Playing Dead: Book One of The Whitechapel Chronicles

Chapter 28

Back at the house, our bodies slick with sweat and exhausted, we lay in Harper's room our legs tangled together and the chill of the house doing nothing to dampen the heat that just seemed to effervesce between us.

Harper leaned over and wiped away a thin trickle of his blood that ran from the corner of my mouth, courtesy of a small wound on his wrist that I could just not resist. I felt like an addict, lying there in that run-down shit-hole of a house, sweating out my cravings and knowing that it wouldn't be long before I went back for another hit. I couldn't help it.

And the strange thing was, all that anger, all that hunger, it never went away. I just used it, channelling it so that every touch, every thrust was just intensified ten times greater and until my body was spent and sore. The bite on my neck was throbbing slightly, a mixture of a sweet sting and a tingling sensation that radiated outwards until I could not differentiate between pleasure and pain.

"Had enough yet?" Harper smirked.

I matched his grin with my own, curling up the corners of my lips wickedly. "Never."

He moved over me, slipping his leg between my thigh; his hair falling over his face and tickling my own. "You know, this is a far cry from the Megan who blushed like a virgin in the coffee shop."

"Yeah, well, things have changed quite a bit since then," I said, narrowing my eyes.

"Despite everything, I quite liked that version of you. Well, I did that night. It was all I could do not to take you over the table."

I laughed, scratching my fingers lightly down his back. "I'm not sure Starbucks are quite ready for live entertainment yet."

"Pity," he murmured, tracing his lips over mine and down my chin, where he licked at my neck, not biting this time, but covering the wound with lazy strokes of his tongue that made me squeeze my thighs together. Feather-light kisses sent little shock waves through my skin as he travelled lower, stopping briefly to graze my nipples with his teeth. His fingers stroked the smooth skin of my stomach, before parting my legs and looking up at me, his emerald eyes glinting through his dark hair.

"Starbucks don't know what the hell they're missing," he grinned.

*******

Sometime later, I awoke, groggy from a deep, troubled sleep and one foot still in my nightmares, to find Harper shaking me and whispering low but urgently in my ear.

"Megan, wake up now!"

My eyes shot open but before I could open my mouth, he clapped his palm over my lips and shook his head vigorously. Immediately, my other senses went into overdrive as the scent of another person hit my nostrils. Somebody else was here. Somebody was in the house.

"Get dressed quickly," he hissed, jumping up and throwing on a pair of jeans and I did the same, begging for the floorboards to not betray us as we moved fast, tugging on clothes.

Grabbing something out of his backpack, I saw a glint of steel and felt the adrenalin rush through me when I noted the vicious-looking blade in Harper's hand. He motioned for me to stay quiet and then clutching my clammy hand, he pulled me over to the doorway, where he waited, straining to listen for any signs of movement. Looking back at me, he nodded towards the stairs, confirming that whoever was here was on the ground floor and then we crept stealthily from the room. The scent drifted up the stairwell, the faint but detectable smell of not just one, but many, except this was not the fetid animal smell of wolf, but something else entirely; definitely not human and definitely enough to make my heart stammer painfully in my chest. My mouth was dry and shock waves of panic were buzzing through me as we reached the stairs. Harper let go of my hand and went first, with his back sliding against the damp wall as he carefully descended. His face was troubled and tense and from the way that he moved, I knew that whatever happened next, he intended to put up one hell of a fight. There was a dark resolution about him and he appeared coiled, ready to attack and I was reminded of when I has first met him and I had seen signs of the great beast behind those eyes.