Page 97 of Bite The Power That Feeds

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We went straight to bed. Clothes and armor were dropped on the floor. Our swords were placed on the dining table, side by side. The second our bodies were reunited, everything felt right again. It was as if no time had passed, but our bodies absorbed each other like it’d been a lifetime of separation.

He didn’t ask permission before he sank his teeth into my neck, but he didn’t need to. That scorching pleasure burst through me, from my fingers to my toes, and I felt high in the clouds.

Hours passed that way, neither one of us speaking, the sun moving across the sky and changing the shadows in the room. While his brothers slept and recovered from their journey, Cobra recovered from his withdrawal.

We finally finished, drops of blood on my pillow, our bodies tangled together under the sheets. His arm was hooked around my waist with my leg hiked over his hip, my wet sex right against his skin.

Fatigue was in his eyes, but he continued to stare at me.

“I’ll be here when you wake up.” My fingers lightly touched his lips, feeling the thick stubble that had grown over the last few days.

“I want you to always be there when I wake up.” The question was in his eyes, but he didn’t ask it with his lips. He gave me the option to deflect if I wasn’t ready to face it.

But my answer was easy to give. “I’ll marry you.”

His focused expression immediately relaxed, and slowly that handsome smile came into his face, a lightness in his eyes that rivaled the sun on a cloudless day. No one had ever looked at me like that, like I was intrinsic to their happiness.

“And…I’ll turn.”

24

LARISA

I went into the deserted town and found the old apothecary shop, which had been abandoned in light of the werewolf invasion. The stock room was full of medicine and herbs, critical for sickness and flesh wounds, but useless against the sickness that had claimed the lives of so many.

I gathered everything and returned to the castle to administer the medications to everyone who showed signs of infection, including King Elias. Several men had died in the attack, but most of them were only wounded. I worked to heal them all, and I instantly had flashbacks to my time in Raventower, when I’d become the city healer because I was the only one who couldn’t get sick.

My whole life had been this castle. Changing the sheets on the beds and dusting every surface to keep it immaculate. And bedding the prince when everyone was dead asleep. I wasn’t that person anymore, and it was hard to believe I ever had been.

The healthy soldiers had been sent out to find the villagers who had fled and bring them back to the castle now that it was safe. I hoped their endeavor would be successful, because Raventower felt lifeless without them.

How is he?I spoke to Fang with my mind rather than out loud, so no one would know I could speak to snakes. Might terrify them.

They stopped the attack. Convinced their father to join them in the fight againssst the werewolvesss.

Oh, that’s a relief.

Cobra and Viper will return to Grayson with their armies, as well as the Ethereal, to prepare for battle.

And Kingsnake?

He’sss on hisss way here now.

Good.

He’sss asssked about you many timesss.

I’m sure he has.

I moved into King Elias’s room. He was in bed, pale and gray, sweat on his forehead. He was in and out of consciousness, coming to whenever the pain medication wore off. When I approached his bed, he gave a quick jolt.

“It’s me,” I said gently. “I found that medicine I was looking for…”

He pushed the sheets off himself, revealing the gauze wrapped around his shoulder and chest.

The wound was much better. We were able to beat the infection before it set in. Instead of looking greenish with pus, it was only swollen with inflammation. The skin had started to turn back to its normal color. “It’s looking good.”