He whimpers. Actually fucking whimpers, and the sound is mildly alarming. But he never breaks the kiss as he walks deeper into the house, his boots scuffing across the floor. The air grows warmer and drier the longer he walks. Eventually, he comes to a stop and sinks down with me in his arms.
I crack an eye open and get a brief glance of pale purple walls and a massive fireplace mantle before he slips his palm up my back, distracting me as he bites my lip again.
This time, I bite back, and a pleading moan fumbles from his mouth as he fleetingly breaks the kiss. Before I can get out a protest, he clutches my waist as he grinds his hips against mine.
A shaky sort of whimper spills from my throat as I grasp his shoulders. There’s a brief pause where I lamely attempt to break through the haziness in my mind and figure out how I should respond—how human Hadley would. But I can’t find her inside me, so I end up rolling my hips against his.
His head falls forward, his lips resting against my neck as he grips my waist. “Do you know how badly I’ve wanted to fuck you,” he breathes out hoarsely. “And how hard it is not to.”
I pause, stunned. Alex once told me how Blaise likes to be dominant. I’m not surprised at all, as it seems to fit his personality. But the recalling of that makes me hesitate.
Would he just do that to me? Just take over and make me have sex with him? Would it even be making me with the mess of a state I’m in?
“I won’t,” he whispers in my ear then drags his teeth along his lobe. “I promise.”
“You better not,” I warn, but my panting tone makes me sound anything but threatening.
He leans back and presses his lips to mine again, his tongue parting my lips as he thrusts his hips against mine again. I did this momentarily with Alex while I was feeding, but I was in such disarray of hunger that I couldn’t even feel much at the time, except an aching need to devour the guys. Right now, though, I can feel other things … like how hard he is. I don’t know what to do with that, so I just kiss him back, but then he’s leaning away.
I blink a few times, my brain foggy with need.
“Why’d you stop?” I gripe. When a smirk plays at the corners of his lips, I mentally chew my ass out. “I didn’t mean it the way it sounded.” When the cocky grin remains on his face, I shake my head and move to climb off his lip, but he tightens his hold on my hips.
“It’s okay to want me, sweetheart. I know we like to play around and pretend we annoy the shit out of each other, but I think it’s fair to say that it’s just sexual tension—always sort of has been with us.”
“Don’t flatter yourself.”
“I’m not.”
“You totally are—”
He silences me with a kiss. When he pulls away, his expression is strangely soft.
“I don’t mean that in a bad way. In fact, I like the way you match me when we’re arguing. Didn’t think I ever would like that, but I guess I didn’t have a clue what I really wanted.” He swallows hard, the mood nosediving. “Not surprising, since I never got a choice in much of anything.”
I assess him closely. “What do you mean?”
He hastily shakes off his sullen demeanor, plastering a smile. “It’s not important. What is important is that we get you cleaned up and fed. Way too much time has passed since your last feeding.”
He’s right since, according to them, I was lying on that coffin-like slab of granite for a week.
“Why was I laying on that granite for so long?” I wonder. “I know you said I was burned and that I was healing, but how does that work exactly?”
He wavers. “If I tell you, you might get grossed out.”
I quirk a brow. “Do I really seem like the sort of girl that gets grossed out by stuff?”
“I guess I see your point.” He still dithers. “Healers don’t always use magic to heal creatures. They sometimes have to use their blood when someone is extremely injured. And that granite slab you woke up on, which is called a Healing Tomb, is used to place the patient on so that the healer can … douse them in their blood.”
I wait for him to smirk, to tell me he’s joking, but it never comes.
“So, I was just lying around in this healer creature’s blood?” My eyes are wide as I process this. “That’s just fucking gross …” I glance down at my burnt dress. “But how am I not stained in blood right now?”
“Your skin absorbs it. And it’s not like human blood—all red and runny—it’s more smoke-like, kind of like ash.”
“Oh.” I’m unsure how I feel about that, so I don’t let myself feel at all, deciding to just slide on over that subject. “So, where are we, anyway? And how did we even get here—wherever this is—because it doesn’t feel like we’re in the Town of the Undead anymore. And you guys speak like going to other realms is easy enough, yet I still don’t get how you travel, especially since we drove into the Town of the Undead in your SUV, yet you left it there and I didn’t see any other cars anywhere.”
“Some creatures do drive vehicles.” He twists a lock of my hair around his finger. “Just not a lot. And we don’t use those to go to different realms. Most of the time, we just use a portal to get to and from places.”
“A portal you create?”
“Sometimes. Some constantly exist, and creatures just freely use them. But there are some you have to get permission to use.”
“Like the realm the Keeper of Crowns is in?” I ask, and he nods. “Why? Why are some so guarded while others aren’t?”
“It depends on what’s in the realm. Some realms have more powerful objects there, or powerful creatures.”
“Like kings and queens?”
“Yeah. And some … well, some are protected kind of like a prison.” A haunted shadow casts across his face. “These realms are where terrible creatures get sent to when they break a law and, depending on how bad the crime was that they committed, they get tortured.”
“You guys got sent to the human realm, though, when you broke the law.”
“I know, and it was truly a torturous experience.” He shudders. Then the hint of a wistful smile touches his lips. That promptly fizzles as his shoulders stiffen. “As much as we complained about being in the human world, that was mild compared to some other prison-like realms.”
Something in how he says it, as if he has a lump welling in his throat, captures my attention.
“Have you ever been to one of these realms before?” I ask carefully.
He shakes his head from side to side. “No.”
I swallow hard at the eclipse of anguish in his eyes. “Has … Has Rhyland, Jax, or Alex?”
His lips thin as he smashes them together, hesitancy evident all over him. “One of us has, but Hadley, I think they should be the one to tell you about it when they’re ready.”
I understand what he’s saying so damn much.
“Yeah, you’re right. I shouldn’t even be asking you this.”
He cups my cheek with his hand. “You’re completely fine, and I’m sure they’ll tell you one day. In fact, I hope they do, because they’ve needed to talk about it for decades now.”