Mating Fever (3 page)

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” I lied and tried to keep my cool. But my whole body trembled with a deep hunger for him that I couldn’t comprehend. I didn’t know him. Something was going on that I didn’t understand.

He got back up and kneeled before me. “You’re not all right.” He laid his hand on my cheek. “You’re not warm. Do you feel okay?”

I heard what he asked me. Those sensuous lips formed around his words and each time they moved, I inched a little closer to him. My body’s reactions were beyond me. It seemed that I was in a dream. A strange nightmare that I couldn’t shake and yet part of me didn’t want to. I wanted him to keep on touching me. I needed it.

Instead of responding, I grabbed his face between my hands and pulled him to my mouth. His body stiffened against mine, but he yielded to my demanding tongue that plunged between his lips. The taste of him settled of my tongue. I yearned for more. His fingers raked down my back. The tips of his nails pressed through the fabric of my blouse into my skin. I straddled him, trying to merge our two bodies. I ran my hand down his chest feeling the powerful muscles underneath. I kept going lower until I found his erection. When I did, he broke the kiss and pulled away from me.

“What’s the matter with you?” Concern lit his eyes. His brow was furrowed, and the corners of his mouth were pinched together.

“What’s your name?” I squeezed him a little harder and he groaned.

“I thought you hated me and wanted me gone.”

He was growing stiffer the more I touched him. “Part of me does. I can’t explain it. There’s this other part that’s driving me wild. I don’t normally act this way with men. Especially those who threatened me. Now what’s your name?” I kissed his throat.

He hissed when I bit him. He pulled away from me then and retreated to his seat across the room. I remained on the floor. I closed my eyes and tried to gather my wits.
This is crazy. I never lose control like this. Whatever is happening to me? All I want to do is fuck him.
Whatever he did to me was beyond normal. It was supernatural. This man was more than human. The shock widened my eyes, but it didn’t stop the ache I had for him. A deep need to have him between my thighs and pumping into me burned in my body.

He shook his head and pushed the hair away from his forehead. He tented his hands and clasped them before him I tried not to look at him, but a pain started inside of me then speared to the core of my being. I doubled over resting my head on the carpet and tried to take slow breaths to calm the raging ache inside me. I scraped my fingers along the rug.

“Tell me what ails you, Madi.” His hot breath exploded by my ear.

“I need to be near you. It hurts when you go away.”

When he ran his hand down my spine, the hurt eased. His touch seemed to be the only thing that kept the pain at bay. “I’m going to take you to someone who I think can help. Are you okay with that?”

I lifted my head and gazed into his eyes. The tenderness I saw in them was real. He did actually care about me.
How could he care for me when we didn’t know one another?

“Yes. Make this stop. Then my life can return to normal.”

“I don’t think your life will ever be the same, but if you wish me gone. Then I will go. But it would hurt me not to see you again.”

A half-hearted chuckle moved over my lips. “We’ll see.” Tears slid down my cheeks.
What the fuck is wrong with me? I can’t continue this way.
He wiped the tears away and scooped me up in his arms. At once, the agony I’d been in disappeared. I breathed a sigh of relief and buried my head into his shoulder and let him spirit me away.

Chapter Three

He banged on a door once the darkness receded. After he pounded a second time, it finally opened. A short woman in her mid-forties stood in the doorway with frosted blonde hair and purple eye shadow that made her blue eyes pop. Her long lavender nails caressed her wrists as she had her arms crossed over her chest.

“What the fuck are you doing here? Didn’t I tell you to never darken my doorstep again? Damn it, Keaton.”

“Stephania, will you listen please? I need your help.”

“Why the hell would I help you after the last time?”

“Will you at least help her?”

She sighed. I tried my best to smile. The look in her eye was doubtful and filled with a hate that pulled at the corners of her mouth making her face pointed. “What’s wrong with her?”

“I don’t know. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here,” Keaton answered.

“You don’t have to talk about me as if I’m not here,” I said.

“Fine! Bring her inside.” Stephania moved aside so we could enter.

I glanced around the room. A beaded curtain hung from the doorway across from us. The walls were a muted pink, almost peach in the light of the room. No pictures adorned the wall, just a lone large rectangular mirror that hung over the sofa. Keaton’s reflection was hazy, semi solid. He laid me gently onto the couch. It was soft and I could easily fall asleep from the weariness that settled over me. Stephania knelt next to me. She pulled my top eyelid open and peered into it. She repeated that with my other eye, lifted my top lip and ran her finger along my teeth, and then checked my pulse.

“She’s not turning.”

“I know that.”

“Then why did you bring her here?”

“Because every time I separate myself from her, she is in pain. And when I am near her, she tries to jump me.”

She arched her eyebrow. The woman struggled to keep a smile from turning up her lips. “That true? Feel like you want to fuck him right now?” Stephania asked me.

My mouth dropped. I wasn’t used to anyone being so forward. “I-um—”

“It’s a simple question. You want to fuck him when you're next to him and maybe do other things?”

