Smashed (Alexa O'Brien, Huntress #8.5)(3)

It was fine with me. I hadn’t been the one to seek out this encounter. Though now that I was here, I was going to take what I could from it.

Jenner made a big display of pleasing her. His hand disappeared beneath her skirt, and right away she was purring like a kitten. It took much effort to refrain from piercing her jugular. I needed her to bleed.

“I’ve gotta say, the women here are eager, aren’t they?” Blood stained Jenner’s face from a nip he’d taken of her inner thigh. Running his tongue over the smear, he laughed. “I could get used to this.”

“Don’t,” I chuckled. “You’ve already overstayed your welcome.”

While manually guiding Brandy to greater pleasure, Jenner studied me with a knowing grin. “Do you remember Paris? Those people were f*cking amazing.”

“I couldn’t forget Paris if I wanted to.” The years I’d spent in Paris were among some of the best. Together, Harley, Jenner, and I had dined on the city’s finest folks. Some of my best work had been done in that city.

“Sometimes I still rub one out while thinking back on those days. We had some good times.”

“We sure did.” I wasn’t surprised by his blatant confession. “You’re so obsessed with yourself, Jenner. It’s ludicrous.”

With pupils so large that his eyes were black, Jenner shrugged. “What can I say? I know what I like.”

Not bothering to await my response, he busied himself with the victim writhing between us. With the right touch and a few whispered promises of things to come, he had her begging.

Brandy clutched at me, trying to get me to kiss her. I avoided her greedy advances by seeking out her jugular. I wasn’t in the mood to draw this out.

I couldn’t do it. My fangs grazed her skin, and she shuddered. But I couldn’t bring myself to bite into her neck. Being so close, ready but unable, it flashed me back to the best and worst moment of my existence. The moment I killed Alexa.

No kill had ever been so satisfying and no kill ever would be again. There was no word to describe how it felt to be one with her in that delicate place between life and death. She was mine as fully as one could be. It was wonderful.

And then it was absolute misery. Death stole her from me, severing the tie that joined us. It was like having a piece of myself torn away, ripped from my very soul. For a time, I thought I would die too. Then she came back and we were whole again. If that’s what this was.

The memories were fresh, always lurking, ready to blindside me again. I had waited for a century to have it all happen in just a few minutes. Never would I forget the way she’d pleaded for me to do it. I kept waiting for it to wash me clean of the guilt. It hadn’t so far.

It should have been a relief to know that Alexa was still here on this earth with me. If I hadn’t blood bonded her, she’d just be dead now. Perhaps it would have been better that way. A creature like her should never have to be what I am.

Alexa dominated my thoughts. It led me down that mental pathway that joined us, plunging me into her mind. It was sudden and disorienting. Then I was seeing through her eyes, an unwelcome visitor in her head.

It was dark. A cold fall breeze blew her long blonde hair about in a mess of tangles. The hunger drove her, guiding her actions. Her focus was on the couple engaged in an intimate embrace on a park bench. Together with Kale Sinclair at her side, the two of them slaughtered the lovers.

I tasted the blood in Alexa’s mouth. The screams echoed in the stillness, silenced quickly by Sinclair. While he feasted on the fear of one victim, she drove the other into a sexual frenzy.

When she sat atop the man, cooing sweet nothings into his ear, she felt my presence. Immediately she stiffened, her concentration broken.

With our minds joined it was impossible to withhold my feelings. I couldn’t hide the mix of emotion that stormed me. Being in Alexa’s head while she made a victim hers was a rush. It was a turn on to be there while she took command.

It was also a crushing disappointment to see what I’d done to her and to feel so conflicted about it. Worst of all was Sinclair being the one there with her.

Before I could attempt to communicate with her, Alexa brutally thrust me out of her head. There was a desperation to her panic as she did so. Try as she might to hide it, I was able to see that she was coming apart without me.

That made two of us.

The violence of her rejection combined with the excitement of her hunt brought me back to myself with a jolt. With a burst of madness-infused anger, I grabbed a hold of Brandy’s hair and jerked her head so her neck was exposed. Ignoring Jenner’s protests, I plunged fangs into her artery, finding satisfaction only when blood filled my mouth.

Even then, it wasn’t enough. I thought of my lover with another man, and I couldn’t keep my shit together. She was my other half. She belonged with me, goddammit.

I left the stripper there on the couch, dead, her throat mangled. Licking the blood from my lips, I strode from the private room with Jenner shouting after me.

“Arys, what in the f*ck?” He struggled himself back into his pants and hurried after me. Grabbing my arm, he jerked me to a halt. “Are you out of your f*cking mind?”

“Just a little bit. Get off me.” I shook him off and pulled a wad of cash out of a pocket. “Here. Leave extra for their troubles. I’m sure this isn’t the first time someone has died back here.”