Page 16

The Bite

Gabby

🎧 Chapter 2 Soundtrack:

The bite on my palm should not have turned me on.

That was the first problem.

The second problem was that I could not stop staring at it. I stood beneath the bright lights of my hotel bathroom and held my injured hand over the marble counter.

Four shallow punctures curved across the fleshy part of my palm. The wounds had stopped bleeding during the ride back from the shrine, but the skin around them remained swollen and warm.

Too fucking warm.

So much that heat pulsed from the bite in slow, steady waves, matching my heartbeat. Each throb traveled through my wrist, slipped along the inside of my arm, and settled in places that had no business being involved in a hand injury.

What sort of creature was that? And what is going on with this fucking bite?

With two fingers, I pressed the edge of one puncture wound, the flesh gave in a way that normal bruises didn’t—tender deep down and this otherworldly sensation shifted beneath the surface.

God, please don’t let this be like the werewolves in the States, where one bite happens, and a motherfucker becomes a werewolf too.

I couldn’t imagine returning to New Orleans as some big ass Japanese wolf with tons of tails.

Sighing, I slipped my fingers along the other punctures, and my body reacted with this intense lust. My nipples tightened beneath my bra. I became so goddamn wet that one would have thought six hot muscular men were in my bathroom with me, naked with cocks down to their knees.

I swallowed and pressed my thighs together.

No. . .this isn’t a werewolf bite reaction. This is something else.

I lowered my hands, raised my gaze, and stared at my reflection in the wide mirror. “What the hell is going on?”

Humidity had frizzed the edges of my twisted locs. A few gold beads rested against my cheeks. Sweat glistened along my forehead, even though the bathroom was cool.

My dark brown skin appeared flushed due to this odd. . .magical heat burning beneath my flesh, turning my cheeks warm, stiffening my nipples even more, and making the cursed black heart at the center of my chest tingle.

I lowered my gaze to the bite again. The instant I looked at it, a sharp bolt of need struck between my thighs. “Oh, come on. What is happening to me?”

To get control of myself, I gripped the edge of the marble counter and closed my eyes.

Panic wasn’t going to name this thing.

Grand Aunt Delphine had taught me better than that.

“You don’t cleanse what you haven’t identified, Gabby. Look before you work. Otherwise, you might chase off a blessing or invite a curse deeper.”

Letting out a long breath, I opened my eyes and looked at the bite again. This was not the jagged damage of an animal trying to tear flesh from my bone. If that had been his intention, he could have taken my entire hand. Instead, he had held it between his teeth just long enough to break the skin.

I leaned in closer.

This is a mark.

And any bite that made a woman this aroused was not merely a wound. It was probably some sort of binding.

Why would that creature do that? Japan is an odd country with odd things.

The heat beneath my skin pulsed again.