Who has hurt Winnie so deeply that the pain follows her into her dreams?
I think of the cruel, monstrous things I’d like to do to them.
My fingers grasp the handle. Even if she has locked the door, I can break it with a flick of my wrist. I can gather her in my arms and tell her …
Tell her what? That nightmares aren’t real?
But theyarereal.
Iam real.
My fingers fall from the handle. Winnie lets out another strangled sob. I ache to hold her.
Instead, I lean my back against her door. Every cry and moan that falls from her mouth renders me impotent.
What terrors have turned her nights into horror?
Winnie’s nightmares wake her, as they have every night since she arrived at the castle, according to Reginald. A crack of light appears under the door. I hear her sigh, hear her footsteps on the rug and the water running in the bathroom. The bed creaks, and thepages of a book turn.
And then, I hear something else.
A buzzing sound.
I don’t understand what the buzzing can be at first, but then Winnie moans.
This moan is different from the way she whimpers in her dreams when she is distressed and frightened.
This moan is … is …
… it’s the moan she made when I kissed her.
It’s the needy tremble of her body against me when my teeth scraped over her skin.
It’s the sound that has haunted me every night.
It’s the moan that has undone me.
My whole body tightens. Long dormant sensations clasp at my cold skin, warming me from the inside out. I taste my own blood on my tongue, rich and old and filled with dark urges.
Winnie moans again and of their own accord my hands seek my waistband. All the taboos of my kin, all the dire warnings about what can happen when a human and vampire go to bed together are drowned into insignificance by that moan.
I feel like I’m no longer in control of my body. I’m a coil of need and desperation and foolish longing.
This is not for you.
But I cannot tear myself away. My hand closes around myself. I close my eyes and draw myself out, stroking my length in cruel silence as I gorge myself in a vision of her golden eyes staring back at me, wide and burnished with pleasure. I see her full lips part, her body arch off her bed, her skin like spun silver, and …
“Alaric,” Winnie whispers my name, each syllable clear as crystal to me over the buzzing of her toy. “Alaric.”
I bite my lip, not realising that my fangs have dropped. The sharp pain jolts me back to reality, back to this wretched scene of me skulking in her hallway, listening to her most private ministrations, so befuddled with lust that I imagine she wants me as Iwant her?—
“Alaric … oh!”
Her voice weaves an enchantment. The knowing of it, of what she’s doing to herself in there withmyname on her lips?—
There’s only a thin wooden door between us. In a moment, I could have the door off its hinges, I could be in her bed, tasting her, making her scream my name instead of whispering it. I wrench myself away from her door and force one foot in front of the other back down the stairway, disgusted with myself.
I want her so badly that I might have to stake myself through the heart just to keep her safe fromme.
