The sudden dual bursts of stinging pain caused my entire body to jerk. The fire of his bite shot through me, startling in its intensity. Nyktos’ grip on my hair and shoulder was tight as he pressed into me, my back coming against a wall. I gripped his arms, my nails digging into his cool skin.
There was nowhere to go—no escape. A scream built in my throat, but there was no air to give it life. I couldn’t breathe through the fire clawing at my insides. My back bowed when he drew deep and hard against my throat, drawing my blood into him in staggering pulls.
And then it…changed.
Seconds, only seconds had passed from the moment his fangs pierced my flesh and the vise-like grip on my shoulder eased. The fire of his mouth against my throat didn’t fade as his fingers now curled around the back of my head, but it became something else—something as overwhelming and powerful as the pain. The burn of his lips moving greedily against my throat built into a sudden, throbbing ache in my blood, settling in my breasts and between my thighs. The strength of it—the pounding, heated rush was shocking. It invaded my muscles, tightening them until they curled and spun.
Nyktos groaned, pushing into me, his fingers spreading across the edges of the bodice and curling around the center tie. He shifted, thrusting a strong thigh between mine. I felt him then, long and thick against my lower stomach.
I’m going to feed from you, and I’m going to fuck you while I do it.
I shuddered as a rush of damp heat flooded me. My eyes were open, but I saw nothing as his mouth tugged on my throat. My blood was on fire, my head falling back against the wall, cushioned by his hand. I moaned, and he sucked harder. I felt the pulls of his mouth all the way to my core. My body reacted out of instinct. Instead of trying to get away from him, I slid my hand up to the soft strands of his hair and tugged him closer, holding his eager mouth to my throat, wanting to be…devoured by the intensity
brewing in my body. Wanting to be devoured by him. I moved without thought, rocking against the hard length of his thigh. The tension deep inside me erupted without warning, the pleasure lashing out in sweeping waves. I trembled and shook as I rode the powerful release.
I panted, gasping for breath and shuddering. As soon as the ripples abated, the pulsing tension built once more at my throat and under his lips as he continued feeding. It traveled through my body in a series of sharp tingles. My heart raced as the acute tension built again at my core.
He made another sound against my throat, a deep, rumbling growl that should’ve concerned me, but I was far past the point of being cautious. I pulled on his hair. His fingers dug into the thin material of my bodice. I jerked, gasping when he pulled hard on the front of the gown. The sound of tearing cloth scorched my ears, sending another bolt of arousal through me. He tore the gown from the bodice to the waist, freeing my breasts and my upper stomach. The sleeves of the ruined gown slid down my arms. A ragged cry parted my lips as the tips of my breasts brushed against the coldness of his blood-slickened chest. Letting go of his hair, I shrugged off the sleeves of the gown. The material pooled at my hips.
I wanted to feel more. I wanted to feel him. I wanted.
Nyktos lifted his head away from my throat, and suddenly I was staring up into swirling quicksilver eyes. They were so bright and so full of life. Neither of us spoke as my attention dropped to his parted, ruby-red lips. My gaze moved lower to his blood-streaked chest and flesh that had already begun to heal and seal itself closed. And lower still, to those once-jagged wounds that were now pink welts across his tightly coiled stomach muscles.
What my blood did for him was nothing short of miraculous. Maybe even more so than the ember of life. Or at least it felt so in that moment.
I looked even lower and felt a little weak. But I didn’t think it had anything to do with him feeding. The throbbing length of his cock was visible through the flaps of his breeches and the head jutted up toward his navel. The tip beaded pearly liquid as it twitched.
Nyktos looked at me, his swirling gaze so intense that it was like a physical caress against my breasts and belly. I looked down at the shimmering bluish-red blood smeared above my navel and across my breasts and nipples.
His hand slid from my hair, dragging the curls forward over my shoulder. Strands fell across a breast as his fingers curved around the heavy
weight. A breathy moan left me, and those eyes flew to mine.
It took me a moment to remember how to speak. “Did you take enough?”
