfort.

“It’s ok to miss him, Alexa. I’m not delusional enough to believe I’m the one for you. I know how this is supposed to play out. And I’m ok with that. Just being here with you now is enough.”

Kale’s declaration sliced through me like a dagger. Feeling like I’d just been stabbed, I turned my face away so he couldn’t see the blood tears I blinked back. Inwardly I cursed my emotions for being on overdrive. I could go from a torrent of tears to a maniacal rage in a split second. It was frustrating to have such little control over myself.

I turned back to face him, hoping like hell that he couldn’t see the anguish I stuffed down inside me. “I’m not going to lie. It’s hard for me without him. But don’t for a minute think that you don’t mean the world to me.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, looking ashamed. “I shouldn’t have said that. This really isn’t the time or place.”

“No, it’s fine. You should say whatever you feel.” I ran my fingers through his hair and down the side of his face. I could stare into those amazing eyes for days and still find them fascinating. “Anything we bring to this room stays in this room.”

“I just don’t want to make this harder on you by saying shit like that. I sound like a bad Hollywood movie.”

“So you mean every Hollywood movie then.” I gave him a playful nudge, happy when I got a small chuckle out of him.

The sound of a cold autumn rain beat against the covered window. It was the perfect background noise for a day in bed with a forbidden lover. It did kind of feel like a movie. Not a bad one though. Just a sad one about a bittersweet love affair between two people who could only hurt each other.

The bedside lamp bathed us in its warm glow. I watched him, captivated by the way the light and shadow played over Kale as he sprawled next to me. Every time I thought I was spent, I craved more of him.

He dragged a hand over my stomach, tracing lazy circles around my navel. As bad as we might have been together, I felt safe with him. If only I could hide away there in his bed forever.

“Do you ever miss your wolf, Kale?” I asked, knowing this might be my only chance to ask him about it. “I can’t even feel it inside you. When I read that in Veryl’s file about you, it blew my mind. It still does.”

“For the first few decades I did kind of miss it, although I’d never really enjoyed being a werewolf anyway. After a while, I stopped feeling it. I never missed it again until I met you.” He paused as if thinking back all those centuries. “I was never really cut out for being a wolf. Not like you are.”

He told me about becoming a wolf, how the military that served the existing English monarch at the time forced him into it for an operation so long ago. That had led him straight into the arms of a vampiress with a serious case of the crazies. I hated hearing about Eva. I hated her for what she’d made him. And then I hated myself for being so much like her, unable to let him go but unable to love him the way he deserved. She and I were not so different.

We lay there talking about so many things. And while we talked, we touched. A simple caress was not so simple at all when it was Kale’s hands in my hair or his lips finding the curve of my hip. Sunset drew closer, and with it, my disappointment grew. I didn’t want to leave that room.

“What do you plan to do with Gabriel?” Kale’s sudden question reminded me that there was another new and very powerful vampire roaming the city.

“I have no idea. I suppose I’ll have to do something. Keeping him away from the FPA is a must.”

“Not to mention Shya,” Kale said. “He’s being awfully quiet these days. It’s suspicious.”

I stiffened at the sound of that name. Even the fire Kale stoked back to life with every touch couldn’t soothe the chill that Shya instilled. Shya’s rage had scared me. His silence was soul-crushingly terrifying. There was no underestimating him. I wasn’t fool enough to believe I’d won when it came to the demon. I might have stopped him from taking over a demon queen’s empire, but I still bore his mark.

“He’s not done with me. Not by a long shot. I don’t even want to think about him right now.” I stretched out beside Kale and slid my hands over his chest. My fingertips tingled as our energies collided.

“If you need me for anything, just say the word. I’m ready to act as your second. It’s only right.” He nuzzled my neck with playful bites that coaxed a sigh from me.

It bothered me to hear Kale refer to himself as my second, mostly because those were Shya’s words. To me it reinforced the vampire queen status that everyone had been forcing on me. If anyone was to be my second in command, however, it would be Kale. Arys and I were equals, even more so now that I had no mortal weakness. Kale was the next most powerful vampire in the city, aside from possibly Gabriel, which fueled my ridiculous lust for Kale and his power.

Whether I liked it or not, Kale was my second. He was so much more than that really. Being the most powerful vampire in the city was going to come at a price. I needed to accept help where I could find it.

“There’s one thing you can do,” I said, rolling him over onto his back so I could climb atop him.

A mischievous grin lit up his face. Raw longing filled his touch as he gripped my waist and slid his hands up to my breasts. “At your service, my queen.”

“No, not that,” I laughed. “Well, yes, that, but that’s not what I was talking about. I’m supposed to meet Jez after sunset. Come with me? You know, just in case.”

“Of course. Sometimes it’s easier with people you love. Because you don’t really want to hurt them.” He sat up to kiss me, a tender melding of our mouths that rubbed my emotions raw. Why did everything have to be so damn complicated?

I had to laugh at the absurdity of what he’d said. “You’re kidding, right? That’s not how it works for our kind. If anything, we want very much to hurt the people we love. Our entire relationship is built on it.”

Kale shook his head and put his arms around me. I sat naked in his lap, unbearably aware of our closeness. “It doesn’t have to be that way with everyone,” he said. “It won’t be. Not always. I promise.”

I flashed back to the night I awoke at The Wicked Kiss. When Shaz walked in the door, I’d attacked him without a second thought. Taking him down had been swift and easy. If Arys hadn’t been there, I would’ve killed him.

