Bound in Blood (Broken Bloodlines Book 3)
Bound in Blood: Chapter 24

“Ophelia isn’t here.” I glance up from the sketchpad I found earlier in the writing desk. “She and Malachi are talking with Elpis and Ani, and then they’re going to do some training. Axl went to pick up some food.”

The bedroom door closes with a soft click. “I know.” His voice, low and deep, sends a current of something unexpected skittering along my spine.

I scrub a hand through my hair. Annoyance, or perhaps frustration, prickles beneath my skin. “Do you need something, Alexandros?”

His eyes narrow to sharp pinpoints that I swear pierce through to the deepest recesses of my soul. “Our bond was severed, Xavier.”

I shrug, feigning disinterest when I am all too aware of that fact. “Yeah, I know. So?”

He licks his bottom lip. “So I am here to rectify that problem.”

A thick knot of nervous anxiety lodges in my throat, and I swallow it down. When we learned that we don’t need his bond to survive, I wasn’t sure if he’d want to put it back in place. But I hoped he would. “You’re reestablishing our bond?”

He nods.

I don’t ask why. Can’t imagine he’d tell me anyway. “Here? Now?”

He glances around the room. “Do you have somewhere else in mind?”

“No.” I glance at the sketch of Giorgios’s mountain fortress I’ve been working on and rub the back of my neck, replaceing it clammy with perspiration. My pulse is racing double time. A fact he’s no doubt aware of. “I just assumed …”

“That I would seek out Axl or Malachi first?”

Or that you wouldn’t seek us out at all. I don’t dare voice that thought. “Yeah.”

His only response is a harsh laugh I can’t decipher. He walks toward me, and each step he takes sends another jolt up my spine. “You recall how this works, yes?”

I wipe my hands on my jeans and try to tamp down my excitement. It’s embarrassing, the effect he has on me after all these years. “We share blood.”

He nods, his dark eyes boring into my face.

I shift awkwardly on the chair, and the wood creaks under the uneven spread of my weight. “So you’ll cut your tongue while you’re feeding on me? Like you did the first time, and like we do with Ophelia?”

He rocks his head from side to side until his neck cracks. “Or you could bite me if you would prefer.”

I grip the sides of the chair to prevent myself from falling off it. If I prefer? Fuck yeah, I prefer. Unconsciously, I lick my lips. I refuse to voice my desire to bite him.

He arches an eyebrow. “I can still read your mind, pup. Even without our bond.”

Shit, I forgot to block him out of my thoughts, so unused to the need to do it around him. I clear my throat. “You’ve never allowed me to bite you before.”

“Do you want to bite me, Xavier?”

I push my chair back and stand, coming face-to-face with him. His warm breath dusts over my forehead. “You know I do.”

He tips his head to the side, exposing the skin at the base of his throat. His blood pulses in the thick vein there, making my fangs ache with hunger and desire. “So do it.”

I sink my fingernails into my palms, searing deep grooves into my flesh, fearful of what I’ll do if I put my hands on him—and what he’ll subsequently do to me as a result. His masculine scent saturates my senses, and I lick my lips. A growl rolls in my chest.

I inch closer, and he doesn’t move away, not even when I bring my face close to his neck and inhale, my nose skimming over his skin. His blood calls to me, and my mouth waters to taste him. He threads his fingers through my hair. “You should definitely make this count, pup.”

His tone seems to carry a threat, but I don’t care. I’m already drooling with the mere anticipation of tasting him. My fangs graze his skin, and he hisses out a breath, tipping his head back farther like he’s daring me to take a bite. And how I fucking want to. I’ve thought about this very moment frequently for over two hundred years but never dared to imagine it would become a reality. Because Alexandros Drakos does not let his sireds bite him. He sure as fuck doesn’t let his least favorite one do it.

But here we are. I close my eyes, focusing on my senses of smell and taste and allowing him to overwhelm me. My fangs throb with their own pulse. And when I sink them into his delicious flesh, there’s the most satisfying pop of my teeth puncturing his skin before his rich, coppery blood floods my mouth, coating my tongue, my gums, my teeth. I suck greedily, and his power flows through my veins, viral and potent and life-affirming. His short fingernails dig into my scalp, and he groans. He fucking groans—a sound full of pleasure and desire—like he’s enjoying this as much as I am. Even though that’s impossible because this is fucking everything.

Unable to keep my hands to myself a second longer, I palm the back of his neck, pressing his flesh into my hungry mouth. I suck harder, feeling feral. Unrestrained. Powerful and powerless at the same time.

Then his solid hands are on my chest, and he shoves me. I stagger back, his blood dripping from my mouth. I take a few more steps backward, licking him from my lips, before my back hits the wall. The look on his face is nothing short of murderous, and my heart beats double time in my chest as he glares at me. “My turn, pup,” he says in a low, menacing growl.

