I pull away despite his adorably pathetic whimpers telling me not to. His color is back. His eyes are open and bright. The deep gash now looks like a run-of-the-mill stab wound. Not willing to risk it, I take a page out of Riall’s book and bite into my wrist. I hold the seeping punctures over the injury, bleeding onto him, like he once did for me.
“Beasty, your blood…” he murmurs sultrily, holding my ass more firmly as he rolls his hips up between mine.
The roughness of that satisfied exclamation settles right between my thighs. My nipples pebble, and a flurry of flutters awakens deep in my belly where Riall’s blood is burning like an ember of need.
“I need to taste you,” he pleads, his eyes once again closed, only this time the tremors working through him look like they’re from pleasure not pain.
I look down to find that his injury is completely gone. My blood drips down the smooth plane of his hard pec as though it wasn’t a festering mess mere moments ago. I stare stunned at what my blood just did for him. I’ve only ever seen the moon or a healer work that fast.
Wide-eyed and reeling, I watch as Riall reaches for my wrist. He pulls it slowly, carefully, to his mouth, as though he’s giving me time to reclaim it. I debate doing just that, but there’s an eager anticipation sparking inside of me that wants to see what will happen if he just…
Riall’s long tongue snakes out, and he licks the two small wounds on my wrist. Our groans are a duet of desire as he tastes me. I swear I can feel his tongue both on my wrist and between the lips of my cunt at the same time.
“Fuck, that’s good,” he growls, and I agree by pressing harder against his cock and his chest. “Bite me, Beasty,” he lustily orders, his fangs somehow longer as he looks at me from beneath his lashes like he wants to eat me in more ways than one.
I freeze.
Something in the back of my mind reminds me that Riall was almost just taken out by a shard of an iron dagger. He should rest…heal…recuperate. Then there’s the louder part of me, the Sanguinna part, the part I haven’t looked at too closely since the morning I woke up here and learned what a Sanguinna even was. That part of me wants to do very dirty, very fucked-up bloody things to this male. But I have no idea what that even entails.
Biting seems key, going by the sensual appeals so far, but I’ve really only ever used my fangs in defense. I don’t want to hurt him.
“Hey, where’d you go?” Riall asks softly, caressing my cheek with his fingers.
His thumb brushes across the seam of my lips. Lightly he pushes the pad of his digit against the point of one of my fangs, and I gasp because it feels like he’s pushing on my clit too. His grin is beaming as I stare at him in shock…and then I get pissed.
“I don’t panic, Riall,” I snap, and his smile drops faster than my inhibitions when it comes to these fucking Scorpions. “I don’t worry, or freak out, or give a sand-covered toss when someone is sick or dying,” I huff, hating the way my voice breaks slightly on the last word. “I take. I claim. I kill when I want to. Fuck when it feels good. I can’t afford to be soft. I can’t be weak!”
Adoring hazel eyes trace my face as Riall runs the tips of his short nails across my scalp as he threads his fingers in my knotted hair. It feels so good, so soothing, which pisses me off even more.
“You’re the furthest possible thing from weak, Auset. I’ve never come across a more formidable and potent female. Your blood alone…fuck, Beasty. There isn’t a frail thing about you. Worrying doesn’t make you weak. Caring doesn’t make you a target. Not here. Not with us, my Blood.”
“It sure as shit didn’t feel that way when your head was lolling back and you couldn’t wake up,” I argue, but it’s lost some of its bite as the bastard practically rubs me, his touch trailing down my neck, my back, my arms and then rising to do it all over again. Fuck the Kings, it’s helping. “MyBlood?”
Riall’s smile slinks across his face at my question.
“Yes, my Blood, it’s the title used when Sanguinna find the one whose blood calls to them, sings for them, and yours isallI can hear right now.”
I go quiet, listening as though I can hear what he’s talking about, but more than hear, I feel a sonorous hum moored in my chest. I rub at it, and Riall’s smirk morphs into a beaming smile.
“I’m sorry I worried you, Beasty. I wish I could say it will never happen again, but I’ll never lie to you.”
“You could have…I almost…”
The wordsI almost lost yousit like iron on my tongue. I can’t say them out loud. I don’t want to imbue them with power or tempt fate. I swallow my trepidation, hoping I never experience the taste of it again.
“I’m okay,” Riall assures me. “You were here. What could ever get through you?” he challenges, speaking to my pride and ego like a fucking expert.
It’s working.
“Being soft isn’t bad. I for one would like to advocate for your soft parts,” Riall teases as he leans forward and nips at the side of my neck. “Your tongue.” The tip of his tongue flicks at my mouth. “Your breasts.” He kisses my jaw. “Your ass.” His hands skim slowly down my waist until he’s cupping said ass. “Your perfect pussy.” He sucks lightly just below my ear lobe.
I mewl softly, unable to help myself.
“Also, so there’s no confusion, my Blood…” he carnally whispers in my ear. “I’m ready for you to take, to claim, to fuck me because it feels good. I want you to drink from me. Mark me all over, and then I want to do the same to you.”
Riall practically purrs his words, but it starts to shift into a delicious growl that sinks into me and makes me feel eager and pliant. Then his next order sends my heart racing and adrenaline pinging through my veins.
“Now run, so I can hunt you.”
