She slowly exhales, seeming to evacuate some of her anger along with the air. “What exactly did you want to talk to me about?” Her tone remains accusing, as if I’ve already lost my chance to say anything else that matters to her.
I open my mouth, but no sound comes out. Finally, like I’m unlocking a vault, the hinges squealing in protest as they creak open on a lifetime of secrets, I say hoarsely, “A sunblood is a vampire who has never drunk blood. They can eat regular food and walk in the sunlight. But the moment they drink blood from a vein—or even a cup, I think—they’re confined to the night and a diet of blood.”
Her expression doesn’t show a hint of horror or surprise, astounding me. If anything, that hard glint sharpens. “Thanks, Bale, but you know what? I figured that out for myself.”
Her new bitterness feels like a hundred arrows piercing my skin. “Then you know you’re a vampire?”
“I do now. And I thought so.” Her nostrils flaring, she turns and picks up the knife I left on the table. “I would rather have found out from you, but since you chose to lie, I found some pretty convincing information on my own.”
“I didn’t think you’d like hearing you were a vampire.”
She digs a hole in the wooden table with my knife, dulling the tip. “I don’t. I fucking hate it.” She swings furious eyes on me. “But at least I know where I come from now.”
“Do you?” I ask warily.
Her mouth turns down in distaste. “Somewhere with vampires.”
“Torridaig has vampires.”
She drops the knife with a clatter. “Is this why sometimes I can’t speed up? Focus? Because I’m not drinking blood and sustaining myself the way I should?”
“You’re better and faster than almost anyone, even without that. You don’t need to drink blood to be the best.”
Rage visibly builds inside her again, her golden eyes heating. “You talk about choices, but isn’t that my choice? How long have you known? Forever?”
“And what would you choose?” Dread-fueled urgency roughens my voice. I step toward her. “To be a creature of the night? To never fly out or go into battle with us during the day? To never take your birds out under the sun?”
Her flinch hits me like a blow to the chest. “I didn’t say I’d choose to drink.”
I can’t help reaching out and gripping her arms. She stiffens but doesn’t pull away. “You don’t need that. You’re smart, you’re fast, you’re skilled.” Her lips part on a sharp breath. My gaze riveted to her mouth, I murmur, “I wouldn’t change a thing about you.”
“What if I could be better? Do better?” Anger and hard-pumping blood paint her cheeks the color of a winter sunset. “Maybe I should take Rexton Hale up on his offer.”
Cold shock and a hot surge of jealousy collide violently inside me. “What the fuck does Rexton Hale have to do with anything?”
She shrugs out of my grip, half turning from me. “He’s the vampire from the tavern who told me I’m a sunblood. He wanted to drink my blood. Little did I know I could do the same to him and”—her narrow-eyed gaze swings back to me—“unlock my full potential.”
I recognize my own words on her biting tongue. Sometimes unlocking full potential is dangerous. And changes everything.
I turn her back to me. She doesn’t resist, despite the angry hiss of air through her teeth. If anyone is going to finish what we all started more than two hundred years ago, it’s going to be me.
“If you want to drink from someone, you can fucking drink from me,” I thunder like a low storm rolling over the mountains. I pull her against me, our hips meeting with a thud. “Is that what you want? Blood and darkness. Only the cold stars and never the hot sun.” I lower my head so her mouth brushes my neck. Despair twists my stomach. Desire heats it. “I give you my consent. Do it, if that’s the path you want to take.”
She shudders under my hands, her breath a ragged caress against my throat. She leans into me, pressing against my swelling cock. Liquid fire roars in my veins. I haul her closer, and her lips open against my neck. I feel a cool scrape of teeth. It turns into the sharper prick of fangs. Her sudden gasp heats my skin, and my willing blood surges to meet her bite. I don’t know what she’ll do, but right then, I know I could very well die on the flaming pyre of my ruin that is Idallia.
“Wait.” She abruptly pulls back. “I need to think.” Her hand flies to her mouth. Her face scrunches up, and she shakes her head. She cautiously touches what appears to be a normal tooth again, then swallows hard. “Should it be that easy? Out one second, in the next?”
“I think so.” My heart pounds in relief. As much as I started to crave her bite, I wanted her to resist more. The thought of Idallia losing daylight forever makes my throat heat and my eyes burn. “Letting down or retracting your fangs are physical actions, just like any other. You just never knew to ask your body before, or to even think about it at all.” I gaze down at her, arousal still driving half my words. Low, almost desperate, I say, “If you don’t want to bite me, then kiss me. Your choice, Sunshine.”
Her pulse accelerates with a fierce leap, and she stares at me, her eyes huge. “I don’t want everything to change.”
“Hasn’t it already?” My blood rushes as violently as hers.
“When did this happen?” She sways toward me. Lifting her hands to my sides, she anchors herself. She doesn’t push or pull. She just holds on, locking us face-to-face. I revel in her deliberate touch. It’s new, and yet somehow, I’ve already been locked here for years, just waiting for her to click into place.
“Does it matter?” I’m not sure I even know. Two hundred years is long, even for me. “You’re vital to me now.”
She tilts her head back, her lips slowly parting. My dragon roars in anticipation, and I dip my head, hope and need surging inside me, but then I hold still at the last second, our mouths nearly touching. My pulse thunders as I wait for her to close the final distance. This has to be her choice.