“It will have to be enough,” he answered, his voice thick with smoke and need and…hunger. He drew a thumb over the hardened nub of flesh and then stepped back from me. I felt the loss of his heat immediately as he stared at my partially exposed body, the hollows of his cheeks unforgivable. “Has to be.”
I glanced at the wounds on his chest. The one I had inflicted on him the night we’d found Andreia had healed immediately.
He hadn’t taken enough.
But I’d be lying if I said that was the only reason that propelled me forward. That it had nothing to do with all that desire for him—desire that had nothing to do with a duty that no longer mattered.
I wanted this. I wanted him. Me. For no other reason than for myself. And he wanted this, too, even if he hated me.
Heart thumping, I reached down and slid the gown over my hips, taking with it the flimsy undergarment. I stepped out of the pile of clothing and stood before him completely nude.
He shuddered. “Sera…”
Throat dry, I placed my hand between my breasts, sliding my fingers down my stomach, drawing his stare to where they came to a stop just below my navel. His lips parted, his fangs appearing once more. The sight of them caused a throbbing ache in my throat, a reminder of the pleasure- pain of his bite. “You haven’t taken enough.”
Nyktos said nothing as his chest rose and fell rapidly.
“You promised.” My pulse thrummed as I slipped my fingers between my thighs and against the damp heat. I sucked in the same breath he inhaled sharply, my cheeks warming. “You promised to feed from and fuck me.”
He went completely still as I touched myself, dragging a finger through the wetness, remembering exactly what his fingers felt like inside me. I pushed my finger inside—
Nyktos moved so fast, he was like a streak of lightning in the midst of a violent storm. He was on me, catching my hand and drawing it away from me. His mouth closed over my finger, wringing a breathy moan from me as he sucked on it. His eyes flew to mine, and he let go, the hunger in his stare sending a wave of tiny bumps all over my skin.
“I did,” he said, need thickening his voice. “I did warn you exactly what would happen.”
“You did.”
One side of his lips curled, and then he struck once more. This time, his fangs sank into the flesh of my breast, just above the rosy skin of the areola. The shock of pain was just as intense as before, just as stunning in its completeness. I couldn’t think past it as his arm came around my waist and he lifted me, his mouth closing over the skin, the nipple. He sucked and drank hard, sending a shockwave of temporary pain and then brutal, shattering pleasure through me. He caught my head before it fell back, holding me against his body. I felt the head of his cock against my throbbing center as he turned.
I was barely aware of my back pressed onto something soft and warm. I clasped the back of Nyktos’ head, holding him there. All I could focus on was the cool weight of him coming over me, the feel of his hungry mouth on my breast and how he shifted, shoving his breeches down while he fed, as the chamber spun and whirled, and my body sparked and ignited.
Drawing on the skin and taking more of my blood into him, he reached up, dragging his thumb across my lower lip. I turned my head, capturing his thumb with my mouth. I sucked as deep and hard as he did at my breast.
The rumbling groan he let loose sent another burst of pleasure through me. There was a strange taste on his thumb, something that reminded me of honey but thicker, smokier. Only distantly did I realize it must be his blood. I reluctantly released his flesh. He traced the line of my jaw and throat and then slid his palm over my other breast to the flare of my hip, eliciting a shiver from me when he settled between my thighs. I dug my fingers into his hair and skin at the feel of him, hard and cool pressing against my heat. He reached between our bodies, guiding himself. My breath halted and then sped up as I felt him pushing in. The stretch was a sublime sting of pain. I gasped, my hips tilting. He halted for a moment and then thrust in fully. My head kicked back as I cried out, shuddering.
The deep draws on my breast slowed as he remained buried deep inside me. His mouth eased, and then he ended the intoxicating pull and drag sensation I felt in every part of my body. The wet, cool slide of his tongue over my tingling nipple drew another raspy sound from me. He lifted his head, and my eyes opened. Our gazes met and held for what felt like a small eternity, and then he looked down at where our hips met.
“Beautiful,” he whispered, and my chest—my heart—immediately swelled. A drop of blood from his lip—a drop of my blood—splashed off my other breast. Dipping his head, he dragged his tongue over the swell of flesh, catching the bead of blood. And then he kept going, closing his mouth over the puckered flesh there. I moaned, hips jerking.