“But how can you say that?” With my arms around Kale’s neck, I let him see the fear and uncertainty I harbored. “You attacked Jez. After five hundred years of practicing self control, you still did it.”

Guilt flashed through him, and he gave a halfhearted shrug. “Yeah, I did. I really fucked up. But you’re better than me, better than all of us. You have something no other vampire has. You’re a Hound of God. A creature of the light. This is all just a stepping stone for you, Alexa.”

Being both light and dark didn’t make me any less dangerous than anyone else. If anything, it was the opposite. The mood swings between Hound and vampire made me too unpredictable.

Kale was so much more than I would ever deserve. His insistence was genuine, yet I knew the truth. “Maybe. But maybe not. There’s always a chance that I’ll hurt someone I love. Isn’t there?”

“I’m sorry.”

Shaz was only one of many people I feared hurting. However, it was the baby that one of my best friends carried that sunk my heart into the depths of despair. I would never be able to trust myself around Kylarai.

“Don’t be,” I muttered. “There’s nobody to blame but myself. I chose this. It’s all on me.”

Kale pressed silent kisses to my cheek, my chin, and finally my lips. He hurt for me, sharing in my pain. “I feel like an asshole because I’m not more sorry. I don’t want this for you, but it would’ve killed me if you’d died.”

“How can you say that?” I mumbled between intoxicating kisses that caused heat to pool in my groin. “I wouldn’t have been here to torment you like this.”

I gently nipped his bottom lip. In response, he groaned and grew hard between my legs. “I’m willing to suffer if it means that you’re not dead. As love/hate as things have been between us recently, I’ll always love you more than I could ever hate you.”

Finished with talking, I rose up just enough to take him inside me. Face to face in the middle of the bed, we made slow, gentle love. No further words were necessary. We spoke in touches and looks, in soft murmurs and blissful cries.

When the sun descended beyond the horizon, we managed to disentangle ourselves. I wasn’t real thrilled about it though I knew that seeing Jez was important for me. And I wasn’t the only one who needed it. Jez had her own issues, and I refused to abandon her when she needed me most.

I got ready quickly, slipping into jeans and a V neck t-shirt. My eye makeup was put on in a rush. After dragging a brush through my tousled hair, I messaged Jez to ensure she was still coming. When she confirmed, I felt the first shot of anxious adrenaline. I could do this.

“Ready?” Kale asked when I joined him in the living room. “We should hunt first. It’s safer that way.”

“I don’t want to kill anyone,” I blurted as an overwhelming surge of emotion flooded me. These mood swings were going to wreck me.

“Wicked Kiss?” With a brow raised in scrutiny, Kale shook his head. “You’re not ready for that, are you?”

The thought of walking into my nightclub and having everyone stare at me flashed me back to my early teenage years. It was ridiculous. I shouldn’t be afraid to walk into a building I owned.

“I want to be. I do. I’m just not sure.”

“Arys was there last night. That’s where he and I … talked. But I think he was looking for me.” Kale was careful to keep his hatred for Arys from showing on his face, but it was still there, tainting his aura with bitterness.

I stared at the floor, seeking answers in the carpet fibers, finding only more questions. The bloodlust was creeping up, growing with every passing second. Already I longed for the days when I wouldn’t have to hunt nightly.

“It’s no big deal, Alexa. You have a strange tie to that club. I know it has to be the last place you wanted to wake up as a vampire. Don’t stress about it. We’ll go somewhere else.”

When I’d first decided to take over the blood den, it had been my mission to keep people from dying there, and more importantly, to keep them from rising as vampires. It was the last place I wanted to wake up undead. So naturally, that’s where it happened.

We ended up going to a lounge populated by corporate types stopping for a drink after a long day. While Kale blocked the door, I cornered a man in the washroom. With a little seductive manipulation, he was on his knees begging to please me.

I fed from his wrist, pausing when his blood hit my tongue. With my eyes wild with alarm, I turned to Kale. “Do you think I can still turn someone into a wolf with my bite? I don’t want to turn this guy, Kale.”

The guy was dazed, under my thrall and oblivious to what I’d said. Kale stood in front of the washroom door, brow creased in thoughtful consideration.

“My guess would be no,” he said. “A werewolf bite or scratch works like a virus. Vampires can’t carry anything viral. I think it’s a safe bet that you can’t turn anyone wolf anymore.”

“I hope you’re right.” It was too late now. So I pressed my mouth to the guy’s wrist and sucked hard at the bite. His eyes rolled back in ecstasy; he nearly fainted.

The last person I’d turned wolf was a woman for Shya. At some point I’d have to track her down, if he didn’t have her locked away in a cage somewhere.

Kale had to call my name a few times before I came back to myself enough to stop. It felt like something was missing. The need to take everything my victim had to give was a demand that it pained me to deny.

“Why does it hurt so fucking much?” I gasped, clutching the wrist in my grasp as if I couldn’t bear to let go. “I just want to kill him, after I make him beg.”

“I know you do.” Kale’s tone rang hollow. He watched me with a longing I’d seen before. He was fighting hard not to slip into the kill zone I was already in. “You don’t have to though. You’re the one in control here.”

Was I? My harsh bark of laughter echoed. I eyed the man’s throat, finding my gaze drawn to the pulse beating there. Kale intervened then, pulling me away and shaking some sense back into me.

Instead of feeling proud of my small success, I was conflicted, both disgusted by the way I’d so easily commanded the man and also kind of invigorated by it. I’d managed to scratch my itch, but it was lacking. I’d once heard Kale describe a feed without the kill as sex without the orgasm. Still good but not even close to great. Missing a vital component.