I bowed my head. “Yeah. That’s true.”

“How much does it hurt? Does feel like your heart is being pulled out your nose?”

“Like someone’s twisted my insides around barbed wire and pulling out my veins with fishhooks. What’s wrong with me? This isn’t a normal reaction. Did he poison me?”

“Move away from her for a moment.” She instructed Keaton.

Gritting my teeth, I tried to manage the oncoming pain. Keaton walked across the room. Once he wasn’t in contact with me, my body was alight. I doubled over and gripped my knees. My heart thundered in my ears. I couldn’t catch my breath. My nails sunk into the flesh of my palms, but even that pain didn’t overwhelm the separation I felt from him. The burning seared my veins, and I shrieked.

“Enough. Take her hand.”

Keaton slipped his fingers through mine. When he touched my flesh, the pain evaporated. I was able to sit up again and breathe. I pulled the hair from my face and wiped the tears from my cheeks. Now that he was touching me again, lust was born inside of my heart. I wanted to fuck him. But I was able to handle that part of it, at least, for now.

“Tell me what you’re feeling for him now?” Stephania asked.

I glanced at my hostess and felt my cheeks burn. “I want to throw him down and ride him.”

Stephania chuckled. “How do you feel about her?”

Keaton’s expression changed the longer he thought about it. At first his face remained stoic. A deep fire ignited inside of his eyes. His nostrils flared and he ran his nose along the curve of my neck. Then followed by his tongue. He nibbled my ear. His hot breath exploded on my throat.

“I want to take her right here until she comes, screaming my name.”

“You don’t want to drain her? Bathe in her blood? Slit her throat and drink it down in a crystal goblet?”

I glanced between the two of them, wondering what he would answer. A tremor of fear gripped me. Suddenly it seemed I was thrown back into the alley and that someone would jump me again. Should I run or bury my head in his shoulder? Once I went away from Keaton, I would be consumed in the agony of needing to be close to him again. My body was playing a deadly game of tug of war with itself. I settled my eyes back on him.

“No. I don’t feel that.” He moved the hair from the other side of my neck and trailed his finger down my cheek. A tender expression crossed his face. Keaton’s eyes lightened, and I saw the concern there.

“Have you tried her?”

“No. But I desire to.”

“How did you feel about her when you first laid eyes on her?”

Keaton sighed. “At first, she was an innocent bystander about to be bitten, but then I touched her. I didn’t want to harm her. Only get to know her better.”

Stephania rubbed her chin and settled her gaze on me. “What about you? Before this pain started, what did you think about him? Was there an instant attraction that you couldn’t explain?”

“I was grateful that he saved me from the asshole who attacked me. When he crushed my phone, I was scared to death. But then he touched me and I felt something for him. A primal attraction that I couldn’t explain. But I didn’t think about it.”

She nodded and looked between the both of us. “What have you done with her?” Stephania asked Keaton.

“Nothing!” he replied.

“Bullshit!” Stephania withdrew a pack of cigarettes from inside her bra. She stuck one between her lips and snapped her fingers. A flame danced at the top of her thumb and forefinger. Fascinated, I watched as she lifted the flame to the tip of the cigarette and lit it. After that, she blew out her fingers. “You did something to her to accelerate the fever. It would have progressed at a normal pace if you hadn’t done something.”

“Fever! What fever?” I hit Keaton on the shoulder and pushed him back. “What disease did you give me?”

He put his hands up to ward me away. “My kind doesn’t carry any disease.” He turned toward our hostess. “You have to be wrong. It can’t be the fever. She’s not. She can’t be.”

Stephania inhaled a long drag and blew out a smoke ring that floated the length of the room. “Surprised the big bad monster finally has a mate?” She curled her nails around his cheek and placed a quick kiss on his lips. Jealously overwhelmed me, and a small hiss escaped my lips. Her gaze flicked toward mine and she laughed, a deep throaty sound that made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. “Remember we tried that and it didn’t work out?”

Keaton growled at her. “Get off. If she’s my mate, then the fever shouldn’t be this advanced.”

“Exactly what I’ve been telling you. Now what did you do with her?”

He dragged his finger through the strands of his hair. “I saved her from a minion. Tonight I swathed her in shadow and pulled her back to my house. That seems to be when her pain started.”

“What does that mean exactly?” I asked. “What does any of it mean?”

Stephania sighed. “Sweetie, I know you don’t understand what’s going on. But think of this as a wondrous gift.”

“Gift! I step away from him and it feels like I’m being flayed alive. When I’m next to him, I want to peel his clothes off. That isn’t normal.”

“No, it’s not. And the mating fever shouldn’t be this bad so quick.” She snuffed her cigarette out in the palm of her hand and turned to Keaton. “You of all people know never to enclose shadow around a human. You were the one who set the rules. It messes with their heads. Why?”

Keaton rose up and slammed his fist against the wall. The wall shook. Pain began to snake along my veins again. The muscles strained in his neck. That tender expression turned toward one of anger.