Nyktos’ groan was ragged, and he looked down again, the hand on my hip tightening. He shifted his body and watched himself withdraw, inch by inch, and then press back into me to the hilt. My moan of pleasure was lost in his as my back arched. My eyes closed again. For a moment, my senses were overwhelmed. Nyktos was a tremendous presence in my body, stretching me until nothing but the feeling of decadent fullness remained, curling my toes.
“Oh, gods,” I whispered. Slipping my hands to the cool skin of his shoulders and biceps, I felt the fine tremor work its way through him when he slid a hand under my head. Opening my eyes, I sucked in air.
He was so incredibly still, his features sharper, taut. Bright flecks of eather churned in his silver eyes. Under his skin, shadows swirled. “Nyktos?”
A shudder rolled through him and the dark, hazy outline of shadow wings formed over his shoulders. Thick cords of muscle stood out along his neck as he stretched his head to the side and fought his true being. Who he was under the skin. I touched his cheek, and those wisps of eather slowed.
Another shudder rocked him. “I…I’ve never felt anything like this.”
A knot formed in my throat. This was his first time experiencing this, and I didn’t know what to do with that knowledge. It stung my eyes, partly because this felt like a first for me, too, and I didn’t understand why. Still, I wanted him to know that.
“Me, neither,” I whispered, and his eyes lifted to mine.
He stared at me. His features were too heavy with need for me to read anything else from them. “Don’t lie to me now, even if you do so in such a pretty way.”
“I’m not lying,” I swore. I wanted him to believe me. It was the truth. “I’ve never felt this either. Never.”
A muscle ticked along his jaw. “I don’t have very much control right now,” he stated thickly. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You won’t.”
A pulse ran through him, every part of him, and I felt it deep inside me. “You don’t know that. I don’t.”
“You didn’t when you fed,” I reasoned, smoothing my thumb across his jaw. “You won’t now.”
“Your faith in me…” His hand curled into my hair. “Is admirable but reckless.”
“Your fear is misplaced,” I returned, drawing my legs up to his hips. Both of us lost our breath. Pressing my knees against his sides, I rolled him onto his back, an act that was only successful because I caught him off guard—an act that punched the air from my lungs at the exact moment it sent pleasure thundering through me as the change in position intensified the feel of him, somehow bringing him even deeper. I planted my palms on his chest, steadying myself. “But I am reckless.”
Nyktos’ answering growl spun its way around me. “Good gods…” He stared up at me as my hair slid forward, brushing his chest. The wounds were gone there, and almost completely invisible on his lower stomach.
Relief spun through me as I looked up at him. His eyes were a kaleidoscope of silver and white. His features had lost some of their sharpness, but I could still see the shadows under his skin, causing a beautiful marbling effect. I moved tentatively, rocking forward. “Is this…is this how you plan to kill me?”
“No.” I lifted until just the tip of him pressed in and then slid back down until there wasn’t an inch between us.
“You sure?” he asked. “Because I think you are.” One of his hands went to my waist. The other gathered up one side of my hair, holding it back as I rolled my hips. His heavy-hooded gaze held mine and then shifted to the mass of curls he held, before moving to my breasts and finally to where we were joined. “And I think I’m going to enjoy this manner of death.”
Heart thumping, I let my head fall back as I reached up, curling my fingers around his wrist. I drew his hand to my mouth, where I pressed a kiss to the center of his palm and then slid his hand down, over my breast. I shuddered as I rocked in a slow, torturous tempo, still dragging his questing, exploring fingers down over my belly, to where we were joined. I pressed his fingers against the tight, sensitized bundle of nerves there, crying out as a sharp curl echoed from deep inside me.
“Fuck,” he groaned, his hips rearing off the bed, lifting both of us. “You feel too good, liessa.”
Liessa.
