“I know,” he murmurs, and I realize he’s feeling me too. My fear, my confusion. The wild exhilaration humming beneath both. “The Heart Bind. It’s… invasive.”
“That’s one word for it.” I press my palm to my chest, feeling my heartbeat—our heartbeat—thunder against my ribs. “I feel your hunger, Crave. I can feel how much you want—”
The words die as my vision blurs, everything turning a crimson haze without warning.
The world shifts, colors bleeding away until everything is rendered in shades of blood and shadow. And Crave—
Oh God, Crave.
I don’t see a man anymore. I see what heis.A living web of ancient, dark blood that pulses with power so old it makes my newly awakened magic recoil and reach for it simultaneously. Veins of pure darkness thread through him, glowing with that terrible Bloodfire Oracle mentioned. His form is human-shaped, but underneath, I see the monster.
The predator.
The thing born from evil itself.
And it’s beautiful and utterly mesmerizing.
“Sloane?” His voice sounds distant, concerned. “Your eyes, they’re glowing. What do you see?”
“You.” The word comes out reverent. “I seeyou.What you really are.”
He takes a step toward me, and I watch the darkness inside him surge, reaching for me through the space between us. His Bloodfire recognizes something in my blood. Because I think I have it, too, that Bloodfire.
Maybe it’s why we’re so connected?
The Crimson Sight fades as quickly as it came, and Crave is just a man again. Devastatingly handsome, undeniably dangerous, and he stares at me, both the answer he needs and the question he’s afraid to ask wrapped in bloodstained leather.
“What you saw…” he says carefully, “… that’s what every Blood Witch can do. You see bloodlines. Truth. Power…” He moves closer, and I feel the pull between us intensify. “And right now, you’re learning to control it. Learning what you’ve become.”
“A monster.” The word tastes like acceptance.
“A survivor.” He steps in front of me, close enough that I see the silver flecks in his eyes, and the way his pupils dilate when he looks at me. “You were dying, Sloane. I gave you a choice. Live as something new or die as something ordinary.”
“You didn’t give me a choice. You made it for me.”
“Yes.” His voice doesn’t waver. There’s no apology, no justification, just brutal, unflinching truth. “Because losing you wasn’t an option.”
The words linger, charged and volatile. And then I feel it, an ache blooming in my chest that doesn’t belong to me alone. His sincerity presses close, carrying the vulnerability he never lets anyone see. Underneath it all, a quiet dread pulses steady andinsistent, braced for the moment I might pull free from what he bound us with.
I should be angry.
I should befurious.
But rage doesn’t come.
Something else does.
I step into him slowly, deliberately, and I slam my lips to his, and the second our lips meet, the world detonates.
Not gently.
Not subtly.
It hits with a supernatural shockwave. A violent surge of heat blasts outward from our mouths and ripples through the air, making the atmosphere shimmer as if reality itself can’t withstand the force of us. The bond, already a pulsing thread between us, snaps taut and then expands, wider, deeper, binding us in a flood of sensation that knocks the breath from my lungs.
His hunger slams into me in a tidal rush. It crashes into my own need, and they fuse instantly, becoming something bigger and impossible to separate. It’s not just desire, it’s compulsion, pull, a gravitational force.
The kind of need that shakes the earth.
