Chapter Thirty-Three: Anti-Christ

Helaine

The man let out a gurgle as I pulled the rope more tightly around his neck, and I didn’t let go until his body fell completely limp. His face hit the floor hard with a terrible thwack as his nose broke against the ground.

My breathing was labored as I stood over him, amidst the carnage. I almost couldn’t believe what I was seeing, what I’d just done.

But he would have killed Evan if he had the chance, and I couldn’t let that happen. He was the only one I had who could ever understand what I was going through, and I . . . I cared for him.

Deeply.

My hands trembled and my head ached as the world seemed to spin around me.

I killed a man today. I took a life. A soul.

“Helaine, you should’ve stayed in the room,” Evan scolded me, but I could see the gratitude in his eyes as he approached, holding me in his arms. “They wouldn’t have even hesitated to kill you.”

“Which is why we killed them,” I retorted, clinging to Evan as I stared down at the still-warm corpse of the man I strangled to death.

I knew I should have felt guilty about it, but somewhere within all that clawing darkness inside of me . . . I enjoyed it. I felt proud.

Even as the pounding in my skull made me wince, I curled up against Evan’s chest, not caring that he was covered in someone else’s blood.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered, stroking my hair and pressing a kiss to my forehead, probably staining my skin with blood in the process. “I shouldn’t have taken you out of the city. We should go home, rest and recover.” He shook his head, a look of pure shame and guilt on his face. “I should’ve warned you of the dangers.”

Maybe he should have, but it didn’t change anything. I was still the anti-christ, and no amount of denial and distraction via rough sex was going to make that any less true.

“No.” I unwound myself from his arms, trying to ignore the pounding headache as I stared into the glowing red of his eyes. “Now more than ever, I need to see my dad. I . . . felt something when I killed that slayer, and now my head feels like it’s going to explode.”

“You think it has something to do with you being the anti-christ.” He nodded, his lips set into a grim line. “That would explain what happened with your eyes.”

“What happened to my eyes?” My hands flew to my face, inspecting the skin.

“They’re fine now, but when you were strangling that guy they went dark,” he explained, gently guiding my hands away from my face. “Sort of like . . . ”

“Like Aurelia’s eyes when Lilith took over.” My head throbbed again, and this time it was like someone swung an ice pick into my skull.

“Look, are you sure you’re up to this?” He fretted over me, pulling me back against his chest as I road out the pain. “You don’t seem to be in great condition right now.”

“I’m not, but . . . ” My eyes darted around the blood-soaked hall. Even if Evan caused most of the gore, even if they attacked us first, I couldn’t shake the fact that I killed someone, and part of me—something as primal as it was unnatural—enjoyed it. “If he can tell me anything that will fight this, I have to see him. Besides, we’re already halfway there. We don’t want to have to do this all over again for a second trip.”

“Fair point,” he sighed, taking my hands and squeezing them reassuringly. “We’ll get through this. I promise.”

He leaned in to kiss me, and I sucked in a small gasp when I tasted blood on my lips—not my own, for the first time. The rational, human part of me wanted to pull away, to spit out the obscene taste, but the gnawing darkness within me kissed him back harder.

He groaned when I caught his bottom lip between my teeth, grabbing my hips and pulling me in close as his tongue ran over my teeth.

“Fuck, Helaine,” he rasped, weaving his bloody fingers through my hair and pressing one more firm kiss to my lips. “I need you.”

The tone of his voice went straight to my core, and I craned my neck when he leaned in to drag his nose along the sensitive skin as he pushed me against the wall.

It felt so wrong, doing this next to a pile of corpses, but my need for him almost outweighed any sense in my rational mind.

But there was one glaring issue.

“What are we going to do about all this?” I gestured toward the bodies. “Someone’s got to come down this way eventually.”

Evan growled against my neck, and the vibrations made me bite down on my bottom lip to keep from making any sounds that I knew would only spur him on further.

“I’ll handle it,” he promised, grazing his fangs along my skin. “Do you trust me?”

My heart hammered in my chest at the prospect of us being caught here in the aftermath of all this violence—of us being caught at all—but even if Evan had made a couple of miscalculations on account of our strange dynamic, he’d been a vampire for a long time, and once upon a time he’d served as an assassin for Lilith’s cult.

If anyone knew how to avoid being linked to a crime scene, it was Evan. “I do.”

“Good girl.”

He pushed up my shirt and yanked down my bra, exposing my breasts in the open hallway before he took the peak of one in his mouth, running his tongue along the nipple, already stiff from the excitement of our brutal battle with the slayers.

None of this should’ve excited me, but it did, and I couldn’t stop myself from letting out a moan when he rolled the sensitive nub between his teeth.

My hand flew to my mouth to cover the noise, but he grabbed my wrist, pinning it to the wall behind me as he stared up with intense eyes.

“Don’t,” he scolded me, dropping to his knees as he popped the button of my jeans. “I want to hear you.”

“But what if someone else hears me?”

“I already told you, I’ll handle it.” He kissed my hip as he started to pull down my jeans, but then he paused, looking up at me from where he knelt below. “Helaine, if you want me to stop, you can use the safeword and I will, no questions asked.”

His voice was deadly serious now. The sharp edge of his need was still there, but there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that if I said, ‘Sanguine’ he’d be true to his word.

But looking down at him on his knees, ready to please me, I couldn’t bring myself to say it. My desire for him outweighed any fear or trepidation I had about being caught.

I shook my head, my teeth sinking into my bottom lip.

“Words, Angel.” The corner of his lips twitched like he wanted to smirk, but he managed to keep a straight face, staring up at me intently. “I’m not doing anything more unless you tell me you want this.”

“I do,” I confessed, running my fingers through his hair. “I want it too much.”

“What a naughty girl you are,” he purred, delight sparkling in his crimson eyes as he tugged my jeans and panties down my hips in one smooth motion. “You want me to make you come right here, don’t you.”

The sane part of me wanted to say, ’no, of course not, let’s go back to the room,’ But that would’ve been a lie. In reality, it was like all the darkness inside me had tightened into a ball of pleasure, sitting low in my abdomen, just waiting for him to unleash it.

“Yes, Sir,” I whined, throwing my head back against the wall. “Evan, please.”

He didn’t make me wait any further, dragging his tongue across my clit with a groan of approval.

He practically buried his face in my cunt in a sexual frenzy. Now that he was freshly fed on blood, he was reinvigorated, and the monster he was this morning gave way to a whole different beast.

In an inhuman blur, he had me pinned to the wall, my breasts pressed up against the cool bricks as he dragged his fingers through my slick. “So fucking wet.”

“Fuck me, Sir,” I cried, wriggling my hips in an attempt to entice him. “Please.”

It was all kinds of wrong and I knew it, but the darkness within me demanded release, and I could always count on Evan to give it to me.

Especially when he was giving into his own dark desires.

This was no exception.

I didn’t even bother trying to stifle my moan as he entered me, his cock rubbing against that sweet spot inside of me with every deep thrust, slow and steady as he wove a hand into my hair, shoving my face against the wall.

He caught my ear between his teeth, making me gasp before he whispered, “I like this side of you.” He pressed a kiss to the sensitive skin behind my ear, assuring me that he was in control.

His fingers laced with mine, holding my hands against the wall as he fucked into me like a feral beast, bringing me closer and closer to the edge with every thrust.

Until we heard a clatter from the end of the hall.

Our faces snapped up to see a hotel employee frozen in shock, a bucket of ice and wine scattered across the floor at his feet.

“Don’t worry,” Evan purred, pressing a kiss to the back of my neck. “I’ll handle it.”