Page 45 of Marked By Him

I cricked my neck and rolled my shoulders. “Everything is fine. I’ll hold a council meeting tomorrow night to explain.”

Eve kept her head buried in the curve of my neck. She didn’t turn to the sound of voices or move her gaze to the flashes of white as people walked by. That comforted me in ways I didn’t know how to explain. I was her safety. She’d watched me steal the life from her friend. Her body was battered, bruised and bleeding because of me, yet she sought security in my arms.

Fuck, I was getting hard again just thinking about it.

I kept on walking, not stopping except to open the front door of my house. I kicked it closed with my foot, then carried Eve upstairs to the tub.

I kept holding her while I turned on the water and waited for it to warm.

“Why do you need Isaiah?” she asked, finally looking up at me with wide brown eyes.

“We need to get you cleaned up and warm,” I said as I lowered her into the tub and under the flow of water.

“Why is he meeting you at the gate?” She kept pressing, like she always did. It was one of the things that turned me the fuck on about her.

She pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. That was when I saw the true damage I’d done. Teeth marks on her shoulder. Fingertip-sized bruises on her neck and hips. Cuts on her back. Her hair was soaking wet and full of mud and leaves. Her split bottom lip. She looked like she was the one who had been in a fight.

I kneeled on the floor beside the bathtub, and my eyes caught hers. “I did this to you.” I soaked a washcloth with warm water, then squeezed it over her skin.

She winced when the water spilled over her wounds.

“I put you in danger. I put usbothin danger out there. It just… I can’t control it. It’s like a spell washes over me, and,fuck.” I was consumed by the primal need to dominate, to control, to claim. I tasted it on the tip of my tongue. I breathed it in with every breath.

I’d never been ashamed of who I was, of the things I craved. But, Christ, I was beyond fucked up. Even now, as I stared at her broken body, my dick was aching to take her. The only difference was that I would never do it outside of these walls again. I would never make us that vulnerable.

I prepared myself for her anger. I deserved it. Look what I’d done, what I wanted to do again.

“Roman, nothing happened. No one showed up.”But they could have.“And I’m fine.” She gave me a half-smile. “I’ve had worse.”

My vision was a violent red haze. My heart clamored around in my chest. My fist curled around the washcloth.Someone hurt her.Someone who wasn’t me.

She placed her hand on mine. “I don’t mean like that. I mean I’ve been cut by branches before. I’ve had bruises. I looked just as bad when I showed up here two days ago.”

Had it only been two days?It felt like a lifetime.

She had been hurt. And now she was hurt again because of me. And eventually, I would kill her because I was too weak to tell her no.

23

Eve

Almost every inchof my body was marked by Roman.

I ached.

The cuts stung.

My throat hurt from where he’d squeezed so hard I could barely breathe.

My pussy was throbbing and bruised but still clenched at the sound of his voice.

Roman washed my hair and my body. There was pain in his voice, regret in the way he touched me ever-so-gently. The battle he’d fought with himself since the moment we met made sense now. But didn’t he get it? I didn’t need him to be gentle. I needed him rough. Until Roman, I had never felt more secure. I’d never felt more wanted. It was as if he couldn’t take another breath without being inside me.

The forest, the danger, the vampires, the threats all faded away. Nothing existed but us.

I understood it now; the basic primitive need to claim. I understood the desire to mark and be marked. I understood how these people could leave their inhibitions behind and lose themselves in pure, visceral need.

It was freedom.

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