Page 45

FORTY-FIVE

Fiona

M y mind was reeling, and I could feel Reed’s fury roiling in my chest like a mass of hungry snakes. It was disconcerting, and I was struggling to suss out and control my own emotions while his were screaming so loudly.

“I don’t understand. Why do you want my blood when you could have an entire new club full of people to feed on?”

I could sense the vampire’s residual powers on most of the humans downstairs. I’d noticed it the second we stepped inside. They were all in some kind of lingering fog. They didn’t seem to mind it, frankly, even though the idea of it kind of creeped me out.

Sharing the bites last night with Reed was intimate and special, a sacred vow between us. It wasn’t food .

Carmine addressed me with a tone that was almost paternal. “Your blood is different, darling. Surely you’re aware of that? You have something unique inside you, and so does your blood. I can have any human I want any time. But you? You’re a rare vintage, even for someone as old as me.”

“If I let you bite me, it won’t hurt our mate bond?”

“No, there is no lasting connection between a vampire and his victim. Not unless you take my blood in return, and I assume you don’t desire that?”

The dark question in those words—as if he’d be perfectly happy to bind me to him eternally if I only said the word—made me shudder. Him bonding to me would absolutely hurt Reed, and I had no interest in that.

“I don’t require a bond from anyone but my mate, thank you.”

“Very well, I can keep the experience temporary.”

I bit my bottom lip, turning to Reed. Begging him to understand with my eyes.

“Yes,” I told the vampire, lifting my chin as Reed’s eyes began to glow with his wolf.

“Absolutely fucking not,” Reed snarled, hands shaking as his wolf fought for control.

I knew he’d hate it. I understood that it wasn’t in his nature to let any other male touch me, and I didn’t ever want to intentionally hurt him.

But his pack had taken me in without question. If the only thing I had to offer in return for their acceptance was my blood, so be it. I’d meant it when I said they were my family, now too. We needed the omega stone, and if this was how we got it, well, my neck would heal.

“Excellent.” The vampire took a step toward me, a wicked gleam in his unnerving red eyes, and Reed put himself bodily between us. Every part of him shook now, as if he was on the verge of the change, and I knew if I didn’t do something, he would shift and charge Carmine.

But he couldn’t do that, because we needed him to forgive Cysernaphus’s debt—insult, whatever—so we could get the stone.

I stepped forward, pressing myself to Reed’s back, wrapping my arms underneath his and pressing them tight to his chest, my cheek against his back.

“I’m right here, Reed, and I’m okay. Please don’t do anything you’ll regret.” The last words came out a whisper, tears pricking my eyes at the pain I could feel radiating off him. It was like my heart was wrapped in barbed wire, tearing from so many directions that all I could feel was misery. His misery.

“She is mine . I would never let you touch her, let alone bite her.”

“I believe the lady said yes, Reed. I have her consent. As you two have arrived together to negotiate this deal between our kind, yours is not necessary.”

The vampire snapped his fingers, the sound loud in the close room, and then vampires swarmed from side doors, all of them arrowing toward Reed and me.

He snarled, claws extending from his fingertips as he tried to keep himself between me and the threat, but there were too many, moving too fast. Hands on my shoulders tore me away from his back as four vampires wrestled him to his knees in front of me.

“Please don’t hurt him! I agreed, but I won’t let you bite me if you hurt a hair on his head!”

The vampire chuckled, the sound menacing as it caressed my skin. “You heard the lady.” He gestured with one fingertip, and the vampires loosened their holds. Not enough so that Reed could get up, but enough that their nails weren’t digging into his flesh, at least.

I forced myself to stand still, stay strong, as I watched Carmine stalk closer.

“Such a brave little thing,” he said, studying me with a critical eye as he walked around me, like I was some fine objet d’art in a museum, not a living, breathing woman. “But a wise choice. Vampires can learn a lot from a taste of someone’s blood. Did you know that?”

“Fiona, please. Tell him no. You don’t have to do this.”

“Will it hurt?” I asked, holding Reed’s gaze, even as I directed the question to Carmine.

