“Oh love,” I mewl, pulling my body close to his. My words come out in a tumble. “By the True, I swear it, Skar. I-I didn’t mean—I’m so, so sorry, love. I regret it already.”
His scent of leather and pine and smoke fills me with a heady sensation. I set the torch down on the raised bench he’s holding onto for dear life, so I can use both my hands to grab hold of him and never let go.
“Don’t.”
I pause, inhaling sharply. For a moment I wonder if he means “don’t touch me,” and if I’ve lost him forever with my reckless, foolish actions—using Garroway to test something that could have been tested onanyfucking vampire. Someonenotimportant to me.
“Don’t be sorry, little temptress,” he amends, and my heart pounds with relief. “It needed to happen. Our bond has been teetering on the brink for days, months, years. I just didn’t think I’d feel so . . .empty . . .when it did.”
My eyes burn. I let the tears fall freely to join his. I cup his face with both hands, slamming a kiss on his lips. He doesn’t react, letting me kiss him but not engaging.I truly have lost him,I fear.
Sniveling and sniffling, I reach up and smear his bloody tears with my palms, trying to see that perfect alabaster sheen again. “It’s all my fault. This damnablecauseof ours has blinded me—”
“Do not blame yourself for something my graybird agreed to, Sephania. This is not your burden to shoulder.”
He’s right, but not in the way he thinks. I can’t make this about me. But my heart just hurtsso badlyfor them both. I don’t know what to do. Overwhelm sets in when I stare into his red eyes, which dance with gold flecks. There’s an entire cosmos in there I’d love to get lost in, if he’d only allow me to.
I avert my gaze because I feel like I’m intruding on something that doesn’t belong to me.
“He is yours now, little temptress,” Skartovius says. He reaches out and cups the side of my face. I melt into his palm. His usually cold demeanor is warmed by whatever is going on inside him. I feel that effervescent heat coming off him, torturing me. “Treat him well. Better than I have.”
I nod diligently.Better than I’ve treated you, too,I think.
I feel cowed right now, my head dipped in shame, and it isn’t until his fingers press against the end of my chin, lift me, and force my gaze to meet his, that I finally take a ragged breath. As a tall woman, it feels nice to have to tilt my chin to stare up into a man’s gaze. Especially a sharp, fiery gaze like that which belongs to Skartovius Ashfen.
“What . . . what can I do?” I squeak, sniffling again.
He rubs my tears away with the pad of his thumb. Smiles at me, sure and confident. “I crave you, Sephania. I have for months, ever since I broke your trust.”
“You didn’t break my trust in you, Skar. You just wounded it.”
His words come out syrupy, questioning. “And is that wound . . . healed?”
Rather than say yes or no, I simply peel back my tunic from my shoulder, baring my pale skin to him. “There’s a way to find out that’s better than my words could ever do.”
His fangs slip out sensually over his plump bottom lip when his steely eyes meet my flesh just above my collar. Dipping his chin so we’re embraced, connected like we’re meant to be, Skartovius gently punctures my skin and drinks my blood.
The blissfulness begins instantly, coursing through my veins, reminding me what I’d foregone with this man for so long over my own machinations. My own delusions and wounded heart. My spite and anger and frustration, all wrapped into one and needing a place to put it all. So I put it onto Skartovius Ashfen,my nobleblood. Because he could handle it. He is the strongest of my mates, and he always will be.
I pull him hard into me, hugging him tightly, wrapping one arm around his muscled back while digging my other hand into his mane. I keep his face latched onto my skin just above my collarbone, and can feel the tickle of his teeth probing me, his soft lips pressing tenderly. I inhale his heady scent as he tastes my lifeblood with small sucking sounds—so intimate, so delicious.
With our bodies so close together, I feel the protrusion of him pressing against my middle. It starts abruptly, throbbing harder and larger the longer he drinks. So close, only two layers of fabric separating our heated bodies. His iron cock from my melting, slippery core.
My hand tunnels down between us, directed to the bulge and rubbing the outline of him along his pants. He groans as he drinks from me. I’m starting to grow dizzy from the lust building between my thighs and the loss of blood from my body. He’s ravenous after not having me for months and having to get by on inferior beings like animals or unlucky humans.
I’m the luckiest human of them all.
Skar pulls back slightly, air passing between our warm bodies. My blood spots his lip, so I lean forward and kiss him there, swiping it away with the tip of my tongue. Our lips lock and we kiss in a longing embrace, and I can still taste my warm essence on his tongue.
All the while, my hand tugs between us, until he can’t stand it anymore. “It’s been too fucking long, love,” he purrs in my ear.
I nod profusely, not trusting myself to speak through my dry throat. Understanding completely, instantly. We’re in the darkness with only a flickering torchlight to keep him in my sight.
So I do what I can with my surroundings and back up against the jutting edge of wall. My ass digs into it the ridge and I pull Skar with me by his narrow hips.
Our hands work together to quickly unbuckle his belt and unfasten his pants, and then I’m enthusiastically pulling them down over the hard jutting bones of his hips. The muscles of his abdomen are so perfect, so nicely planed and cut. And then his pants fall past his well-muscled thighs, his cock falls free, and I let out another breath. Only the second one I’ve had in two minutes.
Skar’s cock throbs and drips with arousal. He’s huge as ever, always startling me with his slim, corded build and the monster swinging between his thighs. It’s beautiful, long enough to hit my deepest spots and then some, and thick enough to fill me to utter insanity, until I can see the spirits and deities in the flesh.