Page 66 of A Hunt Bound in Blood

Kalla stood behind her, and after a moment’s heavy silence, she cleared her throat and appeared to bite back on a smile. “Right, well. Sorry about this, but you guys are going to have to share a room. We’re, um, short on space.” She averted her gaze and took a step backwards. “I’ll leave you to it, shall I?”

I swore I heard her snicker before she sprinted into the cavern.

Glory looked around the room, her gaze settling everywhere but on me. “At least there’s more space here. Too bad I don’t have my bedroll.”

“I’ll take the floor,” I offered, and it came out husky.

I didn’t want to take the floor. I wanted to take her. Hells help me, I wanted her.

She caught her bottom lip in that way that made my legs weak and scanned the room again. “I’m really upset about that bedroll. Not to mention the rest of our stuff. What are we going to do, Cammon? Regardless of whether Thorn helps us out, we need to keep going, but now we don’t have anything. The last clue. Our last map. All our food. Our blankets.”

Her breaths were coming faster, and I knew she was watching her dreams crumble. I rested my hands on her shoulders and caught her eye. “We’ll make do, Buttons. I’ve been in tighter spots before. At least for tonight, we have a safe place to put together a plan. And I doubt Thorn will make us walk out of here without a chance to restock. This isn’t over.”

Her breathing slowed as she fell into my confidence, but when her gaze flicked up to mine, it sped up again.

This time I didn’t have the strength not to get caught in her rising emotions. Her eyes darkened, and my palms grew warm against her bare shoulders. Her chest heaved with every breath, the leather stretching and moulding to the round curves of her breasts, and hells, I had never been so jealous of leather before.

I thought of our almost kiss as we’d lain at the bottom of the escarpment, the way her body had responded to being on top of mine, the grind of her hips, the soft sounds she’d released. I wanted her back there.

Before I was aware I was moving, my front brushed against hers, pushing her backwards. Her spine hit the stone wall, and her gaze dipped to my chest, to the defined vee disappearing into my breeches, before shooting back to my lips, then my eyes. Desire spun around her, as wild and wispy as her steam-kissed hair, and I was helpless against its current. I was hard for her, aching, desperate, and it took all my effort to hold myself back from urging her to give in to what she so clearly wanted.

Because she wasn’t sure if she wanted it. I tasted the flicker of uncertainty hidden beneath the waves of lust, and as long as it remained, I would keep my distance. I would suffer that torture. I was a demon, a creature of vice and forbidden desires, but I wasn’t a monster.

“Do we blame the bond for whatever this is?” I asked, hoping to put her at ease. Give her an out if she needed it.

“The bond is gone,” she said, the words blurting out of her.

I stilled. “What do you mean?”

“Kalla told me it only lasts a single day.”

Her meaning settled, and a weight dropped in my stomach.

A single day. Which meant that whole exchange in her tent. At the bottom of the hill. This. They weren’t the cause of some synthetic connection. They were real. All that squeezing, overwhelming want was mine.

And hers.

A small voice in the back of my mind rebelled against the knowledge, and I knew that once my head cleared, I would need to deal with the significance of this revelation. That the decisions I’d made instinctively, believing I was acting against my will, had been my own doing. But for now, the voice remained a soft whisper, drowning under lust that burned all the hotter for knowing it was mine.

Glory’s shaky breath tickled my chest, and her pulse flurried in her throat. I tasted her nervousness, read her worry that the news would anger me. Maybe that it would snap me out of whatever this was. But she had no idea what she’d done to me.

I brushed my fingers over her cheek to reassure her that we were fine, then dropped my hand to let her know I wouldn’t push her into anything she didn’t want. The effort to pull back and not drop my head to taste her skin made me close my eyes.

The air caught in my lungs and my body stiffened when her feathered touch landed on my stomach. There was no way she couldn’t feel my heart hammering against my ribs. Good. I wanted her to know she wasn’t alone in this tempest of longing. That whatever emotions I evoked in her, it wasn’t some demonic trick to dominate her. If anything, I was the one who yearned to submit. I wanted to drop to my knees and worship her. Discover if the taste of her physical arousal was as sweet and rich as the flavour of her emotions. Follow her commands to give her small, quiet, solitary life the pleasure she so richly deserved.

A low moan left me when her fingertips trailed upwards. Still so soft, so hesitating. As though she didn’t want me to notice what she was doing. So I did my best to pretend I didn’t. I let her explore the lines of muscle that cut along my abdominals and pectorals. I bit down on a hiss as they slipped under the vest and brushed against my nipples. The way she pulled back let me know the contact had been accidental, outside her comfort zone, and I was glad my eyes were closed so my reaction didn’t embarrass her. And so she couldn’t see the need that brief contact had inspired in me.

I was in agony, and it was the most exquisite pain I’d ever suffered. I would happily endure this torture for hours if she had a mind, wanting but never giving in or reciprocating. Not until she asked.

Her fingers reached my neck, trailed along the edges of my jaw as they journeyed towards the back of my head.

And then the slightest pressure. The tiniest shift in her body as she rolled onto her toes to raise herself higher.

My eyes flew open, and she was right there. Her green and gold eyes took up my entire worldview until my gaze dropped to her slightly parted lips. Parted lips that revealed a hint of fang. I remembered the pinch of her bite. How those teeth had pierced my flesh, how her tongue had pulsed against my throat while she’d drunk, the tug on my artery as she’d drawn blood. The deep pleasure that had kicked in as soon as the brief pain had subsided.

I’d never craved a vampire’s bite, but I itched for her to drink from me again, come what may.

But she wasn’t asking to bite me. Not with her attention fixated on my mouth. She wanted a taste of something else, and by the way her lips opened another fraction, she was inviting me to partake. The flavour of her uncertainty remained, but now it was accompanied by a glimmer of anticipation. She was nervous, but she was also daring herself to take this leap—to take something she wanted.