Beast of the Damned #2

*Chapter Twenty-One*

~ TRISTAN ~

Punishments are often doled out to the underserving. The good get sick, the wicked go without the righteous hand of justice ever catching up, and many have their time cut short before they get the chance to truly live. I won't pretend. The punishments the universe has leveed on me are well deserved. I earned every lashing, every invisible scar the past has brought down upon me. I welcome them because it is in the setbacks of life my love for Kinley was found...

The horse next to Kinaley spooks as I materialize in the open entrance of the stall door. "Going on a midnight ride?"

Kinaley ignores the venomous bite of my words. "I can't stay here. I refuse to be his." She slips the halter over the mare's nose once she gets the horse calmed down, pulling the mare's forelock out from underneath the strap that goes behind the ears.

"I won't let you leave." I sidestep, blocking her way.

"Then give me a reason to stay. You're asking me to endure a lifetime of belonging to someone else. If I only make it a single day outside of these walls, it will be worth it as I'll have stayed true to my heart."

The cool leather of my causal armor presses into Kinaley's backside. I lock her against me in the fashion I favor most. I've lost count of all the times my fangs have pierced her forbidden neck. What was supposed to be a taste has lead to nearly two years of clandestine feedings. Two years of never having enough to sate the thirst this human in my arms causes.

"Careful. That sounded close to you offering up your heart to me. You know how much I love to indulge in the tender juiciness that's to be had by sinking my teeth into human heart."

Burying my face into the nape of Kinaley's neck, I inhale the scent that haunts me night and day, beckoning me to be reckless. The faintest whiff always has me drooling, ready to tempt fate and the wrath that would follow if the Prince of Darkness ever found out.

To know Kinaley is to walk in the fires of temptation. Her blood is divine nectar that should be a sin against the god who made her. A delicious cinnamon honey sin that has my fangs throbbing and stomach tightening in anticipation. Even now, in these stables surrounded by the odious smells of animal feces, her blood whispers to me...Possess me... Devour me...Take my all.

I clamp my mouth down on temptation's neck, sucking air through my teeth hard to keep my fangs from giving in to the demands of Kinaley's taunting existence.

Just one more time.

One more bite.

I tell myself the same hollow lies.

When the Prince chose Kinaley to be his massarra, he robbed me of the mortal who had caught my attention in the most primitive of ways. She was supposed to be mine, her decadent scarlet life force destined to be ingested the same as all the others that came before her. The Prince of Darkness should have chosen one of the other massarra-in-waiting. Instead, he picked Kinaley, forcing me for an eternity to look after the human whose jugular I wanted to tear into the day the guards drug her by me in the east wing corridor.

"If you want my heart, take it," Kinaley says, no longer the little girl who clings to my leg as if it were a ride made for her amusement. The same little girl who once longed to be a great huntress who learned from the Beast of the Damned and prove she's more than just a bleeder. No, this Kinaley is different than even the mortal Kinaley I was forced to watch over as a punishment for slaughtering the angels when ordered not too.

The angel that granted Kinaley a second chance at life may dwell within, but there is a power Kinaley possesses all on her own. It's the intangible, nameless thing that keeps me coming back—always out of reach, always mocking me with the prospect of more.