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Me, though? I liked to cover those emotions; I liked to bury them deep, liked to pretend I wasn’t broken or dark or evil.
And biting him? Drinking his blood? That was all of those things.
“Your thoughts are so loud, they’re beginning to distract me,” he added.
“Don’t pretend to know what I’m thinking.”
“But I do, don’t I?” Finally, he spun around to face me, giving me the chance to look at him for the first time.
He wore all black in the classic Alek fashion, but this time, he wore a tuxedo. He did not wear a formal white collar like his brother, but instead left the top few buttons of his shirt open, letting even more of that raven tattoo creep out from underneath.
I found myself trailing the side of his neck with my eyes, found myself looking toward his shoulder to where—
“Like I said,” he interrupted, that familiar smirk playing on his lips, “they’re loud.”
I took a long breath and tried to calm my nerves, tried to remember how the hell I acted so normal with Alek all those other times I was with him.
“Fine,” I admitted through gritted teeth. “You want to know why I’ve been avoiding you?”
“Dying to know, actually.”
Alek didn’t drop the smirk, but his brows drew together in something like a plea.
“I liked it, Alek. No, I didn’t just like it. Biting you, tasting your blood? It filled an empty part of my soul I didn’t even know needed filling. I nearly lost control. I’ve never felt that before. I’ve never given into that craving before. I know it’s normal for demons to bite each other, but it’s not normal for me.
“I don’t know if I can ever go back to what my life was like before then. It’s all I can think about; it’s infecting my dreams and tainting my days, and I didn’t want to face you because I didn’t know how to tell you all of this without terrifying you or disgusting you or making you run away. You wanted to know? There. That’s the truth.”
He stilled, not a single feature moving an inch as he stared at me with those intense, addicting eyes.
My chest rose and fell with my breaths; my heart raced with the adrenaline of my words. This was definitely not how I expected this conversation with Alek to go, and now I was left terrified and waiting for his response.
“Come with me,” he began.
And then we were off. Alek gripped my arm as he dragged me from the room, holding me close enough to his body that nobody would notice a thing.
I barely kept my feet beneath me as Alek half-carried me through a small, hidden door on the far wall of the room, one that was likely used for the servers to navigate as they carried the food.
“What are you doing?” I mumbled as he hauled me through the doorway.
A dark, narrow hall waited for us on the other side. Alek didn’t hesitate before shutting the door, closing us—and any light filtering from the ballroom—inside.
The music halted. The noise from the crowd faded away. Alek still gripped my arm, but I pressed my back against the brick wall behind me, trying to get my eyes to focus on him in the darkness.
My chest brushed his as I breathed, trying and failing to calm my heart. I could feel the electricity in the air, could feel every inch of my skin reacting to his closeness.
“Do you want to know what I think?” he whispered. “I think you’re afraid because you’re finally becoming who you were always meant to be.”
I shook my head. “This isn’t me.”
His hands brushed the skin of my shoulders, right above my collarbones. I couldn’t see him in the darkness, but I imagined the intensity in his eyes and the focus in his features as he let his index finger trail up my neck.
“You feel a pull to the darkness,” he breathed. “You drank my blood and you liked it. It thrilled you. It lit you aflame, and you’ve never felt a euphoria so intense.”
I stopped breathing. “Am I insane to feel this way? Is there something wrong with me?”
His fingers stilled. “Wrong with you?” A laugh escaped him, one that made the hair on my arms raise, made my senses light up with adrenaline. “Now you know how I have felt every fucking day since I tasted you, Lyra Sol. I can’t get enough of you. I can’t think straight when you are not near me. These past two days have been torture, not knowing what you were thinking. Not knowing why you weren’t around.”
I tried to shake my head, but his thumb pushed my chin up, forcing my face to his in the darkness of the tunnel.
