I found myself face to face with Aiko, whose heavy lids were starting to droop into sleep.
“Are you all right?” I asked quietly.
“I held myself apart from physical pleasure. I couldn’t be distracted,” he whispered. “But this… this isn’t just a physical bond anymore. This is different. More.” He smiled. “I want more.”
Rilen chuckled. “Not tonight,sehru.”
Roran lifted his head. “Definitely not tonight. You’ll be too sore.”
“But I like this sore…”
I laughed. “We’ve created a monster.”
Rilen was at my lips. “That we have,ilati.But I think thatsehruis a monster we can control.”
Aiko propped up on an elbow. “Sehru?”
“Second, as in a second brother,” Roran said. “Rilen is mymasu,my twin. Kimber is ourilati, our beloved.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “What is Dorian?”
“Pain in the ass. It needs no special words,” Roran answered.
We fell asleep tangled together, chuckling.
Chapter Twenty-Two
GWYNNORE
A tiny prick of my fingerstartled me awake.
Had a mouse gotten in here?
Did it just fucking bite me?Perfect.
That was about right. The rodents would start feasting on my flesh like the starving scavengers they were. And I wouldn’t be able to fight them off.
“Finally. There you are,” a masculine voice stated quietly behind me. “Do you know how many caves there are in the Barren Mountains? That was ridiculous.”
I blinked my sluggish eyes open and stared at the gems—they were shimmering like mad with excitement, burning my sensitive eyes. I gulped down a lungful of air, unable to move from the agony. More days had passed—the amount unknown to me now. I wasthisclose to putting myself into Rest…and someone showed up now?
I squinted at the sparkling stones, my hand placed solidly on one—just in case they wanted to take me away to Ota’ano again, as the minerals had been doing repeatedly, removing the pain from my mind.
I gasped, “Are you a figment of my imagination?” Mayhap I needed to put myself into Rest quickly.
“No, Gwynnore, I am not.” Gentle hands gripped my shoulders and rolled me carefully to my back. A man squatted in a hooded cloak next to me, staring down, his dark amber eyes watchful. Slips of his long, silver hair escaped the hood. He smiled kindly and stated, “You are a wreck, dear. I’m fairly positive you are lying in your own shit.”
I licked my cracked lips. “Blood.”
His lips thinned into a straight line.
“Please,” I whispered, peeking to the side—the boulder was as it should be, closing me in. Perhaps he was a prisoner, too, and not my savior. “I need blood. Please.” Do not taunt me with blood I could hearroaringin his veins.
The man sighed heavily, his shoulders sagging with it. “It is not my blood you need, Gwen.”
“I will take chicken’s blood that’s caked on a fox’s snout right now. I don’t care one way or another.”
“That’s not very queenly of you,” he stated with good humor. He lifted his wrist to his mouth and bit down with fangs, sweet blood flooding around his teeth. He quickly put his wrist to my lips, and ordered quietly, “Only enough to keep you living, vampire.”
