Monsters Within by Victoria Knight Page A

one o’ clock in the morning rolled around and she was still sleeping, he assumed that she would likely sleep through until morning. Had her grie f reall y taken that much of a toll on her? He would never understand the odd ways a human body worked…particularly something like grief or true sorrow. He didn’t envy humans at all.
    He waited around for another half an hour before his own interrupted sleep from that afternoon caught up with him. He retired to bed, oddly satisfied that Nikki was sleeping in his cabin. Before closing his eyes, he checked the foot of his bed. He knew it was stupid, but he felt like he needed to make sure that Benali wasn’t there.
    With the sound of Nikki’s soft intermittent snores coming from the living room, Saul eventually fell asleep.
    Later, when he was stirred awake, it was still dark. It was the sort of dark that feels soft—the sort that will soon be dissolved by the dawn. There was something in the room with him, something moving towards him.
    By the time he sat up, he felt the bed shift beside him. The weight there was not much. And the smell was familiar. Alarms sounded in his head but his body was exceptionally calm as Nikki got into bed with him.
    “Is this okay?” she asked him.
    “Probably not,” he answered honestly.
    She made a hmmp h noise and then pulled the covers over her body. In the dark, he listened to her body as it shifted comfortably into the mattress.
    “Sorry. It was creepy being alone in your living room. And I didn’t want to go back to my place. I’m not sure I could handle being alone just yet.”
    “Fine,” he said.
    “Saul?” she asked after a moment.
    “Yes?”
    “What sort of self-respecting vampire can have a defenseless nineteen year-old girl sleeping on his couch and not attack her?”
    “A vampire that has spent countless years training himself to ignore such things.”
    “Is my blood not good enough for you?”
    He could sense that she was joking, but there was an edge of doubt in her voice.
    “I’m sure your blood is just fine,” he said. His throat constricted as he imagined her coppery blood trickling down. He also imagined his mouth on the curve of her neck and felt a brief surge of heat spike through the lower half of his body.
    Nikki moved towards him and he became very aware of his nakedness. For a moment, he was furious with her for intruding not only in his cabin, but his bedroom. She was pushing his limits and soon he wouldn’t be able to deny himself. He’d have her throat, her blood. She’d die at his hand and fang and it would be her own stupid damned fault.
    That thought was pushed away when she pressed her body against his. The room had been dark and he had admittedly been too distracted with preparing himself to resist her blood, so he had not noticed that she was also naked. He felt her bare skin against his. He felt her small breasts along his ribs and the heat of her sex pressed against his thigh.
    “I s thi s okay?” she asked. Her breath was hot and soft on his neck.
    “Absolutely not,” he said.
    But he did not move. In fact, when he felt her hand grazing his chest, he reached his own hand out and grabbed her hip with just enough force to let her know that if she didn’t stop soon, there’d be no turning back.
    She responded by making a soft noise. She slid closer to him and he could actually feel her heart beating through her chest. She was excited but, at the same time, amazingly calm. She slid one leg over his, intertwining their bodies. She stretched against him and then, in one motion, slid on top of him while brushing her lips along the nape of his neck. He arched beneath her though her weight on top of him was literally like a feather.
    “Nikki,” he warned, “this is tricky. This could be bad.”
    “Does it feel bad?” she asked, grinding her sex against his hips to emphasize th e feel.
    “No.”
    “Then we’re okay. Just don’t sprout any fangs on me. Okay?”
    “Okay.”
    In the