Bleed, Little Prey, page 7
I knew Connor and Xander weren’t going to do anything to me.
But what if they knew nothing about her project?
What if I’d put her in danger?
My pulse, which had just started slowing, accelerated vigorously.
As if the day had rewound and I was watching it with the volume jacked up, I could see Connor stalking out of my room. I could hear what he’d said under his breath.
Nosy bitches get stitches.
That didn’t sound like something Connor would say, yet I knew it was exactly what he’d said. And I knew that threat wasn’t directed at me.
Obviously, I didn’t want an innocent bystander to get harmed because of a hornet’s nest I was currently kicking, but selfishly, Lena was my number one source for Lifewell info at this point.
I couldn’t risk something happening to her. I didn’t want anything to happen to her because I liked to think I was a decent human being most of the time.
“Thinking deep thoughts over there or paralyzed by lust for me?” Malcolm’s obnoxious voice burst into my mental spiral.
I turned, leveling him with the most serious look I could muster.
He lay sprawled out on my bed like it was half his, playing with his already hard again cock.
“I’d like to propose a trade.”
Malcolm arched a brow, looking far too self-satisfied. “Oh, like you shut the fuck up and take this dick like a good girl, and I might make the eyes roll back in your head?”
“There’s this girl named Lena and no, she does not want to shut the fuck up and take your dick like a good girl. Can you keep her safe for me?”
He studied me, clearly confused. Stumped, even.
“She’s a friend…or friend adjacent, and I suspect she might be in danger.”
“You really are one of the most paranoid chicks I’ve ever met. I’ll need more to go on than a first name.” He shrugged and pumped his cock harder, his huge muscles rippling like water. “But yeah, I can make that happen.”
“I’ll get you all her pertinent info next time I see her.”
“I’ll make it happen…for a price.” Groaning, he stuck his tongue out and braced it against his upper lip as he jerked himself faster. “You already owe me unlimited fucks. What else you got?”
I’d already known that was coming. I was one step ahead of him.
“Here’s what I’m willing to pay you.” Desire curled between my legs as I watched him manhandle his own dick. “If she gets through the semester without anyone harming a single hair on her head, I’ll let you have a taste.”
His expression barely flickered. “Tempting, but I don’t want to lick your pussy.” He made a face. “I don’t eat mystery meat.”
“I don’t mean my cunt, you asshole.” I showed him he wasn’t the only one in this room with a killer smirk as I laid down the offer he wouldn’t be able to refuse. “I mean my blood.”
A geyser of cum shot out of him and drenched my sheets and much of him. Groaning, his hips bucked to chase that high, his fist never slowing his strokes on his cum-soaked cock.
I licked my lips and ground my thighs together, panting. “You can’t bite me, so I’ll cut myself and let you drink. You can’t kill me. You can’t turn me. You just get a taste.”
“God damn, whore,” he rasped out. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”
Chapter Nine
“I have to walk you to your class before I go to mine. Come on, cocksucker.” Kade stood by the door. Watching. Silent except for the slow tap of his fingers against the wall.
That fucking mask—Ghostface, blank and emotionless—made it impossible to tell what he was thinking, but I didn’t need to see his face to know he was pissed.
“Mmm, isn’t you calling me a cocksucker kind of a pot/kettle situation, Boo?” I shoved another spoonful of sugary cereal into my mouth, slow and defiant. It tasted like victory.
I was on my second bowl, contemplating a third, and fuck him if he thought he was going to rush me. The generic cereal brands I grew up on had nothing on the name brand. This? This was privilege in a bowl.
He snapped his fingers at me.
I don’t look up. I chewed. Leisurely.
The tapping stopped.
Then…
Stomp, stomp, stomp—
Kade loomed over me, with that goddamn head tilt, the hollow, soulless eyeholes of the mask boring into me.
I didn’t flinch.
“Do not touch me,” I warned, already shifting back before he could make a grab for my spoon.
