Bitten: Dominated By His Inner Beast (3 page)

“You were very lucky to
get him back here.”

“Luck had nothing to do with it. Mr. Baristone, I just need
the address of the nearest hospital or emergency ward equipped to
handle this. He’s burning up.”

“Yes, well, I can see that but as I have tried to explain,
things aren’t quite so simple.”

Alexa growled, snapping her mouth shut before she pointed out the
fact that there was nothing simple about her best friend bleeding out
on the hotel’s ugly ass pink floral couch. She fixed the
manager with a look full of what remained of her patience, her tone
already clear that she was beyond her limits. “Then kindly do
explain.”

Mr. Baristone was dressed in a smart charcoal suit and had only a
flash of floral pattern on his otherwise paisley tie to annoy. He was
about the least offensive thing Alexa had run across in the spa/hotel
so far and she was doing her best to focus on that while the man’s
words destroyed her remaining hope.

“So, as you can see, with us being out in such a remote
location, we are left with very few resources for these sorts of
emergencies,” Mr. Baristone explained. “You were lucky to
be an amateur sorceress and that the two of you had some sort of
protection with you. We haven’t had any type of attack in our
forest since the hotel was built twenty years ago. And I do mean in
the entire area. The local town does have a doctor equipped to handle
these sorts of things, but he usually ends up treating people passing
through that were injured outside of the area, not within. We simply
do not have this sort of thing happen at Honey Lotus.”

Alexa honed in on the word doctor, her hand clenching in a fist on
the counter to keep from dragging the man down by his tie. “Where’s
the doctor?”

“Just a few miles west—But he’s not open on
Saturday.” At the girl’s exasperated look, he added
carefully, “It’s a very small, spread out town, miss. Doc
Gradie deals with the entire area and the man is due a day of rest.
He’s open on Sundays. After the town’s services.”

“Goddess, please tell me he’s some form of Wiccan.”
She could not handle waiting for a fucking midmorning church
service.

“He’s at the office half an hour after sunrise,”
Mr. Baristone assured her.

Exhaling heavily, Alexa glanced over her shoulder at where Seth
was resting. His face had gone from pale and drawn to flushed by the
time she had gotten him there. His wound was already starting to
heal, all the more proof they were dealing with something magical and
likely all the more dangerous for it. His eyes were currently closed
and he was leaning back on the couch, gripping one of the pillows
like a lifeline. “What about a hospital? Do you have one in the
area?”

“The closest is over two hours away. They are open 24-7,
though, and are more than capable of handling his condition.”

Alexa nodded, turning her gaze back to the manager. “Do they
ever airlift anyone around here?”

“Not with the trees. And like I said, it’s never been
needed before. There have been no attacks—”

She waved her hand briskly, cutting him off. “Listen, I
really don’t give a fuck. I need to know what the hell got my
friend. There might not have been any attacks before but you have
something wild with a taste for human flesh roaming your damn woods
as we speak!”

“Alexa,” Seth growled from his spot on the couch.
“Take it down a notch.”

Scowling, Alexa took a few steps away from the desk, running a
slim hand over her face, her black painted nail polish chipped and
peeling. Mr. Baristone seemed to have taken her words to heart,
though, the middle-aged man dialing a phone and speaking into it in
low tones. When he was done, he looked up at the girl, waving her
back. “I’ll speak with some of my staff. See if any of
the guests have seen anything, or perhaps have lost an exotic pet. We
have strict rules about not introducing anything nonindigenous into
the wildlife but that doesn’t mean guests don’t try to
circumvent the rules because they just can’t be parted from
their pets. I will hopefully have an answer for the two of you
shortly.”

“Thank you,” Alexa said, mostly meaning it as she
slumped forward on the counter. The nearest hospital was over two
fucking hours away and depending on how Seth’s condition
progressed, trapping herself in a car with him could turn deadly
really fucking fast. He hadn’t shown any actual desire for
human flesh, but the scenting thing was nearly as concerning. With
his fever, he had become more unhinged, his muscles noticeably
larger, his expression strangely fierce. It was unsettling to see on
her normally goofy friend and she could only assume that whatever was
pumping through his veins had some sort of animalistic properties to
it.

