Page 36

In truth, I had not let myself entertain the idea of turning for long, and when I did, I’d stopped myself, always with Lara on my mind.

Adrian smiled against my skin, and as he spoke, his teeth grazed my ear.

“I cannot decide. I have thought of it so often and in so many ways, but it always starts with you,” he said. “With the moment you say yes, with the moment you beg to be like me.”

I clung to each of his words and the way he said them. There was a desperation beneath and it called to me across lifetimes. This wasn’t about the bite or the blood. It wasn’t even about being like him. It was about loneliness.

Adrian did not want to be alone.

My hands tightened on his arm.

“So far, you have told me nothing about what I should expect.”

It took Adrian a moment to speak, and I wondered if he was holding on to my words as well. There was an element of assumption in the way I spoke, as if I had already accepted my fate.

“I have changed my mind so often, I no longer know how it will happen, but if I were to take you now, it would be within the grove where I buried you, and I would draw out your pleasure until you were delirious with need, until your body was hot and your blood rushing, until you forgot all the horror it took to get us here, and only then would I enter you.” He paused and his hand moved to my upper thigh as he whispered, “Are you wet for me now?”

“I would challenge you to find out,” I said. “But I would like to hear the rest.”

He chuckled, a warm hum that only succeeded in making me far more aroused.

“The rest is simple,” he said. “I would fuck you to the point of climax and not let you come until I was ready to drink from you.”

“So,” I said. “It isn’t unlike how you already take my blood?”

“Is that a challenge, Sparrow?” he said.

“Well, if you are going to make it memorable,” I said.

“It will be memorable,” he said. “You will never forget the first time you take my blood.”

For the first time since he had begun detailing this fantasy, I stiffened and Adrian noticed.

“Are you disgusted with me?” he asked, and though he tried, it was getting harder for him to hide his disappointment.

“No,” I said. “I just cannot imagine it…what it will be like.”

What it would taste like or how it would feel.

We rode in silence for a long moment, and I considered how many people Adrian had changed over his lifetime. He had not always turned mortals as strategically as he did now, and the result had been utter chaos. The power he had unwittingly bestowed on some mortals only illustrated the truth of humanity—when given the option, they would do terrible things, and terrible things they did, attacking villages only to rape the women and kill the men. Those who did not die were changed and left to handle their hunger alone, which led to more attacks.

“Have you ever turned anyone the way you plan to turn me?” I asked, a question that made me feel both embarrassed and guilty. I tried not to be concerned with who Adrian had fucked before me and should not care how he had turned anyone before me either, but it felt different. I knew by how he spoke that he valued this above anything, so why did it matter?

“I have never changed anyone in the way I will change you.”

He spoke with such conviction, and the thing about his belief that he would change me was that I knew it was true too. But I needed time to process that I had become something I’d never planned for, a shifter.

“You once said these monsters who seek blood were creations of Asha,” I said. “Are aufhockers any different?”

“No.”

I was quiet, considering.

“Then is it possible that the aufhockers’ behavior changed because of her?”

I could not see Adrian’s face, but I could feel his body against mine, and as I spoke, he grew tense. He did not like what I was saying.

“Asha has no power on earth,” he said, his voice tight.