Page 149 of Collared by the Vampire Prince

It is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. And that is when the hunger surges past restraint. It’s more than a craving. It’s a physical need.

The wound at my side burns, a steady reminder of how much blood I have lost. It would not weaken another vampire so quickly, but I have denied myself blood for too long. My body has no reserves to draw upon. Already, it is beginning to slow.

It’s not life-threatening, but I need more if I am to preserve my strength. But I will not take her throat. It is too visible. Too intimate a place for something so close to a claim I have no right to make.

Blood is sacred—or at least, it is to me. I fed carelessly when I was younger, before I understood what it meant to take something so vital into myself. When I came of age, I vowed that the next throat I drank from would belong to my true mate.

My father has ensured blood between our kinds flows only one way. Wolves may bleed for vampires, but our blood is cursed against them, poisonous if swallowed in sufficient quantity, rendering the law that prohibits giving our blood to wolves somewhat redundant.

Until Kira, I had never considered that my true mate might be a wolf. There is no place for such a union in my father’s kingdom, and children between our kinds are rendered impossible by the magic he imposed.

My father does so enjoy having his fingers in every pie.

Now I am bound to Victoria, a woman I know I could never love in that way, and I have long since accepted that such a woman may not exist for me.

But if I mark Kira somewhere no one will see…who would ever know? I turn my head and press my mouth to the soft, vulnerable skin high on her inner thighs, a gentle nibble to test how she feels.

Divine.

I want it.

Her.

Kira stiffens. “What are you—”

I bite before she can finish.

My fangs sink into the warm flesh of her left leg, and her cry shatters above me, pleasure breaking into startled shock as her velvety blood floods my tongue.

Hot. Wild. Furious.

She tastes of dark sweetness, somehow reminding me of woodland settling into stillness at dusk, threaded with the intimate musk of her arousal. Like something I have been starving for.

I will only drink what I need.

At least, that is what I tell myself as I continue to fuck her slowly with my fingers, drawing the climax out until her thighs lock around my shoulders and her nails bite into me. Her head falls back, lips parted, all that ferocious control finally fading from her face.

The sight is intoxicating. For one impossible moment, I let myself imagine she is not fighting me at all. She is simply here, with me.

Something in the moment feels suspended outside time. My heart races, every nerve drawn taut with the irrational need to preserve this. To keep her exactly as she is now, safe beneath my hands, and not let the world touch her again.

I linger, drinking while the last waves of pleasure move through her, her thighs trembling around me, her body yielding by slow degrees until she lies slumped against the chair.

I would gladly remain there, but I stop before I take enough to weaken her. Whatever dizziness she feels afterward, she will not be able to blame on blood loss.

Only then do I withdraw my fangs. I remain kneeling between her parted legs and lift my head. She has sunk so low that her head has lolled into the crook of her arm. I lean in until my face is only inches from hers.

In this brief, thoughtless haze, I could kiss her. We could taste each other. She might even let me. That makes it infinitely more dangerous. I ease back.

Kira blinks slowly. She looks dazed. Blissful. The hatred returns to her eyes first. “I hate you.”

“Yes. I’m well aware.” I tilt my head as I study her. “Whatever is the matter? Didn’t you enjoy yourself?”

“No.”

A smile tugs at my mouth. I pull my fingers free, slick and glistening, and lift them to my mouth. Her eyes widen as I lick them clean without looking away from her.

“Sweet,” I whisper.