“That doesn’t make sense.” James stepped a little closer to me.
“If you want to control when you see people’s deaths, it will...trust me. The ability to heal someone doesn’t come natural for creatures likes us. It is much easier to kill.”
He stepped closer still, trapping his bloody hand with my hand around his wrist between our bodies. I had to tilt my head up, just to look into his eyes.
“Still doesn’t make sense,” he said while looking down at me.
“Put your hand on my heart.” His lips lifted into the smallest hint of a smile. He leaned back just enough to give him room to place his free hand on my heart.
His hands were so big, when he placed them on my heart the lower half of his hand spread to most of my breast. His long fingers curled around my side. So, this is what Ethel meant by his hands. I almost forgot about Ethel.
I ignored the naughty direction my thoughts were headed as I tried not to imagine how good his hands would feel if he dropped them a little lower. I hoped he couldn’t feel my nipple hardening just under his pinky finger. “Do you feel my heartbeat?”
Under normal circumstances, I would never allow someone to back me up. That was a weakness I could not afford to show with my coven. With James, it was natural. Whether he knew it or not, his presence was so domineering, I would gladly give him control. When he began to walk forward, I trusted him enough to move back without looking. I only stopped moving when my back hit the door.
“I feel your heart beating wildly,” he said when I couldn’t move anymore.
Think about Ethel, I repeated over and over. Dropping eye contact, I looked at the spot on his chest where his heart should be. I heard his heart beating just as fast as mine. “Blood is life force. If you can learn to control the flow, you can manipulate which direction it goes. In Ray’s case, I chose to send it to heal his wound. Look at your hand.”
I knew the moment he looked at his hand, because his whole body stiffened. He watched the wound close, as I forced the healthy blood to his cut. “There, you are all healed now.”
“I can do this?”
I smiled and raised my gaze from his chest back up to his eyes. “You can. You just have to accept what you are instead of fighting it. That is the only reason you can’t control your death visions.”
He took the can opener from my hand and threw it over his shoulder. It landed with a loud thump behind us. James moved faster than I expected. One second, I was thinking about whether or not we broke something from the opener, the next he had me turned around with my face pressed against the door. He had somehow managed to catch both of my wrists in one of his hands. His other hand was still resting above my heart. “Teach me,” his lips were pressing against my ear.
I felt the chill bumps run down my body. Ethel, think about Ethel. “Find the pattern of my beat, and feel the flow of blood.”
“How do I know if it is working?”
His breath was tickling the hair on my neck. “It will feel like water from a faucet in your hands.”
It was dangerous to let someone learn on me like this. The only reason I was doing it was because the Death Flames won’t let him harm me. When I felt the slight stutter of my heartbeat, I knew he had figured it out. James was a fast learner.
I felt blood spread deeper in my body. “That’s enough. You have nowhere to send the blood. I have nothing that needs to be healed.”
The blood was still moving further south, it was almost to my waist. I tried to move out of James’ grip, but he was too strong for me. He slid his free hand from my chest and wrapped his long fingers around my throat—not in a strangling way, but to put him in a position where he was able to force my head to the side.
When my neck was twisted as far as it could go, his lips touched mine. My eyes were wide open in shock, and neither of us moved. He slowly pried open my lips with his. The only reason I opened my mouth was from shock of the blood filling every single erogenous zone I have. In a split second, I went from fighting him to rubbing my ass against him, trying to relieve the ache James created.
When my mouth opened from shock, he took that as an invitation and slid his tongue in. Even something as simple as a kiss, he turned into a show of dominance. I tried to stay still, but he wouldn’t allow it. His mouth pried mine open wider, moving his tongue in and out with free range. He left me no choice but to kiss back. If I didn’t, he would take even more from me.
I was too preoccupied with his kiss, I never felt his hands leave my throat and go down my stomach. He somehow turned the inner seams of my jeans into something sexy. When his fingers rubbed circles, it forced the folded edge of the pants directly onto my clit. I was sensitive from the blood, and I was close already. When he put pressure on the seams and rubbed circles, I came within a few seconds.
His mouth was still on mine, fighting for control. I was able to wiggle a hand from his grip and undo his zipper. I couldn’t see what I was doing, but I sure could feel it. He was big. He was large enough my hand couldn’t wrap all the way around. He was wide enough, I wasn’t sure how we were going to work together.
“You have five seconds before I break the lock on this door!” I jumped away from the door and pushed James back as Arun yelled from the other side of the wood.
I turned around to James as he pushed himself back into his pants, somehow rearranging everything in the skinny jeans. I almost felt bad for buying him those skinny jeans, but he needed a fashion upgrade. “He won’t go away until I let him in.”
He wiggled in his pants a little. “I am good now.”
I unlocked the door as Arun slammed his shoulder into the wood, knocking both him and me onto the ground. I saw dots in my vision as Arun’s body weight leaned on top of me. James was running to Arun, but Arun lifted his hand up and manipulated the air around James. He not only stopped James from approaching us, but threw him against the far wall and shut the door all at the same time. This is child’s play for Arun, I thought as I watched James slide to the floor.
“Don’t make me banish you to the dry lakes. I have his blood on my hands, you know I can do it.” I slammed my hand covered in James’ blood onto Arun’s forehead.
Arun did get off me, but he dropped his hand, releasing James from the manipulated air. “I have to tell you something.”
“Tell me now, or I swear you will be gone.”
“Father noticed you and Ethel were gone during the solstice. He and a few of the elders are heading this way.”
I looked straight into Arun’s brown eyes. “It doesn’t matter if he is here now. I just need to figure out who is going to kill Ethel. I need James to tell me. That is the reason we left the solstice.”
Arun’s nostril opened slightly as he caught the scent of something. “I smell him all over you. You were promised to me.”
“Get off me,” I tried to push him up. He used his weight against me and pushed his hips hard into mine. A few months ago, I would have enjoyed this. Now, if he continued, he would take me against my will. I really didn’t want to banish him, but I would if he got out of hand.
The only reason he stopped pressing his hips into mine was the sound of a deep growl behind him. The growl was loud enough to hear over the thud of the bass on the other side of the door. We both stood up and stared at James in silence. I watched as his face elongated and morphed into something more skeleton. His skin hardened into a grey tone. His eyes shined like green spotlights.