Page 38 of A Hunt Bound in Blood
I sat back up and brushed her loose hair out of her face. “If it’s a healing kit you want, Buttons, I—I don’t know if it’ll be enough.”
It pained me to say it, made me feel useless and weak for all my demonic strength, but there was no way she was coming back from this without a miracle. My heart clenched with an unfamiliar emotion, something painful and consuming.
“Blood,” she whispered. “Need blood.”
More of the red stuff in question gushed from her mouth, and through the glint of liquid, I noticed what I’d been missing. The answer to the mystery that was Mage Gloria Dolan.
Fangs.
The truth behind her inexplicable strength hit me over the head, and for a heartbeat, I could only stare. The woman was a vampire and a mage? But she spent all day in the sun. And I hadn’t seen her eat or drink anything beyond what I made her. Though I had no way of knowing what she did hidden away in her tent at night.
A fucking vampire. And she worked for the king.
So many things made sense. So many didn’t. But none of it mattered. In this moment, my only priority was saving her. I sucked in a breath and scanned the camp, searching for our packs. But our belongings had been strewn around in the fight. If I wasted time trying to find that flask of hers, she’d be dead before I returned.
Giving myself no time for debate, I hoisted her into my arms, not caring about the pain I caused her—hoping, in fact, that the pain might keep her conscious—and guided her mouth to my neck.
“Drink.”
Her sealed lips pressed against my skin, and she shook her head.
“Dammit, Glory, fucking drink. It’s either that or you die right here. Your flask is somewhere, but we won’t find it until the sun comes up. You want to take that chance?”
She writhed in my grasp, and I tasted her terror. It was so sharp my eyes watered, but beneath it was a thread of desire, and I knew it wasn’t for my body. She was fighting her need for what ran in my veins.
A tremor rattled through her as more blood poured from her wounds, and I knew we had seconds before she lapsed into convulsions she likely wouldn’t come back from.
I adjusted my grip on her so she rested against my left arm and sliced through my neck with a claw on my right, spilling my lifeblood down my throat. A low moan escaped her, a final holdout as she made a futile effort to shove me away, and then her instincts took over and she was on me. Her tongue, wet and teasing, swiped across the cut I’d made, and I hissed as her fangs sank in next, deep enough that her lips sealed over the punctures she created.
Self-preservation begged me to attack her, a primal recognition of danger, but I fought against it, holding her tighter against me instead.
And in the next moment, all thought of fighting vanished, and I was caught in a riptide of pleasure. It surged through my blood and seeped into my bones and muscles. My cock hardened, and I thrust against the mage’s lithe body, doing everything I could to bring her closer. I’d heard rumours about the effect of a vampire’s bite but had never experienced it myself, and now I understood how they might become addictive. With every pull of her mouth, every drop she drew from me, I longed for her to take more. Not just my blood, but all of me.
I didn’t realize my free hand had moved until her breast filled my palm. I ran my thumb over a stiff nipple, and her moan against my throat nearly undid me. Her fingers wound through my hair, and she shifted until she straddled my lap. I released her to slide my hand over her thigh, teasing the ragged edges of one of the many tears in her heavy stockings.
The reminder of what she’d been through almost snapped me back to myself, but it was only when she pulled away on a gasp, her eyes wide, her hair in wild disarray, that I had the ability to shake off her vampiric allure.
Her chest heaved as she stared at me from under pleasure-heavy eyelids, and a drop of my blood trickled from the corner of her parted lips. At the sight of her, my strength slipped, and I hauled her towards me again. A third moan escaped her, and I swallowed it, sucking her bottom lip between my teeth, first nipping, then licking away the sting. She pressed her body against me, and her fingers brushed the base of my horns. The contact on the rarely-touched spot drew a gasp from me, and our kiss heated. I needed her to take hold of me. I needed to slide inside her and possess her as she’d possessed me. I needed—
Glory slid her hands down to my shoulders, and as soon as I felt her shoving me away, I obeyed, even though everything in me demanded I ignore her.
“Stop,” she panted. “We have to stop. I—You—” She pressed her hands to her cheeks and squeezed her eyes shut. The burns on her face were gone, and a quick scan of the rest of her showed the worst of her injuries had at least partially healed. Incredible. “This isn’t happening. This is a nightmare. Please go away.”
My chest tightened. “Glory—”
“No! You don’t understand. I—” Her eyes opened, and the green around the outside of the hazel irises was bright with unshed tears. “I don’t know what to do.”
It took me more than a moment to figure out what had her so afraid. When the truth smacked me upside the head, I bent to put myself level with her gaze. “No one will learn what you are from me. You have my word.”
She blinked, and a sob made her breath shudder. Her clenched hand pressed against her chest, and she bundled the other in the remains of her shirt.
“You say that now,” she said, “but I just bit you. The effects will wear off, and then how will you feel? If you tell the king—if you tell anyone—my entire life is over. I’ll lose everything. I’m dead. Everything I’ve fought so hard for…”
Her panic nearly broke me. I took hold of the hand bundled in her shirt and brought it to my chest. “Whatever desire I feel for you right now, it has nothing to do with the promise I’m making. I ordered you to feed from me because I didn’t want to watch you die, mage. I’m not about to offer you up as some sacrifice to appease the journalists.”
She released a shaking breath and sank to the ground. For a moment, we sat in silence, and I took the opportunity to retract my tail, claws, wings, and horns, not wanting to alarm her once she calmed down.
Eventually, her breathing slowed, and she lifted her head as though it were heavier than anything else she’d carried this week. “I don’t know if I believe you, but thank you. And thank you for letting me feed. That was close.”