My head snapped forward, and my eyes opened. His words, the friction of each withdrawal and subsequent return, his teasing fingers built a storm of sensations that quickly turned into a swirling knot of deep tension. I was close, my fingers spasming around his, and my nails digging into his shoulder as Nyktos followed my lead, his hips rising to meet mine. Soon, there was no real sense of rhythm as we moved against each other. It was pure instinct, driven by a shared need, one that pushed us closer and closer to an edge that I toppled over. I called out his name as the tension broke, and waves of release rippled through me. I slid forward, both hands on his chest as he thrusted faster, angled deeper. Shocks of pleasure cascaded through me when he wrapped his arms around me, pulling my chest to his. Holding me tight, he rolled me under him, his hips thrusting deeply, just once. He came, his head buried in my shoulder as he shuddered through his release.
I held him through it, running my fingers up and down his back even as sharp, swift aftershocks still rocked my body. He remained there for an indefinable amount of time, his weight braced on an arm but still heavy. It was time that I cherished—soaked in. The closeness, how we were still joined. The nothingness between us, and his scent and mine. The way I was Sera in these moments, and he was Ash to me. That was what I devoured. Greedily. Us. Because like at the lake, I knew it wouldn’t last.
And it didn’t.
Nyktos slowly lifted his head. My hands stilled on the length of powerful, corded muscles lining his back. He stared down at me. Was he counting my freckles again? Seeing if they’d mysteriously changed? Or would he kiss me? I wanted him to kiss me.
His lashes swept down, shielding his eyes, and then he rolled off me onto his back, lying beside me on the bed.
I didn’t move. Not for several minutes. I couldn’t. It took everything in me to push the knot back down my throat, to hastily stitch up the cracks racing across my chest. Had I honestly thought he’d kiss me? After what he’d learned? He wanted me—my blood and my body. He needed that as badly as I needed to know what it felt like to have him inside me. That didn’t include kissing. Kissing felt far more…intimate and forbidden now.
Swallowing through the burn, I looked over at him. He was on his back, one arm tossed above his head, and the other resting in the space between
us. He wasn’t staring at the ceiling. He was looking at me.
“How?” Nyktos demanded. “How can you be so convincing?”
I tensed, thinking at first that he was talking about what we’d just shared. But then I realized that he wasn’t looking at me. He was watching, prying into me. Reading. “You’re reading my emotions.”
“All things considered, that act doesn’t even register against what you planned,” he replied. “Does it?”
“That doesn’t make it any less rude,” I retorted.
“I suppose not, but you didn’t answer my question. How are you so convincing?” Nyktos asked. “Were you also taught that?”
A wave of prickly heat washed over me. “I was not taught how to force emotion.”
One eyebrow rose. “But weren’t you? Tell me, Sera. Would that not be a part of the seduction? Of leading me to love you? To make me believe you feel something for me?”
Guilt crowded some of the anger, but not all. “First off, we didn’t know you could read emotions. If we had, then I probably would’ve been schooled on how to feel something so deeply that even I began to believe it was real.”
His eyes flared a bright silver.
“Secondly, why would I fake anything I’m feeling now? There’d be no point. It wouldn’t save my people, even if I succeeded,” I pointed out. “And, finally, need I remind you not to tell me what I’m feeling?”
Nyktos’ jaw hardened, and a long moment passed before he turned his head away.
I stared at the harsh lines of his face, fighting the urge to yell. To just scream until my throat went raw. Somehow, I managed not to. “Did you take enough blood? Honest?”
A heartbeat passed. “More than enough.”
“Good.” Tangled hair fell over my shoulders as I sat up.
He went on alert in an instant as I looked around for something to put on. The clothing was ruined, but at least all I had to do was walk through a door. I started to scoot toward the edge of the bed—
“Where do you think you’re going?”
Stopping, I looked over my shoulder. “To my bedchamber?” His eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“Why…wouldn’t I?” My heart tumbled. “Or am I supposed to be sent somewhere else? To those cells you referenced?” I stiffened. “If so, can I at least find some clothing you didn’t ruin?”
A strange thing happened then. He seemed to relax. And a faint grin appeared, softening the angles of his features. “Yeah, I did ruin that gown.”
