It wasn’t cold. Yet goosebumps broke out over my skin.

He let out a rough laugh.

“What?” I asked.

“I just—” His mouth returned to me, lingering at my peaked breasts in a way that made my breath tremble.

“I just don’t have fucking words,” he whispered, as his lips traveled higher, taking a meandering path back to mine. “I don’t have words for you.”

Words were overrated, anyway. I was grateful he didn’t have any, because the ones that jumbled in my chest were confusing and difficult.

“Good,” I whispered, and kissed him.

Our bodies intertwined again. The length of Raihn’s cock against my leg made my thighs inch open. His hands over my body grew more frantic, like he wanted to take in all of it at once.

Mother, I wanted him. I wanted him as open and exposed and vulnerable as he had made me.

A little wordless sound escaped my throat, and Raihn’s lips curled against my mouth.

“What, princess? What do you want?”

A genuine offer. Like he wanted nothing more than to give me what I needed.

Goddess, so many answers to that question.

I want you inside me. I want you to fuck me until I don’t remember my own name. I want to watch you come undone the way you just watched me.

I want you.

But what came out of my mouth was, “I want your blood.”

45

RAIHN

At first, I thought I’d heard her wrong. But no.

I want your blood.

Those words, coming out of those perfect lips. Those perfect lips that had lapped my blood from my thumb weeks ago—those lips that I’d dreamed about ever since, thinking about them with my hand around my own cock with the curtains drawn in the day.

My head was foggy. So much about this last day had felt like a dream. But hell, did I mind all that much, if this was the hallucination I got? Oraya next to me in bed, naked, the light caressing her flawless moonlight-pale skin in a way that made me jealous.

Oraya in bed, naked, asking for my blood.

I could smell her arousal, thick and sweet. Could hear her heartbeat, hard and fast like a rabbit’s.

But even sensing her neediness—neediness that I was desperate to fulfill—I still could have spent an eternity just kissing her. Just making love to that poisonous, perfect, beautiful, dangerous mouth.

I never thought I’d get to kiss Oraya ever again. Now, I couldn’t bring myself to question it. I just wanted to take whatever she’d offer me.

And in exchange, give her anything—everything—she desired.

A faint flush rose to Oraya’s cheeks. I wondered if she knew that she blushed, and easily. I didn’t want to tell her, because I didn’t want her to stop.

“You want my blood,” I repeated.

And still, she didn’t so much as blink as she said, “Yes.”

Sun take me.

Yes, Oraya wanted my blood, alright. She’d wanted it for months. And I was damned lucky that this was how I got to give it to her.

I rolled over and grabbed her dagger from her pile of clothes.

“No poison in this thing, right?” I said.

She shook her head.

Good. That would have been an embarrassing way to go.

I drew the tip along the side of my neck, just hard enough to break the skin with a fleeting stab of pain. Immediately, the warmth of blood bubbled to the surface, trickling down my throat.

I sheathed the dagger and tossed it aside again, turning back to Oraya.

“You have it, princess,” I said. “My blood. As much of it as you want. Yours by right, after all.”

Because I’d already promised it to her, months ago.

I give you my body, my blood, my soul, my heart.

And from the moment her tongue had touched my skin that night, the moment the words left my lips, I knew that I meant them. They were true, even if she didn’t want them to be. Even if she didn’t return it.

I was hers.

Oraya’s stare was hard and steady, those moon-bright eyes spearing me more sharply than any blade. Her throat bobbed. Her gaze lingered on my throat—on the streaks of red-black blood.

The scent of her arousal—her hunger—thickened in the air. My cock twitched in response to it.

“Sit up,” she said.

My brow quirked. I did as she ordered.

She swung her legs over mine, straddling me. My hands fell to her hips. The closeness of her, her scent, her warmth, so much stronger than a vampire’s, left me momentarily dazed.

Immediately, I knew what this was. A recreation of that night in the cave.

Goddess fucking help me.

I was destroyed. I was done.

For a moment, she stared at me, the two of us meeting each other’s gazes, unblinking. A knot tightened in my chest. I recognized that look—fear mixed with the hunger. Fear of herself, and her own desires.

My thumb traced a circle on the bare skin of her hip.

“You’re safe, Oraya,” I whispered. “Alright?”

Her eyes narrowed at me a little, as if calling out my bullshit. And though I hadn’t meant to lie to her—now, or ever again—I understood it. Because nothing about this was safe. Oraya and I and this monstrous, beautiful, terrible thing we’d created between us was so fucking far from safe.

She leaned forward, pressing her breasts to my chest, hands braced against my arms, and brought her lips to my throat.

First, she licked up what had dripped down my neck, starting at my clavicle and traveling up, ending with a little twinge of pain as her mouth pressed to the open wound.

And then she drank.

My breath was a little shaky, my fingers tightening into her flesh. My muscles tensed.

No one had ever fed from me since... since Neculai, or Simon and the other nobles he had loaned me out to. I’d never, ever allowed it since then, not even with consensual lovers long after. My skin didn’t scar as easily as Oraya’s did. Those fangs didn’t leave any marks on my throat. But centuries later, I still felt them. I’d never let anyone open those wounds ever again.

My body remembered that, tensing in anticipation, even if my mind knew differently.

But from the moment her mouth touched my skin, I knew right away it was different with her.

I thought she would make me remember, even briefly, those old wounds. Instead, every stroke of her tongue repainted them with something new.

This wasn’t Neculai or Simon or any other of the countless unwanted invasions to my body.

This was her. Oraya. My wife.

It was almost funny at first, how tentative she was. Her tongue lapped awkwardly against the wound like a kitten at milk, like she didn’t quite know how to drink. Still, my flesh seemed to open for her, as if I was intrinsically made to give her this.

“You don’t have to be gentle.” I couldn’t help it—a hint of amusement slipped into my voice. “You won’t hurt me.”

Alright, maybe the weight of her body against my wounds did hurt a little—but I wasn’t going to complain about those breasts against my chest.

She pushed deeper against my throat, taking my advice to heart. With a long, rough inhale, she drew in a mouthful of my blood, and swallowed.

Her exhale was a groan against my flesh.

Fuck, I echoed it.

I hadn’t known if Oraya had venom. I would have thought she didn’t, without the fangs. But this—this did something to me. Something very different than what the venom of other vampires had, drugging me in sickening ways.

I didn’t know if it was venom, or her tongue, or just the intoxication of having her naked body straddling mine. Suddenly, nothing in this world mattered except for her, and her mouth, and the scent of her desire, thickening with every passing second.

Her tongue rolled against my throat again, with a tiny sound of pleasure I didn’t think she realized she had made. My head tipped back, giving her better access. Her body had melted against mine. Her back arched, thighs opening.