Death Song (Tales from the Tarot)

12. Charlie

Chapter twelve

Charlie

“ A re you hungry?” I whisper as Rex licks at the cords of my neck. His hand pulls me back into his hard body slightly, and I can’t seem to keep rolling paint on the wall. If he wants to feed from me, I won’t say no. Not after the last time. The promise of what could be coming is already starting to make my head spin, but what he says next slides my growing arousal up a notch.

“No,” Rex says, his breath tickling my ear. “I don’t have to be hungry to want you, Charlie.”

I shudder at his words and lose my grip on the roller in my hand. I should be far more cautious, given that Colin too started with sweet words before turning into a monster, but something about Rex pulls at every part of me. Far deeper than my interest in my ex ever did.

Turning to face him, I can’t control myself and tilt my head upwards, looking into his perfect chocolate eyes. He smiles, but I catch no hint of fangs. I’m not sure how that works, if they lengthen when he’s hungry and shorten when he’s not, but I assume so. I do catch the heat in his eyes though, and that sends another ripple of arousal cresting down my spine to pool in my belly.

Rex backs up, taking me with him in his arms until he sits on the chair he brought down for me to sit on while I paint. It’s a heavy leather thing and he sinks into it deep as I crawl on top of him, unable to resist this pull inside me. I straddle his lap, leaning forward to capture his lips with my own and he meets me in the middle, pressing his soft kisses to my mouth. His hands come to rest on my thighs, and I wantonly push my hips forward, pressing myself against him as he devours my mouth. He lifts his own hips up, pressing back against the front of my jeans with his own bulge and I am struck with the need to see it. To see him and learn of him in the flesh compared to the way I painted it before.

“I’ve seen your body,” I whisper, breaking the kiss. “And I’d like to compare.”

“You’ve painted me without clothing?” he asks, sounding a bit surprised. “You never mentioned that.”

“Nude in a small pool of water. Your thick, hard cock straining upwards towards your belly.”

He shudders slightly, his lust dark eyes on my own. “The spring behind the cottage. I used to bathe there in the cool waters and often ended up needing release.”

With a grin, I slide off his lap, reaching for the button on his black pants. He lifts his hips as I undo them, slipping the pants off, followed by his black boxer briefs. Rex wears a lot of black. I’d say it was a vampire thing, but Emery seems to always be covered in neon shades.

Rex’s thick cock springs forward, curving upwards slightly as he sits back down into the chair. It is exactly as I painted it to be, but somehow more now that it’s right in front of me. I sink to my knees at the edge of the chair, taking him in my hand, needing to feel the weight of him in my palm as if that too could be compared. I give a small rub to the vein that runs along the underside of his shaft with my thumb, and he lets loose a small noise of pleasure. A small bead of liquid gathers at his tip and I move my head forward to capture it with my tongue, lapping at his slit as my hand moves slowly, gently up and down his length. Rex shudders on the seat, moving himself forward until he is no longer sunken into the cushions and instead resting on the very edge.

I take that as permission and long to taste more of him. Releasing him from my grasp, I replace hand with mouth, earning another soft noise as my reward. I slick my tongue down the length of him, taking care to only pull as much of him as I can handle into my mouth at once as his coffee scent fills my nose. I use my hand to grasp the rest of him, timing my lips and tongue with strokes that have Rex letting loose small noises of pleasure.

“Charlie,” he moans, and when I glance up, I see his eyes are closed, his head tilted backward to the sky. He’s breathing hard through his mouth and his hips are pressing forward, matching my movements on his cock. My own arousal is reaching a fever pitch, and my head is spinning, filled with the scent of him that envelops me like a blanket of warmth. I close my eyes and take my hand away as he thrusts upwards into my mouth, gliding my tongue along his shaft as he moves to the edge of my throat.

He pushes into my mouth a few more times, his salty precum landing on my tongue and sending shivers down my spine, and I take another chance. Sliding my hand up between his thighs, I gently reach between his cheeks and probe the skin there, searching for his puckered entrance. Finding it with a fingertip, I gently caress it with the pad of my finger, feeling his body ripple with pleasure at my movements. I circle his pucker with my fingertip as he groans a bit louder into the silence around us.

“I am close,” he says, as if he is warning me to move away, but I don’t want to. I wanted to taste him, and I intend to do just that.

