49: Taste of Darkness

Quincy St. Martin

“~Moya printsessa,” he murmurs as he grips the back of my neck. Then he swoops down to plant his lips on mine.~

The moment his lips cover mine, the rest of the world becomes hazy. There’s just me and him and the points where we’re touching. He climbs on top of me, and I’m engulfed in his warmth. Jolts of electricity burst where we touch.

His mouth is moving against mine hungrily and demandingly, pushing my head back into the pillow. I open my mouth when his tongue pushes in between my lips, seeking entrance. His tongue explores my mouth before he slides it against mine.

Our tongues tangle together. How I love the taste of him on my tongue.

I let out a soft moan when he sucks on my bottom lip. He nips it and runs his tongue over it before his mouth finds its way down my jawline.

He tilts my head to the side with his fingers that are still gripping my hair at the base of my skull as his mouth travels down my neck, kissing, sucking, nibbling, licking…

Oh, God, his mouth is very talented. So very, very talented.

His other hand is touching me everywhere. I’m so hot. I’m feverish. I grab hold of his muscled shoulder and bury my fingers in his hair at the back of his head as he keeps sucking behind my ear.

I wind my legs around him, grinding the lower half of our bodies together, trying to ease the throbbing heat between my legs. He groans in pleasure. It sounds almost like he’s growling.

“Caspian.” I gasp when I feel his sharp canines digging into my shoulder.

He raises his head, and I draw in a sharp breath. His eyes are glassy black. The dark veins are almost visible around his eye sockets.

When my shocked eyes meet his soulless cold ones, he jumps out of the bed. Fast.

He’s so fast that I suspect if my vision were still that of a normal human, I would not even see the blur of his movements. Now he’s standing close to the door. His eyes are dark and watchful.

“Let me mark you,” he says. His voice is unnaturally low and feral. “I want to mark you so badly.” The look on his face seems fierce, almost primal. I look around the room, somehow feeling trapped.

He’s standing next to the exit door and the only other door I could escape to is to the ensuite bathroom.

“Don’t run away from me,” he says.

I can’t decide if it sounds like a warning or a plea. I look back at him standing there, and as fast as it came, the thought of fleeing is crushed from my mind.

“I won’t run. I promise you that I won’t run from you,” I tell him.

He stands there a while longer, watching me as his eyes slowly turn back to normal.

The intensity in the way he’s looking at me and the way his body is hunched tell me that he’s not totally happy about something. He’s also only in his black boxer briefs, so I force my eyes away, looking at anything but him.

“Who cleaned me and dressed me up?” I ask him, trying to divert my attention.

“Serena and Genesis,” he answers tersely.

I notice that we’re in a little suite. “Are we in Greenville Hotel?”

“Yes,” he says sullenly.

Well, ~somebody’s~ feeling cranky.

Greenville is the best hotel in this little town, but I doubt it’s up to the standards of these royal lycans. Tourists don’t exactly flock here, to the middle of nowhere.

I sit up as he pulls a chair from the study table to face the bed and sits down. He rests his elbows on his thighs and folds his hands together. He looks close to normal, but his body is still tense. There’s a stiff determined set to his jaw.

“So, you don’t want me to mark you,” he says testily.

“I never said that,” I say. ~Is that what is irritating him~?

His eyes narrow as he stares at his hands. “So, you’re saying you ~do~ want me to mark you.”

I let my head fall back into the soft pillow behind me and sigh. “Why does it have to be black or white with you?”

“You mean there’s a shade of gray?” He stares at me with raised eyebrows. “That doesn’t make any sense. Either you want me to mark you or you don’t. It’s that simple.”

“Well, let me ask you this, Your Highness. If I said no, would you let me go?”

“Not a chance.” There’s that arrogant smirk on his gorgeous face. “You are mine, Quincy St. Martin.”

“Well, then,” I say, pulling the blanket up over my chest as if the discussion is over.

“I’m going to mark you soon, Quincy St. Martin. Very soon you’re going to be Quincy Romanov.”

I don’t want to admit how much I love the sound of that.

He’s got a big enough ego that I don’t really want him to know how his words are sending those pesky butterflies fluttering in my stomach. As hard as I try, I can’t stop a silly grin from taking over my face.

I think he sees, because the smirk on his face grows bigger. Cocky gorgeous idiot!

I send a pillow flying toward his head, but he manages to duck out of the way, laughing.

There’s a glint in his eyes that makes my heart flip in my chest and threatens to melt me into a pile of goo.