Tension crackles in the air between us, and if I didn’t know better, I’d say there was nothing dangerous about his intentions at all. But … the look on his face can’t be what I think it is. I desperately wish our bond was present so I could read him a little easier, but he needs to be the one to cement it back in place. He unbuttons his shirt, revealing his toned torso inch by delicious fucking inch and sending endorphins hurtling through me. “You were so convinced I treat you differently from the other boys, Xavier?”

I swallow, my muscles rigid as the power in his blood races furiously through my veins. Afraid to move in case he stops doing whatever it is he seems to intent on doing. He doesn’t give me a chance to answer, not that my mouth is capable of forming a word right now. “And on some level, I suppose you would be right.”

I knew it!

His eyes shimmer with something I don’t recognize. Or perhaps I recognize it all too well, but I’m too afraid to admit it. Afraid I’m wrong because it might break me if I’ve misread what this is. “Because you are different.”

He tugs his shirt off and lets it drop to the floor as he takes another step toward me. The air is hypercharged, thick with pulsing energy and sexual tension. The fuck I’m wrong about this. Even if he denies it afterward, I know he wants me as much as I want him. He’s fucking stalking me, and I’m his willing prey, ready to offer up my throat and whatever else he asks for as soon as he says the word.

I lick my lips and stifle a groan as his taste floods my mouth again. It helps me replace my voice at last. “Different how?”

He runs the tip of his tongue across his fangs. “Many vampires feed from and fuck the ones they sire, but I …” He shakes his head. “I suppose I wanted to try to recreate the family I once had.” His hands drop to his belt, and my eyes follow, watching intently while he unbuckles it. He opens his pants, and my dick almost explodes in my boxers.

My mouth waters to taste him again, my synapses misfiring with each move he makes. This has to be a dream, right? Alexandros’s pants slide down his muscular thighs, and he steps out of them and stands in front of me, his body barely an inch from my own. Motherfuck. He’s as hard as I am.

He slides his hand to the back of my neck and grips it possessively. “But I see now how foolish an endeavor that was. You are not my son.” He drags his nose along my throat, and I’m filled with nothing but hot, aching need. “But you are most assuredly mine. You will always be mine.”

He presses our chests together, and blistering heat sears my skin. His eyes are almost black as he bares his fangs and drops his mouth to my throat, and I wait in breathless anticipation as the moment seems to go on forever. A moment I have waited over two centuries for.

His hot breath dances tauntingly over my skin. “Two hundred and three years, and I can still recall the taste of your blood, Xavier. So tantalizingly delicious.”

He yanks my head back, exposing the full length of my neck, before his fangs pierce my skin. My entire body is overwhelmed with white-hot euphoria, and my already-stiff cock aches painfully. He sucks greedily, hand still firmly gripping the nape of my neck. My knees buckle, but his hold stops me from falling. Pleasure and pain and intoxicating ecstasy rage inside me. And I recall with excruciating agony the first and only other time he bit me so very long ago. The memory of how much he wanted me stings even as it ignites a fire deep in my core. His desire for me matched mine for him, and I now realize that this cruel bastard made me forget afterward.

I place my hands on his chest and push him away, but there’s no intent in my actions, and he doesn’t move an inch.

Stop fighting me, he commands through our bond, sinking his fangs deeper into my neck and sucking so hard my eyes roll back in my head.

Tears leak from my eyes. You’re back.

I never left you, Xavier.

But you made me forget. Why?

Because it was easier for me.

I tangle my fingers in his hair and groan, succumbing to the ecstasy that washes over me, threatening to pull me under. I have so many more questions, but I can’t think about anything except his mouth on me. And then his free hand dips inside my boxers, and I lose all sense of rational thought. He cups my balls and squeezes hard enough that electric heat sears the base of my spine.

“Oh, fuck!” I groan.

His hand slides to the base of my shaft, and he glides it up and down, working me slowly and firmly while he feeds on me until I’m fucking whimpering with desperation. But I don’t give a single fuck. I would drop to my knees and beg him for a taste of what he’s offering right now. Our bond is already firmly back in place, so I know for certain this is no longer about that. It’s about me and him. It’s him choosing me. A sob ricochets through my chest. He stops feeding and looks into my eyes. Then he presses his forehead against mine. “I chose you the moment I saw you, Xavier. And I will always choose you.”

He swipes the pad of his thumb over the head of my cock, smearing me with my own precum, and my entire body trembles. “So unusually quiet this morning, pup.” He licks my blood from his lips and flashes me a wicked grin.

I open my mouth, but when he grinds his hard length against me, I bite down on my lip so hard I draw blood. “I want to taste you.”

“You just did,” he taunts.

“I mean⁠—”

“I know what you mean.” He takes a step back and pulls down his boxers to reveal his thick length, the slit weeping with precum. I’m pretty sure I’m drooling. “So what are you waiting for?”