His hand moved fast.
Mine moved faster.
I yanked the bowl toward me, sloshing some milk but twisting it out of his grasp.
Narrowing my eyes at him, I repeated, “Do not fucking touch me, asshole.”
“I will touch you,” Kade growled. The distortion of his voice behind the plastic made it worse, made him sound inhuman. “I will throw you over my goddamn shoulder and march your ass to class if I have to—”
“Hey. Back the fuck off, Jones.”
Our attention snapped away from each other and towards Connor, who had stalked into the kitchen.
“Get out of here,” he growled at Kade, who all but scurried out.
If he’d had a tail, it would’ve been tucked between his legs like a kicked puppy.
“Damn, why doesn’t that trick work when I do it?” I jutted my lip out in an exaggerated pout.
Connor rolled his eyes and rolled the toothpick in his mouth vertically. “Let’s go, street leach.”
“You know my name. Names, actually,” I said. “Why don’t you use one of them? Better yet, why don’t you tell me how you know—”
“You’re going to be late for—”
I faked a cough, cutting him off. “I can’t go to class. I’m sick.”
A beat of silence.
I took another big bite of cereal.
Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.
“Yeah, well, you weren’t too sick to use and abuse my fucking showerhead not twenty minutes ago, so you’re not too sick to have your ass in your next class.”
Flames licked my cheeks as I chewed, trying not to choke. Was I embarrassed that I’d masturbated in the shower? No. Was I embarrassed that he’d heard me? Also no. Was I embarrassed that I’d been fantasizing about that kiss and he probably was all too aware? Yes.
I swallowed slowly. “You sound jealous of that fucking showerhead, Connor.”
I licked a stray drop of milk off my spoon, watching him like I had all the power, but my fingers were like a goddamn vise around it, my entire body betraying me.
Taking advantage of my momentary freeze, he snatched my bowl out of my hands. I lunged, but he yanked it out of reach, holding it above his head like he was my older brother in a corny sitcom.
“You’ve had enough of this shit,” he announced. “Breakfast is over. You’re going to class.”
The motherfucker tossed my bowl into the sink, the loud clatter of ceramic hitting metal making my eye twitch.
“Oh, okay.” I scoffed. “Are you my father now?” I squinched my eyes up at him, knowing just what to say to get him to back the hell off. “That was some fucking kiss yesterday for someone who doesn’t want me, Daddy.”
I puckered my lips, and sure enough, he skittered back across the room like a hockey puck on jagged ice.
But then he crossed toward me once again, his face twisted in a glower, his dark eyes flashing menacingly. “Let’s fucking go. Do not make me sling you over my shoulder and carry you, because I will.”
“I don’t think so.” I shook my head, and then I did the one thing I strongly suspected would keep his damn hands off me—I pulled my shirt over my head and took off my bra in one fluid motion.
His eyes widened. “The fuck are you doing?”
I took a step towards him, but before I could brush my tits against him, he took a step back.
“You won’t come near me without clothes on,” I challenged him. “I’m too much of a temptation, and for whatever reason…unlike Kade and Malcolm, you’re afraid of giving in.”
I was kind of bluffing but also following my intuition. The way he kept his eyes averted from my bare breasts told me I was onto something.
“I know you want to fuck me, Con Man,” I said as I shimmied my pants down my thighs.
He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing.
“So what is it? Teenie-weenie syndrome? Afraid you won’t measure up to the big boys?”
He exhaled through his nose, his nostrils flaring. “That’s it. We’re going.”
Before I could get another word out, I was airborne.
One second, I was standing—arguing, winning—and the next, I was slung over his shoulder. He pawed at my legs, tugging my pants back up and over my ass like a parent trying to dress an uncooperative toddler.
Wriggling and struggling, I slapped at his back while he hauled me to the door, but he was a brick wall in combat boots.
