Page 27 of Lord of Ruin (The Age of Blood #2)
Isaac didn’t know how to respond, how to make her understand. It wasn’t her or anything that she lacked. But the Eternal King was so far beyond them, playing with forces they could never hope to understand, moving them like pieces on a chessboard, already five turns ahead.
“Please,” he tried, shifting the angle of attack. “Don’t get yourself hurt for me, Shan.”
“That’s your mistake, love,” she replied, sweetly.
“I’m not doing this for you. I’m doing it for myself.
And if it happens to benefit you, all the better.
Besides—” she stepped back, placing her own claws against her throat as she tipped her head to the side “—don’t you want to know? Aren’t you the least bit curious?”
“Shan, don’t,” Isaac said, even as he couldn’t tear his gaze away from the long column of her throat, from the way she dug the tip of her claw into her own skin until it split, the blood welling up bright and red.
“Come have a taste, love.”
He could feel his control crumbling as Shan stared him down, the blood slipping to well in the hollow of her collarbone.
Her heart beat just a little bit faster, the rhythm echoing in his ears, her chest rising and falling in quick little breaths as the blood flowed over the swell of her breast, seeping into the neckline of her dress.
The air should have been filled with the pungent taste of fear, sour and bitter, but something different hit him.
It called to him, rich and fragrant, the taste of her excitement—and arousal.
She wanted this just as much as he did, and though her hunger was for a different sort of meal, perhaps they could both be sated.
Stalking forward, he pressed her back against the wall, dipped his head so that his breath skittered across her skin. This close, he could smell the blood—the strange tang of copper making his mouth water. “Are you sure?”
Shan didn’t even respond, just pushed herself up on her toes. An offering, and Isaac was too weak to deny her any longer.
He pressed his mouth to the hollow of her throat, lapping at the blood like a cat.
The growl rose in the back of his throat, unbidden, as the flavor hit. As he dragged his mouth lower, nipping at the swell of her breast before moving his way back up, suckling at the wound she had inflicted on herself, sinking blunt teeth into her flesh and drawing more out.
It was like nothing he had ever tasted before, all his attempts at understanding flavor, at categorizing it, fell flat.
It wasn’t like wine, or bourbon, or marbled cuts of steak or the freshest fruit of spring, soft and ripe.
It was hot and viscous, faintly metallic on the tongue, and it burned like fire all the way down.
Wrapping his hands around her waist, he pressed himself flush against her, and for the first time in months he felt whole.
Shan groaned, low in her throat, as her hands roamed his back, tangling in his shirt, her claws cutting through the thin, cheap fabric to get at the skin beneath.
He could feel the chill of her claws slipping under the back of his binder, and he eased back long enough to rip the tattered shirt from his shoulders, to pull the binder up and over his head, tossing it to the floor beside them.
He took a deep breath as his lungs fully expanded, his small breasts hanging free. Shan cupped him with careful hands, sharp tips digging into tender flesh as she put her mouth to use, nipping the sensitive tips before soothing them with her tongue.
“Blood and steel,” she whispered, nuzzling against the soft hair between his tits, working him with nimble fingers until he whined, “you’re still so sensitive. I want you. Now.”
Isaac twisted his fingers in her braid, pulled back hard and caught her lips with his.
Shan kissed him deeply, uncaring that he fed her back her own blood.
“And I need to feel you,” he responded, spinning her around and quickly undoing the series of small buttons running down her spine.
Her finery loosened around her as he took her apart, layer by layer, unwrapping her like a present as the silks and the petticoats and undergarments landed on the floor around him.
The claws remained on, catching on the band of his trousers, as she removed the rest of his clothes with more care than she had treated his shirt, as she dragged the back of her knuckle against his hard cock, dipping below to trail through the moisture that had gathered between his folds. “You want me too, don’t you?”
“I do,” he admitted, even his body betrayed him, so open and wanting.
