Wicked Soul (Ancient Blood #1)(54)

Goosebumps broke out across my body at the feel of his cold breath brushing against my skin. “Nothing,” I croaked.

“No?” he hummed. “No delicious magic in your blood to keep him coming back for more? Are you perhaps my dear brother’s dirty little secret? Is that why he’s been so reluctant to leash you with a claim? Are you a witch, little mouse?”

Despite my drunken state, his question made a nervous bolt of energy shoot through my veins. I gulped and pulled back, trying to break the hold of his arm against my back. I might as well have tried to shift a mountain. “No, I am not a witch. I didn’t even know they were real until a week ago. And if you don’t get your hands off me right now, I’m going to scream ‘vampire.’”

Aleric’s mouth hiked up at the corner, displaying a gleaming white fang. It wasn’t elongated, but it looked wickedly sharp. “Well, well, don’t you have a pair of brass balls, little human.” His gaze flashed above my head for a second before he released his grip on my waist. “How delightful.”

I stumbled one step backward and away from the tall vampire, only to feel another steel band close around my midriff and pull me back against a solid form.

“Aleric. You come early, brother.” Despite the noise and music in the club, I recognized Warin’s voice effortlessly. Without thinking, I relaxed in his grasp as the sensation of complete safety set in. My drunken brain stopped attempting to shoot danger signals through the fog, and I happily pushed back into my vampire’s chest, reveling in the softness of his cashmere sweater and the hardness of his body underneath it. Well, mm.

“You call, I don’t delay. You know this, my blood.” The look on the auburn-haired vampire’s face was so different now—filled with reverence, not a hint of a threat left behind. “I hoped we could talk about your, ah, situation before the others arrive.”

“I will be home before dawn. Bring Carina and the Guard with you and wait for me there. We will speak more then.”

I smiled at the obvious dismissal in Warin’s voice, but Aleric’s gaze remained impassive as he let it slide over me, hovering by my neck and cleavage for a moment before he returned his focus to his brother. “As you wish. Do enjoy your snack—you look like you need it.”

Warin didn’t respond, and Aleric nodded at him before he took off, leaving us on the crowded dance floor.

Warin kept his grip on me, his strong arm still holding me so deliciously tight against his body. It was such a protective gesture, and maybe I should have wondered what about his brother’s appearance had him acting like that given how we usually didn’t touch much. But instead, I let his strength and the sensation of his body behind me penetrate deep into my blood, let myself get lost in the familiarity of his touch despite being surrounded by strangers. It felt so… intimate. Perhaps because I knew, in the depths of my soul, that Warin never let anyone close. His solitude was an invisible wall, surrounding and protecting him from ever truly knowing someone. But he knew me. He touched me. Held me.

Slowly, for every night we sat in my living room and talked about everything and nothing, he had let me in just a little further.

Like I had him.

Right then, as we stood together surrounded by loud music and drunk people who would never understand how profoundly right his arm around me felt, I knew I wanted to be like this always.

That it was how I was meant to be—safe in Warin’s embrace. Shielded from the world and all its horrors.

Maybe if I hadn’t been drunk, I would have handled that moment’s clarity with grace, or dignity. Or both.

Unfortunately for me, I chose neither.

With a happy hum I looked over my shoulder so I could nuzzle my face against his, before I lazily threw an arm back to hook it around his neck.

“Your brother thinks you drink my blood,” I murmured as I bent my knees a little so I could sway my hips to the music. Pressed up against him as I was, I could feel the fabric of his pants and the hardness of his flesh against my backside, and a hot thrill rushed through my veins. With a flick of my hair I arched my neck back, provokingly displaying my neck to him. “Have I been a bad friend by not offering?”

Warin went rigid behind me, his arm around my waist constricting even tighter. “Liv…”

I laughed, delighted by the slightly tortured note to his voice. "Told you I was a friendly drunk.”

“I remember.” It was a mix between a laugh and a growl against my ear, and it made my skin break out into goosebumps.

I twisted around in his arm that was still wound around my midsection so I could face him. "Hello you," I teased, noticing the darkness of his eyes and deciding to see if I could push him a little further. Because Drunk Liv is a apparently moron.

I gave him a saucy wink and tipped my head back, arching until my hips pressed into his as I slid my hands over his soft, gray, V-necked shirt, relishing in the feel of his hard muscles underneath it.

He shot the hand that wasn't holding my drunk form up out and grabbed me by the back of my neck, pulling me back up with a jerk. Growling low, he pressed my ear close to his mouth. "You are drunk." There was a clear, dark warning in his voice.

It should probably have scared me.

But it didn't.

And I leaned in and bit down on his shoulder. Hard.

A hiss erupted from him, and both the arm around my waist and the hand on my neck pulled me harder against him for a second, making my entire, drunken body shiver with delicious want. It wasn’t just his muscles that were hard now.