The same way a cursed werewolf could turn a human raving mad with
just a bite, there were an assortment of magical beings out there
that could do the same. The only saving grace being the effect was to
lesser degrees and lacked a transformation versus a cursed bite.
There was no way it had been a werewolf—even transformed, the
fuckers were huge. But something small and the equivalent of
magically rabid—She would stake Seth’s life on her belief
that he had come across such a being and it had infected him with one
damn bite.

“You don’t have any magic users in the area, do you?”
Alexa asked, forcing herself away from her gloomy thoughts. “Maybe
a guild library with healing texts?”

“I’m afraid we don’t have any with the magical
gift living here—Well, none that practice,” Mr. Baristone
added with a grim smile.

Alexa nodded, understanding completely. Magic was a rich person’s
privilege. Sure, there were more than a few people with latent
abilities but they would never have access to the spell books and
instruments available to those that hoarded them like precious
jewels. Some, if they were charismatic or willing to whore themselves
to the highest bidder, could get themselves a patron to pay for their
magical schooling, but they were always owned from that moment, their
magic at their patron’s beck and call no matter how terrible
the deeds may be asked of them. Because of it, magic and the spells
that crafted it, were guarded fiercely. Alexa wouldn’t be
finding anything of actual use on the Internet.

“If you like, I can have someone help you get Mr. Steven’s
up to your room. Tomorrow morning we can have one of the company vans
take you. Just in case he’s uncooperative.”

Alexa glanced again over her shoulder, then back. Instead of
pitching her voice low to match the manager’s, she spoke up,
directing her question to her friend. “Seth, you going to kill
me in my sleep?”

Seth, for his part, considered it a long moment. “I’m
not feeling violent. Dizzy. A whole lot of dizzy.”

The manager gave her a stern look. “If he’s already
infected, you cannot full trust—”

“It’s fine. Seth would kill himself before he ever let
himself hurt me,” Alexa said flatly. “Just get him
upstairs and I’ll see you in the morning.”

Sighing in defeat, Mr. Baristone nodded and picked up the phone.
“Will you at least allow me to set up a blood alarm in the
room?”

Alexa raised a brow, glancing back again at where Seth was
resting, the boy’s large hands clutching at a pillow. His
muscles were definitely looking larger, although thankfully no sign
of claws or fangs. Still, some transformations took longer than
others…

“Fine. Just in case.”

If it wasn’t used for her because her best friend had gone
psycho from the bite, it might save Seth if he started bleeding out
in the middle of the night. Alexa could only hope that they wouldn’t
need it at all.

They decided a marathon of bad monster movies and a junk food
feast was the only way to recover what was left of the weekend. Seth
had his bad leg propped up on a chair to the side as they shared the
couch. Alexa glanced at it from time to time in the light of the
shining tv, trying to see if it was healing as quickly as she feared
it was. Whatever had gotten into Seth wasn’t going to just
bleed out like she had hoped.

“You should take the bed,” she said when her friend's
head again drooped forward. They were in the middle of one of the
crappy makeout scenes that always preluded the attack of the monster.
The only reason Alexa ever tolerated these parts was because she knew
at least one of the people on screen was soon to be eaten. Usually,
they laughed their asses off but Seth was in no condition. His fever
had only gotten worse, the heat from his body now so pronounced she
could feel it just sitting next to him.

“I’m fine,” Seth mumbled, forcing himself to
lean back, his head propped up as he slung his arm over the back of
the couch. “You’re too delicate to sleep on this lumpy
thing.”

“Like fuck,” she snapped, punching him on the arm
reflexively, only to freeze and gasp when his hand suddenly engulfed
hers. She hadn’t even seen him move and he had caught her just
like that.

