Page 71 of Shattered Stars

I nod. I don’t need to know how he knows that. He said before he’s been watching me and now he seems to be best buddies with my pig too.

“What was her name?” he asks.

“Bronwyn.”

He thinks for a moment, his heart still pounding, the rhythm of it crazy like the man himself.

“I only need a couple of drops. Nothing more. You can keep your hand right here,” his gaze races up the length of my arm, “and if I try to kill you, you can kill me first. Fair?”

“Fair,” I tell him. He reaches into his pocket with his free hand. “But Renzo?” His gaze flicks back to mine. “I warn you, I will do it.”

“I know you will, little rabbit,” he says brightly like I’m not threatening to end his life.

He pulls out my knife from his pocket and flicks up the blade as I offer him my free hand. He cradles it in his right, examining the lines that cross my palm and tracing them softly with his left forefinger.

“A drop,” I remind him.

“Three,” he counters, spinning the knife so the blade hovers above my palm.

“It was my dad’s,” I tell him.

“It’s no ordinary knife,” he whispers as he sinks the tip of the blade into my flesh. I wince, the skin splitting and bright red blood rushing to meet the blade.

“So pretty,” he says, tossing the knife to the ground and reaching into his pocket a second time, this time pulling out a small bottle. He yanks off the cork stopper with his teeth. “May hurt,” he whispers, squeezing my hand and encouraging more blood to rush to the surface. He tips my hand and lets the blood run over my palm and into the neck of the waiting bottle. I watch as the scarlet races down the glass, pooling at the bottom, his heart pounding even more chaotically. Then he stoppers the bottle and slides it carefully back into his pocket.

We’re done. He has what he needs.

But he doesn’t release my hand, instead he lifts it to his mouth, and, before I can stop him, he licks his tongue across my palm.

“Shit, you taste so good, little rabbit.”

He sucks, drawing more of my blood into his mouth, groaning as he does, and I should be horrified, sickened, and yet I’m not. The bond in my stomach hums with contentment and my magic glides through my body.

“I can taste it, that magic of yours,” he whispers against my palm, kissing it softly and then removing his mouth.

The cut is gone, healed – the only sign of it is the scarlet stain on his lips. He licks them, grinning at me again.

I give him a little zap of my magic as a warning. “I didn’t say you could do that.”

“Yeah, but I did it anyway.”

He looks at me hungrily, like he’d like to taste me in other places too, and a shiver of desire skirts through my body unbidden.

This has gone too far. It’s dangerous, really dangerous, and incredibly stupid too.

“You have your blood,” I say. “You have what you need.”

“I have the blood,” he agrees, “but I don’t have what I need.”

I take a decided step away from him. “You should go, before someone comes looking for me, before they find you here.”

His shoulders sag. He looks like a kid who just had his favorite toy snatched away. The sensation in my stomach strains towards him.

“Can I come see you again, little rabbit?”

My hand’s still stretched towards him, ready to shoot magic at him if I need to. The hand by my side, balls into a fist, my nails pinching deep into my skin.

“No. No, I don’t think that would be a good idea.”