Promised in Blood (Broken Bloodlines Book 2)
Promised in Blood: Chapter 6

Ophelia’s cheeks are flaming with indignation. I sit on the bed beside her, and she swats the tears from her eyes and blinks at me. “Sorry if I was an asshat.”

I shake my head. “You weren’t. You’re dealing with some real big fucking changes, Cupcake. You’re entitled to throw a hissy fit if you like.”

She opens her mouth to protest, but I wink at her, and she rewards me with her sweet-as-apple-fucking-pie smile. “So you’re bonded with the professor now too, huh?”

“Yeah. You’re not mad, are you?”

Axl flops down on the other side of her. “He’s our sire, princess. Why would we be mad?”

I grab her hand and trace my fingertips over her wrist in a circle. “Yeah, it completes our little unit perfectly.”

Right on cue, the other member of our unit walks into the room. “You okay, sweet girl?”

She bites down on her juicy bottom lip. “Yeah.”

Damn, now I want to bite her. It’s been too long already. “Well, I’m not,” I say with a dramatic sigh.

She blinks at me. “Why not?”

I can see Malachi and Axl grinning at me in my peripheral vision. They know where this is headed. The same place ninety-nine percent of all interactions on a bed with Ophelia end. I trail my fingertips over her cheek and down her neck, making her shiver. “Because I haven’t tasted my little cupcake in …” I check my watch. “About twenty-four hours now, I reckon.”

She rolls her eyes, and my cock twitches. Love my feisty little elementai. “I know you did not just do that, Ophelia Hart.” I leap on top of her and pin her hands to her sides while dragging my lips across all the exposed skin of her neck and chest.

She giggles, squirming beneath me, and a few seconds later, Malachi and Axl are lying beside us.

“Clothes need to go.” Axl grabs the hem of her T-shirt. I release her arms and allow him to pull the offending item over her head while Malachi takes care of her panties. Not two seconds later, our girl is naked and I have her thighs spread open, my mouth tantalizingly close to her dripping center. The fact that some of Alexandros’s cum will also be seeping out of her only makes me more ravenous.

I lick the length of her wet slit, groaning when I taste him on her too. “Fuck me, Cupcake. I hope you hydrated after the professor fucked you because I’m about to drink your cunt dry.”

She pants out my name, but her sexy little sounds are cut off by Axl and Malachi. They take turns claiming her mouth while I lick and suck on her deliciously sensitive skin. Whimpers roll in her throat, her blood races through her veins, and my cock leaks with the need to be inside her.

If you make her come now, she is likely to set the room on fire or sink the entire house into a black hole. Alexandros’s voice fills my head. Which is why her lessons are imperative.

A quick glance at the dejected looks on Axl’s and Malachi’s faces lets me know they heard him too. Ophelia, however, arches her back and presses her sweet pussy into my mouth, telling me she didn’t. There’s no way she wouldn’t have some kind of smart-ass comeback for that.

I flick the tip of my tongue over her clit, and her needy whine has me feral with the need to sink my fangs into her.

Do not, Xavier! Alexandros’s warning rings loud and unmistakable. How the fuck am I supposed to stop now and leave my little cupcake all sad and horny?

I got this, buddy, Malachi tells me. “Didn’t you tell me you set the professor’s office on fire when he made you come, sweet girl?” he asks, running his fingertips over her abdomen.

A wave of embarrassment washes over her, and I push myself up onto my forearms and stare at her pretty face. Her cheeks are pinker than her hair. Axl goes on nuzzling her neck. “Y-yes.” She presses her lips together.

Axl laughs darkly. “Naughty princess.”

“I guess we should stop until you can control your power, huh?” I ask, arching one eyebrow.

Her eyes blow wide at the realization of what that means. “I can …” She presses her lips together. “I can try to control it.”

Malachi presses a kiss on her temple. “But what if you can’t?”

Her eyes fill with tears. “Was this his idea? To get me to agree to his ridiculous lessons?”

“No.” I shake my head. “And believe me, I am as butthurt about not making you come as you are. But he is right.”

Axl hums his agreement and finally lifts his head from her neck. “If you truly are an elementai and are as powerful as Alexandros says you are, then learning to control your power is the most important thing there is. We can’t risk bringing unnecessary attention to you.”

A tear rolls down her cheek, and she swats it away. “This feels like I’m being punished for something I have no control over.”

Axl trails his fingertips over her jawline. “We would never cause you unnecessary harm, Ophelia. You know this.”