He shuddered as she paused, twisted her finger so that the metal brushed his most delicate flesh.
One wrong movement and she would slice him open, would spill his blood onto the floor between them, and still his cock twitched with excitement. “Please, Shan.”
“Eager boy,” she teased, but she carefully removed her hand from him.
She sauntered back to the low settee, relaxing back against the curve of its arm, sprawled as luxuriously content as a large cat.
Spreading her legs so that they draped over each side, she gestured him forward with a single curl of her finger.
“Don’t be shy, Isaac, I’m sure that wasn’t enough. ”
She drew the tip of a claw against the smooth skin of her thigh, the blood welling bright and red. And despite the hunger that yearned within him—as endless and deep as the night sky—he wanted nothing more than to shove his face into her dripping cunt.
But patience was a virtue he had learned over many years, so he knelt between her knees.
Ran his tongue along the shallow wound, listened as her moans filled the room.
He pressed his thumb against the split flesh, pulled the cut a little wider, and watched the arousal drip down her thighs. “You enjoy this?”
Shan shifted, peering up at him through her eyelashes. “And what if I do? Are you not enjoying it as well? Is the taste of my blood on your lips not making you hard?”
He speared her with two fingers, her back bowing as he filled her easily. “You know damn well that it is,” he growled, pumping his hand, the room filling with the slick sounds of her desire. “But I am becoming a monster—what is your excuse, darling?”
Baring her teeth in a feral smile, she canted her hips up, chasing her pleasure. “You know me, Isaac. I’ve always loved a bit of danger.”
Oh, the way she still knew how to play him, even after all this time. He lowered himself over her, letting her ride his fingers as he sought the comfort of skin against skin, his teeth returning to the gash on her neck as he dragged yet more blood from her.
As Shan came in a violent shudder, clenching on his fingers.
He felt like he was going to combust, so filled with power that he could barely contain.
It was unlike any Blood Working he had ever done, somehow more potent.
He had spent years perfecting how to build a bridge, learning how to weave together the strongest wards, how to imbibe blood from a vial to make his own skills stronger.
But this—supping power directly from another Blood Worker—could never compare to any of that.
It felt like he was being remade from the inside out, and he knew with startling certainty that he would do anything to feel this way again.
Now that he had the taste of blood, it would be harder to resist, the temptation wrapping itself around him like a shroud.
He removed himself from her body like she burned him, ignoring the ache between his own legs and the way she reached out, pleading without even saying a word.
“This was a mistake,” he muttered, running his hand through his hair, tugging at it in a vain attempt to bring himself back from the terrible edge of the precipice he stood on. “We shouldn’t have done that.”
Shan blinked up at him, languid and slow, molasses on a hot summer day. She looked so self-contented, not just the ease that came after a good fuck, but the satisfied look of a schemer who had gotten everything to go exactly to plan. “But Isaac—”
“Why?” he gasped, the shock faded, replaced with something different. Anger coursed through him as he remembered the way she had smiled, pulling his strings. “You wanted this,” he said, as realization coursed through him. “You wanted me to feed on you.”
“Of course,” Shan returned, rolling her head back on the pillow with a grin. “I offered, remember?”
“No,” he thundered, charging towards her so roughly that she flinched. “You manipulated me, you made it so I couldn’t resist, you wanted to see—” He cut himself off.
He didn’t know why he had expected any different. It had never been about helping him. She had wanted to see what would happen, treated him as some little twisted experiment, offered her blood and her body in return.
She had used him, and as the biggest fool of all, he had let her.
“We’re done.”
His words fell on a cold silence, and Shan only stood on shaky legs. “If you’re so sure,” she snapped, crossing the room to grab her shift, pulling it on in one swift movement, “then I don’t see what difference anything I could say would make. Get dressed and get out.”
She gave him one last look, full of heartbreak that seemed too real to be entirely feigned, then stormed from the room, leaving him alone with only his thoughts and the thwarted ache of his own body.