22. Bite Me Part 2

“Phiel… Yophiel… YOPHIEL!”

I jerked my head up.

“I’ve been calling your name.” Darcy stared worriedly. “I’m going to do a general checkup on you. I’m worried you got hurt today.”

“Hurt…” I whispered in a daze. I reached for my right hand and wrapped my fingers around my wrist.

I was shaking badly. Taking a deep breath, I count down like I always do.

A cold hand squeezes my thighs. I open my eyes and find Darcy staring at me. “You’re in shock,” he sighs. “What Seth did is stupid.”

“What you did also.”

I try not to sound so mean, but right now it is impossible. Today has been a shitty day and all of them had something to do with it. Not to mention I didn’t die because there are seriously two of them that don’t want me dead… Yet.

“I’m sorry about that.”

It’s the mention of that single word that has me scowling in disgust.

Darcy laughs. “Sorry you’re so bothered by my words, but I do really apologize for my earlier misstep.”

I shook my head. “You can go to hell. All of you can.”

I mean, it sounds awful, but I’m currently angry and hurt. And I know I should be concerned about my own health, worried that I would get hurt.

I groan.

“You have a wound in your forehead and a few scratches from Callisto’s little freak moment. Thankfully, Seth’s fire didn’t burn you.”

I stare at Darcy. Relief whips through me so fast I get a little lightheaded. Not to mention, I have forgotten that Seth set me on fire.

My hands instinctively go down my shredded and burned sweater. I touched around the burned area. I’m fine…

Darcy hesitates as he watches me. Was there something he wanted to say?

“We need to get you clean clothes,” he finally turns, but I reach for his lab coat, stopping him.

“I know I’m not crazy. I haven’t lost my mind still. But I was on fire, like real fire, blazing hot. So why am I not hurt?”

I glanced to the side where the mirror was and my reflection was watching me back.

I had black smudges on my face and hands. My clothes were surely burned, even my hair was a messy nest. Then how come I was alright?

“We need to call Callisto over,” he whispered.

“No, you’re not!” I clutched harder at his coat. “Speak or I swear I’ll somehow make you shut your mouth forever.”

There’s a challenge in Darcy’s eyes. I continued staring back as well, face that said try me and you will regret it.

With a smile, Darcy reached for something in his pocket. Then the door to the lab opened and Seth walked in. On instinct, I flinched, backing away from my stool almost falling.

I didn’t try to hide it this time. Instead, I stood behind Darcy and mouthed a sorry. He doesn’t answer, just smirks the way he always does.

For a moment, just a moment, I thought he would say the most stupid thing, but his red eyes darted back and forth between us.

Seth doesn’t say anything, nor do I until Darcy laughs. Oh, he could be an annoying vampire.

“Care to tell her what you told me earlier. She’s having weird thoughts as always.” Darcy scoots away, leaving me in the open.

Seth deliberately takes one step, then another until he has me cornered between the stretcher and a table.

I looked at Darcy, but there was laughter and curiosity in his eyes.

I cursed mentally. I felt I was getting preyed on right now.

“My fire doesn’t hurt you.”

I eyed him warily. What did he just say?

“Say it again, she didn’t get it,” Darcy chuckles.

Seth's eyes moved, focused on me, making me tremble like a rabbit.

“I said—”

“I heard you,” I choked. I should probably take a seat because right now I feel I will pass out.

“Yophiel,” Darcy moved to help me, but I shook my head.

I mean, I didn’t know much about vampires or anything that’s going on here. Not until I was brought to them and I still feel I lack many things, especially in knowing them well.

Seth's words stayed on my mind as I slipped away from him and took a seat on the stool. I’m apparently a very weak person, prone to panic attacks.

It’s a horrible thought—the idea that I fear everything and always faint. What am I then? I’m such a failure, such a weak and cowardly human.

My father did do something wrong by having me. He forgot to inherit me his strong will, because if he saw me now, he would be laughing on my face.

I start to take a deep breath when Seth moves and grabs the other stool. The plain shirt he wore stretched against his strained muscles.

I can’t help staring. No, I can’t help wondering what he would look like without it.

“Stop drooling,” Darcy comments.

“I’m not!”

“Oh yes you are. If you want him, just say it. But make sure you’re not afraid of him anymore.” Darcy laughed.

I’m a little annoyed but he is right. I now understood why I kept my distance from Seth.

“I told you before, my problem with you is the way you feel when I’m around. It’s obvious you fear me, and I…” Seth looked away.

“I’m sorry,” I forced myself to say.

“See? She is scared,” Darcy gets up from his spot. “I’ll give you guys a moment. I’ll be outside, don’t worry.”

His reassurance doesn’t help.

The swooshing of the door tells me we are now alone, again.

My shoulders sag, but then they’re straight as Seth moves closer.

