“Mine,” I growl against her skin.
“Yours,” she agrees.
I bite.
The first taste of her blood is revelation.
Not just sustenance, but something deeper, richer, more essential.Power floods through me, her power, warden blood mixed with human resilience, seasoned with the strength she’s been building since the day we met.It sings in my veins, sets every nerve ending on fire, and through the bond I feel her experiencing the same thing.
She’s taking from me too.Not blood, but essence.My strength, my speed, my centuries of survival instinct.The exchange is mutual, balanced, perfect.
The bond doesn’t just deepen, ittransforms.
We’re no longer two separate beings connected by magic.We’re something new, something forged in desperation and sealed in blood.I can see through her eyes, feel through her skin, taste through her mouth.She’s in my head and I’m in hers and the boundaries between us blur until I can’t tell where Vex ends and Tessa begins.
She comes with my fangs still buried in her throat, pleasure crashing through both of us like a tidal wave.I follow her over the edge, her blood on my tongue and her name a prayer on my lips.
When I finally pull away, sealing the wound with my venom, we’re both shaking.
I roll onto my side, taking her with me until she’s draped across my chest.The bond surges between us, wide open, and I feel everything, her bone-deep exhaustion, the warm curl of her satisfaction, the new strength thrumming beneath her skin.Something in her has shifted, changed at the cellular level, and the power humming through her feels like an echo of my own.
“Holy shit,” she breathes.
“Yeah.”
“I can feel you.Not just emotionally, I can feel your body.Your muscles.Your senses.”She lifts her head, eyes wide.“Vex, I canseein the dark.And everything’s so much sharper.Sounds, smells, everything.”
“It’ll fade some as your blood is metabolized.But you’ll keep the core enhancements.Strength, speed, resilience.”I run my fingers through her hair.“You’re not human anymore, Tessa.Not entirely.”
“What am I?”
“Mine.”
She smiles, pressing a kiss to my chest.“Good answer.”
We lie there in the dark, wrapped around each other, and I let myself pretend for a few stolen moments we’re not about to ride into battle.That we’re not going to face down a primordial force of destruction.That we might actually survive this.
But then Tessa shifts, and I see it.
A shadow, barely perceptible, clinging to the corner where wall meets ceiling.Not a natural shadow, something else, something wrong.It pulses faintly, as though breathing, and the mark on Tessa’s shoulder gives off the briefest flicker of cold light in response.
The shadow recoils from the light, then slides across the ceiling and disappears through a crack in the doorframe.
And I know, with the certainty that comes from five hundred years of hunting and being hunted, it’s connected to Prophet somehow.I’d seen something similar earlier, when we were all in the war room.A flicker at the edge of my vision, gone before I could focus on it.But now, with my senses heightened by Tessa’s blood, I can see it clearly.
Whatever that shadow is, it’s been tracking him.Maybe for hours.Maybe for days.And it feels ancient, patient, wrong in ways that make my vampire instincts scream danger.
I should tell Prophet.Should warn Blade.Should—
But something stops me.Some deeper instinct says this knowledge is dangerous, that speaking it aloud will tip our hand to forces we don’t fully understand.If I’m wrong, I’ll cause unnecessary panic.If I’m right, and that thing knows I’ve seen it...
No.Better to watch.To wait.To gather more information before raising the alarm.I file it away, tucking it into the back of my mind where even the bond can’t find it.Whatever the shadow is, whatever it wants with Prophet, it’s a problem for another day.
Right now, I have Tessa warm and alive in my arms.I have a battle to prepare for and a club depending on me to keep my head clear and my focus sharp.
The shadow can wait.
“What are you thinking?”Tessa asks, her voice drowsy.
