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A gasp flew from my mouth when his fangs pressed into my neck, twin points digging into my flesh.

I’d expected pain. I’d braced for it as stoically as I could manage. And maybe there was some, the slightest pinprick.

But it was erased as a tide of heat rose inside me at the contact.

His fingers clenched my arms tighter, as though to hold me in place, but I couldn’t have moved away if I wanted to. My eyes shut as I gave in to the sensation. It was unlike anything I’d ever experienced before.

Bliss.

That was the only word for it. I arched in his grip, urging him to drink me deeper.

My chest pressed against him, my nipples pebbling into stiff peaks.

My body warmed throughout, my thighs squeezing together as desire pooled between my legs.

The only thing I knew was pleasure, and I never wanted it to stop.

It feels so, so good . I’d give him everything just to have more of this.

Raphael abruptly shoved me away, ripping his fangs from my neck.

I blinked, the daze receding.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, pupils blown wide as they flicked between my neck and my expression.

I slammed my own palm over the spot he’d bitten, but the wounds were already healing.

Under my palm, my pulse raced. I tried and failed to tame my shallow breaths, leaning back on my heels as we stared at each other.

“Your taste… you’re without parallel.”

The words were a caress in the worst way because Raphael didn’t even seem to realize he’d said them. His slight rasp raked over my body, which still throbbed with need. I’d never experienced any approximation for what he’d just stirred in me, and all at once I felt lost.

I let a vampire feed on me.

Horror. I should be feeling horror . But none came.

“So did it work?” I demanded, trying to stir the panic I’d felt just moments ago while he’d seemed on the brink of death. It was like I was drugged. The frantic energy I knew should be there was just out of reach, while it was all I could do not to ask him to bite me again.

Raphael rolled his neck.

“It did.”

He rose to his feet and offered me a hand. I pushed myself up from the ground without taking it, trying to hide my sway. Of course, he noticed. To avoid meeting his gaze, I demanded he turn around, and I inspected his back.

Unmarred.

It was startling. I’d expected some healing, but this was… well, it was like magic. The skin appeared as though it had never been broken, had never taken a dozen copper arrows directly, even as his blood coated the floor.

We returned to the glowing hallway.

“Don’t open the Black Grimoire, but pick it up,” he ordered as the book we’d abandoned on the floor came into view.

“You sure it won’t set off another trap?”

“You removed it from its resting place. The worst of the protective magic should be gone, and most of it will fade once we leave.”

I lifted the grimoire into my arms, clutching it to my chest to avoid temptation. Its edges were stained with blood now.

“How do we get out?” There was no chance I could make it over that chasm again.

“That’s the easy part.”

The easy part turned out to be a secret passage that Raphael activated with a few careful touches of the runes on the wall.

It led us down a winding corridor, one without the perfect angles of the rest of the temple.

My torch was dead; I had to clutch the tattered back of his shirt to avoid stumbling.

I fought the inane urge to spread my fingers over the freshly mended skin, as if I could convince myself the arrows had never been there.

That the bite had never happened.

That I’d never offered to let a vampire feed on me.

We hit what seemed to be a dead end just a few minutes later, but with a couple more touches, the barrier disappeared. Moonlight splintered past Raphael. I’d been about to ask why we didn’t just enter through whatever passage when I tilted my head and realized exactly where the opening led.

Into nothing.

More accurately, we were at least twenty feet in the air. Before I could ask Raphael just how we were supposed to get down, he jumped.

I shrieked and clapped a hand over my mouth, edging tentatively closer so I could peer out.

And there was Raphael. Not splattered against the ground, but standing tall, waving to me while the silver light of the moons danced through his hair and bounced off his skin.

“Jump down,” he called.

I shook my head, trembling slightly while I gripped the book for stability. Its gentle thrum of magic did little to steady me. Blame it on the blood loss . “I can’t! I’ll break my neck.”

“I’ll catch you,” he assured me. “Trust me.”

Trust a vampire to save my life.

A third time.

I jumped.

Air whooshed past me, blowing my hair away. I tucked my legs in and shut my eyes, bracing for death or at least several broken bones.

Contact.

But not with the ground. Strong, steady arms held me, one under my knees, the other supporting my back. I slowly unclenched my face, forcing my eyelids to open.

Raphael grinned down at me. “Told you.”