When I don’t move, he reaches down and places a hand on my head, his hip bucking wildly upwards now as he uses my mouth to get his relief. I keep circling his entrance with the pad of my finger, feeling it give way the tiniest bit under my caresses. I won’t push inside, not now that he is so close to release, but I can tell he isn’t hating it. Quite the opposite, actually. With a low, heavy moan, Rex tenses, his hand tightening on my hair as he fills my mouth. I swallow as best as I can as his cum trickles into my throat, feeling his shaft pulse against the roof of my mouth. Finally, he slumps where he sits and exhales a slow, shaky breath, and that is when I take my mouth off him to catch my own breath. Panting slightly, I rest my cheek on his thigh, still gently touching him in that most intimate area between his legs.

“Do you wish to enter me?” he whispers.

So proper. I smile up at him from my resting place on his thigh, his cock resting against my cheek in the most vulgar way. I don’t want to fuck him, that’s for sure. In my dreams, he always held that role and having him here makes me want exactly that. “No, but touching is nice.”

“It is.”

I turn my head and gently place a kiss to a stray freckle on his shaft, sticking my tongue out to lick at it just once. Turning my face back to see him, I can’t help but grin at his lust filled expression. “Do you wish to enter me?”

“Yes,” he hisses, surging forward and nearly knocking me onto the ground. He catches me, though, before I crash to the tile, and draws me upwards to his body. “I wish for that, my Charlie. I will have you in all ways, but I have taken, and you have not been given anything in return.”

My Charlie. His words send my heart tittering like a silly little bird, but his hand slipping up my shirt behind me again has lust blooming inside my core. I am hard inside my jeans, my cock straining at the confines almost painfully.

“It won’t take long,” I admit with a soft laugh. “I am ready to blow.”

Rex smiles, dropping to his knees in front of me, and before I can even comprehend what’s going on, my pants and boxers are around my ankles and his hand is wrapped around my aching cock.

“Fuck, you’re fast,” I comment as he gives me a slow, nearly painful stroke.

“You said you’re close and I wonder, do you taste of honey or is that merely the scent of you?”

Rex opens his mouth and wraps his lips around the tip of me, my toes nearly curling in my sneakers. I rest my hands on his head, watching in awe as he sucks more of me into his hot, wet mouth. The tips of his teeth graze my skin, sending shivers down my spine. I know he isn’t fanged, but the threat is there that at any moment he could sink his teeth into my flesh.

He moves on me fast, pulling me far into his mouth until his nose brushes the thin patch of hair at the base of my shaft. Pulling back, I groan as his lips wrap tight around me, his tongue flicking at my tip eagerly and I find myself also wondering if I taste of the honey he seems to love so much. Soon enough though, I am tipping towards the edge, my body tensing involuntarily as Rex licks and sucks at my cock.

He lets loose a low hum at the back of his throat, and I am lost to my release as I squeeze my eyes shut so tight, I see stars flashing behind my eyelids. I can feel him swallowing what I am shooting into his slick mouth, his tongue fluttering greedily around the head of me until I am spent and slump forward where I stand.

“Delicious,” he murmurs, releasing me from his mouth.

“Honey?”

“Better. You are made of the most delicious things, Charlie.” Rex rises to his feet, gently pulling my underwear and jeans up to my knees. “Satisfied?”

“I saw stars,” I comment with a small laugh.

Rex grins, reaching to cup my face with his hand. “And now all I’ve left to pay you is the moon and everything else.” He caresses my cheekbone with a thumb before moving away to sort out his own clothing.

I turn away, face flushed, and cheeks heated, to look at the half-painted wall. Rex comes to stand behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist and resting his chin on my shoulder.

“It will be beautiful,” he says, breath catching in my hair.

“I think it will be,” I reply, adding stars to the sky in the version of the mural that exists only in my mind at the moment.

“A blue wall. How exciting,” Finn comments, as I walk through the front doors of Bowman Galleries, my hands filled with bags of pastries and goodies for him and Bowman. After sleeping the previous day away, I’ve been up all night finishing the base coat of blue paint on the wall at The Pinwheel Club and figured breakfast for the two of them would be a nice treat. A way to say thank you, I suppose, and an attempt to make amends for my previous behaviour.

