Something Wanton (Mystics & Mayhem) (11 page)

No, we’re not,
I told my alter ego even as my body started to hum with hunger.  But, it was okay.  I had taken my shots just like I was supposed to.  I wasn’t going to attack
Tyler…

Was I?

“Em, why are you looking at me like that?” Tyler asked softly, watching me from beneath his half-closed lids.

“No reason.”  My voice was raspy and I realized my throat had gone completely dry. 

Because you’re starting to look like a first class meal,
my dark side added for me—thankfully silently. 
I may not like your new playmate, but she had a good point. That crap they have you shooting into your system won’t stop me.  It just takes the edge off.  And when you have a meal like that little hottie sitting right in front of you, all lit up and waiting for me, it’s not going to do shit to help you.

But
I
could stop me.  Sierra had said the only way the demon could win was if I gave up.  If I didn’t want to feed on Tyler, I didn’t have to.  I could just get up and walk away.  I didn’t have to be a monster if I didn’t want to.  

Oh
, I was
so
delusional.  

What happened next shocked me even more than I think it shocked Tyler. 
I swear, I didn’t mean to do it.  It was like someone else had taken over my body and I was watching from the sidelines.  I watched myself sit up, watched as I swept my arm across the board between us, sending dice and cards and tiny plastic buildings flying.  I started fighting when I saw myself crawling toward Tyler, saw the way his lips opened and his eyes widened in surprise.  But I couldn’t stop.  I couldn’t do anything but watch as it happened.

“Em?” Tyler whispered as I climbed into his lap, looking about as helpless as I was myself. 

“Yes?” I purred, sliding my hands up his chest.

“What are you doing?” he asked as I leaned closer to him.

“I need a hug,” I whispered, looping my arms around his neck.

“No, you’re hungry,” he said, trying to sound stern.  He didn’t quite pull it off.  In fact, he sounded kind of…dazed.  Looked it, too, for that matter.  “Em, did you take your shot
s?”

“Mmm hmm,” I murmured, taking a deep breath, filling my lungs with that wonderful scent of his.  “I just want a hug, Ty.  Are you telling me you don’t want to hold me?”

“Em…”  He stopped, swallowing hard, and I saw about a hundred emotions cross his features.  “Em, this isn’t a good idea.”

Listen to him!
the shreds of my humanity screamed. 
Don’t do this!  You know you don’t want to! 

But…I did.  I wanted to very much.  I wanted to feel close to someone again.  I wanted to be held.  I wanted…something I’d lost.   But as that demonic hunger tore through
me, I couldn’t remember what that something was.  

“I think it’s a
very
good idea,” I whispered, leaning closer to breathe the words in his ear.

All of the fight seemed to go out of Tyler.  His arms closed around me and held me tighter, melding us together.  There was a need in his eyes that matched the glowing hunger in mine.  It went deep, that need, and some part of
my mind that still belonged to me recognized it as more than the spell I’d put him under. 

I tried to pull away then,
instinct telling me that I was playing with fire and was about to get burned.  I might have made it, too, might have been able to save myself from making the kind of mistake that goes down in history as the stupidest move
ever
, but Tyler’s aura flared so bright that I couldn’t make myself move, bathing me in warmth and light and the scent of his essence.  The combination made my demon go ape-shit crazy with the need to feed.

“Go ahead, beautiful,” he murmured, his
long fingers tangling in my hair.  “You want a taste, come and get it.”

Oh
hell
yes!
my demon cheered. 

No!  No no no no no!
my human side screamed as I cupped Tyler’s face in my hands and leaned even closer until our lips were almost touching.  But it was too late.  I was too far gone.

With that first taste of Tyler’s essence, I was lost.  I could literally see it flowing like smoke between his mouth and mine.  There was so much warmth
in his energy, so much
power
! It flooded through me, the ultimate rush.  It filled me from my head to my toes, causing my blood to sing in my veins.  I gulped it down, desperate for more. 

And I wasn’t the only one. 

It seemed like Tyler couldn’t hold me close enough.  His hands were suddenly everywhere, caressing and touching.  With a little tingle of surprise, I realized I had the same effect on him Nathan had had on me when he bit me.  When I fed, my victims felt pleasure.  Somehow, knowing that I wasn’t hurting him just made me hungrier for more. 

“Em, stop,” Tyler said breathlessly after a few minutes, trying to gently push me away. 

I grabbed onto his shirt with both hands, fisting my hands in the material to hold him still, unwilling to give up the taste and feel of his essence rushing through me.  But it was more than that.  I didn’t want him to let me go.  I
wanted
him to hold me, to touch me, to want me.   

“Ember!  Stop!”

My feeding frenzy came to a violent end when a blast of energy hit me dead in the chest.  I felt like I’d been kicked by a horse.  I flew backwards, landing in a heap a few feet away.  I curled up right where I was, arms held over my chest, and groaned as sanity came back all at once. 

I started to sob silently as
what I’d just done set in.  What if it had been someone else, a normal human who couldn’t blow me off of them with a blast of magical energy?  They’d be dead, that’s what. 

And
I would be a demon. 

And the way he had made me feel, that desperate need…  Not the need for his energy which I’d been sucking down like a frat boy at a kegger, but the need for his touch, the closeness of his body.  What the hell was I supposed to make of that?  And what did it say about
me
?

“Em?  Are you okay?” Tyler asked softly, crawling toward me.

“Please go,” I whimpered, curling up into an even tighter ball of shame.  “Please, Ty.”

“It’s all right, beautiful,” he crooned soothingly.  He reached out to touch me and I recoiled from him, afraid of what I might do.  Sighing, he let his hand fall back to his side. 

“What’s going on here?”

