Promised in Blood: Chapter 18

Thucydides Library is quiet as usual. In all my years at Montridge, I don’t think I’ve ever seen more than five or six people in this cavernous space at any one time. I crane my neck to peer at the gold embossed titles on the books on the top shelf, certain I will find the one I’m looking for here. Since Ophelia’s revelation that she and Alexandros can talk to dragons, I’ve found myself fascinated with discovering why they left the mortal realm to live in the netherworld.

“It has been a long time since I’ve seen you in here, Malachi.” His voice sends goosebumps skittering over my forearms.

I spin around, my teeth bared in a snarl.

He leans against the bookshelves, legs crossed at the ankles and arms folded over his broad chest, a smug grin on his face. He always was an arrogant asshole. Star quarterback and next in line to be Alpha of the Brackenwolf Pack, one of the oldest and most powerful packs in North America. But I was willing to overlook his massive ego because he was also smart and funny and insanely hot. “You’re not still holding a grudge?” He narrows his eyes. “It was sixty years ago.”

“Sixty-two actually. And it could be six hundred years ago, Osiris, and it still wouldn’t change what you did.”

He shakes his head and sighs. “I thought that at least now you would understand.”

What the fuck does that mean? “Understand how we were almost inseparable for two years, and then you just fucking left without so much as a goodbye?”

His dark brow furrows in a deep scowl. “I graduated, Kai. I had responsibilities. My father needed me.”

The memory of him leaving still feels raw, but it wasn’t his actual leaving that broke me. It was how he did it, and what happened after. “You ghosted me for six fucking years. Six years when I didn’t hear a single word from you.”

He takes a step forward. “Kai.”

I move back, wanting as much distance between us as possible. “Don’t fucking call me Kai.”

He snarls now too. “Do you think it was easy for me to walk away from you? You were my best fucking friend. I …” He licks his lips.

“You what?”

“I loved you too.” He takes another couple steps so he’s standing directly in front of me. Regret and sadness ball in my throat, and I force them down on a hard swallow. “But wolves and vampires do not bond.”

I take a deep breath through my nose. “You broke my fucking heart, Osiris.”

“I know.” His voice is gentle. Tender, almost. “But when I left, know that I broke my own too. And I don’t think it has ever been the same. Maybe it never will be.”

I glare at him, wanting to stay pissed, but seeing the pain in his eyes, plus knowing he speaks the truth about wolves and vampires … We are not a natural pairing, and wolves only mate for life with their fated mates. “Why did you come back? Why didn’t you stay with your pack?”

He shakes his head. “Pack life was never really for me. At least not the life my father imagined. My brother was much more suited to it, so I stepped aside after our dad died. I prefer life here on campus. Teaching new wolves, an endless supply of fresh warm bodies.” He nudges my arm. “And you’re here. Even though you’ve barely spoken a word to me in the past sixty years.”

“You never tried to speak to me either. You never apologized.”

He laughs. “Maybe because whenever I so much as looked at you, Axl and Xavier threatened to rip out my heart.”

A smile tugs at the corners of my lips. I can just imagine the hard time they gave him, and he fucking deserved it too. “I guessed they might do that.”

“And I knew what I’d done. Our kinds were never meant to be together, and I knew that if and when I met my fated mate, I would have to break your heart again. I couldn’t do that to you.”

He’s right, but that doesn’t make his rejection hurt any less. “We could have been friends.”

He cocks his head to the side. “I’ll remind you of the aforementioned ripping out of my heart.” His smile fills my head with so many memories. So many good memories that I buried beneath the pain of him leaving. A pain that I realize I no longer feel when I look at him.

“You were right to end it,” I admit.

“But not to ghost you the way I did. I took the easy way out, and I’m sorry.”

Wolves are obnoxiously strong-willed and guarded, but Osiris’s openness with me now is all too apparent. He’s letting down his walls, and I know how much it takes for him to do that. “Thank you.” I already feel a little lighter. I have carried this hurt around unnecessarily for too long. And yes, I loved him, but it was nothing compared to what I feel for Ophelia. Unlike me, Osiris understood all along that a bond would be different. That it would separate us eventually. He has numerous children with various wolf mothers, but he’s never settled with a single one of them. “I understand the whole fated mate thing now.”

