sat on my knees beside him. I brought the glass up to my nose as my eyes caught him observing me. The liquor smelled woodsy, with a hint of citrus. I sipped it, swirling it around in my mouth before swallowing.
“I don’t see the point of doing that,” I admitted.
“It enhances the flavor, warming your pallet up to the ingredients.”
I frowned, doing it again to end up with the same results. Rhys mimicked what I’d done, drinking it slowly. I snorted, tipping the glass up to down the contents before I reached over him, placing the glass on the nightstand. Gazing down into his lap, I brought my hand back. His cock was hard, ready to do some serious damage considering the sheer size of the appendage. I drew back away from him, shaking my head.
I’d been with men before, but none of them had looked like that down there. It was thicker, longer, and I was pretty certain it had known I was looking at it. Sucking my bottom lip between my teeth, I smiled nervously. His attention shifted to my mouth as if he wanted to taste me, and at the moment, I wanted him to. I was in so much trouble right now. My hand balled into a fist as the need to learn the silkiness of his flesh entered my mind.
“Goodnight, Rhys,” I whispered huskily, turning away from him, pulling the covers up, and slipping beneath them while he helped untuck them, forcing my body to fit against his.
“Goodnight, Remington.”
Chapter Nine
I was running over foreign soil. I wasn’t sure how I knew it was unfamiliar, but everything around me screamed I wasn’t within the United States. Dirt covered my white nightgown, and my palms ached, forcing me to lift them, peering down at the rocks embedded within my flesh. I turned, watching shadows move as I took in my surroundings.
Stars glittered against the velvet sky as the wind kicked up, sending my hair whipping against my face painfully. I pushed it away as the scene around me vanished, and a large mansion replaced the meadows. My heart raced as flames licked over the home, peeling wood with the intensity of the blaze. Windows shattered, and I jumped back, shaking my head as the sounds of people screaming within it echoed through the night.
My feet moved over the ice-cold earth as I closed the distance to the house. An explosion sent my body backward, tumbling through the air to land on the ground. Sitting up, I stared at the face of a woman who peered out of the house, her silver-blonde hair glowing against the fiery backdrop of the inferno now raging through the home.
Turning, I recognized Rhys and Cole, who watched the woman with regret marring their expressions. Rhys had tears running down his face, and his hands balled into tight fists as if he wanted to run to her aid and undo what he’d done. Others stood behind them, watching, unaffected by the scene unfolding before them. Cole turned, staring at Rhys as if he wanted to speak, but whatever he wanted to say remained unsaid. More Van Helsings joined the grisly scene, some gasping as the beauty caught fire, and dropped to the floor.
Rhys moved, but Acyn grabbed his arm, saying something I couldn’t hear. Silver shot from the house at the men who erected a wall as the silver pelted their shields, embedding but not piercing them. My eyes slid over the craftsmanship of their shield wall and winced, realizing it was Silversmith silver, which other metal couldn’t penetrate. Not even Silversmith silver found a way through it. The sounds of children crying drew my eyes to the second story of the home, where children no older than in their teens, begged for help to no avail.
Cole stared up at them, his eyes flooding with tears. He screamed, turning to the men as he pointed toward the children, and yet the others shook their heads at his words. One man with a cold sneer slapped Cole, shouting back with hatred burning in his vehemently horrid tone. It was malevolence, fueled with poisonous loathing, which knocked the wind out of me from the intensity.
Standing, I stepped back from the chaos of the scene unfolding around me. Rhys still hadn’t looked away from where the woman had fallen, as if he could will her out of the inferno with his mind. Men pushed swords into their leather sheaths, continuing to stand silently as the angry