Page 51 of Dark Embrace
His gaze never leaving hers, he reached out and traced his index finger across the blood on her arm, then brought it to his mouth and drew it across hislowerlip.
On some level, she knew she ought to be repulsed, but the sight of him—the smear of crimson on his lips, the trace of his tongue as he licked it, the look of pleasure on his face as he tasted her—was incrediblysensual.
Yes, she ought to feel disgusted, horrified, afraid, but all she felt was love. Acceptance. Blood held no mysteries or horrors for her. How could it? She had mopped up buckets upon buckets in her time at King’s College, not to mention the years she had worked by herfather’sside.
“Have I shocked you beyond bearing?” heasked.
Wetting her lips, she took a second before she answered, and then she offered thetruth.
“Shocked me? Yes. I am shocked, but not so much by what you did, as by the way I feel about it.” She paused, and he gave her the moment, gave her time to collect her thoughts. “I am neither horrified nor repulsed, andthatis the shocking thing. I found it...” She shook her head, trying to understand her own emotions. “Is blood essential to you? For yoursurvival?”
“Yes. But that was not for survival. I did not feed from you, Sarah. That was but a tiny sip. It is a—” he made an absent gesture “—for my kind, it is a form of connection. I come into you and you comeintome.”
Somehow, she understood that. Shehadfelt connected to him, as though for a single glittering instant, theywereone.
“You did not feed from me…but youdofeed?”
“Occasionally.” He made a small smile. “Not often. And the bowls of blood the physicians bleed from their patients ought not go towaste.”
She felt her lips twitch in an answering smile, and she wondered if she ought to be horrified by that. Her father had always deemed the practice of bloodletting to be both dangerous and barbaric. She could hardly fault Killian for putting the folly of others to abeneficialuse.
Suddenly, the magnitude of their discourse overwhelmed her, and she fell back on the sheets to stare at the gildedceiling.
“That story in the magazine...Youare—”
“Nothing like the monster in the story,” Killian offered. “But, yes, I am avampire.”
He leaned in as though to kiss her, but held himself inches above her, hovering just beyond reach, his gaze lockedonhers.
She understood then. The choice was hers. To deny him or to clasp him to her, press her mouth to his, accept him for allhewas.
To accept that he was avampire.
“Does it cause you pain?” he asked, touching the marks onherskin.
“It…stings,”shesaid.
He bit down on his tongue and licked the wounds he had made on her. To her astonishment the sting disappeared, and the markswithit.
“Oh, let me see!” She surged forward and peeled back his lips and he laughed as she poked at his tongue. “There’s nowound.”
“I heal from all wounds,”hesaid.
“And you healed my wounds…” Her eyes grew wide. “Killian, imagine! You can cure disease, heal horrific injuries,youcan—”
He pressed two fingers to her lips. “I cannot. I can heal only tiny wounds in humans with the application of my blood, and then only if my blood touches the wound from the fount. Anything larger than a prick or a scratch does not respond, and if I bleed myself into a tube or beaker, my blood alters immediately and loses whatever minimal curative powerithas.”
Sarah thought for a moment, and then nodded. “That makessense.”
Killian’s brows rose. “It does?” he asked as he twined his fingers with hers and drew her hand up to kissherpalm.
“Of course. If you are—” she cut him a sidelong glance “—feeding and you are interrupted or have had your fill and wish to save a portion of your meal for later, it makes sense that you could seal a wound so that your prey would not bleed to death and would be available at adifferenttime.”
Killian stared at her then he laughed. “You are everpractical.”
And Sarah laughed at the wonder in his tone, as though her practicality were some wonderful and desirabletreasure.
After a moment she asked, “What we just shared...Was it an act of love for you, the taking of myblood?”