Page 47 of Blood Day (Blood Alliance #7)

Lily

Master Cedric’s palm branded my lower back as he helped me float in the pool.

After Prince Khalid had dismissed us, Cedric had asked if I’d wanted to go for a swim.

I’d agreed.

Because I’d wanted to cool off after my training with Emine. But the cool water did little to dispel the heat burning through my veins.

The fear of potentially drowning didn’t do much either, particularly as I could hear the safety in Cedric’s mind.

He would never hurt me.

He’d play with me, even scare me a little, but the sadistic beast inside him had claimed me on a level not even Cedric seemed to understand.

Rather than fight it, he was embracing it.

And trying to teach me how to swim.

“Arms out,” he said. “You have to find your balance.”

He showed me with his mind what he meant, but I couldn’t just pull the existing skill into my body .

Understanding a concept and applying the concept were two entirely different activities.

As evidenced by my sinking form when Master Cedric removed his palm.

My arms flailed as I fought to break the surface again, the water rushing up my nose.

He caught me and pulled me into him.

Then put me on my back once more to try again.

This wasn’t how I expected to spend our evening, but I wasn’t complaining. Not with the stars and moon glistening overhead.

If these were my last days of life, I’d embrace them and remember them in death.

“Shh,” Cedric hushed. “None of those thoughts.”

I could hear in his mind how he wanted to live the next few weeks in peace and pretend like Blood Day didn’t loom in our futures.

He wasn’t sure what Khalid’s endgame was yet or how we would play into it, but he wasn’t allowing that game to tarnish our precious time together.

Part of me wanted to rant and rave at the unfairness of it all. However, I knew that wouldn’t fix anything.

This world was cruel.

We had to take what little reprieve we could.

And if Master Cedric wanted to give me the gift of these experiences, I wouldn’t deny them.

“Sweet flower,” he murmured, moving me with ease through the water and bringing me up flush against his naked form. “I don’t think I deserve you.”

I blinked. “Why?”

He smiled. “I’m the monster in your world, Lily. A monster who plays with his food and provides false hopes. Yet I can’t seem to turn your dream into a nightmare. ”

His words trailed a shiver down my spine. “So don’t,” I whispered. “Let me stay in the dream.”

“It’s cruel and selfish of me to agree,” he admitted, his mind telling me how much he believed that. “A better man would put you out of your misery, kill you mercifully and save you from the pain.”

“But then I wouldn’t experience true life,” I told him. “I would never have really lived.” I’d overheard his thoughts about reliving all his mortal firsts through me and how my reactions had fascinated him. “If you kill me, we both lose.”

He sighed. “I should block you from my mind.”

“Please don’t.” I liked hearing his cryptic thoughts and dark analysis of fate, even though his mental musings foreshadowed a violent future I didn’t want to acknowledge.

His palm went to my hip while the opposite one encircled my throat, his mental gymnastics both terrifying and hypnotic.

It would be so easy to snap her neck.

To drown her.

But at what expense?

What if we can find a way to be together?

What if I can keep her?

What if I lose her? It would be kinder to kill her now.

But I’ll never forgive myself for not trying…

His deep voice warmed my thoughts with each statement, his mind at war with his spirit.

And all the while, his cock hardened against me, his body reacting to my legs clamping around his waist.

“I can’t resist those long stems,” he told me with a sigh. “Or all that creamy skin. My delicate, beautiful flower. I want to pick you apart until you wilt before my eyes. ”

His lips ghosted over mine, his words haunting and filled with violent promise.

But his thoughts chased away their sting, his mind conceptualizing what it might be like when I blossomed for him again.

“Why a flower?” I asked. “Why ‘Lily’?”

“Because you’re fragile and easily broken.” His palm tightened, closing off my airflow for a brief second before softening. “Yet you’re also stunning and undeniably alluring.” He leaned in to inhale against my raging pulse. “Your scent is refreshing, like a lily flower on a summer day.”

I shuddered, hearing the veracity of each statement through our bond.

“Your hair reminds me of daylight,” he continued, his hand slipping from my neck to run through my damp strands. “And your eyes remind me of the sea, yet flecked with the vibrant green found in the flower’s leaves.”

He kissed my neck, his mouth skimming higher to my ear.

“You’re my flower. My biggest temptation. A gift of renewed life.” He pulled back to meet my gaze. “You are a dose of fragile vitality. My Lily.”

