Blood Claim by Laura Mykles (free e books to read .txt) 📕

around the words like an unwelcome, clinging vine crumbling the mortar between once solid brickwork.

Hunter searched Malcolm's face, so close to his own, looking for some sign of weakness and finding none except a shimmering, elusive need for ... what? Him? His father? Or maybe just a need to feel something again.

"Why?” He was surprised at how calm he sounded, how calm he was. There was no animosity toward Malcolm for his deed, just a growing sense of amazement.

"We had a bet.” A hand grabbed his waist, slipping around it, traveling up his spine to grip the back of his neck, forcing him to arch back to keep a distance between his bare flesh and those glinting fangs. “He lost."

Hunter knew it was meant to sound cold and uncaring, but Malcolm's eyes betrayed him. Experience created by years of courting and then embracing or eluding danger gave him an instinctive ability to see more than one side of a situation. And there was definitely more here. “You know what, Malcolm? I think my father won."

The grip on his neck became bruising. Malcolm shot him a murderous glare but said nothing. The silence was as telling as the spoken truth would have been. “You freed him from an existence he hated, when he couldn't do it himself. You gave him his chance at being reunited with my mother."

Malcolm's nostrils flared, his mouth pinched until he ground out, “I cut out his heart and watched him crumble to ash underneath me.” It was merciless.

Hunter stared, unfazed, into the unyielding gray eyes boring into his own. His answer was short and sincere. “Thank you."

And apparently unexpected.

Malcolm flinched, just a little, before he brought himself back under control. “An idealistic fool, just like your father."

Disdain. Harshness. Intolerance. They were all there, along with a twist of grudging wonder. Malcolm's gaze traveled searchingly over Hunter's face, and Hunter had the feeling the vampire was memorizing him, drinking in everything about him, looking for something. Hunter decided to throw the last thread of self-preservation to the wind and give Malcolm what he was looking for.

"Maybe. But there's one way we're very different.” He relaxed the arch in his spine, feeling the grip on his neck lessening as his muscles shifted, bringing his face closer to Malcolm's mouth, his lips almost brushing the pale, thin ones as he talked.

"Do tell.” Malcolm made no move to stop Hunter, his breath teasing Hunter's purposefully parted mouth.

"My heart doesn't belong to anybody yet, and ... I'm not inclined to rebuff your advances. If that's why you came here."

Hunter stroked a thumb over Malcolm's lower lip. A light passing touch to one canine unexpectedly produced a small cut on the ball of the digit. He jumped but didn't pull away.

A stonelike tower of control, Malcolm waited, a faint narrowing of his now red-ringed eyes his only reaction.

Hunter took a ragged breath, watched the red eyes as they dilated. He rubbed his injured thumb over a pale lip, smearing it a ruby red, then slid his thumb into Malcolm's parted mouth. Malcolm's tongue instantly laved it, blood wiped away, a groan vibrating in the back of the vampire's throat so husky and raw, a shiver of anticipation raced down Hunter's back and burst into a thousand little bolts of pleasure.

When the blood stopped flowing, Malcolm tilted his head up and carefully forced the thumb from his mouth. “I came to claim my winnings."

Hunter was left panting, hard and more aroused then he could ever remember being. He was still afraid, but it was nothing compared to the passion and need he was experiencing. The warm flush, the dizziness, the sheer craving to be touched and satisfied.

The smell of lust and sweat filled the air between them, musky, potent, intoxicating. Hunter was enveloped in the vampire's power and strength, captured, restrained, cradled. He felt unsteady just standing still. The air in the room grew thicker. His next breath was hard to drag into his protesting lungs and then suddenly the hard-won air was locked inside, his mouth sealed to Malcolm's cool lips.

It was a rough, raw, ravenous kiss. Hunter's lips parted for Malcolm's questing tongue, and his mouth surrendered without a fight, opening wide to the invasion, his hands clenched on Malcolm's smooth alabaster shoulders. He swallowed, and the taste of copper washed down his throat, spicy and sharp, a more exotic elixir than the blood he knew it was.

Blood. Malcolm's blood, vampire blood, thick liquid ambrosia that literally burned like whiskey and left him more intoxicated. It was like sucking the syrupy brown sauce off his favorite Chinese dish, full of bite, sharp and spicy, a little burn, a little sweet, all delicious, making him quest further down Malcolm's throat, yearning for more.

In his mind he could see the blood coating the roof of his mouth, trickling over the crevices in his tongue, creating tiny rivers of black-red to tantalize every taste bud it touched. He felt it slide down his throat and seep into his cells, staining everything in its path. It felt like it had a life of its own. He wanted more.

It was ... addictive.

That he was going to have a lifetime of savoring this rolled though his mind, and he sobered slightly. He flinched. A frown knitted his brows together, his eyes narrowed, and his heart tripped into high gear, uncertainty pushing lustful needs aside. He never thought of the long term in anything. Why would he feel that way now? He lived every day for the moment, never planning ahead, and certainly not planning a future with a vampire as his lover.

He wanted to lose himself in the fierce embrace, but a nagging itch kept tickling his brain until he pulled back, panting, flushed, sweaty, and reeling. He didn't think he could take a steady diet of this without stroking out. His lips and arms wanted to dive right back into the kiss, but he needed to hear one more old wives’ tale shattered before he could