Bewitch(59)

A familiar female scent popped into the myriad of smells. Succubus.
“Payne?” Andreu’s thickly accented voice reached his ears.
Payne shot backwards, growling and snarling at the dark-haired Spaniard, baring his fangs at the same time as he stretched his bloodied arms out, shielding his female.
Andreu moved a step towards him and Chica held him back, her black hair wild and as ruffled as Andreu’s hair, and their clothing too. Half of the buttons on Andreu’s black tailored shirt were undone and the tail hung out of his equally dark trousers. Chica’s strapless purple corset was wonky and her legs were as bare as her feet beneath her short black layered skirt.
They smelled of sex.
Payne growled low again, hunger blasting through him, twin urges, needs he couldn’t deny. The smell of sex and blood filled him with a need to feed, mingling with his need to protect, driving him deeper into his instincts.
“Payne isn’t right,” Chica said and he bore his fangs at her, his focus locking on her now. Weak female. He snarled and the red spots across his vision were joined by blue and gold. “There’s something off about him.”
He moved his feet further apart and lowered himself, breathing hard, his focus diverted by the noises and rapid heartbeats surrounding him. Victor’s blood spoke to him, luring him into feeding his hunger for it. He wasn’t alone now. A female was with him. Clothed in a crimson dress that matched her flame red hair.
She would taste sweeter.
“Payne, talk to us... tell us what is wrong,” Andreu said but the words grated in Payne’s ears and he struggled to make sense of them.
Payne growled his reply but not in English. Panic shot through him, sending a hot prickly wave across his skin.
Chica released Andreu and walked forwards across the black stage. His focus shifted entirely to her. She wouldn’t taste sweet and he didn’t want her near him. He didn’t want her near his female and her youngling.
He snarled a warning at her.
She didn’t heed it. She kept edging towards him. Andreu spoke again, the noise indistinct. Light burst across his eyes from his right. Doors slammed. More scents joined the maddening mixture of them swirling in his mind and his lungs. Stronger scents.
He knew those males.
Payne lifted his hands and pressed his palms to his temples, growling as he tried to remember them. The red haze of fury clouded his mind and he couldn’t remember anything, couldn’t feel anything other than an insatiable lust for violence.
Chica spoke to him. Her words were strange and confusing, a language he had never fully learned but understood perfectly in the midst of his rage.
“Your markings,” she said and he looked at them briefly, seeing the swirling hues of gold, blue and deepest pink. “You have a mate... is this your mate?”
She took another step closer. Payne roared at her. Andreu was instantly between them, shielding her. Payne edged back a step, closer to someone behind him. Someone who meant a lot to him.
Chica swam out of focus and then back again as she spoke from behind her male. “Is this your mate, Payne?”
Payne clawed his hair back with both hands, his head spinning as he fought to make sense of everything that was happening. He growled and squeezed his hands against the sides of his head. He couldn’t think over the rush of blood in his ears. His breathing accelerated. Flashes of a beautiful female with flowing chestnut hair and striking silver-grey eyes punctuated the red haze in his mind. He saw himself above her, inside her, biting her, feeling the euphoria of that dual connection and her flowing into him. The taste of her blood was still strong on his tongue and their connection still had hold of his heart and his mind.
Something soft settled on his back, pressing between his shoulder blades and against his backside, spreading warmth across his skin and carrying light into his heart.
He stilled, his fury fading with each second she touched him, with each bit stronger the connection between them grew. Her scent enveloped him and her steady heartbeat replaced the rush of blood in his ears.
“Payne?” Her gentle voice stirred his soul, bringing it up from the darkness to the light, soothing away his fear and his rage, and lifting the red haze from his mind.
He turned slowly to face her and she looked up at him, no trace of fear, anger or disgust in her beautiful eyes. They shone with warmth and understanding, with affection even though he knew what she saw stood before her, a wild and lost male, a broken and vicious man.
“Everything is fine, Payne. You don’t have to protect me from these people.” She smiled at him and then looked down, and his eyes fell there too, following her gaze to the boy cradled in her arms. “You don’t have to protect us.”