I stared at him, caught between disbelief and a mess of a hundred other emotions. “I’m not sure why you’re smiling about that.”
“It will be a favorite memory for years to come.”
My eyes narrowed on him. “Well, I’m glad to hear that, but it’s not like I have a lot of clothes for someone to be tearing them off me.”
His molten silver eyes shifted to me. “You weren’t complaining when I did it,” he purred. “If I recall correctly, you were quite eager to get rid of that gown yourself.”
I was, but that was beside the point. Was he teasing me? Or was he…? My pulse kicked up. He couldn’t be. I dared a quick peek below his waist, and a shock went through me. He was more than just semi-hard and that was…well, that was impressive. Was that a Primal thing? Muscles deep inside me clenched as I lifted my gaze back to his.
His eyes met mine and then lowered. “You are sitting next to me, gloriously naked, and I am intentionally staring.”
“I can see that,” I remarked acidly, annoyed by him… and myself, because I did nothing to shield myself from his stare. I did nothing to stop the fact that I enjoyed that he was staring.
One side of his mouth tipped up again as he drew his teeth—his fangs— over his lips. “My mark on your unmentionables is quite fascinating to me.” I looked down and sucked in an unsteady breath at the sight of the purplish-pink patch of skin and the two puncture wounds. A bolt of sharp- edged arousal darted through me as I remembered the push of his cock and
pull of his mouth. “Pervert,” I tossed out half-heartedly.
“Can’t even argue with that.” He turned his head away. “I’m not putting you in a cell.”
“You’re not?”
“Why would I?” he countered, closing his eyes. “You should rest. So should I. We need to be prepared for whatever comes next.”
Kolis.
I swallowed again, somehow forgetting about that the moment I decided to feed Nyktos.
“Rest means sleeping, Sera, which usually requires that you lay down, unless you’re able to sleep sitting up. I would find that impressive if so,” he said. “But it would also be distracting.”
I opened my mouth and found myself at a loss for words. “You want me to sleep beside you?”
“I want you to rest. If you’re beside me, I don’t have to worry about what you may or may not do.”
I wasn’t exactly sure what he was worried about me doing if I wasn’t here, but being beside him when he was in such a vulnerable state as sleep seemed like the last thing he’d want since he obviously believed that the guilt I felt wasn’t real. That my unwillingness to carry through with my duty was just pretty lies. “Are you not concerned?”
“About?”
Shaking my head, I looked away from him. “Oh, I don’t know. Me attacking you?”
Nyktos chuckled deeply.
My brows flew up. “I’m not sure why you find that suggestion funny.” “Because it is.”
I didn’t move.
“Go to sleep, liessa.”
That word again—one I knew could no longer mean something beautiful and powerful to him. It couldn’t mean Queen. I would never be his Consort now. A word that was now a mockery. Or worse yet, never meant anything to him.
An unexpected, dark pain flared in my chest at that realization—at how much it bothered me.
Anger exploded as quickly as the hurt did. “You know what?” He sighed. “What?”
“You can go fuck yourself.” I knew it was a childish thing to say, but whatever. I rose from the indecently large bed, making it to my knees—
Nyktos wasn’t nearly as at ease as I believed. He moved shockingly fast, one arm clamping down on my waist as his other hand curled around my chin from behind, tilting my head back. My heart stuttered at the feel of him against my backside, rigid and throbbing, his breath coasting over my ear. My heart skipped another beat because I knew how easy it would be for him to unleash his anger on me, and yet I felt no fear, only warmth.
His body felt warm.
My eyes widened as I relaxed into his hold. The chest against my shoulders, the hard stomach against my back, and the thick length of him— it was all warm.
“Do you want to know why I find your suggestion funny?” Nyktos asked before I could speak. The arm around my waist shifted, and I felt his fingers on my lower stomach—his warm fingers. “Do you?” he demanded in my silence, his thumb sweeping along my lower lip, and his other fingers inching down to the wide vee of my legs.
“No.” I wet my lips, snagged between the need to point out how he felt and an entirely different, truly inappropriately timed need. “But I’m sure you’re going to tell me. You do like to talk.”
