All Beau had to do was give Aaron a long hard look and the bouncer backed away immediately, disappearing in the thick crowd of demons.
I clenched my teeth and tried to move past Beau, but he gripped my elbow and pulled me back into a dark corner.
“Did you fuck him?” The snap to his voice startled me and I hated it because I should have known it wouldn’t have been soft. There was nothing soft about Beau Knight. He was all hard ridges and edges and that black heart? It was pure darkness. His fingers caught the tip of my chin and squeezed, lifting it so he stared down at me. “Answer me.”
“It’s none of your business,” I hissed back and pushed against him.
But it didn’t solve anything. If anything, I only pressed harder against him, trapped.
“Did you like it?” he spat, and the lights flashed behind him and I saw an ugly fresh cut above his left brow and blood on his knuckles. He had just finished a fight and the powerful adrenaline was still boiling inside of him. “Is that what you like? Filthy bastards?” His fingers dug into the base of my neck and I groaned—the mixture of pain and arousal ached in my bones. “Might as well fuck me if that’s what you’re after.”
Beau’s fingers tensed around my neck, and I was reminded of the feel of his emotions doing the same earlier. Almost as if he’d wanted to choke the air out of my lungs and fill them up with his own. His eyes flared, almost as if he was thinking the same, the darkness in them so prominent, my knees shook.
His inked knuckles moved from my neck and up to my jaw. Gripping there lightly before the tips of his fingers caressed the edge of my cheekbone. Softly, as if he knew he could break me with one stroke. But even the softness in Beau had a sharp bite.
“See all these men here,” he said, that low husk making my thighs clench. His thumb found my bottom lip, caressing the thickness of it, worshiping it. “They thrive off of darkness, off of blood and pain and you—you’re the crowning prize.”
Slowly, he let go and I caught the sight of his chest rising and falling so fast—so heavy.
“You want me to let those dicks keep harassing you? Because I can make it all stop. You only need to ask, Alexandra,” he said with an edge to the low hum of his voice.
And my stomach knotted in heat. Because I knew he was right. I knew he held all the cards in one bruised, bloodied hand and how easy it was to control everyone around him to do his bidding. He trafficked in terror and pain.
His brother may be the Dux of Scorpios, but Beau was the king of us low lives.
“I can take care of myself,” I told him and tried to break free, but that only angered him, and he tightened his hold on my shoulder, pushing me farther into the wall, his body moving closer.
He laughed, the sound somber and disbelieving. “Can you really? We both know you haven’t been feeding,” he said. His voice held a note of mockery, but his eyes told a different story altogether. There was something akin to worry in them.
I swallowed thickly and blinked, my courage faltering. I wanted to bite back but… Beau was telling the truth. I hadn’t fed on a soul in far too long.
“You’re going to have to feed at some point, Alexandra.” With a tilt of his head, he asked, “How long?”
How long since I’d last fed. “Months,” I whispered.
“How long,” he repeated, tone harsher at my vague answer.
I swallowed, looking away quickly before replying. “Since before the hunters captured me.” I sighed. “Three months.”
A low growl escaped past his lips at my words, filling the space between us with crackling intensity.
It was everywhere around us, my mouth filled with a taste so euphoric my body begged me to let myself drown in it.
In his taste, in his rage, and power.
“You’re going to feed now, Alexandra.” His tone was deadly and commanding, sending a thrill of all-consuming pleasure down my lower stomach. “But you’re not going to feed on any of those assholes out there.” He shifted closer, towering over me. He was all sweat and blood and pure incubi male. “If you want to taste danger, Alexandra, if you have needs to quench,” he whispered, his head dipping so his breath hit my shaking lips. “You’re going to take what you need from my dark soul. No one else’s.”
I wanted him to touch me again. I wanted him to lose control. To remove the chains that bind him.
To let him taste me. My mouth. My soul.
Me.
The walls pounded from the voices and the fights and shook me to my core. I tilted my head and he placed his hands on either side of my face on the wall behind me. My mouth opened, so close to touching his and he breathed out—the belladonna and sin and anger warm on my tongue.
His inked fingers gripped my hair tightly in a makeshift ponytail and bent my neck farther back, almost as if he was offering me to himself. “Taste me,” he hissed out. An order. A command.
And before he could change his mind, I obeyed him for once in my life.
My mouth met his in a feverish ache, his lips full and soft and hard all at once. The smoke and whisky tasted hot on his tongue, on his gums and I swept deeper—deeper into the oblivion of Beau Knight.
He was the storm—the storm I walked into while everyone ran the opposite direction.
I welcomed him.
I thrived inside of him.
I let him conquer me.
Dig his claws and teeth in deep.
And then I let my hunger take over, let my soul take what it needed. What it craved.
Him. His essence. His soul filling my mouth like an old wine as a moan escaped my lips, quickly disappearing between his own.
I tasted his darkness—his coolness and burning, raging fire.
I tasted too much, too fast, and with that terrifying, powerful high of Beau Knight, I collapsed into the warm darkness of his palms, body humming.
“Fuck,” Beau breathed into my mouth, his hands going to cradle my head as he drew us further into the darkness. I caught his mouth again. My fingers clawed at his back, digging deep so that he met my aggression with a bit of his own.
My body shook—shook from the pure power I fed on from Beau. From his dark, unredeemable soul of sin and violence.
Soak in me, his soul sung to me. Drink me. Eat me. Consume me.
His hands were rough—callused and worn and worked so hard they felt like weapons on my body. Sliding, finding weak points in my frame, pinching ever so slightly.
Both of his large hands ran across my hips, leaving a hot trail in their wake.
I moaned once more—freely, openly and tore at his t-shirt soaked in sweat, feeling the hard ridges of his stomach.
His fingers captured my jaw again and he straightened, those dark, vivid eyes taking me in.
His breath came out in harsh and fast puffs of acid and sin, his inked fingers anchoring me as he came down from the high of letting a souleater taste him.
He licked his wet bottom lip and let his hand drop beside him. Each finger tattooed with a faint letter—spelling out hell and bent on each of his knuckles. How simple, rough hands inked in sin and blood aroused me—I didn’t understand it.
I let my tongue brush my mouth, soaking in every last taste of his soul.
In a span of a second, I tasted more of a person than I ever wanted.
It felt as if he was in me.
I glanced up at him through my lashes, unable to speak, unable to move away from the heat of his large body. I wanted to taste more of him. I wanted him to use me. To fuck me and destroy me. It was wrong, but it felt right. My body passed the point of caring, just as long as it experienced that high again.
A bang shook the walls and Beau pressed me farther into the wall, glancing over his shoulder.
At first, all I could hear were panicked screams but when I looked over his shoulder, a cloud of smoke filled the second floor.
“Stay here. Don’t fucking move,” Beau demanded, pressing my shoulder into the corner and throwing me a warning glare. Beau’s hands tightened into iron fists, the tension filling his body once again.
“What’s going on?” I asked, stepping out of the shadows.
Beau didn’t stop, he didn’t acknowledge me, but moved back into the chaos of the Pit, leaving me behind.