“What’s gotten into you?” he muttered to himself as he stood at the large butcher block island. When was the last time a woman—damn it, especially a human—made him feel this way?
There was a full sleeve of Chips Ahoy sitting in the pantry, untouched, but Bast knew he could plow through a dozen of them and that achy craving wouldn’t be sated. His elongated teeth hummed, his brain supplying him with the sensual memory of tasting Alice in the throes of her passion. Christ, he wanted another taste of her again. Just as she’d been. Her skin flushed, her lips parted. Shuddering and moaning...
“Fuck,” he snarled.
A quick turn of his head provided him with what might be some way to kill time. And perhaps the cold would kill the swelling in his cock. Without thought or pause, Bast strode outdoors, discarding his clothing and allowing them to land wherever. When he dove into the pool, the pristine water swallowed his nude body.
The water parted for him seamlessly and he stayed beneath its depths, at once relieved by the cool spread surrounding him. As he’d needed, his muscles involuntarily pulled in, an instinctual effort to keep his vital organs warm.
After the first lap of butterfly strokes, he could still hear Alice’s soft moans when they kissed. By the tenth lap, his still fingers tingled with the urge to touch her soft breasts again. On the fortieth lap, his memories had dulled to just that of her taste. Somewhere around seventy, his body begging for relief, he’d lost himself to the rhythm of arms rising and falling. Chest lifting and descending. Legs kicking and straightening.
He flipped onto his back, letting the water carry him. Gliding through the cool water and thinking about nothing. Fatigue kept him wrapped in its embrace, and Bast was grateful for it. Just a few minutes’ reprieve was all he needed. There were a million things he needed to do, another billion tasks he needed to follow up on, but right now he relished this peace.
Only the tug of his body’s internal clock, set to the sun’s rise and fall, nudged him to the pool’s edge. Bast hefted himself out of the water, sitting on the cold concrete for a full minute before rising. The swim had been perfect.
His gaze sought out the east, daring to peek at the change coming over the horizon. Pain, sharp and swift, immediately stabbed him in the eyes.
“Jes—” An artificial breath, one made from habit and not necessity, ripped out of his mouth. What the fuck?
Squinting, Bast peeked at the horizon again, bracing against an impact he shouldn’t have felt. The sun usually meant certain death for born vampires; for blood vampires it was rarely fatal. His half-born self had never before felt the sun’s sting, but he preferred the night anyway. Right now though...what the hell was going on?
Fingers curling into fists helped him focus. There was pain, to be certain. Indescribable. Breath-stealing.
Mushrooming misery started in his eyes, spreading through his limbs. His gut joined in the attack, the raging fury not to be contained. The illness he’d forgotten, the illness he’d chosen to ignore, was back. And the fucker had brought friends.
Bast staggered toward the back door, his mind wrenched in two directions. Some part of him begged him to find Alice. To cower in her comfort. Another part of him though, a deeper, darker part, assured him if he ran to the human for help, neither would survive it. This was something he had to face on his own. A part of him he had to combat and win.
The taste of sulfur swelled in the back of his throat, and some memory whispered that he remembered this taste. He swallowed reflexively several times, trying to push it away yet savoring the flavor simultaneously. It was acrid. Beautiful. Familiar.
The moment passed and heat wrapped around his neck. It swelled, bloomed and then spread until he couldn’t imagine a single hair having survived.
One knee buckled under a new weight of agony and Bast went down. His palm slammed against the concrete, keeping him from collapsing altogether. He let the wet cold be a place to focus. His thoughts had gone wild, rendering decision-making almost impossible.
Pain. Sulfur. Fire. Misery. Heat.
His muscles pulsed, even his back now crawling with sensation. Perspiration rolled down his face in fat droplets, the slight cool so pleasure-inducing, he willed the rest of his body to sweat. Anything—anything at all—to help him.