I put both hands up, stopping him. I was not about to let him get close again. Despite that, he still disobeys and gets closer until our knees are touching. I can feel tears burning down the back of my throat. I hate it.

Absolutely despise it.

“I’m sorry,” he chokes as our eyes meet. The same hurt look from before was etched on his face. “I… please don’t be afraid of me. I would never…”

“You knew my fear. How afraid I was of fire and you still did it.” I sounded like an animal, with ragged breath and anger. “What my sister did to me… left me traumatized and I, I try hard to be strong, I do, Seth. But the only thing you all do is toy with me. Make me remember.”

I wait for him to say something, anything that would make me think otherwise. But his silence answers all my fears.

For several long seconds we remained in silence. Seth bowed his head as if he was ashamed, but this monster didn’t feel anything.

I sobbed, hating that now I’m crying.

“Why can’t you leave me alone?” I choked. “All I wanted from the start was to die. To end this, but here I am suffering more than ever.”

“You have no idea what death feels like. So don’t say you want to die because you don’t know what’s to be dead.” Seth's words made me look up. “If you knew for one second you wouldn’t be uttering these words.”

“You have no right to tell me what or how it feels, because if you haven’t seen me, then you don’t know how close I’ve been to death in more than one way. You don’t know my suffering. You don’t know anything!”

By the end of my words, I’m hyperventilating. Feeling that everything around me is spinning.

“But I see you...”

I stopped breathing.

“I see you perfectly. I see who you are, like stardust shining in its natural state. I just wish I could show you how bright you make my world and the more I’m around you, even if you fear me, the more I want to be closer, Phiphi. But you don’t want me and that’s okay, I deserve your reproach, your hate. And I can’t promise to fix all this mess, but I can promise you won’t have to face them alone.”

Seth stands and walks out.

My chest tightens. I know the pain is weighing on him because of what he did. That all this did not only affect me but everyone else felt it.

Instead of answering, I stood and ran until I reached him and grabbed his arm, stopping him.

“Stop!” I yelled. Seth looked over his shoulder. “I…”

What was I supposed to do in this situation?

Apologizing, I stared at Seth. He gave a little one-shouldered shrug. I also realized he looked distraught.

I reach for my hair and pull, desperate to find something to say, but as I try to, the alarm goes off. Red lights blared around us as vampires from different bloodlines moved out in a rush.

“Time is up,” Darcy reaches for me. “Come. Seth, check what’s up.”

I looked back as Darcy pulled me the opposite way. Seth was still standing there, watching me. As we turned the corner, I caught the movement of his lips and I swear he just whispered…

***

“Don’t leave my side,” Darcy informs me as we get into the elevator.

“Where are you taking me?” I asked, confused. The blaring hasn’t stopped and I wonder what the problem was now.

“To—” Darcy stops as something beeps inside his pocket. He pulls it out, gives it a look, then sighs. “Never mind, change of plans, we are heading to the command center.”

We were there in ten minutes. Everyone, with the exception of Seth and Hector, is already in the room.

“There you are,” Adonis says as Darcy offers me a seat.

Callisto is in the front.

I instantly noticed how tense he seemed. Even his nails were out, sharp, and ready to tear anything that stood before him.

“Glad you’re fine,” Adonis commented, pulling me away from my thoughts. “But you seem tired.”

I close my eyes, then open them and smile.

It’s true I’m so tired with everything that has been happening that all I want right now is rest. But things kept coming one after another and it seemed impossible to get a break.

I turned to study the room.

“KILL THEM!” I flinched at the sudden roar coming from Callisto. “Kill them all before I do it!”

The command center doors open, and Hector rushes in to whisper something to Callisto. There’s a horrible hiss before Adonis steps in front of me to shield me from whatever was happening.

“You can’t go out like that,” Darcy groans. I peered over Adonis' shoulder. Darcy was holding Callisto back. “You haven’t fed, it’s dangerous if you go out.”

“It’s my compound, the one being attacked, I have to go,” Callisto insisted.

Hector stepped forward. “You need to feed. You know it.”

“Just drink blood. I can get some from the bank and mix them if you don’t want hers. But don’t go out like that, you will lose it.” Darcy explained.

I have my eyes on Callisto when his head snaps our way to where we were standing. It doesn’t take long for me to feel his emotions. The hunger.

My hand instinctively moves to my chest, clutching my burned sweater.

I ignore the twinge in my chest, just as I focus back on the screens and the screams of humans catch my attention.

“Damn it,” Adonis mutters. I glance sideways and notice Callisto is gone.

Instead of staying where I am, I move and run towards the doors. I hear them calling back but I’m out and searching for Callisto.

I was sorry for them, but there was another matter to attend to right now.

I closed my eyes and focused on my emotions, like some weird instinct I listened to a voice whisper inside my head.

