The Seven Sinners

“Necessario futura, non praeterita.”

LYCIDAS

Lycidas drove in silence down into the suburbs. If there was any light in this situation, it was that this girl lived in a secluded area. He was glad not to enter the overpopulated city.

Demedicus had given him her address. The drive was about forty-five minutes away from the compound where the Council lived.

He enjoyed solitude. He didn’t have to worry about pleasantries. He wasn’t worried about sucking the life from someone. He didn’t have to try so hard not to hurt anyone.

He could control his power but with profound difficulty. When he was around people, he had to make a conscious effort to tell his body to just stop.

He didn’t like being around people because they were work.

He pulled into the driveway. As he got out, he shut the car door and grimaced at the house. He could still smell the blood. When she transitioned, she would be able to as well.

He imagined she was keen to move out as soon as possible. He walked up the stairs of the porch and knocked on the door twice.

He waited. And waited. When he didn’t hear anything from inside, he knocked again. He looked around. He was always on edge. Always aware of his surroundings.

Again, no answer. He knocked out the piece of glass on the door and unlocked the door from the inside. Stepping into the house, he was immediately bombarded with the smell of chemicals and whatever the hell else was in there.

He moved from the living room into the kitchen—no sign of her. “I’m with the Council,” he announced. “I am here to verify the arrangements you’ve made for your transition.”

No answer. He found the staircase and made his way upstairs. The home was…elitist, to say the least. It made sense to him why her parents chose such a home to live in. The outside was dark, with pillars of white out front.

The inside was decorated with sophistication. They had rare pieces of art hanging on the walls and expensive china in glass cabinets in the kitchen. All in all, he was sure this girl was well taken care of.

He could smell lavender coming from behind a door. It was the smell of a female. He immediately knew this was her room. He pushed the door open into an empty space.

Her room wasn’t exactly clean, but he could tell that no one had slept there recently. The scent was almost gone completely. She must have left everything in its place. She must have slept elsewhere.

As he was starting to think she might have moved somewhere else, he smelled the strong scent of fresh blood and the sourness of transition. He closed his eyes, realizing. He stepped forward toward the scent.

The door was open, but he focused mostly on the girl lying on the floor. As he entered, her eyes opened wide, and she let out a strangled scream.

ADRASTEIA

She rolled onto her stomach, laying her head between her arms as a searing pain erupted throughout her body. She was transitioning. She knew it. She knew it was coming.

Still, she’d never looked for a male to feed on. It wasn’t of importance to her. But as she felt like she was burning from the inside out, she regretted that decision.

Her eyes snapped toward the door where a male stood. He was a vampyre. She could tell by the delicious scent radiating from him. The bloodlust hit her like a truck.

He must have noticed the change from pain to hunger because he stroked the back of his neck.

She wanted him. She wanted him so badly. But she hung her head again. She wouldn’t drink from someone who didn’t want her to.

It was an intimate thing in their world. There was something erotic about taking the essence from another and using it to nourish yourself.

She could feel him moving. She didn’t care much. Her throat burned. He could kill her, and she’d let him. But he knelt in front of her and pulled her head up by her hair to make her look at him.

“Are you the Brown child?”

She nodded vigorously.

“Do you have a male to feed from?”

She shook her head.

He went quiet. He looked at her for a moment as if he hated her. Like she had forced him to come here. Like she was the villain in all this. Maybe she was.

If she had been more organized and considerate, she would have accepted Misandra’s offer. This was her fault. She would understand if he let her die.

But a hunger so deep within her wanted him like no other. She couldn’t ignore the strong pull toward him. She heard him curse after he dropped her head.

She looked up and saw him unbuttoning his cuffs and rolling his sleeve up.

He walked behind her, pulling her to sit up as he sat behind her with his legs on either side of her waist. He displayed his wrist to her, and she shook her head.

“You’re dying,” he seethed.

“I know,” she whispered, strained. “But I will not drink from someone who doesn’t want me to.”

“You’re dying,” he repeated, frustrated. “For fuck’s sake, I give my vein to you.”

Her new fangs broke from her gums, and she grabbed his arm, bringing it to her lips. She hissed as she tore through his skin. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she heard him hiss in response.

She couldn’t focus, though. She had never experienced such delight from consumption. She could feel her throat become relieved and her stomach fill with him. Her entire body felt more alive than ever.

She moaned, softly, against his skin. She could feel herself pulse for him under her jeans, and nothing would make this moment better than to be taken by such a healthy, virile, strong male.

The thought of him taking her was enough to make her climax.

She moaned again, feeling her stomach contract in ecstasy and her core pulsate from the orgasm that flooded through her.

She’d had orgasms before, but none of them compared to this. None of them rocked her into an almost spiritual level.

LYCIDAS

When she took his vein, he could feel her gently suck him. He’d drunk from his priestess before, and she had drunk from him, but this was different. This was… deeper.

He hissed, not from pain, but from the sheer pleasure that tore through him. He never reacted that way to Antionette. He’d never wanted Antionette’s vein as he wanted Adrasteia’s.

He wouldn’t touch her. He couldn’t. He didn’t want to hurt her as he had Antionette during feedings. He thought that, although her lips touched his skin, it wouldn’t be enough to drain her.

She was absolutely starving. He understood. If he could focus on anything other than her drinking from him, he would have recounted his first drink. He refused to acknowledge just how much he enjoyed nourishing her.

He felt prideful that she fed on him…he felt almost instinctively protective of the girl before him.

