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His eyes flare, bright and inhuman. For a moment, I fear he’s going to tear into me and drink until I forget my own name.
He releases my throat and turns abruptly, snatching a glass pitcher from the small table near the door and hurling it across the room. It shatters against the wall in an explosion of glittering shards. The sound is deafening, and I flinch away from the sharp fragments.
“ANSWER ME!” he snarls, whirling back. He’s everywhere at once. His hands slamming against the wall beside my head as he cages me in, his breath coming faster. His jaw clenches so tightly a muscle jumps in his cheek. “You had plenty to say to King Xavian, yet you can’t even look me in the eye and admit what you were planning?”
His fury fills the room until I feel like I am drowning in it. I hate that something inside me reacts to him, aches when his body presses close. Just the brutal awareness of what he could do to me makes my body tremble.
“I was trying to save her,” I whisper, voice cracking as my eyes burn. “I was trying to save Sable before you—before you take me somewhere I can’t reach her.”
His stare holds mine, unwavering, and something cruel and satisfied flickers across his face as if he has finally pinned me to the truth.
“You’re mine,” he says, voice thickening, and his hand lifts, tracing the length of my throat with one finger. When he presses lightly at my pulse, it feels like a reminder that even my heartbeat is something he can control. “There is no escaping me.”
Anger flairs inside of me, and I force my trembling chin up. “Only if I allow it,” I snap, remembering his words about needing my permission. Though my voice lacks conviction. My body is already illuminating the lie with the heat gathering between my thighs. His mouth curves, not into a smile, into something predatory, something pleased.
“I wouldn’t advise threatening me with your refusal after I risked my fucking kingdom for you today.”
My heart stutters. The truth is, I don’t want to refuse him, but the control over my own body and blood is all I have left.
He leans closer until his lips brush the shell of my ear. When he speaks, the sound of his voice makes my entire body go cold. “You don’t want to play with me right now, little mage,” he murmurs, voice velvet and poison. “Because if you deny me after everything you’ve done today, I will make you understand exactly what it means to belong to the Vampire King.”
Fear crawls up my spine and sends my pulse soaring.
“I offered you a place at my side. If you take that for granted, you will find yourself in a cage at the end of my fucking bed.”
He draws back enough to look at me again, and his eyes are burning. Not just with anger now, but hunger.
“I warned you,” he says, voice roughening. “I told you what the sun does to me, and you still forced me into it. You still made me drag you back from the hands of another king.”
Guilt hits so hard as my eyes settle on the blistered backs of his hands, the skin thicker in places like it tried to heal and couldn’t.
His gaze drops to my mouth again, and I swallow hard, exposing the side of my throat, even though it makes me feel so small.
His eyes burn brighter, but he doesn’t move. It’s as if he is afraid of what he will become the second he takes what I am offering.
Then his nose drags along my skin. Slow and unhurried. I shudder violently as he inhales. The sensation is intimate in a way that makes my stomach flutter and my pulse jump. Heat blooms under my skin; his attention alone is enough to set me alight.
“So sweet,” he breathes as his hands slide to my waist. “You know exactly how to tempt me. Will you continue to deny me, little mortal?”
“I’m not denying you,” I breathe, tilting my neck further and giving him better access.
I barely manage a breath before his mouth closes around my throat.
The initial sting makes me gasp, then warmth floods in, the rush of it spreading through me like honey. A slow, overwhelming wave that makes my vision blur at the edges. My body goes heavy and liquid all at once.
I whimper, unable to stop the sound or the way my hips shift closer to him unintentionally. The pleasure is too much. It hits deep, curls in my belly, and drags itself lower until my thighs clench around nothing.
Kylian groans against my skin, a sound so obscene it makes my cheeks burn. His hands tighten on my waist as if he needs the grip to keep from crushing me.
His mouth sucks harder, deeper, and the pleasure spikes so violently I nearly sob. My entire body feels like it’s melting.
His hand slides up my spine, fingers spreading over my back, pulling me flush against him. I feel every hard line of his body, every tense muscle, every inch of him pressing into me.
My breath comes in ragged gasps as his other hand drifts lower, skimming the curve of my hip where my dress is torn, then my thigh, and my entire body jolts when his fingers press lightly between my legs. He’s reminding me that he can feel everything, taste everything, claim anything if he chooses.
I bite down on another moan, but it slips out anyway. Embarrassing and helpless, the sound straining his fragile control. His mouth tightens on my throat, and he drinks harder, his grip threatening to consume me whole.
Panic flares sharp enough to cut through the bliss. The difference is obvious, his shift from controlled into desperate.
