me!” I bellowed, desperate to kill this rat, this scum. He’d laid his hands on her, forced her to her knees beneath him like she was some common street whore. She was a goddess, a fucking queen. I didn’t know when I’d realised that, but I knew it in the depths of my soul and I wouldn’t let this piece of shit get away with disrespecting her.
I kicked him forcefully in the side and he was thrown across the floor, curling in on himself as he hit a row of lockers. “I w-won’t touch her.”
“She doesn’t exist to you,” I said icily. “You don’t see her, you don’t touch her, you don’t even fucking think about her.”
He nodded, clutching his bloody face as he whimpered in pain and I snatched his arm, keeping my hand clamped over his sleeve as I hauled him to the sink and rinsed his hand of the slime before taking hold of it in an iron grip.
“Swear on the stars not to speak of this,” I demanded.
“I won’t tell anyone,” he rasped fearfully and magic rang between us.
I dropped his hand and let him suffer for a few moments longer, savouring his agony as I thought of what he’d tried to make my girl do. Fuck, my girl? Since when was she my girl? She wasn’t my anything. She hated me. She’d cursed me. She was mated to fucking Shadowbrook.
I noticed the curse mark was thrumming in time with my pulse, warmth spreading out from it that felt like liquid sunshine in my veins. It felt like her. It felt like everything I’d been missing my entire life. But it couldn’t be that. Because she didn’t belong to me and she never would.
I lowered down to a crouch before the pathetic creature beneath me, my fangs bared. The scent of his blood was like piss in comparison to Twelve’s. There was zero desire in me to taste it. I wanted to spill more of it though. All of it. Paint this whole room red with his death and make him hurt so deeply that he’d be in pain even beyond the veil.
I drew in a long breath, watching him squirm with no ounce of pity in me. I felt nothing but disgust and rage, the two emotions coiling into a storm inside me. But I couldn’t let myself fall too deeply into it. I had to keep my head. Killing him wasn’t an option. And I couldn’t hand him over to Pike either. She’d question Rosalie, get a Cyclops to check the truth of her words and if they saw her memories, they could also see me in them too. See all the rules I’d broken, see the way I’d touched her, bitten her.
Bile flooded my tongue as I wondered if I was as revolting as the cretin cowering before me. Did I also deserve his fate for touching her myself? She’d encouraged it though, it wasn’t like I’d taken anything from her she hadn’t wanted. But I was in a position of power. I was supposed to be better. But I’d also never claimed to be. I’d been biting strong inmates for years before she’d arrived. Only with her it never felt like I was doing it just to take her blood and punish her. I’d ached for the press of her body against mine too. I’d let my hands roam, I’d longed for her mouth, yearned to feel my cock inside her. It was wrong. And it made me like him.
I reached out, pressing the very tips of my fingers to a clean space on the back of Nixon’s neck, allowing healing magic to flow into him. I had to hide the evidence now, even though healing him made me sick. But there was no other way.
I stood up when it was done and he gazed at me, panting heavily, his eyes wide. I turned my back on him, striding over to the sink and rinsing my hands of his blood, the insult of a Vampire washing it away enough to make him gasp. Then I turned my back on him and strode from the room, letting the door swing shut behind me and disbanding the silencing bubble as I went.
I wasn’t done drawing blood today. My monster was unleashed now, so it was time to put it to good use.
***
Midnight came and went and I left the guards’ quarters in my uniform. It wasn’t my shift, but I’d worn it to cover