Each word felt like a promise for more even as his mind battled him with reasons to destroy me.

None of those reasons were violent or wicked in nature. Just practical. A string of suggestions regarding my potential fate and how wrong it was to keep me alive for his own personal benefit.

But it didn’t just benefit him.

It benefited me . It gave me a chance to fully exist.

I’d choose more seconds with Cedric over a quick death any day, which I told him with a thought.

“You’re young,” he whispered. “You don’t know any better. But I should. And yet, I find myself clinging to your desire with an unhealthy amount of hope. I don’t want to lose you, sweet flower.”

“Then don’t.” I pressed myself up against his hard length and fought the urge to move and take him inside me.

“Each day will only deepen my craving to keep you.”

“You say that like it’s wrong.”

“I say that as a warning,” he corrected. “I nearly fought a vampire royal on your behalf today. A few more weeks with you and I may end up fighting an entire court of them.”

He played out the scenario behind his eyes, allowing me to hear each potential move.

Vampires didn’t die easily.

But Cedric had nearly resigned himself to this fate as a result of protecting me.

My heart soared with elation and plummeted in pain. It warmed my spirit to realize the depth of his care for me yet iced over my veins at the realization of what that meant for him.

“I don’t want to share you,” he admitted. “I want to keep you as mine.”

More notions swirled inside him, considerations of taking me and running and hiding for eternity. Plan after plan formed in his brilliant mind, each one created and dashed within seconds of each other.

Because he couldn’t craft a perfect route, one that guaranteed my safety.

“Then we stay,” I told him. And see what Prince Khalid has in store for us.

Cedric held my gaze with a wondrous expression. “Your bravery is na?ve yet admirable.”

“It’s not bravery. It’s survival. ”

His pupils flared, making his irises that much darker. “Indeed. And you are a master survivalist, Lily. I will give you that.”

He shifted his hips and slipped inside me in a thrust that had me arching on instinct. There was no foreplay. No stretching me to accept him. Just a securing of our bodies as he continued to stare deeply into my eyes.

“I’ve lived a very long life.” His fingers curled into my hair, creating a fist that he used to guide my lips to his.

“And no one has ever provoked me in this manner before, leaving me without a concise path forward. You make me crave heaven and hell, Lily. It’s almost as though you’ve bewitched me simply by existing. ”

Anger and admiration fought for purpose in each statement.

But it was the latter that won as his mouth claimed mine.

It wasn’t rough or harsh.

Just a sweet kiss.

Underlined with dangerous intent.

Because his mind kept formulating ways to kill me, which only seemed to make him that much more desperate to fuck me.

The air misted around us as he teleported us out of the pool and to something soft nearby.

A bungalow , I deciphered from his thoughts.

There were gauzy curtains here that kept us hidden while still putting our silhouettes on display.

Anyone who walked by would see him fucking me against the plush, wicker-framed bed inside.

But he didn’t care about being discovered.

And neither did I.

I only cared about the slow slide of hard length pulling out to the tip before driving into me again .

It hurt in the best way.

Like he was stabbing me with pleasure.

“If I wait any longer, I don’t think I’ll be able to kill you,” he confided. “I’m not even sure that I can now. I’m too selfish for it.”

“Is it selfish to crave life?” I asked him. “To desire this intensity and want to experience more of it?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’m selfish, too,” I breathed, bowing up into him as he shoved all the way in again. “I never want to stop.”

He kissed me again, this time with more passion, his heart seeming to beat right against my lips.

Every part of him was open to me.

His mind. His soul. The very core of his being.

He wanted me to take it, master it, and make him mine.

Because he had every intention of doing the same to me.

The thoughts of death fled, replaced by renewed plans. Imaginings of the now. Fantasies he longed to fulfill.

Fucking me in the desert.

Taking me against one of the pillars.

Claiming my ass in the shower.

Forcing me to suck him off for breakfast before enjoying me as his dessert.

Every sordid idea he could possibly conceptualize rolled through our link, and I accepted each one.

With Cedric, I had no limits.

I just wanted him and every experience he offered.

A lethal desire , he mused into my mind. But I’m not going to let that stop me from taking advantage of your eager acceptance.

A quiver danced through my veins as heat pulsed inside me. I want everything you can give me, Cedric. Does that make me greedy?

It makes you perfect, he corrected as he picked up his pace. It makes you mine.

Yours, I echoed, lifting my hips in time with his thrusts. My legs cradled him, this position undeniably intimate.