I nod my agreement. “And your lack of fear, while admirable, is gonna get us all in a fuckload of trouble. Do you understand what you are? How every bloodborne vampire on this earth would try to take you from us if they discovered you?”

Now she’s hurting, and I feel her pain as acutely as my own. “I’m sorry. I’ve been so selfish. I didn’t think of how it would affect you. If they hurt you …” She chokes on a sob.

She truly has no idea how high the stakes are for us. “Losing you would be the worst kind of pain imaginable, Cupcake. That’s all we’re worried about.”

Tears stream down her cheeks now. “Losing any of you would kill me. I’m sorry that I’m putting you all in danger.”

“No,” Malachi says. “You are not putting anyone in danger, sweet girl. Alexandros warned us what it would mean if we bonded with you, and we all chose this for ourselves. The fact that others will try to take you from us is not on you. Do not for a single second pick up that burden, because it is not yours.”

“But doing what I can to keep us all safe is mine though.” She sniffs. “And that means doing everything I can to control my powers.”

I’m never one to follow the rules or do what’s expected of me, but this—this is too fucking important to fuck up. The three of us murmur our agreement, reluctant though it may be.

She wipes her cheeks with the back of her hand and offers us a faint smile. “Damn Alexandros. Is he ever wrong about anything?”

I shake my head. “Nope.”

“Better get used to it, baby.” Malachi grins at her.

I suck in a deep breath, hoping for some relief for my aching cock and fangs but find none. “I guess we’d better wrap this up.”

“No.” She runs her fingers through my hair. “I still want to feel close to you all. I need to.”

I flash her a wicked grin. It’s so sweet that she thought not letting her come meant that we wouldn’t be. “Oh, we can torture you by fucking you and not letting you come, but we have time for that later.”

“No.” She shakes her head again. “I mean I need you to bite me.”

Axl runs his nose along her jawline. “I think you’re a little too worked up already to let us bite you and it not set you off, princess.”

“So, make it hurt,” she pleads.

Malachi growls. “No, baby.”

Oh, what I wouldn’t give to sink my fangs into her sweet flesh right now. “You know we can’t, Cupcake.”

Her perfect tits heave as she sucks in a rasping breath. “But you can if I want it. You told me that, remember?”

“If we make it hurt, it will hurt, Ophelia,” Axl warns her.

“I know, but I need it. I need all of you. I feel different, and I need you to be part of it, part of the new me. I need to still be a part of you all.” She sniffs again, tears welling in her eyes once more.

She speaks the truth. Her blood races through her veins, calling to me, to each of us. My fangs throb with pulsing need. But it’s Malachi who gives in first. “Okay. If that’s what you need. But if it hurts too much …”

She places her free hand on his cheek. “If it hurts too much, you’ll know.”

My brothers and I share a quick look, and that is all the additional permission we need. Through our connection, I feel Axl’s teeth sink into her throat and Malachi’s into the crease of her forearm at the same time I bite down on the creamy skin of her thigh. Her moan is full of pleasure, and the bed starts to rattle.

She asked you to make it hurt. The professor’s voice floods my thoughts once more.

And so I do. I clamp my jaws into her flesh, and the trickle of blood becomes a strong, steady flow, coating my tongue and sliding down my throat, lighting up my body with her power. She tastes the same. Her power has always been in her blood, but it’s stronger now, more potent in its effect on me. My head spins. My heart races so hard that it might beat out of my chest. Malachi and Axl feel it too. She cries out in pain, but she writhes in part ecstasy as we give her what she needs. Enough to take the edge off the euphoria that threatens to overwhelm her.

The walls shake and the ground vibrates.

“I am!” she shouts.

Who are you yelling at, baby? Malachi asks.

“The professor!” she pants.

And then I hear him in her head, guiding her to find her light and control her emotions. It seems that the pain taps into her power even more than the pleasure. It occurs to me that I can never hear him in Malachi’s or Axl’s heads, so I shouldn’t be able to hear him in hers, but I have no time to unravel what that means. We need to stop our girl from going supernova.

We all ease off a bit. The violent tremors that were wracking her body abate, and the walls stop shaking. And somehow, we find a balance between her pleasure and her pain that doesn’t send her powers into overdrive. I suck softly, letting her taste flood my entire being, and like each new time I feed from her, our connection grows deeper and more profound. And when she’s given enough, we all stop and stare at the powerful creature lying in our bed, willing to give everything of herself to us, just as we are to her.

Leaving Axl and Malachi to help a temporarily weakened Ophelia get showered and dressed, I head back to the kitchen. She didn’t need all three of us, and her naked body in the shower is a little too much temptation for me. I haven’t fucked her in two days, and I’m a man on the edge.