“Only for a second. A vampire’s bite is in fact very pleasurable to most species. Our victims rarely fight once our venom floods their system. Some come to crave it, the high it gives them.”

Somehow, the idea that it would be pleasurable gave me more pause than the idea of pain.

Pain, I could endure. But could I scrape the shame of pleasure off my skin afterward? Would Reed be able to forgive me for feeling pleasure at another male’s touch? We’d bonded. He’d feel every bit of desire in my body the same way I felt his rage right now.

It was too much to ask, our bond too fresh. But what choice did we have? I could feel it in my bones that this vampire had made up his mind. He was fixated on whatever strange power was in my blood.

I worried my bottom lip between my teeth, and Carmine clearly read the hesitation in my stance, or perhaps my thoughts. He waited, a shark on the verge of tearing into its prey.

“I don’t want it to be pleasurable. Can you… can you hold back the venom?”

Reed’s fingertips had grown claws, wicked sharp and deadly, still fighting, even from his knees and outnumbered.

“No, little human, the venom comes with the bite. Fear makes blood unappealing. Arousal makes it better than the finest wine, and I would never dream of tainting a vintage as one of a kind as yours.”

I swallowed hard. “Reed, I—” I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to hold him, make it all go away. But I needed to do this for our pack. If the omega stone could make us safe…

“If he can control himself, you can hold him. I don’t need to be the recipient of your affection, only your blood.”

Goddess, how could I ask such a thing of him? Ask him to hold me while a vampire sucked my blood and made me feel like that . I couldn’t. A tear trailed down my cheek, as I hated myself for considering it, for my own weakness, as I dashed it away.

“Let me up,” Reed demanded, glowing eyes fixed on me instead of Carmine. “I’m under control.”

Wolfie. He would always put me first, even if it killed him. Shame coursed through me at the fact that I needed to ask him for his help, even though I knew it would hurt him.

One by one, the vampires loosened their grips, until Reed shook off the last one and bolted. I threw up my hands, terrified he was going to shift and charge at Carmine, but instead, he crashed into me , catching me up in his arms with a vicious snarl.

I wrapped my legs around his hips, letting him hold me, letting him ravish my mouth with his own. When I felt the icy hand on my shoulder, the slice of something sharp peeling the shoulder of my gown apart like butter, I didn’t flinch. I kissed Reed, poured every bit of love, every bit of need I felt into him. Only for him.

When the fangs struck my bare throat I froze, that hit of pain making me gasp into Reed’s mouth, until the pleasure made me arch into his chest, a wanton moan breaking free of my lips.

“Eyes on me,” Reed commanded, a double timbre to his voice as his wolf pushed for dominance. The hand he had buried in my hair kept me still, the dangerous prickle of his claws against my scalp somehow driving the heat up another ten notches.

The deep pulling sensation at my throat was driving me wild, a need so fierce it wasn’t human burning me alive. I wanted more. I wanted everything . I was a being made of need, and I ground myself down against Reed, needing to be fucked, vampires be damned.

“Fiona!” he barked, Reed, my perfectly controlled alpha, barked . The reprimand had the opposite effect on me in my hyperaware state, though. I arched and screamed as an orgasm ripped through me at the intense pleasure pulsing through my veins.

The vampire at my back groaned in pleasure, but I couldn’t bring myself to care in that moment. I had fangs in my neck, fire in my veins, and my mate in front of me. Reed was all I could see, all I could smell, all I wanted.

Reed’s clawed hand left my hair, and I absently heard the choking sounds as he wrapped those claws around Carmine’s throat.

“Enough.” The command was all power, all alpha , and I moaned again, pressing my breasts harder against his chest as I sought more, more pleasure, more contact, just more . I didn’t care who saw. I didn’t care who was touching me. Reed is . That was all that mattered.

The fangs left my neck, but the pleasure didn’t abate. I was mindless with it, dragging at Reed’s clothes, tugging at his hair, trying to get his lips back to mine, his cock closer to my needy pussy.

“It has been many centuries since I tasted the blood of a djinn. The price has been paid. Take her, before I break my vow and rip her from your arms to feast .”