“My lord, please,” she begged, somehow generating a ripple of angst from him. “I can’t get you away from here if you’re so weak. And I’m absolutely not leaving without you. If she comes back…” She let the threat hang there, for, if she knew one thing about the earl, it was that he took his responsibilities gravely.
Surely he wouldn’t want his ward to be here if Mrs. Throckmullins came back.
He remained mute and stoic, and Maia realized she was going to have to force the stubborn fool into it. She remembered the night in the carriage when he’d scratched her with his fang; the arrested look on his face when he’d noticed the blood.
She was just about to get up to search for something to cut herself with—for she simply couldn’t stomach using her own fingernails—when he made a low sound. Deep, like a struggle, rumbling from his throat.
Maia turned toward him just as he moved, curling his fingers around her arm. She looked down and met his eyes.
“Get…rubies,” he said. “Quickly.”
“What? Have you gone mad? Isn’t that how you got?—”
“Get…rubies,” he said between tight jaws. “Argue. Always.”
“Corvindale…” But she saw the fury in his eyes and she decided he was probably right—this wasn’t the time to argue. She’d known the man was mad since the night he bundled her up in the curtains and tossed her on the patio.
But he’d saved her then, hadn’t he?
She rushed out of the room to get one of the necklaces from where she’d tossed them in a pile far down the corridor. When she returned to the chamber, she saw that he’d shifted in the chair and was sitting more upright than he’d been.
His eyes fell on the dangling chain of red gems, then lifted to hers as she approached slowly. Whatever expression might have been there was unfathomable in the dim light.
“What do you want me to do with them?” she asked, already noticing the change in his breathing and the stiffening in his limbs. From the mere presence of the jewels. She found it fascinating and frightening at the same time.
He glanced to the side, made a very faint gesture to the table next to his chair. “There.”
Maia thought she was beginning to understand. He wanted them nearby so that…he’d remain weak? Her heart lunged into her throat and suddenly the prickle of anticipation turned into prickles in her belly. What was he afraid he’ddo?
She laid the necklace on the far edge of the small piecrust table and then faced him, looking down at his dark hair and stony face. His eyes were closed again, brows furrowed, his hands clenched into fists down at his sides. The rise and fall of his chest matched her own. The bright white of his tattered shirt shone next to his dark skin and trousers.
“Corvindale,” she said, and then, holding her breath, sat down on the arm of his chair again.
“Use them,” he said, and she knew he meant the rubies. “If you…need.”
Heart in her throat, she swallowed hard and offered him her wrist.
At first, she thought he would refuse again, but then he grasped her with surprisingly strong fingers. A bolt of fear shotthrough her and then, as he lifted her wrist to his mouth, she saw his fangs clearly for the first time.
She closed her eyes as she felt his breath on her flesh, and then, to her shock and surprise…not the bite of pain, but the brush of lips. Soft, moist, followed by the gentle touch of his tongue.
Maia shuddered as warmth blossomed through her, her skin prickling at the sensation. Her heartbeat seemed to have changed, and it thrummed in her ears, reverberating through her entire being. She hardly realized what she was doing as her free hand moved around to the back of the chair, propping herself up just next to his hair. He slid his lips gently along the inside of her wrist and then paused, suddenly looking up at her.
His eyes were clearly illuminated and the expression there was so dark and hungry, yet filled with loathing, that she jolted.
“I don’t…want to…do this,” he breathed over her damp skin, and then suddenly he went rigid and the points of his teeth were there.
The slide of his fangs into the tender part of her wrist brought a surge of pleasure and pain. He made a low keening sound, like a wild animal being freed—or tortured—and Maia felt the burst of blood as it flooded from her veins. He vibrated against her as if something was suddenly released from deep inside him.
His mouth was warm, covering her, and his fingers tight on her wrist as if to keep it in place. The heat flowed out of her, leaving her lightheaded and aware of every movement of his mouth and tongue as he sucked, licked, sucked…drawing from her in a base, undulating rhythm.
She looked down, watching in fascination as his dark head bent over her white arm. She smelled the blood, heard the soft whistling as he fed, the quiet gulps as he drank. And as life drained from her, it was replaced by rolling heat, building and surging as if her veins sang.
Maia’s fingers filtered into his dark hair, finding it warm and soft, damp from the water, and she sagged against him. Her breasts felt tight and sensitive and she realized she was breathing in little gasps with her lips parted. There was somethingmore…she needed somethingmore.
He shifted on the chair, suddenly releasing his fangs from her arm and then slipping his warm tongue over the wounds in sensual little circles. She sighed and arched, a painful little tingle of pleasure starting deep inside her belly and moving down.
His hand slid up behind her neck and grasped her skull as he pulled her down onto his lap. She closed her eyes, her hands planted on the solid planes of his bare shoulders, and then she jolted when he bit into the soft part of her shoulder.