Alexandros sits at the breakfast table, nursing a cup of coffee and staring out the window with a scowl on his face.

I sit beside him, and he gives me his full attention. “She has agreed to the lessons, yes?”

I can’t help but smirk. “Yep. Seems the prospect of not having any orgasms is a real motivator for our little cupcake. Who’d have guessed it?”

“You know that is not the true reason she is agreeing, Xavier.” The way his eyes burn into mine makes heat coil at the base of my spine. Why is everything so goddamn tense between us? And if I didn’t know better, I’d say that lately he’s shown way more than his usual amount of contempt for me. “We are not all so driven by our basest desires as you are.”

And there it is. He can’t help himself from putting me in my place. But I shrug off his hurtful comment like I always do. “I guess not.”

He sucks on his top lip, his gaze still locked on mine, his eyes blacker than the depths of hell. “She is agreeing because of how she feels about you all. The desire to not put any of you in danger is what truly drives her. Her inherent goodness is what will always drive her. She will always put others before herself. You must remember that.”

I know she will, and that scares the fuck out of me. “Can we not train it out of her or something? You know, make her more like …” I search for a better word than the one I was going to use but don’t find one. “Us?”

He draws a deep breath through his nose. “I wish it were possible, but I fear it is not. There are many who have feared that elementai magic could be used for evil. The Skotádi even tried, and whilst evil can harness good magic, it remains inherently pure. It was why the Skotádi fell. Magic is never as powerful when it is used for a purpose it was never intended for.”

I feel like I woke up in a whole new universe today. There are so many things I don’t know, not just about our world, but also about this man sitting in front of me. I wonder if he was as cold to his real family as he is to us. Perhaps their deaths changed him into the man he is today. I can see how that kind of trauma would be life altering. I want to ask him so many things about who he was, who they were, but I suspect he wouldn’t answer me.

“Who are the Skotádi?” I ask instead.

His eyes narrow in suspicion. “You have never shown an interest in this before.”

While he might be right, I think it’s pretty clear that we are now living in an entirely different reality. “I’ve never been bonded to the only elementai in existence before.”

He nods, and I’m sure I see the faintest flicker of a smile on his lips, but I must be wrong because I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times he has actually smiled at me. “You have heard me speak of the Order of Azezal, yes?”

I vaguely recall it, so I nod.

“They are the …” He sucks on his teeth. “For want of a better explanation, observers. They are a group of immortal beings⁠—”

“Like vampires?” We’re the only immortal species I’m aware of.

“There are very few vampires amongst their number, but yes vampires, witches, demons, and wolves. They are granted immortality when they devote their lives to the Order.”

“And they observe? Like just sit around and watch what happens?”

He tilts his head. “Their role is more than that. They are the keepers of secrets. Those responsible for ensuring that our history is never forgotten. Never lost. They are neither a force for good nor evil.”

They sound redundant to me. “So what is the point of them?”

“Do not underestimate the power of knowledge, Xavier. It is the foundation of every civilization that has ever existed, and it is all protected by the Order.”

I still don’t get it, but philosophy and ancient history have never been my strong suits. “And the Skotádi?”

His jaw tics. “There were some members of the Order who thought that to simply observe was not enough. They wanted to act. To affect change. They believed that there was no point in having such immense power if it cannot be wielded.”

“I kinda see their point.”

He closes his eyes and takes a breath, and I sense the anger bubbling beneath his skin even if he does not permit me to feel it. I edge my chair back an inch, certain he’s about to rip out my throat. But a few seconds later, he opens his eyes and appears his usual calm and unreadable self once more. “To wield great power is a burden not all are fit to carry, Xavier. Sometimes it is harder to do nothing than to act. Those who devoted their life to the Order did so knowing that they could not interfere. But there were members of the Order who grew tired of observing, and they broke off from the Order, forsaking their vows and using their powers for change.”

“So, good or bad change?”

“I suppose it depends on your perspective. One man’s enemy is another’s friend. And at first, I do believe that they at least had honorable intentions. However, it is difficult to wield such unchecked power and not allow it to corrupt. Before long, the Skotádi—initially named such because they wanted to remain secret and act without fear of human detection—became synonymous with darkness for many other reasons.”

“Skotádi means darkness in Greek, right?”

He tilts his head to the side. “You know this?”

I recall the number of times I sat in the back of his classroom just to listen to him teach. Engrossed in the way his passion for history changed his speech and his facial expressions. But I haven’t done that for decades now. “I picked up a thing or two, I guess.”

