Outside, the storm mirrored the maelstrom of my thoughts.
CHAPTER 33
KALDUR
When I alighted on the balcony leading to my room, Erina was trembling in my arms and a new sense of alarm raced through me.
I’d just wanted to get her back to the keep as swiftly as possible, but even the mere moments flying in the rain had chilled her, though I’d tried my best to keep her shielded.
I felt outside of my own body, as relief and confusion warred, when I dragged her over to the fire and began to strip her of her wet clothes. Maudoric had had it lit, knowing I was returning tonight, and I was extremely grateful the room was warm.
“Don’t,” Erina protested, trying to shield her body as I tugged off the clothing. “What are you doing?”
Was that fear I sensed in her voice? My muscles began to shake again, a mere trigger away from a rage, even if the threat I sensed wasmyself.
Was she afraid of me now?
“You’re freezing,” I grated, breathing in deeply, letting her scent calm me.Stay focused, for her,I ordered myself. She needed me to be present. And of a stable mind, which seemed laughable after this last month. “I need to get you warm,dallia.”
When she was undressed—and trying to shield her sudden nudity from me unsuccessfully—I took her into the adjoining washroom. The taps ran hot and flooded into the sunken bathing tub, and I guided her down the stairs. She sat on the small ledge, shivering until the hot water reached up her calves, going higher and higher.
The restless prowling in me only released when she sighed as the water fully enveloped her. And even though it took everything in me, I stayed on the opposite side of the small pool, still fully dressed, and paced back and forth in the water.
Erina watched me. “You’ll go into a rage, won’t you?”
“Not with you here,” I said, my voice harsher than I wanted. I didn’t know who I was anymore. For the last month, I felt like a stranger in the body I’d had since birth.
All because of her. All because of the blood bond that pulsed through me like a heartbeat.
And already, I’d fucked it all up.
“Will feeding help?” came her small voice.
I froze in the water, whipping her a—very likely—hungry look before I closed my eyes.
“No, I won’t do that to you,” I growled.
“I’m scared, Kaldur,” came her voice, and I felt a billow of rage sweep out from me. I nearly turned and put my fist into the side of the white marble pool but managed to control myself. “Come feed so you’re calm. You’re scaring me like this.”
She held up her wrist from the warm water, and my fangs immediately elongated, my body drawn to her like a magnet.
“I don’t want it like this,” I rasped. “But I can’t control it anymore. I…I haven’t been right, Erina. Since you left me.”
When I reached for her wrist, I thought I saw a flash of sympathy in her eyes.
“There have been no others. I’ve only wanted you,” I confessed.
Her eyes widened.
But I bent over her wrist, determined only to drink enough to take the edge off of the rage, until I could feel calm again and some of the fear leeched from her gaze. My fangs dove into her giving flesh, and my first draw of her blood made my eyes roll back in my head.
I groaned, the taste of her so sublime. I’dforgotten. I’d forgotten the ecstasy. And I’d been so foolish, so arrogant to believe that I could live without her?
This last month had proved how wrong I’d been, and now she hated me.
I drank from her, determined not to feel any pleasure from it because I didn’t deserve that. It felt too wrong even as her blood coated my tongue, a sweetness I’d dreamed of, I’d craved. She was looking away from me, a tightness in her jaw, and though it physically pained me, I pulled away.
I would never know where I’d received that strength and willpower to stop when I was starving for her. My fangs felt like they were throbbing.
