Page 68 of Blood of the Fairest

What is wrong with you? He's a person, not a three-course meal.

Desperate to focus on literally anything else, I release Wulf and pace for a moment. I end up bracing my hands on my knees, breathing in and out through my mouth to try alleviating the dizziness.

It's no good. The scent of crisp mint and ripe blackberries is still overwhelming.

Straightening, I try not to look at Wulf's arm and immediately fail.

"I need a distraction," I groan.

"That's not what you need, and you know it," Eris says, appearing in the reflection of the window beside us. He looks at Wulf. "Just unwrap your arm. I don't know why she's fighting it this hard yet again."

"Fuck off," I scowl at him, trying to hang onto any kind of control. "I'm fine."

"You're not fine, you're suffering. Ignoring the thirst is a fool's errand."

"Thirst…" the Huntsman repeats in a low tone, perplexed.

I see the instant he puts things together, looking between his injured arm and the way I'm endeavoring to make myself back away.

But instead of getting chills, being disgusted, or pulling out his axe to chop off my head, Wulf just rips through the rest of his bandages quickly. He extends his arm.

"Here," he says simply. "Take all you need."

A thumb-length cut near the crease of his elbow is already starting to seep again. The scarlet drips, rolling over his flesh, gleaming as it floods the air with more delicious, minty berry that I just⁠—

I snap.

17

Wulf

As a beast who hunts monsters, I know what peril feels like. It is like the frantic leap within one's chest when falling from a high cliff into the unknown.

My heart makes that same motion as Verena surges forward to grip my arm, dragging her hot tongue through the warmth dripping from my wound. I inhale sharply at first, but then I cannot tear my gaze away as this woman laps at my spilled blood as if she will die without its taste.

Her rapturous moan at its flavor makes this alcove suddenly far too warm. Her soft lips seal over the cut upon my arm, and a shudder runs through me.

"There now, was that so bad?" the mirror ghost teases. Relief and satisfaction are clear on his face as he watches Verena. "You'll loathe hearing this yet again, but feeding on blood like this, daily, is the only way for you to survive in Reinhilde's body."

So, the evil queen subsists on blood?

But with Verena's self-professed hatred for gore…

How torturous it must be for someone like her to awaken in that cruel creature's body.

I open my mouth, prepared to suggest that even if she is frightened of me, she should simply use me for this dark need.

But when Verena's surprisingly sharp teeth clamp down near the injury, and she begins to draw from me in earnest, my own dark need roars to the surface.

A surge of something unlike I have ever felt causes a rough groan to break from my lips. Her soul's light, crisp scent grows stronger until it is nearly palpable, sinking into my lungs to coat my own cursed soul.

I have felt inklings of desire before, but nothing like this.

This is more akin to a time, years ago, when an innkeeper's wife slipped a strong aphrodisiac into my mead at dinner, eager to fall in bed with a fabled northern warrior. Telling her husband at once, I left them to argue and locked myself in my room upstairs. That night was spent in feverish need, my hand offering little reprieve from that agony of lust.

This lust is like that, but it is also different.

It is new. Feral.