“I see the way you are with your girl. Why do you think I finally plucked up the courage to speak to you?” He winks, further dissipating the tension.

“I see you still haven’t met yours yet.”

He shakes his head. “Perhaps I don’t have one.”

I frown. My research tells me otherwise. “Don’t all wolves have them?”

“Maybe she died before I got a chance to meet her. Who knows.” He shrugs. “I’m happy as I am though.”

I arch an eyebrow. “Fucking anything that moves?”

He bumps his shoulder against mine. “It’s a tough job, but someone’s gotta, right? Especially as Axl and Xavier are off the market now too.”

“Yep. Now you have no competition at all.”

He runs his tongue over his teeth, his eyes flickering with a hint of yellow. “They were never any real competition.”

I shake my head. “You never had any problem with confidence, did you?”

He shrugs. “I was blessed with good genes. Why not take full advantage?”

I dip my head so he doesn’t see my goofy smile. He’s so much deeper than he pretends to be. In fact, he is one of the smartest men I know. It feels good to have cleared the air, and I only wish we’d done it sooner because I’ve missed his friendship more than I’ve missed his perfect abs. “Wait until you meet your fated mate, buddy. You’re going to be in for a rude awakening.”

“Nobody will ever tame me, Malachi. You know that.”

Even he knows that’s not true deep down, but I don’t call him on it. Now that I have Ophelia, I can’t imagine having to wait around for my soulmate to show up or enduring the agony of not knowing if they ever will.

“Hey, sorry I’m late. Axl and Xavier were—” Ophelia stops talking when she notices Osiris standing on the other side of the bookshelf, previously out of her line of sight. An adorable blush spreads over her cheeks.

Osiris arches an eyebrow. “They were …”

“Um, hi Professor Brackenwolf,” she says coyly.

He smiles. “It’s a pleasure to formally meet you, Ophelia, although I have heard many good things about you.”

I slip my arm around her waist and pull her to me, burying my face in her neck and growling when her scent floods my senses.

“Malachi, stop,” she whispers. “Not in front of the professor.”

I pull back and blink at her. “Why not?”

She chews on her lip. “Because he’s a professor. It would be disrespectful.”

Osiris lets out a barking laugh, and I pull a face at my girl. “You know I’m older than him, right?” And you let me do all kinds of stuff to you in front of your history professor, I add privately.

Before she can chew me out for that, Osiris says, “I’ve seen all his moves already, anyway. Experienced them firsthand, in fact.”

Ophelia’s mouth drops open. “You two? No! When?”

I press a kiss on her cheek. “A long time ago, baby.” Then I glare at him. “And you don’t know all my moves.” I flick my tongue piercing against my teeth. “I picked up a few new ones for my girl.”

Ophelia clears her throat, but I can feel the way her body heats and see the direction her thoughts turn. One of my favorite things to do is flick this stud against her swollen clit. It never fails to make her whimper like a kitten. “Don’t we have to study?” she whispers.

Osiris smirks. “I’ll leave you two to your studies. But it was nice talking to you, Kai.”

I nod, and this time I don’t correct him from using my nickname. I guess I can let it slide.

“Always a pleasure, Ophelia,” he says, and then the arrogant fucker winks at her.

I’d tell him to back the hell off, but he flirts with every creature that has a pulse. Besides, my girl only has eyes for me right now, and she’s staring at me like she wants me to prove my tongue-piercing claim.

When Osiris leaves, I pull her to me and seal my lips over hers. Sliding my tongue into her warm mouth, I take what I want. At least some of what I want.

She moans. We should be studying.

I forget about my new fascination with dragons for now. We will, baby. I have a book I want you to read about the Order, and while you’re reading, I’m going to have my head between your pretty thighs so I can reward you for being such a good fucking girl.

We can’t. Not here. She protests, but she grinds herself against me.

There’s a real quiet spot in the corner. Your chair will be facing the wall. Nobody will see.

Despite her objections, she allows me to take her hand and lead her to the corner of the library where I set our things before she got here. I push her down into the large wingback leather chair and angle it so that nobody has a chance of seeing what I’m about to do to her.

I drop to my knees. “Malachi, we really shouldn’t,” she says, looking around like we’re about to get caught, but the delicious scent of her wet pussy is already thick in the air.

