Page 10 of Hunger in His Blood (Brides of the Kylorr #3)

CHAPTER 10

KALDUR

M y brothers were fucking liars.

We’d barely discussed what it was like. Feeding from a kyrana , a blood mate, for the first time. And when we had, both Azur and Kythel had said simply that it was unparalleled . Life altering. Or as Kythel had described: a rightness slotting into place .

What they hadn’t told me was that it felt like I was coming out of my bones, that my mind was rearranging itself and splitting, and that the beast inside me, as it awakened, was a vicious, monstrously wrong thing.

There was nothing right about this.

There was only a sense of doom, as sublime as it was. A doom I would gladly die within. Because I’d known the moment her blood had met my tongue, that sweetness a gift of the gods, I would never be right again.

I could never be.

It was loud in my mind. I could hear my heartbeat and hers. I could hear the rushing of my blood like a symphony in my veins. The gentle breeze in the garden felt amplified as it threaded through my hair and over the backs of my flared wings, a touch almost too severe. My wings…I hadn’t realized they’d come around her, cradling—or trapping—her against me, as if I was afraid she would flee from this.

My senses were overloaded. I heard a door of the keep closing; I heard the deep call of a lyvin , howling in the forest miles away; I heard the clatter of cobblestones of the South Road being laid, even this time of night.

It was almost too much, and so I focused on Erina’s scent to ground me. Divine . My hand tightened in her hair, pulling her head to the side even more. I needed to be closer. My body was throbbing. My cock felt like steel, pushing against the tight seam of my pants. I rocked against her and heard her gentle, intoxicating mews. They only fueled my need for her more.

Growing greedy, I drank more deeply as her heart sped, a harsh pounding I could feel even through the thick material of my vest. There was a maddening hungry need to replace every drop of blood in my body with hers. I felt my strength rise, could physically feel my body growing, pressing against the structured material of my clothes.

Her body bucked against me, a moan tumbling from her, echoing in the confines of my wings. I felt her pleasure. I could taste the orgasm as it speared through her, sharp and aching. I could taste her wildness and her innocent disbelief as she came apart in my arms.

And still, I needed more . Never before had I been this close to a berserker rage, but the strength was addicting. I understood my ancestors’ need to bring their kyranas to battle. This strength was dangerous and deadly. I felt drunk on it, just as much as her blood.

“Kaldur,” came my name.

I latched on to that word, at the weakened and tired sound of her voice. Fuck, I thought. Too much.

With a sharp groan, I managed to tear myself away. I flung myself back, crushing starwood bloom vines beneath my feet .

No, I thought in panic, and so I launched myself into the air, hovering above them a few feet as I caught my breath, her blood dripping from my fangs. I licked them, not wanting to waste a single drop, as my eyes focused on her below.

She’d fallen to her knees and was staring up at me, her face cast in moonlight. Her cheeks were flushed, her lips parted as she panted. Her brown eyes were so glassy they appeared like mine: silver. A stream of blood ran down from her neck. Her hair fluttered around her face with every gust of my wind, keeping me hovering.

She was beautiful.

I cursed, a maelstrom of emotion swirling in my chest. Disbelief. Lust. Resignation. Ecstasy.

Guilt.

I lowered myself in front of her. I’d taken too much, and her only true meal today had been at breakfast.

I bit down into the pad of my own thumb as I kneeled in front of her. The venom mixed with my own blood, and then I smeared it over the two small wounds at her neck. In mere moments, they stopped bleeding. I licked at my thumb as she stared at me, her gaze half-lidded.

Not speaking, I gathered her into my arms. My eyes caught on the contract as I stood, and I swiped it from the moon dial, shoving it into my pocket before I launched myself into the sky.

Erina didn’t react to being in midair, except for a slight tightening of her hands on my vest. I was worried. She was quiet, too quiet. How much had I taken? I couldn’t be certain—I’d been too lost—but I was reassured by the pinkness of her cheeks.

Still…

The garden grew small below us, illuminated by moonlight and the trail of golden and blue orb lights I’d had installed to light the pathways. I flew toward the South Wing, toward the balcony of my own private rooms, keeping lower to the ground and going slower than I normally might, in fear that I might scare her.

When I landed on the balcony, I pushed open the door with one booted foot. A fire had been lit, likely by Maudoric, and I placed Erina carefully on the plush chair in front of the hearth.

She shivered—and I wrapped a thick throw over her shoulders, tucking it in around her—though I was relieved by the shy smile that crossed her lips when I was done.