I sink to my knees with his hand still on the back of my neck. Gliding my palms up his powerful thighs, I flick my tongue over his crown, causing a moan to pour out of him, and it’s one of the most erotic sounds I’ve ever heard in my life. His thick fingers thread through my hair, and he holds me still while he drives his cock into my open, waiting mouth. Saliva collects on my tongue and drips down my chin and onto my chest. When I glance up at him, he’s watching me with a look of such pure devotion on his face that only makes me want to please him more. In this moment, nothing matters but the two of us.

“That is my good boy. Open your throat nice and wide for me.”

Sweet motherfucker. I have no idea how to do that, but I allow him to sink deeper, straight past my gag reflex and deep into my throat until I’m choking on his length and tears are rolling down my cheeks. But I grab onto the backs of his thighs and pull him closer, wanting more of him. Wanting everything he can give me. And he gives me all of it. The grunts and groans I wring from his perfect body have my own cock aching with the need for release.

Before I can bring him to climax, he pulls my head back and stares down at me, his chest heaving. He rubs his thumb across my chin, wiping away the saliva still dripping from my lips. “Such a mess you have made, Xavier.”

I flash him a smirk. “I haven’t finished yet.”

He arches one eyebrow. “Neither have I.”

I swallow the nervous anticipation lodged in my throat.

“Stand up and turn around.” His voice is deeper than usual. Feral. Animalistic. Goosebumps break out across my entire body.

I do as he asks and face the wall. Before I can take a breath, he’s taken off my jeans and boxers, and his hard chest is pressed against my back, sandwiching me between his hot body and the cool wall. He runs his nose up the back of my neck, inhaling deeply. His cock twitches against my ass. “I have waited so very long for this.”

His growl has me desperate and panting. “So have I.”

He kisses the spot right under my ear. It’s soft and gentle and so at odds with the way he just fucked my throat. So at odds with the man he is. “I know you have, pup.” His hand slides to the front of my throat, and he tips my head back. “I am desperate to fuck you.”

I hiss out a breath. “Then do it.”

He laughs, and his breath on my hot skin makes me shiver. “It is a good thing you made such a sloppy mess of my cock.”

“I don’t care. I don’t need lube.”

His dark laugh rings in my ear. “You would take me any way you could get me, would you not?”

“Yeah,” I grit out. Desperate to feel him inside me, I grind myself on him, and he growls. It’s full of warning and a promise of what’s to come, and it does nothing to sate this burning need inside me. Instead, it only stokes my desire further. “Please?”

“So sweet to hear you beg, Xavier. But it is beneath you.” He tips my head back farther and licks a path from the base of my neck to my jawline before he bites me again.

Relief and euphoria hurtle through me again. My nails scrape down the walls, taking off chunks of paint as I moan and writhe against him. He kicks at my ankles, spreading my legs wider apart before he presses the crown of his cock at my ass. I inhale a deep breath, preparing for the burning pleasure of him finally taking me. And when he sinks his thick cock inside me, my eyes roll so far back in my head that white spots flicker in my vision. He sucks on my neck and fucks me against the wall, relentless and ruthless, and it is everything I’ve ever wanted from him.

I press my forehead to the cool plaster as I gasp for breath, reveling in the dominance of his body over mine. Willingly accepting every inch of him, every single part of him while he sucks my neck and fucks my ass like he might never stop. I wouldn’t care if he drank me dry. It would be worth it for this moment. For this part of him.

When my head is spinning violently and my whole body is shuddering with my impending climax, he slows his thrusts, and his greedy feasting of my blood becomes a gentle suckling, which makes a whole different kind of ecstasy flow through me. I drop my head back against his shoulder, and he bands both his arms around me, locking me in his embrace. Yeah, I could die right here and it would be worth it.

But sweet Ophelia would miss you so, he says in my head, his voice tinged with a laugh.

I didn’t mean to say that.

You have been saying a lot of things, pup.

Would you miss me? I ask without meaning to. It makes me sound weak and needy, and I fucking hate that.

He stops feeding and laughs out loud this time, his breath ruffling my hair. “Yes, I would miss you, Xavier. So I will not fuck you into the afterlife today.” He presses his mouth against my skin again, and I feel him smile. “How about I just fuck you until you moan my name?”

I sag against him. “I’ll scream your name if you want me to.”

He coasts his hand down my abs and holds my cock in a tight grip. “Whatever you prefer is fine. But I want my name on your lips when you come for me.”

“Fuck!”

He drives into me. “That is not my name, pup.”

“Well, I’m not coming yet,” I say, unable to resist pushing him a little.

He jacks me off and fucks me to the same deliciously torturous pace, keeping me on the precipice of ecstasy for so long that the need to come feels like a thousand shards of silver piercing my skin. And when I feel him teetering on the edge alongside me, he sinks his fangs into my skin once more, and we both fall over the cliff together.

“Alexandros!” It comes out somewhere between a roar and moan.

Good boy is the last thing I hear before everything goes black.