My heart drops somewhere into my gut, defenses gather, mental shields refortifying.
“I listened in to Fable and Malik’s thoughts—”
“Who?”
“My friends.” He swats his hand through the air as if tossing my question to the side. “They’re unconvinced. Our scents are mingling but not strongly enough. Not to mention listening in to the student body, professors, guards. There is question, they want to believe it, but they have not accepted we are fated as fact. With Nevaeh sending an envoy and possibly looking to rekindle my betrothal, we have to convince the world we’re fated and now. We need more.”
My gaze trickles down his body, but it’s not the powerful grace lined in him that makes me shrink into the bedcovers. It’s the openness in those purple eyes. “Well … I suppose there’s only one thing left—”
He watches my lips, his own parting before he interrupts. “There’s actually one other thing, between sleep and sex. I could … claim you.”
“Claim me?”
“A simple bite.” Those fangs descend and now I do squirm, as if he’s transformed into a vampyr before my eyes. He holds up a calming palm. “If I take your blood into my veins … and you take mine, it will change our scents from the inside out. It’ll be … undeniable. It’s something all fated mates do eventually.”
“Why didn’t you suggest it before?”
“It’s rather permanent.”
And we aren’t?But I keep the thought tucked down, lodged like a scrap of paper under the rock of my heart. “And besides the pain … is that the only downside?”
“You’ll have a scar.” He clears his throat, and I wonder if he’s noticed the ones that line my back, though the camisole covers the worst of them. “Mostly you might notice some … misplaced desires. Some lust that perhaps I don’t deserve.” His gaze rakes me over but then stays, his body so still, as if he hangs on my answer.
But the feelings that have budded in my chest, vining through my ribs, rooting between my thighs have teased me to a point I’m not sure I’m thinking clearly anymore when it comes to him. The idea of his mouth finally making contact with my neck has me trembling in anticipation, gaze tracking up all those glorious veins across his forearms, lingering on the tightness of his chest muscles. The slope of his own neck so flawless, not a single nick or scar. He’s too fucking pretty … it seems a shame. Worse, what if all that I’ve been holding back comes flooding out? What if I give in to this? To him?
“And … I have to bite you back?”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“I’ve never claimed anyone.” He shakes his head, eyes darting away. He palms his neck. “It always sounded … too intimate. I can’t imagine it’ll be long, but … we will need to leave the marks somewhere visible. To drink from each other.” He clears his throat, eyes violet and hooded as he lies alongside me, gaze magnetized to my tender throat. “Are you in?”
“Yes.” Why did I have to reply so fast?
He chuckles, and those eyes darken, not just in color but intent. Leaning forward, he pauses before his lips touch my neck, the addictive vetiver and cedarwood scent washing over me. “Any last words?”
I can scarcely breathe, half a smirk on my lips as I snarl with sarcasm, “Bite me.”
Palming my neck on one side, his lips suck against the other, and my skin incinerates. There’s no pain, just pleasure, and he tenderizes that soft space with his tongue, lashing it against me, the scratch of his clean-shaven face enough to knock my knees apart. I catch sight of his eyes on mine just once, the glimmer of those cruel canines, and then—
My body jerks into his at the impact, my own fangs sliding down in response. He remains latched on to me, and it’s not the pain that has me fisting his shirt in my hands tight enough to tear it off. It’s the pleasure of the venom he courses through my veins. Some druid damnation, a carnal desire curling inside begging to abandon this game we play.
And all these silly pretenses I hold on to.
Before I know it, he’s released me, only for me to sink my teeth into that space between his neck and shoulder. His throat bobs under my tongue, my clamp harder than his ever was, the claim unyielding. He lowers himself closer to me, giving in as I suck onto that tender flesh. My knees bracket around his hips, locking him in place as he makes to withdraw. But I just want another moment. Another eternity.
He goes limp against me, his hair falling over me, chest flat against mine, hand gripping into my hair, winding it between his fingers. I clutch one of his horns to lock his neck to my mouth, the other hand sliding up those downy wings in a purposeful stroke —
“Rune.” My name is both a purr and a beg and suddenly I release him. He pushes away from me, breathing as if he’s been running for his life.
“Draven?”
“Fuck.” He stands and abruptly leaves. A minute later I hear the shower running. At first, I’m unsure if I did something wrong, wadding one of his discarded shirts from this week against myneck. His blood coats my lips but it tastes like that sweet nectar I clung to when I became a changeling. Shockinglynotdisgusting at all, but intoxicating. There’s a lowering in his shield, a feeling spiraling from the other side of this link we share, and I summon the World and the High Priestess to get closer to that wall of thorns and iron. His mind echoes the growing pressure between my legs, begging for release. I smirk to myself.
He doesn’t come back for the night, as though I will tempt him too greatly. I don’t know how to feel about what just happened. I thought I’d be annoyed at the submission, playing along with more of this appeasement for his courts, but instead I find myself wanting him to return through that door, to pin down my hands with one of his and bite me again. Yet that wouldn’t beenough.I shake my head as if the thoughts will go with it, settling into the lonely bed for the evening when he doesn’t reappear. I could go to him, be the one to break but … my pride is too damn strong.
But I suppose he is settling for his idle hands … and I have mine.