I hand her the book I found about the Order of Azezal. “You remember our tests, sweet girl. You’re going to learn, and I’m going to reward you for every question you get right.”

She nods and sinks her perfect white teeth into her pillowy bottom lip, her tits heaving in her hoodie.

“Good girl.”

I glide my hands up the outside of her thighs, enjoying how her supple flesh yields to my touch. Her legs tremble and her breath hitches.

I press a kiss on the inside of her thigh. “Start reading.”

She opens the book, and I resume my attention elsewhere, trailing my lips up the inside of her thighs while my hands skate higher until they find the band of her panties. Slowly, tantalizingly so, I peel her underwear down her legs, and with each inch I drag them lower, her breathing grows shallower.

I laugh, and my breath rushes over her skin. “I haven’t even gotten started yet.”

“I-I know, but if we get caught doing this …”

A smile spreads across my face, and I pull off her panties and stuff them into my pocket. “We didn’t get caught last time, did we?”

“No, but that was a little more …”

I slip the tip of my finger inside her as a reminder, and she whimpers, one hand gripping the arm of the chair and the other still holding onto the book.

I push her thighs wider apart and then flick up her tiny skirt, exposing her glistening pink pussy to me. My mouth waters and my fangs throb. “More what?” I bend my head and slide my tongue through her wet center.

“C-concealed,” she cries, pressing her head back against the chair.

With my mouth too busy tasting her to speak, I switch to our bond. Read your book, baby.

“O-okay,” she whines.

I lap up her sweet juices before slipping my tongue inside her. Her arousal floods my tastebuds. Fuck, I want to eat her whole. When was the Order founded?

“S-sixty-seven BC,” she gasps.

I flick my tongue piercing over the swollen bud of her clit. Good girl.

She presses her thighs flat to my head, but I push them apart again, needing more room to tease her. “K-Kai.”

And why was the Order established? I continue feasting on her delicious pussy and ignore the desperate ache in my cock because I have no hope of fucking her and not letting her come. I’m too weak to hold back when my cock is inside her.

To protect the knowledge of magic. She sucks in a breath. And to observe.

My clever girl too. I graze my teeth over her sensitive flesh, and her hips almost shoot off the chair, making me chuckle against her skin. I go on teasing her, never giving her enough to get close to the edge, all the while keeping a careful check on her heart rate and the blood pumping through her body. If she comes in the faculty library and alerts anyone to her power, Alexandros will surely take my head.

And what do magical beings get in return for devoting their life to the Order?

She doesn’t answer, but I hear her flicking through the pages of the book.

Ophelia?

“I’m l-looking.” She rifles the pages more frantically.

I swirl my tongue over her pulsing clit. You have ten seconds before I stop.

She groans with frustration, and I count down in my head.

“Your counting is distracting,” she moans.

Aw, pity. Four. Three. Two.

“Just give me⁠—”

One. I push myself back and immediately miss the taste of her in my mouth. She glares at me, blue eyes dark with desire as she pants for breath. I swipe my hand over my jaw, cleaning her juices from my chin.

“That wasn’t fair.”

“I told you ten seconds.” I tilt my head and smirk. “And I’m still waiting on that answer.”

Her eyes narrow, but the corners of her mouth twitch. She grabs her skirt and goes to pull it down, but I snatch her wrist and shake my head. “Nuh-uh. I still want to look at what’s mine while I wait for my answer.”

“Ass,” she mutters, but she goes back to the book. Her eyes scan over the text, and mine dart between her face and her glistening pussy. “Those who joined the Order were granted immortality for their devotion.” She blows a strand of hair from her forehead and slams the book closed with a triumphant smile. “Now hand me my panties, fiend.”

I press my lips together and stare at her for a few more seconds before I take her panties from my pocket and help her put them back on. Before I get them all the way up, I press one last kiss on her swollen, pink flesh, and then I look into her sparkling eyes. “Just know that I want nothing more than to finish what I just started.”

“I know.” She lifts her hips, allowing me to fix her underwear back in place. Staying on my knees, I pull her to the edge of the chair and push myself between her thighs, spreading them wider to accommodate me. And then, before I continue our lesson, I kiss her. Long and hard and deep, pouring everything I am into her and wishing that I could give her so much more. Because she is everything I am, everything I ever was, and all I will ever be.