The words jarred me upright, my head snapping toward him. His stare was already on me, assessing my entirety.
“What?” I couldn’t decide if I was flattered that he took notice of my hunger or offended that he thought blood would satisfy it.
He sluggishly pointed to my stomach. “I can hear it.”
I reared back, grimacing. “So, you thinkbloodis going to fix that?”
His hands shot up. “I don’t know how it works. You keep going for my throat with your damned fangs. I figured, maybe you fed on blood too.”
A noise of disgust tore out of me, my tongue hanging from my mouth like I could scrape the thought away. “Gods, no. You think I just wander around daydreaming about drinking everyone’s gore?”
Even as I spat the words, the truth burned low in my chest. I didn’t dream abouteveryone’sblood. Hardly thought of it at all.
Just his.
Even from here, I could smell it running through the veins, pulsing deeply in his neck. Spice and iron. Heat and smoke.
And it terrified me how desperately I wanted to taste it again.
We had sat together by the fire for an hour before Ronan’s lashes had begun to flutter closed, his arm slipping from behind his head.
Another hour had passed since then, and I had almost finished memorizing every inch of his face.
The thick brow, interrupted by the scar cleaving it in two. The beauty mark hidden just above the corner of his mouth. The rough stubble shadowing a sculpted jaw.
His chest rose and fell with the rhythm of sleep, and once, just once, his upper lip twitched, tugging the scar into a phantom smirk.
My hand lifted before I could stop it, knuckles hovering close enough to feel the burn off his cheek. I didn’t know why I wanted to touch him.
Didn’t know why every day something in me leaned, drawn like the stars are chained to the dark.
Hatred would explain it. That’s what I told myself. It often felt like heat, like hunger. But this wasn’t clean like fury.
I curled my hand into a fist and withdrew. Whatever this was, this slow, inexorable gravity, it would end in disaster.
It shivered through me, the way the world knows a storm is coming before the first flash of light. So, I sat on my hands and stared at the fire until the wanting dulled to an ache I could pretend was nothing at all.
My legs cramped as I stretched them, hips groaning in protest after weeks of riding. A curse slipped past my lips as I whispered to myself, “Gods, I have to pee.”
I jabbed Ronan in the chest. He didn’t stir, didn’t so much as flinch. Fine, I’d have to be quick. Edge of the trees, in and out, nothing more.
The forest was still beyond the threshold, yet...I hesitated. Anything could be waiting, and it took me a moment to understand why that bothered me somuch. Another instant and I would have poisoned that thought straight from my mind.
But Ronan’s voice slid from him in a fog. “You never sleep.”
Looking to him, mine followed. “Neither do you. Which is why I wastryingto be quiet.”
“Mine’s by choice.” It lacked the bite of command I was used to from him.
A brush of wind moved through the camp, tugging at strands of my hair. “Who chooses not to sleep?”
“Those who don’t trust what hides in the dark.” His lashes lifted, eyes honed on the flames. “I’m assuming you know what that’s like.”
“It’s not the darkness I avoid. It’s the nightmares.” It slipped out like a confession. One I didn’t bother taking back.
His eyes moved to me. “Do they ever mutter anything useful when you allow them in?”
I shot him a look, one I always gave when I didn’t want anyone to see how tired I was beneath it all. “Only that you’re worse in person.”
