Wild and Free (The Three #3)(28)

His family had been busy.

“Am I off the clock?” Xun asked, still whispering in deference to Delilah sleeping, and Abel looked to him to see he’d taken his feet.

“Yeah, brother. Thanks,” he muttered.

“Not a problem,” Xun replied, then came to him, slapped him on the shoulder, and moved out of the room.

Abel went to the door and slid the steel shaft through the hinges that barred it.

He drew in a deep breath and moved to the bed, seeing Delilah in the same position as last night, except she didn’t have a cheek to her palm—that arm was thrown out.

He drew in another breath, taking in her scent, using everything he had to ignore it, and moved a hand to shift the heavy fall of silken hair off her neck.

He shouldn’t have done that either. Her hair was softer than he’d imagined, and the waft of fragrance that came from it went straight to his dick.

He pulled it together and ignored it as her eyes fluttered but stayed closed.

“I’m home, Lilah,” he whispered.

“Good, baby,” she muttered, her lips curving slightly before she moved, turning to her other side so her back was to him.

He’d been called “baby” by so many women, it would be impossible to count.

None of them felt like it felt when Delilah said it.

Having used up his reserves of control to keep his hands off Delilah, he went to the fridge and got out a bag of blood, seeing only two left in there. If he’d known a warm, delicious meal and its accompanying f*ck was not in the cards for him for the foreseeable future, he would have stocked up.

He hadn’t.

He’d have to see to that tomorrow.

He nuked the bag and sucked it back. He needed at least three a day, even if he was feeding and f*cking. He’d taken one before he went running. But that one, as did the one he was currently consuming, left him hungry.

Definitely needed more.

He moved to the blue trash can, toed it open, and threw the bag in, his jaw clenching at seeing what was inside as he did.

He didn’t like what he saw even though he needed it for sustenance. It was all he knew, all he’d ever known, but that didn’t mean he didn’t understand it was utterly repugnant on every level. He rarely fed in front of his family because they tried to bury it, but his senses were vastly superior to theirs and he felt it. He knew it disgusted them. And Delilah, not surprisingly, hadn’t let her eyes wander to him even once while he was having his breakfast.

She’d get off on him drawing from her. He knew it, just as he knew he had to be careful with it. Due to his first and second mothers, Hui’s and Mei’s, efforts, he’d never once killed or even harmed a human being while feeding. And that shit was not going to happen with him drawing down Delilah’s needed supply of blood. So he figured, when he got her there, he could give her that while f*cking her maybe once a week.

That said, the bags sucked. They worked, but they sucked. There was nothing as good as a woman writhing under you, her * drenched, that smell in your nostrils, her blood in your mouth. It was revolting at the same time it was f*cking true.

He’d had decades of bags. He’d have decades more.

Centuries.

Hui was his first mother; Mei was his second, raising him through human teen years after they’d lost Hui. Mei had told him during his second half century that he’d have many lots in life.

“But never forget, bao bei,” she’d said, her hand curved around his jaw, her eyes tipped back to his height of towering over her. “You are a miracle. A miracle. A miracle brought to this family. A miracle upon this world. Never forget, and if you don’t, you will endure.”

They were a miracle, a family over six generations, accepting him as he was.

He was no miracle.

He was a monster.

He looked to the bed.

Another miracle, a dark-haired, green-eyed temptress coming to him in his dreams, then appearing in his life, accepting him and the insanity around her, ending her second night as a part of his life sleeping in his bed.

The miracle and the monster.

Abel winced at the thought.

But that thought was much easier to bury and he did so without effort.

And he did it without effort because he’d had a shitload of practice.





Chapter Six


You Okay Now?

Delilah



I opened my eyes and saw the light shining on Abel sitting back in his armchair, his eyes on me just like the morning before.

“Hey,” I called sleepily.

“Hey,” he replied, his tone strangely tight.

“You okay?” I asked, not moving, my head to the pillow, my eyes taking in his big frame, memories of the day before instantly available.

He’d been tensed and freaked, understandably so. Though, why he had to take off, I didn’t know.

That said, when Xun brought me back down to his room late yesterday evening, I was touched to see the simple white shower curtain covering the stall and a door providing privacy for the toilet. It said a lot, like the purse. Primarily that he might be gone, but his thoughts were on me.

It was what I’d needed.

Perhaps not weirdly, but annoyingly, the longer he was gone and I didn’t know where he was or how he was, the more that pit in my belly opened up again. And it opened, and opened, and opened. Then the pain came back.