Page 13

IRIS

I didn’t have the energy to explore my room. I barely managed a shower before aiming myself at the bed and passing out in wet hair and a robe.

I knew I wouldn’t need an alarm.

My lifting neck hair prickles me awake.

Something tugs my ankle.

I bolt upright.

The room is dark, but the man-shaped blot at the end of my bed is cut out darker than the darkness.

Pain .

Ropes of shadow whip around his shoulders.

He grips my ankle in his claws. I catch peeks of the creature hidden underneath the wild spikes of shadow.

Pointed ears. Dark veins. Fangs for days.

My heart wrenches as he drags me down the bed.

The duke isn’t home.

His jagged silks reach for me like hundreds of spider legs—black and purple as a bruise.

I rush to connect our souls and settle him down. The first touch stabs my brain.

“Sentinel!” I gasp.

There’s no reason left in his wavelength.

He’s all animal.

All rampaging monster, fueled by need and that throat-ripping vampire hunger.

He hauls me until my ass hits the edge of the mattress.

I sit up slowly.

Two red eyes burn holes in the darkness. His chilly shadows weave around my legs, creeping up my thighs. The magic wisps feel and sound like whispering satin.

I shiver.

“Guide,” he says raggedly.

My heart drums—I wish I could say with fear.

“Come here.” I reach into the shadows, trying to find his face.

Blue light glows around me as try to connect to him.

Remy’s silks dodge my reach, fanged and wary. He probably doesn’t know where or who he is right now.

I touch his pain and struggle to breathe. But his hunger is worse.

My throat squeezes.

The red-ringed lights of his eye pits track my pulse down the yanked-open throat of my robe.

His shadows force apart my thighs.

That hunger?

It’s not all for my blood.

And the pounding of my heart?

It has nothing to do with fear.

“Remy.” I spread my knees for him. “Come closer.”

He doesn’t listen— yet —but he stops fighting my silks. I caress his tendrils, sending him softness and reassurance.

His spikes calm. That doesn’t fix the poison tangling him up inside.

I need to touch his skin. Then I can go deeper.

The more I can touch, the more I can help.

I can’t give him a second chance to go for my throat.

Thankfully, there’s something he wants more than my blood.

I untie my belt. The disheveled robe falls away. My belly tightens.

His woven shadows trap my thighs in a net, squeezing and advancing toward my mound.

I open wider.

My wetness hits the air.

He growls a sound between hissing shadows and an intoxicated moan.

I stare into the pits that glow where his eyes are meant to be. “Remy. Feed .”

Vampires can move.

My skull knocks the mattress.

Dazed, I try to sit back up, but a broad, black-clawed hand drives me back and holds me, weighing down my lower belly. The sharp nails pinch but don’t break skin.

“ Stay .”

My stomach swoops with his command, and the heated breath that feathers my clit.

Okay.

The one-word vocab has its charms.

Remy sinks between my legs and moans the most bestial fucking music.

“Wet.” He plunges his tongue, then curls it and licks up to my clit like he’s hollowing out a melon.

I flail through his shadows, reaching for something to grab. My fingers finally find his hair. I dig in, pulling him deeper.

Remy sucks my clit and rumbles.

The sensation curls my toes, but I think… he’s enjoying it more than I am?

Makes sense.

His energy is so tangled, I can’t possibly relax.

I bite my lip and do my best to focus while his tongue explores.

Horrific knots of toxic energy choke the meridians of his throat and stomach, but the worst snarl lives in Remy’s head.

No wonder he’s losing his shit.

His fang grazes my clit.

“ Hnnh !” I contort, trying to close my thighs.

I can’t with his shadows holding me open.

It’s going to take forever to claw the real Remy back from the darkness. I’m up for the challenge if he spends our guiding sessions eating me out like he’s rabid for my cum.

Maybe I’m desperate.

Maybe I’m twisted.

But I want to look the man in the eyes and feel him acknowledge that I’m the one who saved him.

I want to know that he knows I’m the only thing standing between him and the abyss.

At least until he finds a better Guide.

I pick through Remy’s damage.

I only stop when a hard lick shatters my focus.

His tongue…

Isn’t that too long?

As if he can hear my doubts, Remy plunges deeper, rolling his tongue in waves and hungrily licking me open.

When the tip reaches my deepest point, it curls back and a second tongue licks under the hood of my clit.