“Isn’t it a pretty wall?” I ask, handing him the bags. I texted him a picture of the wall before making my way over, leaving Rex behind to finish up some paperwork for a potential rental of the building’s main floor.

“Thrilling.” Finn reaches into the bag and plucks out a cherry tart but stops short of putting it in his mouth. His nose wrinkles and he lowers the tart away from his face, leaning over the desk at the front of the gallery to sniff at me. His eyes meet mine, grave concern written into them. “What have you done?”

“What are you talking about?” I ask, stomach clenching the tiniest bit.

“You are bonded. How are you bonded? Who has bonded themselves to you?”

“Finn, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Bonded?”

He sniffs me once more before looking over his shoulder and shouting, “Bowman, come here. Smell Charlie.”

“Why are we smelling Charlie?” I ask, taking a step away from the desk.

Bowman pops out of his office along the side wall of the building and moves quickly to the desk, leaning over it to also sniff at my clothing. He pulls back, eyes wide. “What have you done?”

“That’s what I asked,” Finn says, taking a bite of his tart. “He’s bonded. It’s faint, but I can scent it. Want a croissant?”

Bowman ignores the pastry being offered and instead steps around the desk, staring into my eyes as he inhales another breath of air. “Rex.”

Oh god. I showered, I swear. There’s no way he should be able to smell the sex on my skin if I’ve showered. Unless I missed a spot. “Um. What?”

“Oh yeah,” Finn says with a smile as he sniffs at me again. “That’s Rex, all right.”

“Please explain.”

Finn and Bowman exchange glances, a silent conversation moving between them somehow, and then finally Bowman sighs. “You’re pack, Charlie. I know your scent. I could pick it out from a mile away. Finn could too, but now your scent is muddled. It’s mixed, with Rex.”

“How can you know what I smell like? Rex says I have a smell too. I can’t imagine I’ve been walking around stinking for my entire life.”

“What does he say you smell like?” Bowman asks, tilting his head to the side like a dog hearing a noise.

“Honey. Does that matter?”

“Vampires don’t have mates,” Finn says, finishing his tart and reaching into the bag for another treat. I’m nearly floored that he knows the nature of Rex and has apparently been keeping it secret from me. Then again, vampire rules are like Fight Club rules, or so Emery told me a few days ago. Also, what the hell is a bond?

“We don’t know everything about how the world works, pup. Bold to assume what we know is the end of it,” Bowman replies. He leans forward and smells me again. “I do smell a faint bond.”

“How?” I ask, raising my voice so they stop talking over me.

“Shifters can smell it,” Finn says, placing his half-eaten chocolate donut down on the desk carefully. “I can smell it. It’s faint, but it is there.”

“A shifter?”

“A wolf,” Bowman clarifies. “Born under the moon to walk between man and beast.”

“Less cryptic, perhaps.” Finn rolls his eyes, picking up his donut and taking a bite before adding, “We can choose our form from two. Man or wolf. I carry the blood inside me that lets me do this, so does Bowman. When I said you were part of his pack, I meant it literally. Bowman is my alpha; he runs our pack. We’re shifters, Charlie.”

“You have got to be kidding me.”

“I wouldn’t lie to you. Not now, not ever.” I raise an eyebrow at that statement, and Finn sighs. “I may omit things, but only for your safety, or for the safety of the pack.”

“Wolves.”

“Yes.”

“You can turn into a wolf?”

Finn grins. “I sure can. Bowman, too. We’re just a pack of two, for the time being. Three if you count yourself among it, which we do. We do have allies that we can call on if we need to, but most packs are bigger by far. We’re different.”

“How?”

“Situations,” he sighs, with a shrug. “Pack life is tough in a big group. Bowman left Hollycreek first, and I followed shortly after.”

“Hollycreek. You mean those cabins out in the woods?”

“Those are the ones.”

“I always thought those people were some kind of cult. We lived out there for a while, on a property that was beside theirs. My mom talked about them sometimes, said she’d had some run ins with them before I was born. She said that I was never to go onto their land, even if my life depended on it. I was just a kid and it scared the shit out of me with how serious she was about it.”

Finn tilts his head to the side like he finds that incredibly interesting. “She spent time there?”

“I think so. I don’t know the details. Not really.” I pause, glancing over to Bowman who looks at me like he’s putting puzzle pieces together inside his head about the things I’m saying. “What? What are you thinking?”

“What was her name?”

