Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 97229 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 486(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97229 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 486(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
“Your turn,” she said, and gestured me to spread myself in return.
She took the towel back and cleaned me up as I’d cleaned her. I felt a shudder of pleasure at the brush of her touch. It was such a shame I didn’t have more blood for her to clean from me, I’d have loved it to go on for hours.
With Hans watching.
“All done,” she said, and dropped the towel in the washing bin. “At least for now.”
She took my arm in hers and led me out of the bathroom. I almost jumped in shock when I saw Hans leant back against the wall opposite, staring at us.
Had he been hearing my thoughts, and could he hear them now?
About my fantasies of Sarah and Edwin, and how I’d liked her touch.
And about Mary. Fated mates, and the woman called Mary.
I didn’t want him to hear my thoughts on that. Not here and not yet, with Sarah still on my arm.
“How did it go with the clean up?” he asked us both, but his eyes dug into mine.
I knew he was about to read my mind, but I didn’t want it. I had to try for some new skills, and let my instincts guide me.
Feeling, not thinking.
I pictured those walls of mist in the woodlands by the trapdoor, fogging up the air all around me. Blocking out the world outside.
Hans must have known what I was doing. He lowered his eyebrows.
Sarah sensed that something was going down between us. She excused herself, waving goodbye as she trotted off down the landing.
“You’re learning quickly, little one,” Hans whispered when she was out of sight.
I felt the power in my imagination, the walls of mist growing thicker.
“The question is,” Hans stepped up close enough to sweep my hair from the bites on my neck. “What thoughts are you so desperate to hide?”
He kissed my wounds. Gently.
“Has Sarah been sharing any secrets?” he whispered. “People can get very loose tongued when they’re pain drunk. Believe me, I’ve seen it plenty of times.”
“She showed me how to clean up my wounds,” I shared. “And she let me clean up hers.”
“You cleaned her pussy for her? And how about that? Did you like it?”
I moaned as he ran his tongue across my bite.
“Yes, I liked it.”
“I thought you would.”
He slammed me back against the wall. His kiss was gentle but fierce.
“She told me some more about the dirty bite,” I panted between kisses. “When are you going to do that to me? What other dirty games do you have to show me? What things will I come to know?”
“Patience,” he said. “Everything will come in its own time.”
Patience. Yes. Always patience.
But I didn’t want patience right then.
There was something tingling in me along with his kisses, and I couldn’t fight it. It wasn’t all about dirty bites, or what I wanted to see of Sarah, and Edwin, or the huge beast called Petre.
The depths of the trapdoor called me, the mists wearing thin.
“What is it?” Hans asked. “What did Sarah tell you?”
I didn’t know how best to express it, but the mists were fading fast.
“Tell me,” Hans said. “If there are questions you want to ask, then please do ask them. I’ll give you the answers, so long as you are sure you truly want to hear them.”
Did I really want to hear the answers?
The depths of the trapdoor kept calling, whispers coming out of the shadows. Something I couldn’t place, couldn’t fight, couldn’t deny any longer.
I did want to know the answers. I couldn’t stop myself.
“What is a fated mate, Hans?” I asked him. “And who the hell is Mary?”
Chapter Twenty-three
“That’s quite a pair of questions,” Hans said. “I’m surprised Sarah managed to do such a thorough job on the secret revelations. You weren’t in the bathroom all that long.”
He didn’t look angry, but I felt a flash of guilt, worried I’d dropped her in the shit.
“Yes, there is a code of conduct here,” he said, and it was obvious the mists around my thoughts had faded away. “Players and vampires are expected to keep their confidences.”
“How about Mary, then? Is she one of your confidences?”
“Mary was one of my confidences, yes. A long time ago.”
I felt like I was digging in places I shouldn’t, because I had no business there.
I felt like crap when Hans stepped away from me, wishing I hadn’t said anything, but he shook his head.
“Don’t ever give yourself over to regrets. I lived with that mistake for over three hundred years before I learned my lesson.” His eyes were so beautiful. “You asked some questions. That isn’t a crime.”
“I shouldn’t have been so demanding. It wasn’t my place to ask so soon.”
“You’re a girl trying to make sense of a very unusual world, curious and overwhelmed, battling with whispers in both your ears and your head. It’s hardly a surprise you are searching out answers.”