It wasn’t the first time I had heard it, and it scared the hell out of me. Truly I could stay and wonder what the hell that was, but Callisto was my priority and I needed to find him now, so I headed straight back to the elevators.

Just as I reached the small foyer, I found Callisto standing inside the elevator with the doors wide open.

His fathomless eyes looked up and I swear everything inside me melted.

While I’m not feeling particularly confident, at least I was here on my own free will.

“Callisto—”

“Why are you here, Phi?” He asked coldly. The way he was against the wall told me he was holding back from whatever tumultuous thoughts he was having right now. It’s like he was fighting something inside him.

I don’t know what he is expecting, but without saying a word, I took a step, then another until the door shut behind me.

I sense the danger. It was awful, clawing inside me.

Yet I can help Callisto.

“Bite me.” I throw the words I’ve been holding back for a while since he kissed me the first time. “Bite me, Callisto.”

“Do you have any idea what you’re suggesting?” he hissed like an animal.

I nodded.

Every second is a risk, but this delay is one we can’t avoid.

“Yophiel!”

I gulped down.

Immediately, the air around us shifts. One moment, I’m standing there and the next my mouth is on his.

Callisto barely hesitates before he kisses me back like he needs my air to breathe.

One step and my back hits the elevator door. An abrupt halt and blue lights told me Callisto halted the elevator somewhere between floors.

He breaks our kiss long enough for his fangs to elongate. “I can’t do this, Yophiel. I can’t, I’m afraid—”

“Do it,” I ordered breathless. “Take what you need, I trust you.”

A few days ago, I would have thought of this as something crazy, but who was I to lie and say I don’t want this?

Callisto, even though he has hurt me many times, and I’ve cried because of it and almost died, there was something that connected us in more than one way.

He didn’t need to say it, I knew it. I’ve fallen for him, in the sickest of ways.

“I trust you,” I reached for his face and caressed it. Then lean my forehead to his. “I know you won’t hurt me.”

“How can you trust me with something like that? You don’t even know what I will do. What I can do.” Callisto chokes between ragged breaths.

I smiled. “That’s the thing,” I looked into his eyes. “I don’t know, but with you I want to find out what it feels.”

He waits, eyes dark and far away. It would be easy to let my fear take the best of me, but I breathed and smiled. Assure him everything will be alright, because I feel it will be.

I start to wrap my arms around him when I feel his claws reaching under my burnt sweater. With one swift move, the sweater is gone, discarded next to us.

He drags his hands over my hips, rib, and back. Never my breast. I shuddered under his touch.

I can barely think past how good it feels.

Callisto shifts and presses his body against mine. I reach around his neck and sift my fingers through his hair, pulling the ponytails away so his hair can fall around us.

He shifts down and bites my shoulder; the sensation is just a small sting.

“I love these marks,” he whispered against my skin as his hands keep moving, feeling me.

His left hand reaches around my neck and suddenly wrenches my head to the side. My breathing quickens as he looks up.

He looked like anything but human, he looked like a real monster.

Callisto chooses that moment; I was so engrossed in him to slowly kiss my neck until the barest of pleasure spread over my body.

I offer myself more and his face burrows deeper into my neck. I tense as his tongue licks up and down, making me moan.

I’m overwhelmed.

I arch then and he bites me, sinking his teeth into my throat. Callisto tenses against me. His other hand lowers to my leg and hitches it up around his hips. Instant pleasure hits me.

A deep growl vibrates deep down his chest before he tightens his hand on my neck and sinks his teeth deeper.

I moan as I feel his cock there, pressing against where I suddenly need him.

I reached up around his neck with shaking hands.

I wanted more; I needed him. But as I press closer to him, I start to feel a little bit woozy.

I was losing consciousness.

Callisto sucks one last time before he gasps. He let out an animalistic snarl as I smiled weakly.

My hands drop to the sides. I blinked a couple of times. At the same time, Callisto turns to look at me, worry etched on his face as he pulls me into a better position and he starts checking me.

His hand came to the bitten area, making me whimper.

“Sorry,” he whispered, then I felt his tongue cleaning the area tenderly.

I’m only vaguely aware of what he is doing. The next time I open my eyes, we are no longer in the elevator, we are back in the command center.

“What did you do?” Darcy started to yell. I wretched myself away from Callisto’s arms with wobbly steps.

“Stop it,” I pant breathless. “I was the one who asked him.”

All of them stared at me like I'd gone crazy, but it wasn’t the time.

“Go,” I told Callisto, who was still holding me by the waist. “Go and come back.”

He gives me a stare before that smile is back. Leaning, he kisses my forehead before Darcy is holding me and then he is gone.

My stomach chooses that moment to growl.

“I think we should get you something to eat.”

I smiled at Darcy’s comment because I honestly wasn’t hungry, I was sleepy.