I take a breath and am flooded with a sharp, cool scent that conjures images of snow settling over pine. Immediately, I realize my mistake and then hold my breath, forcing the smell of her out of my head. Suddenly, the hold I have on my feelings is stifling, like I’m strangling myself. The control that came so easily before is now hanging on by a thread. I don’t know what Iwant to do—drink her blood, kill her, or fuck her. But none of the choices are an option for me right now.
“Nyx?” she asks gently, her pupils dilating at the sight of me struggling.
I grind my teeth together so hard that my fangs scrape against my gums, but I don’t speak. Not until I have control again.
“You need blood,” she says after watching me.
“No,” I grit out, before snapping my mouth shut again.
“There is no reason to withhold any more. Once you drank, you became a full vampire in every way that matters. With or without the curse driving you to drink, a vampire drinks blood. You need blood. You can drink from m—”
“No!” I say sharply, cutting her off.
She frowns at my outburst. “You need to drink.”
“I’ve drunk plenty.”
“No, you haven’t. You need blood. I think it would help you keep control.”
“It won’t. When I drank from the witches, I was insatiable. I lost my mind. Couldn’t focus. Lost all sense of who I was and what I was supposed to do. Until…”
“Until what?” she asks, her voice heated.
I shake my head. “It doesn’t matter.”
She reaches her hand out to touch me, but I pull it away before she can. I can’t let her touch me. I can’t let my attachment to her grow even further. I won’t survive as it is. I won’t survive her, not now.
Her chest rises and falls in harsh breaths, like she’s struggling to breathe. I want to look into her crystal clear blue eyes. I want to push back into her mind and understand everything about her like before. I want that connection that I’ve never felt with anyone else back.
I close my eyes instead, refusing to allow myself to look at her.
She’s not mine.
My only job now is to keep her alive.
“Riven wants to see what our combined magic can do against my curse,” Ambrose says, breaking up the tense moment between us.
“Of course. I’m coming,” Lumi says, quickly gathering her composure. Her cheeks flush like he just caught us making out instead of just having a conversation.
Rage and annoyance flood my head as Ambrose leaks his feelings, thundering into my mind. He doesn’t say anything. I don’t even know if he realizes our connection is open.
And then I’m frozen by a different feeling invading my head. Lumi walks by me to follow Ambrose, but her fingers skim mine with a quiet spark that hums through me.
Fuck.
I release the breath I’d been holding and draw in one deep, intoxicating breath. Instantly, every feeling I have for her crashes over me. The faintest glimmer sparks between us where our fingers touch, there and gone in the span of a heartbeat.
Love, lust, want, desire, uncontrollable hunger—it all surges through me like something wild and unrestrained. And for a moment, I swear I can feel her thoughts again. The force of her love for me, still so deep and unshaken, rattles me to my core.
Rage like nothing I’ve ever felt rumbles through, shattering the delicate, wispy traces of love that were drifting through my mind.
“Go watch yourmatetry to break the curse with his little magic,” I say.
Another wave of rage hits me, and I know Ambrose is glaring at the back of my head.
Lumi looks at me one last time with a desperation in her eyes. “Feed,” she whispers. “For my sake, feed.”
She doesn’t wait for my reply; she just follows Ambrose out of the house.