My jaw closed. Tightened. It was almost—almost—enough to cut through my haze of lust.
I knew what this meant for her. Knew, too, that the chemical draw of my blood and our sex and everything else between us was probably just as addling to her as it was to me.
I didn’t want to be something else she regretted.
“Are you sure?”
I barely managed to form the words.
She lowered her chin just enough to meet my eyes. What I saw within them stripped me bare. Far deeper than the lust.
“Yes,” she whispered.
No hesitation.
I didn’t even have words to give her after that, just this animalistic growl that came out in a mangled burst as I pulled her closer. Her hips resumed their rhythm, drowning us both in a sea of pleasure that couldn’t be matched, except—
—Except for when my mouth came to her throat.
Her skin there was delicate. Smooth, save for the little scars—two old, two newer. Just as I had once before, I kissed both of them, tenderly, offering some softness before I let the sharpness of my teeth settle over her vein. I could practically taste the beat of her blood beneath, hot and sweet.
My bite was quick, firm, piercing the skin in a single painless strike before withdrawing.
She drew in a little gasp, her hands clutching my shoulders, walls tightening around me.
Her blood flooded my mouth, thick and rich. Nothing had ever tasted like this—like her, at her rawest essence, every nuance and contradiction. From the first moment I had tasted it, I had known it would change me forever.
Better than any wine. Any drug. A pleasure I’d be chasing for the rest of my life.
Maybe it was the sensory overload of the sex, or maybe the venom just worked particularly quickly. Because I scented the sudden spike in Oraya’s arousal rising to an unbearable crescendo. A moan vibrated through her, and I could taste that sound with my next swallow, with every stroke my tongue worked across her skin.
Her pace grew faster now, harder. My fingernails dug into her, leveraging whatever remained of my strength to help her through each thrust.
“Don’t stop,” she begged, the words fractured by ragged breaths. And thank the fucking Goddess she said it, because I couldn’t—I was fucking gone.
It was too much. Everything culminated. Pressure built at the base of my spine. I could feel her getting close, too, her muscles coiling, her strokes growing frantic and her fingernails dragging deep over my back and shoulders.
I needed to feel her come even more than I needed it myself.
I wanted to give her everything.
I tore myself away from her throat, the taste of her blood still thick on my tongue. For one endless moment, her eyes met mine—and so much honesty passed between us, both of us exposed with only our flesh and our desires and our primal impulses.
“Yours,” I ground out. “It’s yours.”
My blood. My body. My soul.
I had given her all of that a long time ago. I even had given her my life.
And I’d do it all again.
I urged her head down as our bodies writhed around each other, rushing to the end. She accepted eagerly, her mouth falling to my throat again, drawing in a deep mouthful of my blood.
I felt her swallow, and then, a moment later, felt her climax take her. A desperate cry, one she didn’t even try to stifle, rang out against my skin—long, whimpering, holding fragments of torn-up curses and pleas.
“Raihn,” she choked out, like she was hurtling through oblivion and desperate for someone to anchor her.
I knew that, because I felt it, too.
I know, I wanted to say. But my own orgasm stole the words, my cock buried deep inside her, muscles seizing. She was shaking, whimpering, as her body tensed through wave after wave of aftershock.
I held her, and filled her, nestling my face into the space between her throat and shoulder as we both relinquished ourselves.
For a few incredible seconds, everything disappeared in a hazy, soft mist of her.
When the world returned, it all felt... different.
I’d had plenty of sex before. Some bad, some good, much of it ill-advised. But this didn’t feel like sex. It felt like a religious ritual—like finding faith.
Oraya had collapsed against me. A sudden wave of exhaustion hit me—and with it, a fresh awareness of the pain of my wounds, which I’d strained something fierce in all the activity. Not that I could bring myself to be too broken up about it.
Her breath was deep and hard. My hand fell to her back, rubbing softly.
Finally, she sat up. She licked my throat with a little flick, cleaning off the rest of the blood. I tipped her head back and did the same, relishing the final tastes of her. The shift of her hips with the movement reminded me that I was still inside her. Another kiss, another minute, and I could’ve had her again.
But that blood-and-sex-drunk weariness had settled over me, and I could tell Oraya was fighting it, too.
I fell back onto the bed, turning on my side and gently guiding her down to the blankets as I slipped from her.
She curled up on her side and I folded around her, our bodies fitting easily together.
Already, I sensed her heartbeat slowing, her breath calming.
Already, my own eyelashes were fluttering.
I kissed her shoulder, her cheek, settled down in a nest of her hair. Her scent surrounded me. Oraya had always smelled so damned alive—not the scent of incense or withered flowers like so many vampires, but the scent of spring.
I felt the overwhelming urge to say something to her, even though I wasn’t sure what that would be. But Oraya’s hand fell over mine, and that touch somehow seemed to mean more than all the words put together.
Maybe for the best, because sleep took me so fast, they slipped through my fingers like sand, anyway.
46
ORAYA
I awoke to soft kisses over my cheek, my ear, my neck.
These last months, waking up always felt like a battle, as if I was being dragged back to the land of the living kicking and screaming.
This was not a battle. This was a gentle summons, sweet and tender.
I felt, for the first time in so long, safe.
Safe, for the first time since...
Since... the last time I had woken up like this. In Raihn’s arms.
It took several seconds for my awareness to come back to me. I was naked, in bed, in Raihn’s arms. I was sore from the battle I’d fought to save his life and then from the fucking we’d done when I refused to leave him.
His kisses trailed to my throat, a tiny stab of pain as they brushed the wounds where I’d let him drink from me.
Mother, I still tasted the tang of his blood on my own tongue.
Every piece of this seemed more outlandish than the last. A month ago—hell, weeks ago—I would have been appalled with myself.
Instead, I felt... strangely at peace.
I opened my eyes and rolled over. Raihn propped himself up on one elbow, watching me. A familiar little smirk clung to his lips.
“Evening, princess.”
Funny, how intimate those two words sounded. Maybe it was just the way his voice sounded rolling over them, seductive and warm and just a little bit shy.
I murmured, “Hello.”