Dark Hunger

Caleb exhaled heavily. "Auril followed his sister to her college and then he dug up their background."

"Who was she?" Elize asked.

Caleb's lips tugged up. He ignored her question. "After he dug up their background, he went back to Fulshire and then again cooped inside his home for a long time. All over the four years he had stayed away from the boy, he had avoided his mother's pleas to marry Orla. He wanted to be sure of his inclination towards men. And he found that no other man was as attractive as the boy was. This made him all the more guilty. He started going on long hikes just to escape his mother's demands to marry Orla and to purge his emotions. But according to him, his feelings always returned with full force." 

"And then?" she asked and sided up with him. He pulled her to him and hooked her legs around his body. She loved the warmth of his chest and placed her head over it. 

"Auril came one last time to look at the boy a year later. He just wanted to decide if what he felt for the boy was true or not." 

"What a fool? It took him four years?" Elize said in a sad voice. "But then the boy was so young?"

"He still isn't sure, Elize. But when he came out to see the boy again, this time he wasn't there. He had gone back to his place, bag and baggage with his sister." 

"Aww," she jerked his head up as her lips turned down. 

"He went back completely heart-broken. Thought that things will settle down now that the boy was gone, but things got complicated. Auril couldn't bear the distance any longer. Moreover, now his mother was also forcing him to marry Orla in two weeks' time. Auril just broke free and rest you know it all."

"He is going to see the boy?" 

"Yes."

"But the boy must be very young. He is sixteen!"

"Yes." Caleb started swimming towards the other side of the pool. Elize came on his back. 

"But that isn't right, Caleb. The boy is still not an adult. Auril has to understand that." 

"He does. And that was one of the reasons why he stayed away from the boy," he replied. "He was silently waiting for him to grow, to be eighteen." 

"And the boy left without any notice?" 

"Yes." 

"Do you know the boy?" she asked. 

Caleb had come to the other side of the pool. He placed his hands below her hips to cup them, as she wrapped her legs around his waist and arms around his neck. Carefully, he brought her to the grass in the center. When he put her to her feet, he said, "Yes, I know who the boy is." 

Elize's eyes flung wide open. "And still you are helping him? Who is the boy?" she chided him. 

He walked up to the corner from where he picked up a towel and came back. "Do you want to know who the boy is and why I am helping Auril?"

"Of course!" she stopped an urge to roll her eyes. 

He placed the towel on her head and started wiping her damp hair. "The first time he spotted the boy, he dropped him back to his apartment. That apartment was the last apartment right on the periphery of the Fulshire forest." 

Elize took her head out of the towel as her mouth dropped to the floor. "Don't tell me!" 

He smiled and then started wiping her shoulders. "That is Cole, Dawn's brother." 

"Holy shit!" Elize rasped. 

"Dawn's younger brother?" She shook with shock. "Auril feels that Cole is his mate?" Disbelief exploded. "But he is—" 

"He is too young," Caleb completed the sentence. "I know." He brought the towel to her arms. "The problem is until Cole becomes eighteen, Auril would never come to know that Cole is his mate. You can scent your mate only when you are eighteen or he or she is eighteen. But you can feel attracted to him or her, and that is basic. And that can go away the moment your object of attention turns eighteen. But Auril wants to take his chances."

"That is ridiculous!" Elize said. She was angry that Caleb was helping him because Cole was just a child and brother of her best friend. She felt protective about him. 

"That is ridiculous but imagine Auril's condition. He has denied his mother's command to the extent that he had to run away." 

"I won't allow this!" Elize said in that mulish way of hers.

He laughed. "Do you think I will allow it?" 

"Then what are you going to do about it?" 

He gently took the towel to her breasts. "I have made him take a vow to the Lore." 

"What vow?" Elize asked, stopping his hand on her breast. 

"That he will not talk with Cole or go near him in the next three years until Cole turns eighteen." 

"Oh!" Elize left his hand and he began to dry her damp skin over there. 

"That's a tough vow…" she said. 

"It is. But it is to protect Cole and Auril too." 

"So, for the next three years, Auril is going to stay in Bainsburgh?"

Caleb chuckled. "I don't know his plans. I only know that he wants to see Cole again. Perhaps he will come back and announce to his mother about his inclinations." 

"Now I feel sad for Auril," she said, totally conflicted. "But you did right, Caleb. Cole is very young and a human." 

"Uhm hmm," he said dreamily as he slid the towel away from her breasts, down her arms, all the way to the tip of her fingers. His gaze went to her stomach. He wiped the skin over there and dragged the towel up, catching water below the lower swell of her breasts. His fingers brushed over there languidly. And then he knelt before her. Butterflies fluttered in her stomach seeing how he drew the towel up her legs and then came in between them. She gulped feeling dazed. He looked up at her with his heavy eyelids. "I want you to be completely dry, my queen." 

She gasped knowing that he totally wanted her wet. He took the towel in between her legs and brushed his fingers on her folds. She shivered at his touch. "Spread your legs," he said and pushed her legs apart even before she did them herself. He leaned over and kissed her over there. Her skin tingled with pleasure and she swayed. He held her hips tightly and then pressed another kiss. Juices immediately flowed out of her. His fangs grazed her near her clit and she cried. The next instant, his mouth was over her clit, flicking and sucking it. She threaded her finger in his hair and watched him sucking her over there. He sucked her hard. Pleasure wrapped in silk like shards coiled in her stomach. 

"I am coming!" she whispered. 

He snarled and increased his pace and then suddenly inserted his finger inside her. He continued to suck her clit as he pumped his finger in and out, in and out... 

Elize—