I blew out a breath, trying to calm my racing heart as I tried to process the fact we’d not only survived this crazy adventure, but we also had the lost Black Grimoire with us.

Raphael made no move to drop me as he surveyed our surroundings. I found myself relaxing in his arms, breathing in his cedar scent like I could wrap it around me and hold it close. The rise and fall of his chest was gentle, even if no heart beat inside it .

No heartbeat. Because he’s a vampire . Who you let drink your blood.

“Put me down,” I demanded.

Raphael gently lowered me to the ground, and I turned away from him.

Alphonse, to my immense relief, had not been eaten by an ogre in our absence.

I slid the Black Grimoire into Alphonse’s saddlebag.

It took my hands an extra moment to release the book, but I let it go with a caress against the edges.

Maybe because I’d nearly died half a dozen times getting it.

Raphael didn’t miss the movement. “Do you know Old Runyk?”

He must have seen me reading the walls in the temple. Though it begged the question: How did Raphael know it? “A little. I studied as a child, but it’s been many years since I’ve come across it. Do you?”

“Only enough to recognize it.” Raphael considered me, clearly weighing something more. “Do you think you could learn to read the grimoire?”

I scoffed by reflex, then looked back at the book. Could I? I hadn’t studied anything academic in ages. “It would be useless without a witch who can use the grimoire.”

Raphael nodded, reluctantly, letting the subject drop. Neither of us moved onto Alphonse.

Now what?

I’d gone with Raphael on this little retrieval quest—not realizing exactly how perilous the abandoned temple would be—because he’d taken care of me while I healed, and I was out of options.

The Monastery would never take me back, and no matter how I wanted to survive, there was no way I could put myself through that again.

But without Raphael around… at best, I could hope to reach some farm out on the edges of the kingdom that could use a pair of hands only used to rat catching.

Would I be safe there? They might not look for me specifically, but every once in a while, they tracked criminals via magical means.

They would find me. Without the Monastery to stand in their way, I’d eventually be found and executed. I had no money, no skills, no refuge.

“What is it?” Raphael asked.

I have nowhere to go . “I’m… not sure what my next steps are.

” For years, I’d worked towards my goal of starting a new life at the Monastery.

Now I was lost. Each step seemed to edge me closer and closer to the precipice of a cliff.

I fingered the flap of the saddlebag, even now wanting to soothe myself by holding the grimoire.

“There’s more to Eurobis than the Witch Kingdom,” Raphael said, voice soft.

I glanced at him, then realized: “You mean the lands beyond the Vampire Kingdom?”

Raphael’s expression said that wasn’t quite what he meant, but now that the idea hit me, new air filled my lungs. I’d never considered moving beyond the Witch Kingdom, because the vampires had us locked in. There was no way out except through their domain, and no one would choose that .

But I had a vampire. “Could you get me safe passage through the Vampire Kingdom and out to the west?” No soldier in the king’s army would ever be able to hunt me down there.

“I… could.” Raphael seemed to hesitate, unlike his usual, assured speech.

I was too relieved to care. I drew myself up onto the horse and tried not to tense when Raphael sat behind me once more, his hand coming across my middle to hold me steady as we began to move.

“You’re uneasy,” he said. “Why?”

Was my body so obvious? “I’m fine.”

He snorted and stalled Alphonse. “That’s a lie.”

I was uneasy because the vampire was holding me again, and unlike before, I couldn’t ask him to just let me down. Nor did his steadying touch feel like it had when we’d first been forced to ride together, like something I had to endure for survival.

It felt like something I might want.

The way he’d looked at me after feeding…

“Won’t you have trouble being this close to my neck?” I blurted.

“I’ll restrain myself,” he replied.

That didn’t make me feel better.

“Relax, Samara. I won’t bite you again.”

Finally, the tension in my shoulders eased. There was quiet determination in his words, and I found myself trusting them. At least, until he added —

“Not without permission, anyway.”

He clicked his heels, and Alphonse began to move again before I could finish stammering my vows that that would never, ever, ever happen again.

Even as his reassurance made me recall exactly how my body had heated when he’d bitten me, the pleasure his fangs had wrought that had me imagining a repeat.

Never .

Raphael’s assurances weren’t exactly convincing. I managed to keep quiet until we hit the edge of the marshes, when I finally dared ask: “Now what?”

“Now,” Raphael said, “you come home to Damerel with me.”

To the Vampire Kingdom.