“Put me down, you baby-dicked shart gremlin. I’m topless!” I screamed.
“You’re lucky I’m not carrying you through campus bare-ass naked. I should’ve pulled your pants all the way off, not up. This was your choice, and don’t act like you’re embarrassed to flash your titties around. You’re a pro at flashing your shit.”
He wrenched open the door, and the difference in temperature hit my skin, making my nipples go hard.
I beat at his back with my fists, but he strode forward. Furious, humiliated, kicking at his stomach. He just tightened his hold, one arm locking around the backs of my thighs while the other rested way too fucking casually against my ass.
I wanted to shriek for help at the top of my lungs, but I had a sinking feeling no one would bat an eyelash. I covered my chest the best I could in this position. Even Connor wouldn’t drag me into a lecture hall like this. Right? Right?
But when his grip tightened, I started to sweat.
I gave up fighting with my hands and switched to words. “So, how big is that boner right now? Oh, wait. It probably can’t get that big, with your micro-peen, can it?”
He ignored me.
Thankfully, I could only see the bodies of others we passed and not their faces.
Finally, he pushed into Wyvern Hall. We passed a few classrooms, and then he grabbed me by the waist and pulled me down until I stood on my own two wobbly legs.
I gripped his shoulders instinctively, but he shoved me off. I wrapped my arms around my upper body, covering myself.
The twins passed us then, those twins I’d seen countless times in the library. They barely spared little old shirtless me a cursory glance.
“Here.” Connor thrust my shirt, which I hadn’t realized he’d been fisting, at me.
I wrapped my fingers around the soft cotton and raised my brows. “What, no bra?”
He snatched the shirt out of my grip.
Leaning down so we were nose to nose, his damn toothpick stabbing me in the chin, he said, “Do you want to see what happens when you look this particular gift horse in the mouth? Because if you think I won’t make you sit in there with your titties out for every damn body to ogle, you couldn’t be more wrong, street leach.”
I opened my mouth to respond, but at that precise moment, fate sent me the gift of a leering frat boy. Well, at any other college, he would’ve been a frat boy. I didn’t think Whispering Ivy had fraternities.
Connor spun me around and pressed my back against the cold cinderblock wall. In a step, he had both his hands on the wall on either side of my head, putting himself between me and Mr. Omega Delta Dick.
“If you want to keep those damn eyes in your head, I suggest you find something else to look at,” he spat at the guy.
I snorted. “Yeah, I’m not sure I buy that you have the self-restraint to let any damn body ogle my tits, my dude.”
He turned around, his back facing me, and from the sound of it, unwrapping something. “Just put your goddamn shirt on already.”
After I put my goddamn shirt on and straightened my wig, smoothing it out, I stepped out from behind him. He was licking a cherry lollipop.
He popped it into the corner of his mouth and spoke around it. “Look, if I have to be stuck playing your fucking babysitter, you can at least make my life easier and cooperate.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Oh, I’m making your life hard? Poor Connor, suffering through the horrors of dragging me to class. I can’t imagine the pain you must be in.”
“I wouldn’t have to drag you if you would fucking—” He let a strangled noise and slammed his fist into the wall.
He barely winced, though when he shook his hand, droplets of blood sprayed across the wall.
I had more of a reaction than he did. I gasped, cover my mouth, my heart dropping to my knees. That sickening crack of bone against the wall reminded me too much of…
No. Do not go there.
My blood felt hot, panicked beneath my skin, and my pulse thrashed in my ears. There was something volatile about the way he’d just went from okay to…not okay. Something I hadn’t seen before.
I backed away from him. “You’re not even supposed to be babysitting me. Dean Bennett said Kade and Malcolm—”
“Don’t give two shits what Dean Bennett says.” He wiped his knuckles on the leg of his pants. “Get in the fucking lecture hall before class is over.”
