Forget About Midnight (Alexa O'Brien, Huntress #9)(2)

He frowned and seemed to angle himself even further away. “This isn’t about me. It’s about you not having to live with an eternity of regret.”

“I don’t need a babysitter, Kale.”

“Is that so?” He countered, his tone hard and brittle. “Since when is it like you to kill at random without a second thought? That’s not you, Alexa. It’s the hunger.”

“Let’s not do this again.” I laughed him off, receiving a glare that I shrugged off as well. I couldn’t help but find it funny that the only thing that could return Kale’s sanity was my loss of it.

“Yes,” he agreed. “Let’s not.”

I stopped in my tracks, listening to the faint murmur of voices that drifted over to us on the evening air. A man and a woman. Their scent followed, and I breathed it in with the excitement of a kid smelling freshly baked cookies.

Following the scent, I ignored Kale who said my name in a harsh whisper. I was on the trail of my prey, and I would not be deterred. When I didn’t pay him any attention, Kale swore and followed me.

There they were, seated on a park bench, totally lost in one another. The couple oozed desire, which was as tantalizing as the blood pounding through their veins.

My fangs itched with the need to bury them in flesh. I was still growing accustomed to having the two fierce points in my mouth all the time. It was much different from wolf fangs that only appeared when the wolf surfaced. I ran my tongue over one of the sharp points, smiling when I tasted my own blood.

Kale grabbed hold of me from behind, his hand on the curve of my hip. “No,” he whispered in my ear. “We’re not doing this.”

It sounded very much like something I’d said to him not so long ago. So I answered him the way he had replied to me. I pulled away, easing out of the shadows, into the small splash of light from the closest streetlight.

“Looks like we are,” I said, raising my voice to announce our presence.

The couple broke apart, looking at us like the unwelcome interruption we were. I didn’t bother to study them closely: dark hair, wide eyes, audible heartbeats. That’s all I took in before the last of my control slipped away.

I grabbed the woman and dragged her off the bench. The man shouted and reached to stop me, but I flung him back with a flick of my wrist. Without hesitation, I bit into the woman’s neck. Her blood spilled over my tongue, and I groaned. Somehow I managed to restrain myself long enough to thrust her into Kale’s arms.

Agony was short lived in his eyes. Once she was bleeding and screaming in his embrace, he was gone, swallowed up by his own inner demons. I watched the bloodlust take him. From one blink to the next, he became something else, the worst kind of monster.

I watched him run his tongue over the bite mark I’d left. He laughed when the woman shrieked, a low, wicked chuckle that stirred my own desire to life.

The man sprang up again, and this time I stopped him with a look. That was all it took for my intention to manipulate him. Without a word, I sat him back down on the bench and climbed atop him. I straddled him, feeling his immediate reaction and grinning with satisfaction.

“Do you want me to take you?” I murmured into my victim’s ear. “I can take you to places you’ve never dreamed of.”

He nodded, staring at me in dumbstruck wonder. So easily he’d fallen under my spell. While his lady screamed bloody murder in Kale’s arms, just the way Kale liked it, my victim offered me his neck.

I wasn’t ready for it yet. Building his lusty energy into a frenzy of bliss came first. Only when he was ready to explode with wanting would I claim him.

Grasping his energy with a metaphysical hand, I blanketed him with my own energy before drawing his in. It created a dizzying rush that I melted into. Just as I was chasing that downward spiral of euphoria, I felt it, a cold rush I would know anywhere. Arys.

My head snapped up, and I searched the night for him before realizing his presence was inside my head. A storm of emotions slammed through me like a ton of bricks. All of it Arys’s.

He was both delighted and horrified to find me in such a state. He loved it as much as he hated it. And he sure did hate it. Especially once he realized that Kale remained my partner in crime.

However, Arys himself was certainly no saint. The mental door between us worked two ways, and I saw very clearly that he was with Jenner, a woman stretched out between them as they feasted upon her. To be fair, Arys wasn’t as into it as his blood brother was. I got the impression that he’d been dragged along. Still, he was there, doing the same damn thing that I was.

There was the unwelcome sensation of attempted communication. Arys wasn’t content with just a look. But I wasn’t ready to allow him back in. Not yet. I forced him from my mind with more aggression than necessary. His shock and dismay lingered, leaving me with a bad taste in my mouth.

The moment had been ruined. My concentration had been broken, and the magic had faded. Arys would come. He could easily find me, and now he would come. I would not be around when he did.

Disappointed that my fun was over so soon, I jerked my victim’s head aside and plunged fangs deep into his artery. There was still a pleasant rush from the spilling of blood and the man’s arousal, though it was a far cry from what it should have been.

“We have to go,” I announced to Kale who had silenced the woman’s screams. She hung limp against him as he drained her.