I groaned when I turned my head to find Nathan standing in the doorway,
Sierra hovering behind him.  Nathan looked from the demolished game board, to Tyler’s pale, strained features, and finally down at me where I lay still curled into my little ball of shame and disgust. 

I
kind of thought he’d figured it out on his own when he turned and glared at Tyler before biting out, “I asked a question.  I’d appreciate an answer.”

“Let’s call it a learning exercise gone wrong,” Tyler said, running a shaky hand through his hair as he got to his feet.  “Look, it’s fine.  All’s well that ends well, right?”

“You let her
feed
on you?” Nathan asked in a snarl, taking another step into the room, his hands balled into fists.  He was literally shaking with rage, a reaction I couldn’t understand.  “I thought we understood each other, Jordan.  Apparently, I didn’t make myself clear.  An oversight I’m about to correct.”

“Better me than someone else,” Tyler said, bracing his feet apart and crossing his arms over his chest.  I couldn’t help but notice he’d placed himself squarely between me and the pissed off vampire at the door.  “
Sierra told you she needed a donor, but you wouldn’t listen.  I guess, in a way, I just volunteered.”

“
So you’re telling me you did this for her?” Nathan snorted scornfully.  “You didn’t do it to help
her
; you did it to finally get what you’ve wanted since the moment you laid eyes on her.  You’ll be like a drug to her now.  She’s tied to you, just like you always wanted.”

“I’ve always been tied to her,” Tyler said softly.  “The only one who refuses to see that is you, Nate.”
 

Sierra grabbed Nathan’s arm when
he started toward Tyler, violence emanating from his every pore, but he just shrugged her off and kept moving.  I forced myself to move then.  I caught Nathan just before he reached Tyler and rammed my hands into his chest, pushing with everything I had. 

I don’t know if it was Tyler’s essence still pulsing through my veins or just plain adrenaline, but I felt like I was strong enough to move the world.
  I knew that I didn’t have any real chance at stopping Nathan if he really was determined to kill Tyler, but I felt at least strong enough to keep him busy while Tyler got the hell out of there.  I’d seen the results of Nathan’s temper once before.  I didn’t want to see it again.

“Stop it,” I told
Nathan when he snarled at me, his eyes full of anger and what actually looked like hurt.  Seeing that look in his eyes, knowing it was my fault, I wished I could look away, but I couldn’t.  Not if I was going to save Tyler from the beating of all time.  “It’s not his fault, Nathan.  It’s…”

I had to stop and take a deep breath before I could finish that sentence, aware that I was about to put another nail in the coffin we were slowly but surely burying our relationship in. 
I could have blamed the demon.  I could have blamed fate.  I could have come up with a thousand excuses for what I’d done.  But they all would have sounded like a lie to me, because the truth was that I had
wanted
to feed from Tyler.

“…it’s mine,” I finally finished, flinching when
Nathan’s expression darkened a little more.  “I’m miserable, Nathan.  I’m miserable and lonely and I’ve lost everything.  Kim and Blake.  My humanity.  You.  I just wanted to feel something besides the sadness that’s slowly killing me.”

“Oh, so this is
my
fault?” he growled. 

My mark started up that damn thrumming again as I backed away
, and I actually cringed as I waited to hear what he was really thinking.  Whatever I heard, I deserved it.  What I had done, feeding on Tyler, might have been forgivable.  The way I had
felt
when I was in his arms… Yeah, not so much.  Just remembering it was enough to make me feel sick with guilt.

But when I finally tuned in
to channel Nathan, what I heard broke my heart for a completely different reason.

It
is
your fault, idiot,
he was telling himself, the thought so saturated in self-loathing that I wanted to cry for him. 
She was right there, hurting and scared and in need of someone to hold her, and you didn’t man up.  If she picks him now, it’s nothing less than what you deserve.

As much as I would have
loved
to let him believe that, I couldn’t do it.  Because it wasn’t his fault.  It was mine.  For once, I was going to own what I’d done. 

“No, Nathan.  It’s not your fault,” I said softly, taking a step toward him even though he was looking about a step away from murdering someone.  “It’s not Tyler’s, either.  It was all me.  He didn’t even have a choice.  I did something to him, put him in some weird trance.  There wasn’t anything he could have done to stop me.”

“You don’t have to defend me, beautiful,” Tyler said calmly, wrapping his hands around my upper arms to move me out of the way.  I shook him off and glared at him over my shoulder.

“Not helping, Ty!” I cried, turning on him.  Jabbing my finger into my chest, I snapped, “Darkling
.”  When I jabbed my finger into his chest, it was with enough force to crack bones.  “Food source.  Now
you
can do the math.” 

“That’s right, Em, you go right ahead and take the blame,” Nathan said with the coldest laugh in history, glaring over my shoulder at Tyler.  “If he’d wanted to stop you, he was more than capable.”  When he looked down at me and saw the confused frown on my face, he laughed again.  “He’s a walking lie, Ember.  If you’re lucky, one of these days he’s going to have the balls to tell you the truth.  When that day comes, I hope you kill him.  In the meantime…”

I yelped and ducked when Nathan swung, landing a perfect right hook on Tyler’s jaw.  Tyler went flying backwards, ending up sprawled amongst the remnants of the Monopoly game.

“Damn it, Nathan!” I yelled, slamming my hands into his chest again as he shook his hand out.  “Are you satisfied now!?”

“Immensely.”

With that, he turned around and stomped from the room
.  I caught Sierra—who had wisely stayed out of the whole drama—giving me a strange look before she followed him, closing the door behind her. When I was sure Nathan wasn’t coming back to finish the beating he’d started, I let my head fall and scrubbed my hands over my face like I could erase everything that had just happened from my memory. 

I
f only it had been that easy.

“I’m sorry, Ty,” I sighed, walking over to hold my hand out to help him up.