He could feel her tighten her hold on him, and for a moment, he was shocked still. He could smell her desire. He knew it was simply because of her feeding frenzy, but it made him hard.

It made him just as wanton as her, and as her body released that lovely scent of orgasm, he felt his cock twitch and release itself into his pants—fucking great.

He couldn’t interrupt her first feeding. It would be dangerous. So he sat with her, watching possessively as she drank.

After a few more sucks, her fangs withdrew from his wrist, and she looked up at him, his blood dripping down her chin and onto the shirt she was wearing. Her new fangs still were elongated and lay upon her lips.

ADRASTEIA

She wiped the blood from her chin, embarrassed. “I-I’m sorry. Thank you for…” She stopped. “Thank you for letting me…”

“You must put away your fangs,” he said, his voice clearly taut from something. He stood up next to her.

She touched her lips and then her teeth. She wasn’t quite sure how to do that. She’d read that whomever she drank from was supposed to lead her through this period of time, but she wouldn’t ask that of him.

He’d done enough he hadn’t signed up for.

LYCIDAS

He could tell that she was struggling to put her fangs away. “Stop thinking about blood or your feeding,” he instructed. He could tell when she did because her fangs shot right back up into her gums, and she winced.

“Does it always pinch like that?”

“No, your gums are just really sore right now. With a few more feedings, it will go away.”

“I’m sorry, again,” she said, looking away from him. “I didn’t…”

“Why didn’t you choose a male you wanted? That was the reason I came here—to ensure that you did so. We didn’t realize exactly how close your transition was.”

“My parents had chosen the son of a friend for me. I didn’t want him,” she said, “and to be honest, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to live through my transition.”

He felt something tear through him, but he kept it quiet. “You’ll have to come with me.”

“What? Why?”

“Because you’ll have to drink a few times a week throughout this period. I also have to help you through all this.”

“You will? I thought you’d get out of here as fast as you could.”

“It’s my duty.”

She winced. “Right.”

“Go pack a bag. I have to call my brothers.”

He stood downstairs in the kitchen as his phone rang. His brother picked up, but Lycidas couldn’t figure out how to speak for a moment.

“Lycidas?”

Demedicus’s voice knocked him out of his stupor.

“She drank from me.”

Demedicus went silent on the other end of the line for a few minutes. “You know what this means.”

“Yes.”

“Are you going to do it?”

“Do I have a choice?”

Yes,” Demedicus responded. “You could hand her off to another male to help her through this but allow her to drink from you.”

He had to close his eyes from the raw emotion that coursed through him. He wasn’t familiar with anything other than hopelessness or anger. “I will see her through her transition. Once she is able, I’ll let her go.”

“Why did you call me, Lycidas?”

“She needs to stay in the compound.”

“She may. She is your ward, though. Anything she does is your responsibility.”

Lycidas hung up. He heard a bang from upstairs, and he raced back up to the room filled with lavender. Adrasteia was rubbing her nose.

“I didn’t realize how fast I can walk now.” She pouted.

He looked at the wall, seeing a small hole. She must have lost track of her speed and run into it.

“You get used to it. You’ll learn how to control it.”

“How long will it take?”

“A few months. Maybe a year.”

“Great,” she whispered, throwing a shirt into the bag on her bed.

As he watched her finish packing, he realized the reason why he was here. Her parents were murdered by hunters.

She had no one else left and, on top of that, she was now going through one of the most frustrating times in her life. For some reason, he felt the need to comfort her.

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

She looked up at him with a grateful smile. “Me too.” She folded another pair of pants and set them on the bed. “Are you the seventh Council member? Demedicus told me you were caught up in something.”

“I was. That is why I didn’t go to the funeral.”

“I wasn’t trying to make you feel bad or condemn you or anything. I just wanted you to tell me your name.”

He watched her. She wouldn’t know his name. His name and the others were often kept a secret. “I’m Lycidas.”

“Lycidas.” She said his name as if she were testing out how it sounded on her lips.

She must have been pleased as she displayed a kind smile. “You know, I heard you speaking to your friend. You do have a choice. I’m all right if you decide to hand me off to some other poor soul.”

He wouldn’t be, though, because as much as he couldn’t admit it, she was something. She was buried deep within him, coursing through his veins. She tugged something within him that he almost had to acknowledge.

Maybe if he weren’t such a stubborn man, he would have seen it sooner.

“There’s something you should know about me before you come with me.”

“What,” she asked, “are you a vampyre or something?” She stopped laughing at her joke, seeing his stern face. “Wow, tough crowd.”

“I’m an absorber.”

“You have a gift?” she asked, sitting on her bed. She looked at him as if she were curious about what he had just said. Clearly, she didn’t understand the weight.

“More of an annoying side effect of existence. I weaken people with my mere presence. I walk into a room and can knock anyone out without trying.

“If I touch you, I can kill you and absorb your powers as my own for a short time. I’m involuntarily deadly, Adrasteia.”

“I touched you before, and nothing happened.”

“I think it’s because you were feeding.”

“Let me touch you again—”

As she stood, he flinched, and she dropped her hands, watching his face contort into something unreadable.

“I’m not allowed to touch you?”

“You can when you feed, but besides that, absolutely not. Besides, why would you want to?” He rubbed the back of his neck then stuffed his hands into his pockets again. “I’ll be outside by my car.”

He turned, leaving her to her thoughts, but before going outside, he made a quick stop in the bathroom.