I clench, trying to hold back tremors.

Remy growls his satisfaction. The vibration and heat of his mouth drag me closer to the edge.

I resist, determined to release another stubborn tangle at Remy’s temple before a climax robs my focus.

This is new territory. Kevan never put his mouth on my?—

Godsdamnit.

I don’t need to think about a man who never thinks of me.

Especially not right now.

Remy huffs, sensing my attention slip.

Then a third tongue corkscrews inside me, and whatever my body does is out of my hands.

Remy pumps and wiggles, hitting spots I didn’t know I had with parts I didn’t know a man could have.

The pressure expands, filling me, tickling and sucking?—

Fuck .

I scrape Remy’s temples. His claws pin down my bucking hips. I can’t pry him off my pussy, but I catch a glimpse of the shadows curling from his mouth.

Those aren’t tongues.

A shadow with the same hot wetness as his mouth pets my clit. The pull from his soul sweetens the sensation. His sucking silks and shadows caress every part of me.

Body.

Soul.

I can’t.

I can’t.

“Remy!” I gasp and yank his hair.

Pumping faster and faster, he licks and bobs as he drinks me down.

I fucking gush , feeding Remy everything he wants.

Legs shaking, I curl my fingers in the black hair with fading white streaks that I can finally see as the man appears out of the shadows.

His emotions stabilize, but his thirst is barely satisfied.

With his pain down to a dull ache and me working through his tangles, Remy is left with one primal urge:

He wants me to come until I fill a bucket.

He doesn’t care that I just squirted all over his face.

Doesn’t care that his shadow tongues have me so sensitive that the huff of his breath shakes my calves.

“Remy. Ohf —” I push at the clawed hand still pressing my stomach, possessively holding me down. “Remington. Enough . Talk to me.”

He releases my hand, but his shadows don’t stop fucking me.

Trembling, I fight upright, pushing his shoulders away and using my soul to enforce the command.

He finally pulls out his tongues.

I gasp at the sudden emptiness.

Remy gazes from between my knees with black eyes, sucking my juices from his shadows as they curl back into his mouth. His pretty face is mostly back to human, just a little too sharp—ears pointed, fangs glittering, and a predatory glint in his chasm-black eyes.

“Darling.” He stares at my swollen center like he’s studying to paint a canvas. “Your pussy is the most delicious thing I’ve ever tasted.”

I shudder.

From one-word caveman to fucking that?

Unfair.

“Hold still.” I smash his cheeks between my palms to check his status without five to ten orgasms interrupting my workflow.

“I feel sublime,” Remy says dreamily, licking glistening lips. “You must be my fated Guide?”

Well, eff .

We’ve got short-term memory loss.

I hold my breath as I feel into his meridians.

I’ve combed a snarled layer off the top-most tangle in Remy’s magic veins, but his body’s still a fucking mess. Especially the orgy of black spider webs turning his brain into a lacy black hole.

The old damage is too dense to tackle all at once. I hit the cold, longing emptiness inside him and pull away before I lose myself in the stubborn desire to heal it all now.

I’ll burn out if I try to fix Remy in one shot.

“I’m Iris Ashbourne,” I reintroduce myself as I stroke his cheekbones with my thumbs. “I’m an S-class Guide, and I’ve taken command of the Farguard. You’re one of my Sentinels.”

“One of?” His eyes flash red. “I disagree.”

“Easy.” I brush his energy, soothing the hedgehog spike of silks. They shudder at my touch, then flatten, suddenly cooperative.

He closes his rolled back eyes.

“I’m not going to hurt you, and you’re not going to hurt me. Remember?” I stroke him, hoping that the next time Remy forgets my name, he’ll still be able to remember my touch.

“Ah. That. I’d like to make you a promise.” His fangs drop as he grins. “But I seem to be a little out of my mind.”

“A little?” I squish his cheeks.

Remy’s thoughts slide south as he hungrily stares down my dripping slit. “A drink should address the problem.”

“Later.” My legs are noodles, and healing Remy is a marathon, not a sprint. “After breakfast.”

I reach for my robe. It’s going to be a busy day, and I need to get him and Vhex?—

I freeze. “Where’s Vhex?”

“Who?” Remy asks innocently.

I’d believe he lost this memory if I weren’t dug into his thoughts. The crazed vampire sparkles with delighted malice.

“Remy.” I grab his chin. “What did you do to Vhex?”