“So feed from me.” I lifted my chin. “Wherever you please.”
His eyes darkened to sapphire. “Cyrene?—”
“Please.”
For a long moment, he simply looked at me. Then, with movements so careful they bordered on reverent, he closed the distance between us. His fingers wrapped around my wrist, his thumb pressing against the pulse point there.
“May I?” His voice had dropped to a rasp.
I nodded, not trusting my voice.
He raised my wrist to his lips, pressing a kiss to the delicate skin. Then his fangs extended, and I felt the sharp pierce of them sliding into my vein.
The sensation was nothing like that first feeding when I was angry, bemused, and uncertain about what it would mean to be married to this man. This was slow, deliberate, and much too intimate. Each pull of his mouth sent heat spiraling through me, made my magic rise to the surface in golden sparks that danced across my skin. His other hand came up to steady me, his fingers splaying across my lower back as he drew me closer.
My knees weakened. I swayed into him, and his arm tightened around me, holding me upright as he drank. The bond between us flared to life, no longer the faint thread I’d grown accustomed to but a living thing, throbbing with sensation and emotion.
And through it, I felt him.
His hunger and his loneliness. The bone-deep ache of responsibility he’d carried alone for six years. The longing—fates, the longing—that pierced through everything else, sharp and sweet and devastating. He wanted this. Wanted me. Not only my blood or my magic or the political alliance I represented.
Me.
The realization staggered me. I thought of him at twenty-four, barely more than a boy, handed a crown and a kingdom when his parents died. No time to grieve, no chance to process his loss before duty consumed him. He’d stepped up because he had to, because his people needed him, and he’d been carrying that weight alone ever since.
I knew what that sort of loss felt like. Remembered the hollow shock of being told my parents were gone, the way the world had tilted sideways and never quite righted itself. Grandmother had been there to catch me, to hold me and my sisters together through the grief.
But Kieran had faced it alone, with an entire kingdom watching.
He’d had no one.
Inside me, a locked door swung open. The hurt I’d carried from the festival, from his abrupt departure andthe silence that followed didn’t disappear, but it transformed. Softened into understanding.
He hadn’t left because he didn’t care. He’d left because duty demanded it, because he’d had no choice. And he’d searched for me after, had tried to find the joy witch who’d shown him three days of happiness before his world fell apart.
I was still that witch. Still carried that joy inside me, even if I’d dimmed it over the past years. And this careful, lonely king who worried about my comfort, defended me to his people, and was trying hard to be worthy of a wife he thought didn’t want him, deserved to see it.
He deserved all the light I had to give.
My magic surged, responding to the deepening connection between us. Golden light spilled from my skin, wrapping around both of us like a cocoon. Kieran made a sound low in his throat, his arm tightening around me as he drank deeper.
When he finally pulled back, his fangs retracting, we were both trembling. His forehead rested against mine, his breath coming fast and shallow. The puncture marks on my wrist had already healed, but I could still feel the ghost of his mouth there, the phantom pull of each draw.
“Cyrene.” My name was a prayer, a question, and a plea.
His hands came up to cup my face, stroking across my cheekbones with infinite tenderness. His eyes searched mine, his pupils blown wide with hunger that had nothing to do with blood.
“I’m going to kiss you,” he said, his voice rough with need.
A laugh bubbled up despite the tension crackling between us. “You know, you could just do it instead of formally announcing your intentions.”
His mouth curved into a smile, the kind that made him look younger, less burdened. “Where would be the fun in?—”
I rose on my toes and kissed him.
For a heartbeat, he froze. Then he made a sound between a growl and a groan and hauled me closer, one hand sliding into my hair while the other pressed against the small of my back, eliminating any space between us.
The kiss was everything the feeding had been and more. Hungry. Desperate. He kissed me like I was everything, like he’d been waiting for this moment his entire life and wanted to savor every second. His tongue traced the seam of my lips, and I opened for him, sighing into his mouth as he explored me with so much need it made my heart ache.
