Page 33 of Hunger in His Blood (Brides of the Kylorr #3)

CHAPTER 33

KALDUR

W hen I alighted on the balcony leading to my room, Erina was trembling in my arms and a new sense of alarm raced through me.

I’d just wanted to get her back to the keep as swiftly as possible, but even the mere moments flying in the rain had chilled her, though I’d tried my best to keep her shielded.

I felt outside of my own body, as relief and confusion warred, when I dragged her over to the fire and began to strip her of her wet clothes. Maudoric had had it lit, knowing I was returning tonight, and I was extremely grateful the room was warm.

“Don’t,” Erina protested, trying to shield her body as I tugged off the clothing. “What are you doing?”

Was that fear I sensed in her voice? My muscles began to shake again, a mere trigger away from a rage, even if the threat I sensed was myself .

Was she afraid of me now?

“You’re freezing,” I grated, breathing in deeply, letting her scent calm me. Stay focused, for her, I ordered myself. She needed me to be present. And of a stable mind, which seemed laughable after this last month. “I need to get you warm, dallia . ”

When she was undressed—and trying to shield her sudden nudity from me unsuccessfully—I took her into the adjoining washroom. The taps ran hot and flooded into the sunken bathing tub, and I guided her down the stairs. She sat on the small ledge, shivering until the hot water reached up her calves, going higher and higher.

The restless prowling in me only released when she sighed as the water fully enveloped her. And even though it took everything in me, I stayed on the opposite side of the small pool, still fully dressed, and paced back and forth in the water.

Erina watched me. “You’ll go into a rage, won’t you?”

“Not with you here,” I said, my voice harsher than I wanted. I didn’t know who I was anymore. For the last month, I felt like a stranger in the body I’d had since birth.

All because of her. All because of the blood bond that pulsed through me like a heartbeat.

And already, I’d fucked it all up.

“Will feeding help?” came her small voice.

I froze in the water, whipping her a—very likely—hungry look before I closed my eyes.

“No, I won’t do that to you,” I growled.

“I’m scared, Kaldur,” came her voice, and I felt a billow of rage sweep out from me. I nearly turned and put my fist into the side of the white marble pool but managed to control myself. “Come feed so you’re calm. You’re scaring me like this.”

She held up her wrist from the warm water, and my fangs immediately elongated, my body drawn to her like a magnet.

“I don’t want it like this,” I rasped. “But I can’t control it anymore. I…I haven’t been right, Erina. Since you left me.”

When I reached for her wrist, I thought I saw a flash of sympathy in her eyes.

“There have been no others. I’ve only wanted you,” I confessed.

Her eyes widened .

But I bent over her wrist, determined only to drink enough to take the edge off of the rage, until I could feel calm again and some of the fear leeched from her gaze. My fangs dove into her giving flesh, and my first draw of her blood made my eyes roll back in my head.

I groaned, the taste of her so sublime. I’d forgotten . I’d forgotten the ecstasy. And I’d been so foolish, so arrogant to believe that I could live without her?

This last month had proved how wrong I’d been, and now she hated me.

I drank from her, determined not to feel any pleasure from it because I didn’t deserve that. It felt too wrong even as her blood coated my tongue, a sweetness I’d dreamed of, I’d craved. She was looking away from me, a tightness in her jaw, and though it physically pained me, I pulled away.

I would never know where I’d received that strength and willpower to stop when I was starving for her. My fangs felt like they were throbbing.

It was enough blood. Enough to sate a little of the roaring, aggressive hunger coursing in my body.

And it could never be enough. I wanted more…and it made me feel like a villain.

I’d only taken from her. Taken more than I had any right to.

My gaze dipped below the surface of the water. She was sitting, hugging her arm against her breasts, but I could still see the firm roundness of her lower belly.

“Allow me,” I said, reaching for her wrist when I saw the bloom of red swirling in the water. When she held out her arm, I felt a fierce surge of hunger at the overpowering scent of her blood, but I merely healed the wound before releasing her.

Words escaped me. I only wanted to be near her. I only wanted to force her to cling to me because I’d been lost without her. But if I did that, she might hate me even more than she already did .

Familiar determination began like a tiny seed in my chest before growing, rooting, spreading . It carved itself deep into my bones and flowed through every vein like a racing river.

I would win her back.

I’d had her love once, hadn’t I? Until my ego and my anger had forced her away.

“You’re with child,” I said, trying to soften my rough voice. “My child.”

