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Hugging herself, Amaliya watched, dismay replacing her feeding fervor. Her victim was sluggishly rousing, but she was a bit more pallid than she should have been. Amaliya felt a twinge of guilt as she realized she had taken a little too much.

“Look at me,” Cian said to the human, his hands cradling her face.

Slowly, the woman’s eyelids opened.

Cian’s hazel eyes peered into the human’s, and Amaliya felt his power, red and vibrant, twisting about the woman’s mind. A delighted smile flitted over the mortal’s smeared red lips. The false memories that Cian was pressing into her mind were obviously very erotic from the way the human was writhing under his touch. When he finished, the girl’s eyes closed.

“She’ll awaken in around ten minutes,” Cian said, his Irish brogue a bit thicker than normal, revealing his agitation.

“I am just so hungry,” Amaliya said, lowering her eyes. “I usually feel high and totally full after being with the dead, but not tonight.”

“Tonight you served as a battery for Samantha.” Cian rubbed his eyes, then sighed. “You will need to find a balance between you.”

Amaliya hated letting Cian down. The trust they shared was important to her. He trusted her not to bring the attention of the authorities down on them by killing her victims. Though it was embarrassing to admit, she had almost drained the girl completely dry.

“But you didn’t.” Cian took her in his arms, the hardness of his body and the coolness of his touch a familiar comfort.

For once she didn’t complain about him reading her mind. Instead, she rested her head on his shoulder. The hunger inside of her was still gnawing at her gut.

“Feed from me. I fed well earlier. You need to regain control of yourself,” Cian whispered in her ear.

A smile crept onto her lips. “I remember the first time I fed from you.”

Cian’s mouth was cold and soft against hers. “I remember, too.”

Sliding her fingers through his chestnut locks, she bent her head to his throat. From the very beginning they had been drawn to each other in a terrifying and dynamic way. It had been lust in the beginning, but had quickly evolved into something much deeper and more frightening.

When Amaliya sank her fangs into his throat, Cian trembled and one hand settled underneath the mantle of her hair to rest against her neck. There was still a hint of warmth in the blood. The life threaded through it seeped into the marrow of her very being. With a low growl, Amaliya’s hands strayed downward but her hands paused on his belt. She needed to regain control, not encourage him to lose his own, so she snaked her arms around him and held him close.

Every time she fed from Cian, she was bound more intricately to the vampire on a supernatural level. There was a time when such knowledge would have sent her fleeing, but now she embraced it. All her life she had failed the expectations of others. Before her mother, Marlena, had died, she had shared her hopes and dreams for her daughter’s future. College, a career, a family: all the trappings of a good life in her mother’s eyes. After Marlena’s death, Amaliya had been typecast as the family failure, the black sheep, and the unredeemable troublemaker. Her father’s looks of disappointment haunted her throughout her childhood. Nothing she had ever said, or done, had ever satisfied him. Amaliya had careened through her life with no sense of real purpose until she had woken up in a forest grave with a new, terrible hunger. It was then she had found her purpose in life: to survive.

Though that goal remained at the core of her being, she had also evolved into a fighter, a protector, a lover, and a true friend. She was definitely not the same girl she had been before, yet, she was still a rebel who did not like to be told what to do, or constrained in anyway. Maybe that was what made her and Cian work so well. Neither one of them had any real interest in adhering to any particular societal rules.

Cian’s hand stiffened in her hair and drew her away from his throat. Her tongue flicked over the tiny wounds she had inflicted and the last few precious drops of blood. Pressing her against the grimy wall, Cian’s lips covered hers and overwhelmed her mouth. The kiss was full of everything that throbbed between them: love, lust, blood, and power.

Finally, they parted.

“Almost out of time,” he whispered against her lips. His eyes darted toward the young woman still held in his thrall. “Meet me outside.”

“Okay,” Amaliya breathed, trying to keep herself from crawling on top of him.

The human began to stir, the embedded suggestion that Cian had planted in her mind taking hold. Fading into shadows, Cian waited by the door. Amaliya licked her lips and stepped closer to woman. Sliding her hands over the mortal’s hips, Amaliya waited.

Several seconds later, the other woman flashed into awareness as a massive orgasm seized her. Clutching Amaliya close, the girl writhed with pleasure. Amaliya couldn’t help but grin. Cian must have given her victim one hell of an implanted memory.

“You’re amazing,” the girl gasped, then kissed Amaliya ravenously.

Amaliya lost herself for a few minutes in the afterglow of her feeding, relishing the softness of the other woman’s body and her full lips. Giggling, they finally parted, flushed, and sated. Stepping back, Amaliya helped the pretty brunette off the sink.

“Are you sure you won’t come home with me?”

Amaliya lightly ran her hand down the girl’s arm. “I wish I could, but my husband’s a real tyrant. He doesn’t get my needs.”

Pouting, the mortal nodded her head. “I used to have one of those. I ditched him.”

“He’s rich and has a big cock. It’s hard to give up,” Amaliya said. She sensed Cian’s amusement, but didn’t look toward the place where he was hidden by his power.

“I hear ya,” the other woman sighed.