So I got in the fucking lecture hall. And I was so relieved to see Lena, to see that she was all right, that it took a moment for confusion to set in. Just like yesterday with Theories in Alternative Resuscitation, Lena had never been in this class before.
I didn’t know what the hell was going on, but I planned to find out.
“Tardiness isn’t tolerated, Miss Dare,” Professor Marsh segued in the middle of his sentence. “If you’re late again—”
“She won’t be,” Connor interrupted, and a few people tittered and stared.
I swore it was all I could do not to turn, run at him, and introduce my knee to his balls.
What would he do if I did?
And that little display in the hallway… Had it been the Lifewell at work? Was that a dude who didn’t know how to control his temper? Or Indignation—aka Wrath—heightened by unseen forces flowing beneath our feet?
Lena sat at the end of a row with an empty seat next to her. Had she been saving it for me?
Either way, there were no other seats nearby for Connor to park his obnoxious ass in, so I hurried over and sank down next to her. I thought he would give me some breathing room and find a seat, you know, where we weren’t sharing the same exact oxygen, but no. He just did his perfected lean against the closest wall, hawk-eyeing me.
I didn’t want to risk the ire of Professor Marsh, so I waited a few minutes until he returned to regaling us with one of his “when I was your age” tales.
Then I glanced at Lena out of the corner of my eye. “What are you doing here? I know you haven’t been in this class before today.”
She shook her head and whispered, “I haven’t been. My advisor suggested I audit it for a few weeks, but…”
She lifted her chin in Professor Marsh’s direction as his gaze settled on us.
He cleared his throat. “As I was saying, that was in the 1970s…”
I forced myself to pay attention, although I couldn’t stop fidgeting.
I snuck a peek at Lena, but she was doodling in the margins of her textbook. Then I realized she was shooting me frantic side-glances. She tapped her pen on the book a few times. My pulse accelerated as I looked at what she was pointing at.
She’d written, Kingston Hall, Suite 14.
“My dorm,” she whispered. “Move in with me.”
Without looking at her, I whispered back, “I can’t. Honestly, it’s better for you if you stay away from me.”
Dammit, I had so much more I needed to ask her.
Beyond that, I needed a friend.
I needed another fucking place to live.
She cleared her throat and tapped her pen again. She’d added her phone number.
I wasn’t exactly prepared for class, so I didn’t have anything to copy it down with. She tore off the corner of the page and held it out to me.
“Lena—”
“Take it.”
I closed my fist around the small piece of paper, but I couldn’t have someone else’s blood on my hands. I wouldn’t.
“What’s your last name?” I whispered.
She looked confused for a second then whispered back, “Cruz.”
She tapped her pen again.
This time, she’d written, I’m not scared of him.
I looked over my shoulder at Connor.
Lena Cruz might not have been, but for the first time…I was terrified of him.
Chapter Ten
Surprise, surprise—Lena did not hang around to chitchat with Connor.
As soon as Professor Marsh ended his lecture, she hightailed it out of there.
Connor and I walked back to the apartment in silence, his sucker now gone and a pen now in its place.
I didn’t have another class today, and I planned to crawl into bed and stay there. Hopefully unconscious.
When I was two steps away from the door, his hand closed around my shoulder.
“Give it to me.”
I sighed. “Give you what, Connor?”
“Whatever that girl slipped you.”
I shot him a contemptuous glare over my shoulder. “Not everything is your business—”
He shoved me, startling the breath out of me. I threw my hands out to catch myself so I didn’t bash my face on the side of the building. The rough brick exterior scraped my skin as my palms slammed into it instead.
Then Connor’s arms wound around my waist in some kind of fucked-up bear hug from behind. Keeping my body locked against his with one arm, he slid his hand into one of my back pockets and then the other.
I threw elbows backwards. Most of them landed, but he didn’t seem bothered.
“If you wanted to cop a feel, you could’ve just asked,” I seethed as he, not finding what he wanted, plunged his fingers into the far more invasive front pocket and dug around.