Alexa looked up with uncertainty on her face, finding Seth staring
at her hand, something dark in his gaze that was as unfamiliar as his
new speed. When his eyes met hers, the expression faded, his normal,
if not a bit strained, smile making an appearance. “Why are you
sitting all the way over there? You scared of me now, Lexa?”

“You wish,” she said, her voice lacking the normal
teasing tone as she stared at him. Seth was still holding her hand,
his fingers tightening around hers as he pulled her closer on the
couch. They usually sprawled on top of each other like it was
nothing—mostly because it used to be nothing. But she was
fighting a crush and he was, well, Seth was fucked up, whether he
fully realized it or not at the moment.

“It’s weird having you sitting so far away,” he
said, tugging on her arm again until Alexa relented and leaned
against him, her eyes closing as she felt just how much heat he was
radiating.

She didn’t want to voice how worried she was for him. Seth
had always been there, a rock in the background of her life she could
depend on if things went to shit. She didn’t know what she’d
do if she lost him.

“That’s better,” he said with a sigh, Seth’s
arm sliding around her shoulders. He reached down and grabbed her
hip, pulling her tighter to the side of his body until she was
resting her head on his chest. It was both comforting and
unbelievably unsettling, Alexa forced to feel his every muscle that
was now straining with the toxin pumping through his body.

“I’ve missed you,” he said softly into her hair,
his heavy gaze directed at the television screen. “I feel like
we haven’t done this in forever. Just chilled out and talked.
Laughed.”

“Yeah.” There was a reason for that, one Alexa wasn’t
willing to bring up.

Seth didn’t seem to have any qualms, his voice soft and
lulling as he continued. “Chloe wasn’t a good fit for me.
She kept trying to make me be someone I wasn’t. Hanging out
with you again reminded me how important it is to be with someone
that makes me happy to be me. Just… I don’t want to be
complacent.”

“You mean lazy,” she teased, trying to ignore the way
her skin was tingling from the touch of his hand on her hip. He kept
rubbing, stroking up and down her side slowly like he wasn’t
even paying attention. She couldn’t pretend to ignore it, her
eyes closing every time he strayed too low.

“Something like that,” Seth said thoughtfully. “I
want to be a better person. I think that’s important; not
wanting to get stuck in a rut and never growing. Just… I don’t
want to hate myself every time I see my girlfriend either, you
know?”

Sighing, she internally cursed Chloe a painful death. “Maybe
you should just stop dating for a bit? You know, play the field, stop
trying to give a fuck what girls think of you all the time.
Seriously, who the fuck cares what they think? You’re perfectly
fine how you are.”

He was silent, her eyes drawn to his face despite herself. She
stilled when she found him staring down at her. His fingers pressed
at her chin, tilting her face up. “You’re my best friend,
Lexa. You’re never afraid to tell me the truth. No matter what,
you always tell me the truth the way you see it.”

Swallowing, she nodded, a part of her afraid of what he was going
to ask her. “I don’t bullshit with you.”

“I appreciate that.” His eyes strayed away, drifting
to the television. The heroine was giving one of her patented
screams, only to be cut off, the beast grabbing her roughly around
the waist and kissing her deeply. She immediately fainted, Alexa
rolling her eyes to see.

“Amateur,” she said with a dark laugh.

“You ever been kissed like that?” Seth asked, his
fingers twisting her face back to him.

“What, by a guy in a rubber suit? Can’t say that I
have,” Alexa teased, trying to fight the butterflies in her
stomach as Seth’s dark gaze moved down to her lips.

Seth didn’t smile back, his expression strangely serious as
he met her eyes again. “No, have you ever been kissed so hot
that you thought you might faint?”

“I don’t think that really happens,” she
whispered, feeling beyond uncomfortable when Seth went so far as to
use the remote to pause the video with his free hand. “Girls
don’t just go fainting over stupid shit like kisses. It’s
totally insulting to think it,” she said defensively, biting
her lip when he leaned forward and grabbed the back of her neck to
keep her in place.