His brow furrows a little, but not from anger or annoyance for once. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was impressed.

“You remind me so much of someone I used to know, Xavier.” His voice is thick, and his eyes are full of something new. Hurt? Longing?

“My girl definitely needs her waffles now,” Malachi says as he enters the kitchen, and Alexandros drops his gaze from mine.

I swallow down my regret that our moment was interrupted and force a grin. “Yeah, I’m sure she does.”

A second later, Axl walks into the room with Ophelia close behind him. She looks pale, but she has a sweet smile on her face. I pull her onto my lap and bury my face in her hair, inhaling the scent of her shampoo and letting her presence dispel all the negative thoughts swirling in my head.

Alexandros clears his throat. “Have you reconsidered the idea of lessons, Ophelia?”

“You already know I have.”

“Good.” His tone is stern, and I feel her hurt at his coldness. He can’t bear to be vulnerable with any of us for longer than a moment. Like we would ever use it against him. We would all die for him in a fucking heartbeat, and he knows it.

Malachi passes Ophelia a plate of chopped strawberries and banana. “While you wait for your waffles, sweet girl.”

She thanks him and pops a strawberry into her mouth. “So what do I do now? Stay here but don’t attend classes? Wait for one of these crazy-ass vampires to come find me, and then what?”

Alexandros rests his chin on his hand and swipes his tongue over his bottom lip like he’s deep in thought. Eventually, he sighs, and it’s deep and weary. “Montridge is the safest place for you right now. The boys have …” He pauses. “They have duties that they need to attend to, which they cannot simply abandon or too many questions will be asked. And we have allies here, and whilst I do not intend to burden them with the truth before it is absolutely necessary, the time will come when it will become so. For now, you will continue to attend classes as you wish. There is no reason to draw unnecessary attention by having you disappear from campus life.”

Her face breaks into a wide smile. “Thank you.” Then she purses her lips, and I can picture the millions of questions whizzing through her head. My curious little cupcake. Her eyes dart between Axl, Malachi, and me. “What exactly are your duties?”

“Huh?” Axl grunts.

“What do you guys actually do here? I mean, you obviously don’t attend classes.” She regards us with suspicion. “Well, except from when you accompany me just to annoy me.” Her eyes twinkle with amusement. “So what do you actually do all day?”

Alexandros clears his throat. “They have duties beyond this college, Ophelia. Duties that involve the vampire pledges and ensuring they get the appropriate training to equip them for their chosen careers when they leave this institution.”

Her nose wrinkles, and she shakes her head, confused.

Malachi drops a kiss on her head. “We teach them the rules of their trade. We coordinate their assignments from their future employers.”

The way her face comes alive with fascination … Fuck me, I adore her. I could sit with her and answer her questions all day every day and be completely content. Well, as long as we fucked in between, obviously. “What kind of employers?” she asks.

There’s an uncomfortable pause, and I suspect that, like me, Axl and Malachi have no idea what we’re allowed to tell her. Fortunately, Alexandros finally speaks. “There is no reason Ophelia should not be aware of all our secrets.”

Her mouth drops open, and she glances between us all with undisguised glee. “Secrets?”

“We work with the kind of employers who don’t recruit from regular colleges, princess,” Axl explains. “The Cosa Nostra, the Bratva, the Yakuza, Colombian Cartels. Organized crime groups from every corner of the globe.”

“And occasionally the government,” Malachi adds with a wink.

“Who are the biggest criminals of all.” I snort.

“Wow,” Ophelia says. “I knew that Ruby Dragon had some pretty notorious alumni, but I didn’t realize you actually trained criminals.”

I rest my chin on her shoulder, inhaling the smell of her skin. Even her fruity body wash does little to mask her intoxicating natural scent. I have no idea how she doesn’t have a trail of vampires following her around wherever she goes. The thought alone makes a possessive snarl tumble from my lips, and Ophelia strokes my hair. “I didn’t mean to judge you. I wasn’t. I guess it’s kind of cool.”

I nip her shoulder. “I know you didn’t. I was just distracted, Cupcake. I wasn’t growling at you.”

Alexandros clears his throat. “But your training will take priority now, Ophelia. You will practice every day. Each of us will train you in a different subject.”

She nods, and I don’t miss the thrill of excitement that runs through her. He did make that sound kind of fun.

“Every day, Ophelia. Without fail. Understand?”

She bites on her juicy bottom lip and nods once more. “Every day.”

While I know it’s probably not what Alexandros has in mind, thoughts of all of the fun and filthy ways I may get to train my girl start to race through my head. This is going to be so much fucking fun.