“I’m going to clean up,” I tell him, trying not to poke my tongue out at him like a five-year-old or touch all that glorious-looking, silky, golden-tan skin.

“Okay. I need to talk to the guys,” he says, still grinning. “The girls brought clothes and everything else that you might need. It’s in the closet and that drawer over there.”

He pulls a pair of jeans on, slips on a T-shirt, and grabs the keycard from the table. By the girls and the guys, I think he means all the other lycans.

He pauses at the door and looks back at me thoughtfully. A second later, he grins and pulls the door open. “I’ll be right back.” He gives me a wink, and then he’s gone.

The man is terribly irritating and totally not a normal human, and I am absolutely crazy about him.

My hand freezes in mid-air just as I’m about to open the closet. The closet door is a huge mirror, and I’m staring at my own reflection…or what I think is my reflection.

It looks like me but…different. I can’t really tell what it is that’s so different about myself, but I know I look different.

I don’t usually spend too much time looking at my reflection in the mirror. The last time I looked in the mirror was probably the evening after they dressed me up for that awful ceremony. I don’t think I looked much different then, or maybe I wasn’t really looking. Later on, that same night and yesterday at the trial, I was covered in blood and dirt.

I’m now wearing a light purple waist slip with matching boy shorts I’ve never seen before. I touch my face and my hair then I pull my upper lip up.

My teeth have always been straight and white, but now my canines are longer. My lips seem fuller and redder too. I smooth my hands over the front of my body before I shake my head.

Nana told me that time spent admiring yourself in the mirror is time wasted. No matter which side you turn, you still look the same.

Oh well, Nana used to say the craziest things, and that one was actually quite profound…for Nana. Revenge doesn’t bring my Nana back, but for once, thinking about Nana doesn’t make my heart ache as much.

There are several women’s outfits hanging next to a few men’s clothes in the closet. Very nice ones. There are a very nice pair of woman’s black leather riding boots and a pair of dark gray sneakers as well. Everything is my size.

I open the drawer to find lacy underwear, several brands of luxury bath bombs, shower gels, body lotions, shampoos, conditioners, makeup, and perfumes.

The drawer smells wonderful. I bet all these things cost more than my monthly salary and tips at the café combined. I grab some undergarments, a tube of shower gel, shampoo, and conditioner and make my way into the bathroom, where I drop everything once I see the inside.

The bathroom is a standard hotel bathroom, but there are thick luxurious towels that smell heavenly, bathrobes and slippers, combs and hair brushes, several types of loofahs and body scrubbers, a couple of toothbrushes, and several fancy-looking tubes of toothpaste.

Either these hotels have seriously been holding out on me or these lycans have brought the whole spa with them.

After I’m done cleaning up, I put on an oversized knit cream cashmere sweater I found in the closet. It’s so soft, light, and warm that I rub the wide turtleneck over my cheek several times.

I match it with a pair of black skinny jeans, a tan leather belt, and the black leather riding boots.

Caspian is still not back in the room by the time I’m done, so I take another keycard from the table, grab a dark tan trench coat off the hanger, and head downstairs.

I’m hungry.

The hotel is suspiciously deserted. I don’t see a single soul around as I follow my nose to find Genesis, Penny, and Serena in the hotel breakfast area, having breakfast.

There’s no one else in the breakfast area.

They wave at me to join them as soon as they see me.

“You’re up!” says Genesis excitedly.

“She already had three cups,” says Penny wryly when she sees me looking at an empty coffee cup in front of Genesis.

An elderly lady appears at my elbow with a plate of scrambled eggs, waffles, fries, bacon, and sausages. Penny promptly steals a few pieces of fries and pops them into her mouth even before I pick up my fork.

“She already had a plateful of those,” deadpans Genesis.

“Good morning, Quincy. Please excuse these two,” says Serena, looking amused. “Or ignore them if you can.”

It’s kind of hard to ignore them, especially when one of them is sniffing you while you’re trying to eat.

“Hey! You’re not marked yet!” says Genesis, frowning. Oh, God! What?

“See? I was right. Pay up,” says Penny.

I almost choke on my scrambled eggs. Genesis pats my back harder than necessary.

“Did you two really bet on whether or not we…uh… he…umm…errr…marked me last night?” I ask them while reaching for my drink.

“Not just the two of us. Constantine and Lazarus sorta put some money on it too,” says Penny.

I almost spit my orange juice all over them.