“I dunno. If you kiss someone good enough, guy or girl, they
can sometimes get weak in the knees, maybe even dizzy. It doesn’t
have to be a girl thing, Lexa.”

Alexa scoffed, her body growing tenser the longer Seth held her
inches from his face. “Why are you looking at me like that,
jackass?”

Seth’s fingers spread out, tangling into her loose blond
locks. “I’m just curious if you’ve ever been kissed
like that. Like toe curling, heart-poundingly kissed.”

“I haven’t,” she said flatly, suddenly aware of
how fast her heart was pounding in that moment. “Now stop being
weird and put the movie back on.”

“Well, the thing is,” Seth continued, ignoring her
glare, “I think I might be a bad kisser. Like, terrible. I
think that’s why all my girlfriends keep leaving me.”

Narrowing her eyes, Alexa searched her asshole of a friend’s
expression for signs of laughter. That she couldn’t find it
only meant that the bastard was getting better at lying to her face.
“So?” She finally snapped when Seth continued to look at
her expectantly.

“So, I thought maybe you’d be able to show me how it’s
done—” Seth caught Alexa’s wrist before she could
punch him, his grin breaking free. “I mean, seeing as you’re
sure that it can’t be done. I think you’d be the best
judge of if I suck or not. And I know you wouldn’t lie to me,
Lexa. You never lie to me.”

She had a heart stopping moment to wonder if Seth had figured out
that she liked him, then dismissed it. He knew she was impossibly
sensitive about this sort of thing. Seth would never tease her if he
thought it could hurt her feelings. Instead, she was faced with a
challenge, one her jackass of a friend was staring her down over.
Back out and looking like a total wuss over something as dumb as a
monster movie kiss, or do it and prove that her experience with
kissing was far inferior to his.

Seth was clearly not feeling as bad as he looked, the asshole.

There was no way she could kiss Seth. He’d figure it out. He
would totally figure it out. It was difficult enough leaning up
against him, his hands on her like they weren’t supposed to
feel like anything. But they did. They felt like sparking and
wildness and she couldn’t ever let him see that he could get to
her like that. “I think given your history of terrible kissing
if you were to actually kiss me, I’d have to leave you,”
Lexa said with a false sense of casualness she was definitely not
feeling in the pit of her stomach.

“Well, that might prove the point, huh? I mean, if you were
to leave me over it, Lexa, then I’d know for sure it was my
horrible kissing skills,” Seth said, his eyes glittering
mischief.

Fucker. The total fucker.

“Well, if you’re willing to risk the bestest friend
you have over your notoriously bad kissing skills, I can’t be
held responsible for your stupidity, Seth Stevens,” Alexa said
with a shrug, more than aware that Seth’s hand was still on the
back of her head. Back down, you stupid idiot, she silently fumed,
her eyes meeting him in challenge.

But Seth didn’t back down. His hand tightened in her hair
and he crossed the small distance between them, his lips centimeters
from touching hers. “I dunno, Lexa. You’ve always been my
most forgiving of friends. Even if it scars you for life, I think
you’d still forgive me.”

She realized her mistake only moments before his lips pressed to
hers. Seth inhaled deeply—too deeply—breathing her in
like he had in the woods after the unidentified creature had first
bitten him. This wasn’t Seth playing stupid games with her in
his need to not think about Chloe. This was a Seth being influenced
by something magical and deadly. And it had to be winning. For as
long as they’d been friends, Seth had never wanted to kiss her
before.

She tried to pull away but Seth’s large hand held her still,
his lips brushing softly against hers. She waited, wondering if it
would be fangs, or energy draining, or something even worse but his
lips just felt like lips. Hot, firm, smooth. She held herself still
just in case, her breath coming out in a slow exhale when he kissed
her again, more persistent this time, his lips parting and covering
her’s, his tongue teasing out to press to the seam of her
motionless mouth.

