Beast of the Damned #2

*Chapter Thirty*

~ KINLEY ~

The hollows under Tristan's cheeks cast heavy shadows, the blue of his irises fighting against the ebony desire swirling and shifting refusing to settle.

"I need to start getting ready."

Large hands press me more firmly into the wall outside my chamber doors. "Let's skip the Crimson Ball. You can dance for me instead." Tristan nips my ear, soothing the sharp sting with a suckling caress that has my knees weakening.

A chilled burn ripples through me as my body all too well remembers the things he can accomplish with his dangerously skilled mouth and lethal hands.

"You are Queen Rakasha's son. You should be by her side on this day."

"How can you expect me to leave when I've waited an eternity to have you? My fangs still ache, and my soul is parched with the need for more." Tristan bunches the material of my long mint green nightgown, his fingertips teasingly playing along the curve of my hipbone as he traces the thin string of my matching thong.

"Is the past seven hours with me not enough?" I grab his wrist, halting him from continuing to pull down my underwear.

"There can never be enough of your skin...your tears...the sound of my name filtering from your swollen lips in ecstasy." Tristan abandons his threatening hold of my underwear and goes straight for the juncture between my legs.

"Tristan, I need rest." I squirm under the influx of need he's coaxing to the surface.

"Nothing my blood can't fix."

"I've had your blood. Any more and I'll become dependent.

"I fail to see a problem with that." Tristan grins, the tips of his fangs just visible behind the fullness of his lips.

"I need to be of sound mind for my dance. Now, go. I'm sure you have many things to tend to before the festivities begin in your mother's honor."

Tristan groans and reluctantly releases me. "Fine, human. But after your dance, I will steal you away and have my way with you. There won't be chains to save you this next time."

The heavy metal of my chamber doors cools my feverish flesh as I slump against it, smiling to myself while I softly touch my lips. The cold from Tristan's energy still lingers, a blizzard of passion and sin tangling as our bodies did.

To lie with a devil of darkness is to harness the authentic power of lust. It isn't just a feeling or emotion. It's a state of being where you become  the emotion and feeling. There is no separation between the physical plane and the spiritual. Everything is connected, flowing, a part of you. Tristan is a part of me, and I a part of him.

When I open my eyes, pulling myself from the heat-inducing and core quivering moments of Tristan and mine's coupling, clothes are strung about my room. There are clothes on the floor, draping off my bed, on the back of the chair near my dresser, and falling off the hangers in the armoire.

"Hurry, child. We must leave at once." Marianna appears from my bathroom carrying one towel, a washrag, a jar of oil, and a bar of soap."

There is a trunk in the middle of my room filled with clothes and other personal items haphazardly thrown in.

"I have a car waiting. Your things will be sent separately." Marianna places the items she carried in from the bathroom into a backpack and packs the towel of assorted fruits and bread into the bag.

"I'm not going." The liberation I felt in Tristan's arms wanes, reality sinking in now that he is no longer a distraction.

"You must go." Scarlett lines my caregiver's eyes. "This castle isn't safe for you anymore."