I Want This

I Want This
Layla

The hours that followed felt strangely normal. I didn’t what I was expecting. 

Maybe that the way they would treat me would be completely different. I thought normal wouldn’t exist for me anymore. 

And maybe it wouldn’t be, but this? This was great, too. 

Mom refused to leave my side for more than a few minutes at a time, constantly touching my face, fixing my hair, asking if I was hungry, cold or overwhelmed. 

Apparently, I had been unconscious long enough for her to worry if I would ever wake up, regardless of the vampire blood running through me.

Dad lingered in the room too, watching me with that same look he had when I was a child and learned how to do new things. 

Draven was worse in his own way.

He kept making comments under his breath every time I reacted to something happening three rooms away or got distracted by sounds no one else seemed bothered by.

At one point, my head snapped toward the hallway. “There are servants coming up the stairs.”

Draven stared at me. “You don’t have to announce every sound you hear.”

I returned his stare. “It’s just new.”

Kai stayed near the windows most of the afternoon, quiet while my family surrounded me. He answered when spoken to, but otherwise watched quietly. 

I felt him constantly, the bond between us growing in intensity. 

Mom seemed to notice that we kept glancing at each other. Her eyes moved between us while Draven and dad had begun to argue about something. 

“Well,” mom said suddenly, rising from the edge of the bed. “I think Layla is tired.”

“She doesn’t look tired,” Draven said, narrowing his eyes. “She physically can’t be tired anymore.”

Dad’s jaw tightened, eyes staring hard at mom. He simply shook his head and stood up from the chair, kissing the top of my head before walking out of the room. 

Draven followed, pulling at the ends of my hair. “We’ll talk later, little sun.”

I smiled at him, watching as mom walked him out, closing the door behind them. 

Kai didn’t move from the window at first. His eyes simply moved from the closed door to me, and the bond between us flared. 

Out of habit, I inhaled. It provided no relief to the pain in my chest. I realized then that it wasn’t oxygen that I needed. My heart, my body wasn’t aching because I needed to breathe. 

I needed him. 

He slowly pushed away from the window, closing the distance between us. 

“Are you still angry with me?” he whispered. 

I frowned at that. I wasn’t angry with him, I never was. “No.”

He cupped my cheek, his nostrils flaring as he took in my scent. “Are you angry at all?”

I shook my head. “Not right now.”

He trailed his fingers to my neck, up into my hair. My body reacted with a shiver down my spine. 

The bond was so strong now. Not like the quiet pulse I felt when I first woke up. It wasn’t distant, nor quiet. 

It felt whole.

Warmth spread through my chest as I looked at him. I didn’t want to leave him. I didn’t want to die. I wanted this life, even though it terrified me. Even as I was still mourning the human part of me. 

He chose for me what I would have chosen. 

I gasped as the emotion rushed through me. I felt his relief coupled with mine. 

His devotion. The unbearable depth of his love for me. My lips trembled, my hands crawling up his chest, settling around his muscles. 

“Kai…” I whispered, almost overwhelmed by the intensity of it.

His eyes darkened slightly as his forehead rested against mine. “You feel it, like how I feel it now.”

I nodded slowly, my fingers tightening against his chest. “It’s so much stronger.”

It was like a weight, a sense of belonging that I didn’t understand how to feel without completely suffocating. Tears filled my eyes, overwhelmed by everything. 

“I want this,” I admitted quietly. “I want you.”

“Layla…”

I felt his restraint unravel through the bond in real time, every thread of control snapping one after another as he looked at me. 

I understood now why vampires spoke about mates like religion.

This wasn’t affection. It wasn’t simple love. It was possession in the most willing, devastating sense of the word.

Mine. He was mine. 

The thought wasn’t even fully my own before I felt his answering reaction through the bond, strong enough to make my thighs press together. His breathing turned ragged, his
hand tightening in my hair as his nose pressed against mine.

“You feel everything now,” he said hoarsely.

“Yes,” the word barely left me before I kissed him.

And somehow it was nothing like the first time. 

That kiss had been desperation, two people trying to survive the force of the bond before it destroyed them.

This was complete surrender. The moment our mouths touched, pleasure tore through me and my knees nearly gave out beneath me. I felt his growl against my lips, felt his control fracture completely as the bond grew hotter, brighter, fuller than before.

Every emotion he felt crashed into me at once. 

Adoration. Hunger. Relief. Obsession.

It drowned me.

I kissed him harder because I needed more, because somehow even this unbearable closeness still wasn’t enough. My hands tangled in his shirt, dragging him impossibly closer while his mouth moved against mine like he was starving for me.

I tasted myself on him somehow. 

I felt myself in him.

I couldn’t tell where my emotions ended and his began.

A broken sound escaped me when his hand slid down my spine. I wanted to get rid of my dress, of everything that separated us. 

Instantly, I felt the effect it had on him.

“Layla,” he groaned against my mouth.

I had never understood before how someone could die from wanting another person too much. Now I did.

“Yes, yes,” I rushed, responding to his need.