The touch of his tongue was like a jolt of electricity to her
senses. Alexa’s body jerked against his, her wet lips parting
as she gasped softly. His hand slid from the back of her head to her
cheek, Seth tilting her and slowly stroking his tongue into her
mouth. She couldn’t stop her moan, feeling herself melt against
him even as fire burned through her, her nipples hardening and pussy
clenching from the intense feel of him tasting, exploring her.

Growling, Seth wrapped a strong arm around her waist, pulling her
slender form up into his lap. His fingers tightened on her cheek, his
lips crushing hers, urging her to open wider. When his tongue found
hers again, it was more a battle than a meeting, their hot flesh
stroking and tangling as he bent her head back and took her deeper.
She clutched uselessly at his broad shoulders, part of her trying to
figure out what the fuck was happening to her. She felt dizzy,
overwhelmed, and so achingly wet; all over a fucking kiss.

“Seth,” she finally gasped out, trying to draw a
breath in and stop the insanity. Seth’s lips found her again,
following, his tongue driving into her mouth while he grabbed the
nape of her neck to kept her from escaping. She groaned, unable to
stop from pressing against his hard form, her breasts aching with the
need to be touched. His hand moved down her neck, holding tight, his
fingers digging into her flesh on her back as he moved down and
crushed her harder to his body.

Whimpering, Alexa felt herself giving in despite her best efforts,
Seth’s hot, wet lips and assertive tongue stealing her
resistance away. Her body lost its tension and she allowed him to
turn her head, drag her higher up his burning form, and devour her
lips unimpeded.

Breathing heavily, Seth slowly pulled away after a few more deep,
lingering kisses. He pressed a soft, damp kiss to her cheek. “You
going to faint on me, Lexa?”

She shook her head dully, tears prickling at the back of her eyes.
Damn him. Fucking damn him for making her feel like this.

“Lexa?” Seth pressed, his thumb smoothing over her
cheekbone. “I’m sorry. I… I shouldn’t have
done that.”

Swallowing, Alexa forced herself to sit back, sliding off his lap
and trying to ignore the hardness that had been digging into her
thigh a moment ago. “Okay,” she said hollowly, refusing
to look at him. She reached for the remote but he grabbed her wrist,
leaning down until they were face to face.

“I’m sorry.” Seth’s blue eyes raked over
her, Alexa holding her breath to see the dark hunger still burning in
him. “There’s something wrong in my head right now. It’s
telling me to… to do things I wouldn’t normally do.”

Pursing her lips, Alexa nodded to show she understood. “It
was just a kiss… A good kiss,” she added with a faint
smile. “I’m not angry, Seth. I know you’re not
yourself.”

“It was a fuck ton better than just good,” Seth said
with a sharp growl. He ran a hand up her slender arm, squeezing
firmly, pulling her closer. “It was the best fucking kiss,
Lexa. The best.”

It was. She had never thought a kiss could do that to her. Alexa
swallowed down her reply, unwilling to let him know just how much she
had been affected by him. “Let’s finish the movie, okay?
I’m feeling kind of tired.”

Reading her face carefully, Seth reluctantly let the girl go. He
pressed the play button, then pulled Alexa back against his chest
before she could protest.

“Seth… This is kinda weird,” she whispered,
staring blankly at the screen as his heat and scent engulfed her
again.

“I don’t care,” he said gruffly, holding his arm
around her shoulders, his head dipping down so he could smell her
hair again.

Alexa felt his breath, worry twisting in her stomach along with
the lust already swirling there. Her lips were still tingling, her
tongue slightly sore, her mind returning unbeckoned to the very vivid
moment. How long would he have kissed her if she hadn’t given
in? Had it just been to prove a point or had he wanted to kiss her?
He had agreed it was a phenomenal kiss… but he had also ended
it while she would have let him do just about anything to her.