I felt better than I had in weeks…but seeing her shoot me a wounded look made me feel worse.

“Yes,” she said. “Like I told you in my letter.”

The feeding, however small it had been, was giving me strength and energy like a blast of sunlight when I’d been in darkness for so long. But as such, it was making my wet clothes feel all the more constricting, and so I pulled them from me. Erina looked away, turning her head resolutely to the side, though she should not have been embarrassed by my nakedness—not with her mate.

But she didn’t even know that important fact, I thought, a stab of guilt hitting me. Because I’d hidden it from her knowingly. I’d blindsided her tonight, and that should’ve never happened.

She’d deserved to know. From the very beginning. Instead, I’d hidden my need for her into a contract of all things, meant to keep her close, tied to me like a leash without allowing her the respect of knowing the truth.

“What letter?” I asked, knowing I needed to keep calm.

“I’d rather not have this conversation naked in the bath with you,” she said.

“Tell me,” I said, keeping my tone gentle. “Please,” I added.

She blinked at the word but then, the kind-hearted little human she was, gave in. If our positions were reversed, I would’ve told myself to fuck off. Vehemently.

“I wrote to you when I found out about the pregnancy,” she said, meeting my eyes. Warm brown and beautiful, I’d missed them. “I…I’d been scared. I didn’t know what to do.”

Why not ask Luc for help? I couldn’t help but wonder. But that was another conversation for another time.

“So I wrote to you,” she said, her brow furrowing in a tiny glare. “And the letter I got back was dismissive. It said that the validity of the pregnancy couldn’t be proven and that if I tried to contact you again, it would be ignored. Then ten vron landed in my creditory account as a means of a payoff, I can only assume.”

I kept the rage in check, but only barely. My nostrils flaring was the only sign of the war within me.

“You sent your letter here?” I asked slowly.

“Yes,” she replied, lifting her chin. “It looked like your signature.”

“Do you still have it?” I wanted to know. Though I thought that if I saw it, the mere sight might send me into a rage.

“Yes,” she replied, and I could only imagine the reasons that she’d kept it. Perhaps to remember…

“I didn’t get your letter,” I said, my tone clipped and certain. “And I certainly never sent you that one back.”

“I figured as much,” she replied quietly. “You…you were surprised when you saw me like this. You can’t fake that kind of surprise.”

At least she believed me about that.

“Why am I here?” she asked next. “Why did you bring me here?”

I didn’t want to scare her, but also…things would be very, very different from how they’d been before.

“In an effort to be entirely honest with you,” I began, “I’ll tell you this, even though it’s against my better judgment: I intend to keep you as mine.”

Her lips parted. And then she laughed, the sound hollow with a tinge of disbelief. Or perhaps bitterness. It sounded nothing like the woman I’d come to know. It echoed around the washroom, and for a moment, I lamented that it might be too late. That I’d done too much damage; that she did, in fact, love Luc Denoren and I stood no chance. That she didn’t want me anymore.

But then a little bit of my arrogance reared its ugly head and I thought, I’m Kaldur of House Kaalium, a fucking High Lord.

Who would reject a Kyzaire ?

She just might, I couldn’t help but fear. Erina was different from all the rest, I was discovering. Wrongfully assuming she was like the females I’d grown up around was what had gotten me into this mess to begin with. Well, that and my own foolish pride.

“Wow, am I lucky or what?” she asked, her laugh fading. “Guess I did snag a son of the Kaalium. Guess I did manipulate my way into his keep and into his bed so I could better my position in life.”

The words were ugly when they were thrown back into my face.

But what hurt me more was the vulnerability in Erina’s voice. Any other female and the words might feel caustic and cutting. When she said them? They made me want to comfort her, to pull her into my arms because they were laced with so much hurt .

“Forgive me, but I don’t believe you, Kyzaire ,” she said simply, blinking away some of the sudden glassiness in her gaze.

“I intend to make you mine, Erina,” I said again, still not quite having it in me to voice her full name. The name she shared with him . “You’ll never want for anything again.”

“Only love and happiness and true contentment,” she said, her tone hollow.

“I went to Laras,” I growled. “I saw where you were staying. I saw where you were working.”

Her lips parted. “You were there?”

“I told you—I’ve been searching for you for weeks. I saw how you lived. So why reject what I can offer you so easily? You would have a grand keep for a home, some of the best food in the entire universe, and more credits than you know what to do with.”

“But don’t you see?” she asked. “None of that matters! It always seems to, to you nobles. But for someone like me, I could be happy with a whole lot less. I have been before. At least in Laras, I wasn’t paid for.”

