“Well, don’t.” Damien picked up the pages again, needing the distraction of laborious translations from the way he was imagining her mouth would form the wordpleasurable.
She huffed from across the room, the sound of one of her fists falling into the blankets. “Look, I just want to know if that Rapture woman bit you.”
He clicked his tongue but was intrigued at her tone. “Yes, thatvampiredid, indeed, bite me.”
“She did?” The alarm in her voice made it waver. “And youlether?”
“Well, no one’s going to bite me against my will, Amma,” he droned, then thought that may have not been the response she was looking for.
She scoffed, and he didn’t have to see her to know she was crossing her arms and pouting. No, that had definitely not been the correct response.
“You are…upset?” he mused quietly.
“No!” Her quickness was wholly unconvincing. “I just, you know…I don’t think it’s a good idea. Not for abloodmage.”
“Oh, you’ve become an expert in sanguine arcana now, have you?” Damien chuckled.
“Well, isn’t that where your magic comes from? Won’t it be dangerous for you if they have your blood?”
“Ah, I see.” Damien lay the parchment on his chest and sighed—her query was much less interesting than he’d originally thought, but he should have gathered as much as Amma did seem ever-concerned about his wellbeing. And that was…well, it was meant to be nice when someone cared about you, wasn’t it? “Once my blood is spilt, it loses nearly all of its magical properties. It must be preserved with a spell, like what Xander the great buffoon does with that vial about his neck, to be dangerous in another’s hands…or mouth. Regardless, I did it as part of a trade. My blood, for their help.”
“Help with the talisman?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.”
That seemed to satisfy her, and Damien picked up his pages again. He’d hoped to coax the essence of what she was getting at out of her, but was strangely disappointed she was only worried about the potential risk of his actions.
Amma remained silent as Damien read, long enough he thought she had fallen asleep, but silence rarely lasted in her presence, and her quiet voice cut into the air once more. “But did you alsoenjoyit when she bit you?”
Damien grinned into the dark. Now that would be difficult to explain, even to a woman who had gone to mush in his hands when he’d tied her up. “I don’t see howthatmatters.”
“I just want to know,” she said with exasperation she hadn’t really earned.
“AndIjust want to know whyyouare so concerned?”
That garnered no quip back, the popping of the fireplace the only thing filling up the room’s palpable silence.
“Ah, so Lady Ammalie is absolutely full of questions, but she is not so keen to offer any answers.”
She clicked her tongue. “Fine, don’t tell me. If we’re going to be here for a few days, I’ll just ask Asphodel or Ivory to show me howpleasurablebeing bitten can be.”
He growled at the thought, suddenly incensed. “Being bitten is incredibly painful, Amma, and it can easily lead to your death—you know, the thing we are trying to avoid by being here? It’s only if you engage in other, intimate activities when being bitten that—”
Amma gasped, and her small shadow bolted up behind the sheer curtain. “That’swhat you were doing with Rapture?”
And there, that was the crux of all her circular inquiries, heknewit. Damien let her question hang in the air, then sighed. “Your concern is endearing but irrelevant; my virtue was ruined long ago.”
She was still sitting up, and he could feel her eyes boring into him in the dark, the room’s temperature dropping even though the fire still crackled at his side. Then all the fun was swept from his teasing as a strange, guilty sensation dug its way into him, odd especially since he had actually refused Rapture’s advances.
“To be clear, Rapture and I did not participate in anything except averypainful bloodletting.” He winced, the sting traveling from his neck to his gut where it settled, prodding at him to be totally honest. “Though she did…press her mouth against mine.”
“She did?”
“For a very brief moment,” he said quickly. “I should have been expecting it, but she acted without invitation.”
“Oh.” She was quiet, and he feared what question, or worse, what anger might come next, but then she totally surprised him. “Are vampires susceptible to silver like werewolves?”
