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“Me?” Saint slid an elicit, knowing glance to Octavius, and innocently asked the men, “Is something wrong?”
Octavius shuddered a breath and tried to calm his racing heart. This scenario was triggering all of his needs and desires in peculiar ways. Hungry, tired, and confused, he wanted to climb down with Saint and tear into all three of them—wanted to do more than that. They sought violence, he could smell it on them, see it in their cocked poses, and he wanted to give them exactly that.
He tore his gaze away and stared out of the window. Jayden stirred on his lap, and that too, set his veins ablaze. Jayden was in danger. Jayden washis. Protect Jayden. Protect his blood source. He hadn’t allowed himself to think it until now, but the feederwashis. He had Octavius’s blood in his veins. That was why he’d damn well stayed, and why he’d rushed in and dragged him from the wrecked car, and it was why he burned up now, with these humans about to threaten them.
“Easy there, Little Wolf. I’ve got this.” Saint’s silvery eyes flashed in the dark, and he jumped down from the truck. “What seems to be the problem?”
One of the men whipped out a gun—and Saint became a blur, rushing at them like a furious wave. The men buckled, bent, fell to their knees, attacked by the unseen. One fired the gun, then the gun vanished.
A passing truck’s lights swept over the scene, and Octavius saw how Saint had one of them wrapped in his arms, fangs in the man’s neck, drinking him down.
The sight was a kick to the guts, a punch to the heart, and triggered all his needs and desires at once. Octavius wasn’t supposed to want that. He couldn’t drink from the vein, but he already had, so what was another taste? The nyk in him screamed for release. He breathed hard, pressed himself into the seat and tried to fight the pounding, desperateneedto unleash, to let go, to surrender. The ancient beast in him thrashed for freedom. His fangs throbbed, needing the relief of sinking into human flesh.
He couldn’t stop it, and didn’t want to.
Sliding out from under Jayden, he dropped from the truck and rushed the nearest homophobic asshole. Octavius slammed him against the side of a truck, plunged his fangs in his throat, and the blood came, hot and fast, pumping hard, pouring into him. Need screamed for more. He clutched the man tighter in his fists and drank him down, deeper and deeper, gorging like he hadn’t allowed himself to do in millennia.
“Easy there, or he’ll be dead, and you’ll sulk and whine for days.” Saint’s hand landed on Octavius’s shoulder.
Octavius whirled, gasping, ablaze with heat, his body and heart on fire. Saint half smiled and wiped a drop of blood from his lips with his thumb. Octavius watched, entranced by that one smooth gesture.
The desire wasn’t waning, but it was changing, morphing into something more carnal.
“We got what we needed. They’ll sleep it off.” Saint’s eyes narrowed. “Octavius?”
What would happen if Octavius closed the distance between them, took him in his fists, and tasted his lips? There was still blood there, spilled, fresh human blood. He’d lick it from him, then feed on another, then another—
“Hey.” Saint snatched his shoulder. “Reel it in, take back your control.”
Control, yes. He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts, but his veins throbbed. Damn, he was hard for Saint, ablaze with a need that one man’s blood hadn’t sated.
“You in there, Octavius?”
He nodded and swallowed hard. “Yes. Yeah. I’m fine.”
“You’ve got this.” Saint patted him. “It can’t be easy, after drinking from blood bags for a few hundred years. Quite the sensory overload?”
It was. There had been Janice, back at the motel, but that was just a taste, a few desperate drops to get him through the days. A tiny candle flame. This was a match to a can of gasoline.
Octavius shrugged off Saint’s grip. “You drive,” he growled, climbing into the back of the truck. Thankfully, Saint hadn’t seen his physical arousal. But Jayden was awake, and did see. The feeder’s keen gaze traveled down Octavius’s chest, to the sharp bump in his trousers, then flicked back up to his face, asking so many questions with his soft, emotive eyes.
Octavius shook his head. Saint couldn’t know. It would make things complicated, more complicated than they already were.
“Thank you, fine gentlemen, for the truck,” Saint said, pulling the truck away from the unconscious trio. “Maybe they learned something about themselves?”
“Yeah, not to pick up handsome hitchhikers.” Jayden snorted and side-eyed Octavius.
Octavius shifted away, propped his head on his hand, and stared out the window at the darkness rolling by.
He was hard and hungry and wild. He was nyk.
And there was no going back.
CHAPTER15
Octavius
Whether it wasby chance or local knowledge, Saint pulled the truck off the main road and down a forest track that brought them to a cabin with a spectacular view of a valley and a distant town.