His answering chuckle was deep and smoky, rumbling through me as his fingers wandered even lower, skimming the tight bundle of nerves. My hips twitched, and he let out another laugh, this time softer. “You do like my fingers inside you, don’t you?”
The tips of my breasts tightened when he dragged a finger over the sensitive part. This time, my hips jerked. He made a deep, rough sound, his finger sliding through the fresh wave of gathering dampness.
“I think there’s something else you like more than my fingers,” he said softly, parting the swollen flesh. “Isn’t that right?”
I rocked back against him out of reflex, my toes curling as he worked his finger inside me, and the hardness pressed against my ass. “So?” I challenged. His hips moved behind me, against me. “And you know what I think? You forgot what you were going to say.”
“Oh, trust me, liessa, I didn’t forget.” His breath coasted over the side of my neck and the bite mark there. Another bolt of awareness went through me. He continued rocking against me as his finger moved idly in and out of me—as I followed those movements, and with each pass, his cock made its way lower until I felt it bumping against his hand and me. “I was just letting you forget.”
I stilled.
Nyktos shifted then, pressing me down onto my hands and then my forearms and belly. My pulse pounded as his weight came over my back. With one hand still under my chin and the other hand still between my thighs, it forced my head back and my hips arched. His finger still moved as his thumb swirled around the apex, dragging ragged moans from me.
“It’s funny because you cannot hurt me.” That strangely warm breath of his still hovered over the mark on my throat. “You can never weaken me to the point that you’d ever be a real threat.”
My breath caught as the meaning of his words penetrated the haze of arousal. I knew what he was saying. I was no real threat because he would never love me.
And maybe it was the reckless part of me that spurred my words. Maybe it was that hurt in the center of my chest. I turned my head toward him. “You sure about that?”
The sound he made was a cross between a laugh and a growl. Then his head snapped down. I stiffened as I felt the sharp tips of his fangs on my throat, just above the marks already there. He didn’t pierce my skin, though. He just held me there as the—oh, gods—as the heated, hard length of him replaced his finger, pushing in and spreading me once more. The feel of him stole my breath. The utter, absolute dominance in how he held me there with his fangs. The unending press of him filled me with a wicked, wanton flood of heat.
There were no slow, tentative movements now. He fucked me as he pressed his fingers against me, working the bundle of nerves. Each powerful push caused his fangs to scrape my neck, but he didn’t break the skin. Not once. And, gods, I wanted him to, but there was no way for me to seize control as I had the first time. He was in total control this time, and the fighter in me, the shameless part, knew that and submitted.
And it was glorious.
Gods, he…he was a fast learner.
Nyktos’ thrusts were deep and hard, leaving no room for anything but the feel of him. His hips pumped against my backside as he kept me in that position, head tipped back, throat vulnerable, hips arched. And when I felt his thumb pressing against my lips, I opened my mouth and let him in.
And then I bit him hard.
“Fuck,” he grunted against my throat.
A throaty laugh escaped me as I closed my lips around his thumb, sucking on the flesh I had bitten. Only a heartbeat later did I realize I had drawn blood. My shock at my actions was quickly overtaken by the swirl of tingles across my tongue and the taste of honey, though smokier. It was his blood. Not much, perhaps just a drop. I swallowed, shuddering at the decadent taste. I should have been disturbed by having tasted his blood, but instead, I moaned around his thumb, rocking my hips against him.
His hand came down on my ass with a light smack that sent another sinful burst of pleasure through me. “Very naughty,” he murmured.
Then he took me. He claimed me in a way I hadn’t known I desired. His body pounded into mine, frenzied and raw. Release hit me, sending wave after wave of pulsing, spiraling pleasure through me. I cried out, my head tilting back against his shoulder. His hand shifted then, pushing the mess of curls out of my face as I shook and spasmed. He followed me over the edge with a hoarse shout, his incredibly large body shuddering around me.
Nyktos held me there, his chest sealed to my back as his head moved. His lips touched my skin, and then I felt the kiss against the mark he’d left there. It was I who shuddered then, and I immediately knew that neither of us would ever be the same again.
