Shattered Promises 02 - Fractured Souls Jessica Sorensen (top 10 novels of all time TXT) 📖

a little and go over it again until most of it is off his lip and on my finger. I’m about to pull my hand away, when his mouth unexpectedly moves forward and my finger ends up inside it on top of his tongue. Shutting his eyes, he sucks the blood off, licking my finger while he inhales deeply and then exhales.

He moves his mouth away as my jaw drops. I’m shocked and shamefully turned on in ways I didn’t know were possible. I pant heavily, my chest heaving. Laylen opens his eyes and his tongue slips out of his mouth again, licking the remaining blood off. “God… you taste so good...”

Then Kameron utters something about letting him get a taste and Laylen looks away from me, breaking the tension as he glares at Kameron. Clearing my throat, I quickly wipe the blood on the side of my shorts and put my hand back over my injured wrist.

Kameron gets the door open at the same time that Laylen catches my eye as we step over the threshold and onto the grated flooring. There’s something in his expression, shame or desire. Perhaps a mixture of both.

I’m freaking out inside, unsure how he feels at the moment or how I feel—how I should feel. The prickle is getting me nowhere, stabbing at my neck and pumping all kinds of disorder through me.

Yet, as I glance around at the room, any thoughts or feelings of anything else float from my head.

Vampires. Everywhere. And they’re feeding.

Chapter 4

Watching a Vampire feed is a strange sight. However, watching an entire room of Vampires suck blood from willing humans is appalling. Yet, in the twisted side of me, the one I’m barely getting to know, it’s strangely stimulating.

“Rascauche” by At The Drive-In flows from the speakers surrounding the room. The lyrics and soft tune encompass the large floor and lights shimmer down onto the Vampires’ euphoric faces. A lot of them are dancing, but some are simply standing in the light watching the others, doing one of two things that my mind can barely comprehend; touching each other and feeding off the blood of a human. Some have their fangs plunged deep into the neckline of the victim, while others choose the wrist.

“You’re on your own now,” Kameron calls out over the music, and then disappears somewhere into the crowd, grabbing the hair of a woman wearing a floor-length satin dress. She looks happy to be with him, content, and I wonder if I look the same way right now.

“Good riddance,” Laylen mutters, and then makes his way toward a bar at the back of the room, motioning me to follow. When he reaches the countertop, he scoops up a shot of a brownish liquid that the bartender magically puts down the moment he arrives. He swigs it down, sucking every last drop out with his head tipped back. He licks the brim of the glass with his tongue before dropping the empty glass back down on the counter.

The bartender, a medium height, curvy brunette smiles at Laylen as she wipes the counters down, her lips parting as if she’s about to say something.

“Not now, Taven.” Laylen says, then makes a veer to the right toward a corridor with blood-red doors and floors as black as ash.

I rush to keep up and he waits for me in the arched entryway. “Are you okay?” I ask as we enter the corridor. The black marble, domed ceiling is laced with red lines that look like blood and there are lanterns and a few chains as well as cuffs secured to the walls.

He nods only once, though his jaw tightens. “I’m fine.”

I stay silent, hyperaware of his distant attitude. It terrifies me not only because he’s my friend and I’m afraid I’ve broken him, but also because of the craving soaring through my body, the strange need for his fangs to return to my skin.

Halfway down the corridor, we pass two large men dressed in black suits stationed in front of a shut door. Neither of them acknowledge us and we continue walking, the music from the bar fading the further down we go.

My wrist has stopped bleeding, but there’s a drying trail on my hand. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

He nods, and then shakes his head, letting out a sigh that seems to clear the tension between us just a little. “I’ll get there… I just… I just hate drinking blood.” He avoids eye contact with me. “Yet I don’t, which makes me hate it more. And yours…” He squeezes his eyes shut for a moment. “God, it smelled so intoxicating.”

My heart aches for him, but at the same time his words put a wave of hunger in me; one that wants to feed, or him to feed on me anyway. We’re embarking into dangerous territory and, even though I know it, it still takes me off guard.

“You didn’t drink it, though,” I remind him. “Only drew it from my body.”

“Still, I wanted to drink it.” His gaze meets mine as we arrive in front of a door at the end of the hallway. There’s a colossal, golden and black vase on each side and a mirror above it that reveals our reflections. We look high and sedated. “I wanted to taste you, so fucking bad.”

I’m unsure what to say to him. “Okay.”

He seems as perplexed as I do. “Okay?”

I’m not sure what we’re agreeing to, but it feels like we’re agreeing to something. The atmosphere lightens and Laylen’s demeanor changes, his posture unstiffening, his jaw loosening.

He hesitates before knocking on the door. “Stay by me at all times,” he whispers.

I quickly nod as several latches click, and then the door cracks open.

“What do you want?” a voice snarls through the crack as smoke rushes out of it.

“I’m here to talk to Draven,” Laylen states calmly.

The door opens wider and a shorter man with silky blond hair and wearing a black suit steps forward. “Concerning what?”

Laylen tucks his hands