“Thank you,” she said, her voice paper thin.

My lips were pressed into a firm line. My fangs wouldn’t retract, and I felt them bite into the flesh of my bottom lip. I snagged my Halo orb—a hovering ball of soft light—when it strayed too near and sent a Com message to Maudoric before releasing it.

I kneeled in front of the chair.

“Are you all right?” I asked, my jaw tight as I studied her. I didn’t know what I felt, but I would dwell on that later once I saw her well.

“Yes,” she replied. But I didn’t know her enough to know if she was lying to me. I got the sense that she was the kind of person to please others over herself. “I…”

“You?” I prompted when she trailed off.

“I didn’t expect it to be like that,” she answered. Her eyes were wide. She swallowed hard at the confession, and I knew what she was referring too. The feeding had been sexual. I’d tasted her orgasm on my tongue, laced with her blood, little pinpricks of pleasure sliding down my throat.

My cock was still hard, but I was too distracted to pay much attention to it. There were no signs of it softening.

“Is it always like that?” she asked.

“Sometimes,” I answered, though it was a partial lie. Yes, a feeding was like that…if it was with a blood mate.

Every feeding in my life, however? However many countless feedings I’d taken, whether they’d been from blood givers or lovers?

Never had it been like that . That had been a completely new experience, one only she—this keeper, who’d barreled into my life—could give me.

And that thought dropped like a heavy stone in my belly. I wasn’t happy about it. Not at all. Because it made me need her. It made her irreplaceable. I didn’t know if I could go back to a normal feeding again after tasting her blood. Everyone else would taste like ash on my tongue, tasteless and repellant.

What have I done? I thought, that familiar resignation tunneling deeply, carving pathways into my bones, whittling them down.

“Oh, did I do that?” she asked next, her voice soft and weak as she reached forward. I nearly flinched away from her touch, but she traced the seam on my arm where my sleeve had ripped. My body was pressing against the material of my clothes, too tightly restricted. I felt like I was being suffocated.

That hellish restlessness I’d felt for the last two years had been assuaged. I felt relief like no other.

And yet it had been replaced by something even more devilish.

This unfathomable need was like a tether, shackling and chaining me to a female I barely knew. A keeper in my own household. A human female, who didn’t bear a drop of noble blood in her veins.

I would’ve never noticed her if her scent, her blood hadn’t called to me.

A knock at the door saved me from answering. My movements were jerky when I stood and went to answer it.

Maudoric’s eyes went wide when she saw me. She would be able to see every difference in me. She’d known me since I’d been a boy. Her eyes catalogued my enlarged state, the strain against my clothes. In her hands was a silver tray, laden with food and, most importantly, a cup of steaming baanye tea, hot and thick.

“ Kyzaire ,” she greeted, inclining her head as I took the tray from her hands. Even her instincts were telling her to tread carefully. I was sated on my kyrana ’s blood—for now—but we’d always been warned that the beginnings of a blood bond were often…unpredictable. “Anything else you require tonight?”

She couldn’t see Erina from this angle and especially not with my bulk blocking the majority of the room from view.

“That’ll be all,” I said, dismissing her for the night. If she thought my tone was gruff, she was wise enough not to comment on it, and I watched her disappear down the darkened hallway.

Closing the door, I returned to Erina, who watched me with her wide eyes. Now she looked worried.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

She was handling this much, much better than I was, and I’d taken a lot of her blood.

“Fine,” I answered, setting down the tray on the small table next to her chair. “Eat. Drink the baanye . You need your strength.”

It went quiet as Erina reached for her tea, sipping on it. I saw the look of distaste flash across her features when the thickness of the baanye hit her. But her next sip was more like a gulp.

She drained it before she reached for the tray. I was tracking her movements, listening to her heartbeat. There was a need in me rising again, eager for more of her taste. It did feel like a foreign beast had just come alive within me. I felt unfamiliar in my own skin, and that made my temper snap.

“I have to go,” I told her abruptly, already heading to the balcony.

“What?”

“Finish eating. And then rest. I won’t be back tonight.”

I needed to get out of here. My clothes felt too constricting. The warmth in the room was too hot. Her presence both brought me relief and made me feel on edge, like I was a moment away from losing myself again. Losing myself in her taste and the way she felt against me as she came so sweetly.

Vaan, I cursed silently.

The moment I was out on the balcony, I launched myself into the cool night air.

I didn’t know where I was going. I just knew it couldn’t be here.