I dug my heels in, hiding my flinch from the words. “I want you back here. In the keep, in my bed.” She nearly gasped. “I want you at my side.”

“Because I’m your kyrana ?” she wondered. The way the word twisted from her lips made it clear she didn’t believe me.

“Why would I lie about something so serious?” I asked, feeling an edge of my temper sharpen. I’d gone through absolute hell after she’d left. Did she think I’d faked that?

“Why?” she repeated, disbelief in her eyes. “Because you did everything you could to deny me when I was here , right beside you and wanting to be there. You made it clear that you would never love me. That my only place here was in your bed, but that you would never marry me. Because you thought I was angling to be Kylaira of your territory.”

“I know that’s not true now,” I growled.

“ Now being the operative word. And I don’t understand it, this sudden change of heart. I don’t trust it. But the damage is done,” she said, that hollowness entering her voice again…and I couldn’t stand it. “Let me make myself clear: I came here tonight so that you wouldn’t raze Syndras’s home to rubble. I don’t intend to stay. And you can’t make me.”

“Name your price,” I rasped as I moved my way toward her in the pool. Her gaze flicked over me, over my naked chest, before they returned to my eyes. Perhaps she still desired me, even though she clearly couldn’t stand me.

I tipped her chin up with two fingers. Just being close to Erina, touching her skin, inhaling her scent, knowing she was within arm’s reach, in my keep…it soothed me. Like a warm bed after an agonizing day.

“I cannot force you to stay. But it is within my power to give you whatever you want so that you choose to,” I said.

Her lips parted. “You’re mad if you think I’d ever choose that.”

“I looked into Luc Denoren more in Laras. I discovered he had a failed business,” I said, watching closely to see how she would respond. Her eyes widened. “Would you stay if I gave him back everything he lost? And Syndras? You care for her. Wouldn’t you want her to be better taken care of? A House full of keepers so she wouldn’t struggle so much?”

“You’re bribing me to stay?”

“You won’t take credits yourself,” I rasped. “But you might stay if I gave them to those you love.”

And there it was. The truth of it.

Erina was not who I’d thought she was. She’d rejected my money to make a point, and she’d nearly been wandering the streets in Laras because of her pride. But would she wield that same pride like a weapon when it came to those she loved?

Especially for her precious Luc?

“I’ll take care of Luc and Syndras,” I promised her. “All I need is for you to say you’ll give this another chance.”

That you’ll give me another chance was what went unspoken.

“I don’t trust you,” she breathed.

Because I’d never given her reason to.

“I can’t give you another chance. I can’t do this again, Kaldur,” she said, her tone almost pleading.

Resolve hardened in my very soul. “Then stay for the sake of our child. You don’t have to trust me. Not yet, at least. Not until I can show you that I make good on my word. But you can at least trust that I will give our child the best I can. Hybrid pregnancies can be difficult. I don’t want you living far. I want you close, so I can take care of the both of you. ”

She went silent. A torrent of emotions crossed her features. Longing, indecision, displeasure, hope.

She was willing to fall on her sword for those she cared about. And for our child. Even though she hated me.

“You’ll take care of them?” she asked quietly. “Of Luc and Syndras?”

I tried not to sound too relieved, too eager when I said, “I swear it. I’ll have one of my family’s representatives meet with Luc, to go over a plan for the funds and the business. What happened before won’t happen again with the backing of House Kaalium’s name behind him. And I’ll hire on keepers and a full staff for Syndras starting tomorrow.”

Erina’s shoulders sagged.

“Anyone else?” I asked, wondering if there was anyone else she loved in her life.

She shook her head.

“I suppose you’ll want to draw up another contract,” she said, her gaze unfocused, her words soft.

I made her meet my eyes, then pressed closer. “No more contracts,” I growled. “This is just between you and me now. On our word and our intention alone.”

Her eyes burned into mine. My mind was still reeling with a thousand different stabs of thoughts and realizations. But mostly what I hadn’t wrapped my mind around yet was the life growing inside Erina.

The life I had helped create.

My child. The first of the next generation of House Kaalium.

“I want my own room,” she added.

Though everything in me rebelled at the thought, I inclined my head. “Very well.”

I would merely join her there, but she didn’t need to know that quite yet.

“Are we in agreement?” I asked .

“Yes.”

I hated that she looked miserable saying that word. As if she’d just sold her soul.

But I vowed that I would make this right.

I had to.