Page 53 of The Temptation of Roan Island

I tilt my head to smile at her and find she’s entirely too close. The beast in me rears up, alert, hungry. So hungry.

Nadine tweaks the nipple Wendt’s hand isn’t covering. “I need you here.”

She lifts the plump flesh, begging for something she doesn’t understand. She thinks she wants her nipples sucked, teased, but what she’s really begging for is what she only vaguely remembers. A bite.

I look at Pippa, who’s kneeling next to me. She’s gnawing her lip again, bruising the skin. I imagine sinking my own teeth there, tasting, working kisses down her neck to her breasts. Keeping my eyes locked on Pippa, I ignore Nadine’s breasts and take her hand instead. I kiss the inside of Nadine’s wrist, and she shivers, an echo of the shudder that shakes through Pippa.

Wendt tweaks his wife’s nipples, and I run my tongue across her skin, imagining it’s Pippa’s. Nadine’s cloying clove scent normally doesn’t bother me, but tonight, side-by-side with Pippa’s brightness, it feels heavy and unappealing. I sink my fangs into Mrs. Frellman’s wrist anyway, and watch as Pippa’s eyes widen.

Nadine moans as my venom floods her veins. “Oh gods, yes. Yes!”

I take a long full draught, hoping it will curb my appetite when all I can focus on is Pippa’s little tongue darting out of her mouth to brush across her lips. I want to feel that tongue brush across my mouth, tangle with mine. Mrs. Frellman’s taste turns foul. I guide her hand up to Wendt’s hair.

She paws at her husband. “In me, Wendt!”

Wendt loses what control he was holding onto and pushes his wife forward to her hands and knees. She giggles, clearly more than tipsy. He throws up her skirt and has his pants down and his cock in her in seconds. I understand his urgency. Pippa’s chest heaves, and every nerve in my body fires with the need to rip the tight confines of her dress.

Putting the Frellmans between us, I settle on my knees beside Wendt, and pull down his unbuttoned shirt to reveal his corded throat. He gasps as I bite down on his neck and release my venom. I take fast gulps, but like spun sugar it does nothing to appease my appetite. Pippa’s hand comes to her throbbing throat, the throat I want so much more than the one I have between my jaws. Her other hand slides across her belly.

“Oh, fuck,” Wendt says. “Yes. Nadine. Fucking hard as a rock.”

I release him, my fangs flashing. Pippa’s hand drifts down from her throat, stopping over her heart. The lantern light makes her dilated eyes look like dark pools. I want to drown in that gaze, in her scent, sink so deep into her that she floods every part of me. My balls draw tight, throbbing to release my seed inside her, to fill her as I gorge myself on her blood. One bound is all it’d take. One bounding jump, and I’d pounce right over the Frellmans to claim her.

Pippa scoots back slowly, eyes never leaving mine. My silly little prey thinks she can escape.

“Wendt. Wendt. Yes!” Mrs. Frellman’s cry pulls me back from the edge moments before I leap.

I shake my head and dig my claws into my thigh. Pippa isn’t prey. She’s my friend. A very sick woman I agreed to bite for medical reasons. Fuck.

I stand, step around the delirious couple, and hold out my hand to help Pippa to her feet. I’m not sure I can bite her. Like it or not, Pippa is under my skin. If I lose control and take too much, my bite will be more dangerous than helpful. And if I do more than bite her…

“You should go,” I growl.

She startles. “What? But Noah⁠—”

“Pippa! Noah doesn’t understand.”

She wrinkles her brow and shakes her head. Stubborn thing.

“This is the kind of monster I am.” With a flash of speed and teeth, I bite down on Mrs. Frellman’s neck. Feral—but not for Nadine Frellman, for the waif of a woman watching me do it—I don’t immediately release my venom. I stare at Pippa’s wide eyes as Mrs. Frellman screams. It doesn’t last long. The moment I deliver my venom, her scream turns to pleasure. She’s too far gone to remember any of this.

“Yes! Yes yes yes!” Mrs. Frellman pants out.

Her husband pounds into her at a furious pace, racing towards his own finish like he’s jealous. Ignoring his needy cries, I stalk back towards Pippa, blood dripping from my chin. She steps back. I pace forward. She scrambles into the greenery of the shrub behind her, disappearing from view.

“Seeing is different from knowing, isn’t it?” I pursue her.

She stops, turning to face me, such misplaced bravery. I’m on her in seconds, grabbing and spinning until her back hits the stone wall of the house, hidden from the Frellmans and the rest of the party by the tall greenery that outlines the garden.

“Now do you see what it means to be bitten by a Mavarri on a new moon? The pleasure. The danger.”

“Y-yes.” Her voice squeaks, and she swallows thickly.

“Did you think I’d be gentle? Did you think it would be neat and tidy and subtle?” I drag my nose along her jaw, inhaling her scent. Even the illness fails to repulse me right now. All I know is the thirst. The hunt. I want her in a way I’ve never wanted anyone—even Vivienne. One part of me screams for her blood, the other for her cunt. And it makes me angry. So angry that she’s somehow cut the leash I’ve wrapped around my monstrous nature. That she’s here, and I can’t have her. That she’s seeing me like this, crazed with new moon hunger, because she’s never going to look at me the same again. “You should have left when I told you to.”

Some color comes back into her cheeks. “I’m… glad I didn’t.”

“Oh, are you?” I speak right against the pulse in her neck, smearing blood across her skin. There’s a part of me that wants to scare her away, wants to make her as scared of me as I am of her. Of the things she makes me feel. “Do you know how easily I could devour you? I could hunt you for hours and never grow tired. Drain you in minutes. Rip you apart in seconds. I could do whatever I want to you, and you wouldn’t be able to stop me.” I nip her ear.