“Joanna Polston. Do you know her?” My heart stutters in my chest, wondering if my mom somehow had contact with wolf shifters at some point.

“I don’t recall that name, but I would have been a young pup at the time. Not even grown into my own feet, most likely. Do you know her parents?”

“No, I never knew any other family members. It was always just the two of us until she died.” Bowman keeps staring at me and I’m staring to get a little bit self conscious under his gaze. “Is there something wrong with that?”

He stops studying me abruptly like he’s been caught doing something wrong and smiles. “Not at all. Want a donut?”

“No, thanks. I’m trying to wrap my head around all of this. Vampires. Wolves.”

“It’s a lot of things,” Finn agrees, plucking another donut from the bag.

“Okay, so let’s say everything is real, because you’ve never lied to me before and I can trust you, right?” I think I can. I’m not sure what the hell kind of madness I’ve stumbled into here, but I think I can trust their word. Bowman nods, his face both stern yet hopeful as he looks into my eyes. “I’m bonded, somehow?”

“Yes. To Rex, somehow, though vampires aren’t supposed to have mates. The fates didn’t allow them the ability to claim a fated.”

“The sisters,” I murmur.

“Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos.” Bowman nods. “The three sisters that hold the threads of all of our lives.”

“So I’ve been told. How did I get bonded to Rex? He did it to me, somehow?”

Finn’s face burns red and Bowman backs away slowly. “Nope, this is best friend duty. I’m out.” He glances at Finn meaningfully, then heads off to his office, closing the door behind him but not before he looks back and shouts, “Got someone watching your place, by the way. Your stuff is safely locked away and we have eyes on the loft. Pack takes care of pack.”

“Thank you,” I call back, crossing checking on my loft off the list of things to do in my mind. If Bowman says it’s handled, it’s handled. That’s how he’s always been, and I can trust in his word.

I can trust in his pack, I guess.

Finn pushes the bag of treats my way as Bowman’s door closes behind him, but I don’t take anything from it. My head is too full of new things, this constantly changing narrative of the things I thought I once knew shifting and moving rapidly inside my mind. Vampires. Wolves. Seers, dates, bonds and claims. It’s enough to make my head want to implode.

“Have you been… intimate with Rex?” he asks, speaking carefully. I think back to earlier this evening, Rex’s lips on my body and mine on his, my cheeks heating up as I nod slowly. Finn’s cheeks go a bit red as well, and he clears his throat. “Understood. At some point, did he take your blood?”

“Yes. Is that bad? Rex said he feeds from humans often.”

“What does he smell like?”

“Coffee. Rich, dark roast coffee beans.”

“Ah,” Finn says with a smile. “So, you are his fated and he has fed from you, and you’ve been intimate. Welcome to a mate bond. Or at least the start of one.”

My head spins, but Finn’s broad smile says this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Or is it? I’m not even sure. There are too many things going on right now and I feel a bit like I need some space to think it all through.

“Can I just say that you’re handling this far better than I would be?” Finn says, popping the last bite of his donut into his mouth.

I snort a laugh, that ends with a sigh. Change, The Owner promised, and I suppose I’m getting it all at once. Thrust into a brand-new version of the same world I’ve always lived in where vampires and apparently wolf shifters aren’t just characters in horror novels. “I got a tarot reading the night of the gala in this little shop I found while I was trying to find the venue. I was warned that change was coming and that I needed to embrace it.”

“The Owner.” Finn laughs. “I love that guy. He’s such a trip. Great dude, though. Does he still have that weird hat?”

“Yeah,” I reply with a laugh of my own. “Are you really a wolf?”

“Yep. Want to see my fur? It’s super pretty, but I’m not a big wolf. Just a little one, which is kind of shitty. Bowman is huge. He’s a true alpha.”

“Are you an alpha?” I ask, trying to wrap my head around all of this.

“No,” Finn says, his expression sobering. “There’s only one alpha in a pack and that’s Bowman.”

I get the sense that I’m not supposed to press him for an answer as to what he is, there’s a sadness that’s entered his expression that warns me to not probe too deep into his place in the pack. Or his identification, maybe? I don’t know the right words to use, but I don’t ask more because regardless of what he is, Finn is my brother, and I wouldn’t want to see him hurting.

“Tell me about your fur,” I say, grabbing a cookie from the bag.