Page 27

“Y es.” The word came out on a broken cry, as if her soul climbed its way up out of her to him, clawing to survive.

Her fear of him was natural as she stared into his eyes, eyes he knew were rimmed with a ruby tint.

When they lived in the human world, his kind could not hide what they were if anyone looked close enough.

Often, they wore contacts to disguise the rings.

If they didn’t guard against anyone seeing their irises swallowed by the crimson bloodlust, humans would run screaming.

This wasn’t a problem since vampires loved the act of hunting and capturing their prey. A smile curled the side of his mouth.

Hearing her permission, he reached out slowly so as not to frighten her more.

Even though her body begged him to help her live, he knew better than to think that her mind didn’t fear what she saw before her.

A man comfortable in the dark abyss of a cave with wickedly lustful eyes and sharp teeth peeking between his lips.

Her glassy gaze, as warm and mesmerizing as Arabian sand, locked in on his face, and the crease between the sable eyebrows showcased the intelligent workings of her mind as she tried to figure him out.

A flash of raw desire pulsed through his body as he brushed his knuckles over the soft, damp texture of her skin.

There was a cool clamminess to it, caused by the pain sending tremors non-stop through her.

Even though she shivered, her body was considerably warmer than his.

He trailed the back of his hand over her delicate jawline below her ear and along the side of her neck.

Thump, thump.

Shit . The feel of her pulse tapping against him through her plump artery caused his mouth to salivate and his dick to harden.

Fuck . That voice was his bloodlust.

Unlike Amaros’s shifter friends, there wasn’t a human part and an animal beast part of him. No, he, a born vampire, was all fiend. And that fiend was always on the hunt for blood. The adorable angel on the ground before him was full of it.

“What do you want, angel? Tell me.”

“I-I don’t wa-want to diie...”

The pleading shredded his core.

The fire exploded in his chest at her touch when she gripped his other hand on his knee.

Take her. Claim her. Drink! The fiend roared.

The quivers Amaros felt; he wasn’t sure if it was from her or him. Her piquant, sweet scent floated around him like a winter fog in England, thick and cloaking, blocking out everything else.

He rested his fingers on her strong pulse, asking, “What’s your name, gorgeous?”

She shivered and licked her lips and murmured weakly, “Michaela...”

He growled as he tracked the glimpse he got of her small, pink tongue.

Amaros arrested his desire to kiss her; instead, he rolled her name over in his mind.

Michaela . She was his angel indeed.

Lowering his body to the cave floor, he stretched out beside hers as he held her gaze.

“You will not die, lovely.” He slipped his hand around the back of her neck and gripped it. Once he encircled her waist with his other arm, he drew her close and aligned their forms.

“Trust me, angel.” Never before has he required anyone’s trust before he bit them, but he wanted it. He needed it from her.

“I do,” the warm breath of her words danced over his lips.

He groaned. His cock stretched further.

Again, he stared at her full lips, assaulted by the powerful need to seal their mouths together. Still, he had to restrain himself because somewhere deep in his core, Amaros knew if he allowed such an intimate moment between them, he’d end up fucking her before the time was right.

Not wanting to get distracted from his task, he regrouped by flexing his hand on the nape of her neck.

She winced from his applied strength, but it didn’t stop him from tipping her head to the side to position it perfectly for his mouth.

His reddened gaze zeroed in on the leaping vein under her skin.

Yes , the fiend whispered before his leash broke, and he struck out at her faster than a diamondback rattlesnake.

Pure nirvana.

Like the fucking pearly gates of paradise opened up to him, and unadulterated joy flooded his core with the first taste of her.

His little angel tasted like heaven. Supposing heaven was a perfectly cut cube of sugar dipped in the finest Chilian spiced chocolate after bathing it in aged cherry wine.

Because her blood was a sweet-tart liqueur that could revive the body of one of the ancient’s gone for over a century, a delectable ambrosia.

However, the wickedly delicious, spiced-chocolate flavor would keep him returning for more.

Her blood was divine, and paired with the salty and pureness of her skin...oh, he couldn’t get enough. He swirled his tongue along the delicate skin of her neck, licking her even as he continued to draw life from her vein.

She moaned and shivered against him.

He slid one of his hands down from the center of her back, counting the nub of each vertebra until he was pressing at the small of her back, forcing her tighter against him. His cock throbbed.

Hard. It didn’t shock Amaros that his dick was hard.

Feeding was an erotic event for a vampire.

Even if he were drinking from an alcoholic, super-obese, slob of a man whose blood tasted like the gaseous scent from the ass of a skunk, Amaros’s balls would draw tight, and his cock would twitch.

He would take his fill but immediately find a female prime or human woman to slack his lust.

Even though the act of drilling into a male form wasn’t to his liking, their dark desires demanded an outlet, and it was the reason many of his kind didn’t assign a gender to whom they fucked.

It was simply erotic ecstasy and release.

For both parties. Even though the fat man, once his mind had cleared from the feeding haze, would be perplexed when he discovered his trousers were full of his own semen with a memory of a lusty encounter he just couldn’t put a face to.

But there were limits to the blood vampires could consume.

They always welcomed fresh blood and even blood infected by nuclear fallout waste.

It tasted like a new copper penny run over by a bullet train but was palatable if taken fast. However, cancer-ridden humans, those in renal failure or with hepatic disease, could not be digested, and drinking from them was similar to battery-acid.

It was why they could not heal those or turn them into prime.

The audacious act of biting was an exchange; the smallest drop of vampire serum entering the body at the initial piercing of flesh would heal a human, and in return, human blood filled them with life.

The lithe beauty under his mouth and filling his arms was all life.

So much life force that, in a twist of fate, it was killing her.

If he had not come upon her within the hour, such a precious, lissome creature would have drawn her last breath.

Simply because who grew inside of her, barely larger than a six-week fetus, was devouring her body’s nutrients too rapidly to sustain the growth, and her organs were shutting down one at a time.

He could only imagine the excruciating level of pain her thin form dealt with continuously. She would not have been able to carry one child of such kind to term, but multiple, never.

And now that blood was pooling in his mouth and streaming down his throat; he could break down everything that made up the woman gripping his waist tight and arching into him, blindly seeking for satisfaction to her need.

She writhed against him, grinding her sex along his cloth-covered shaft.

He knew not only her age and medical status but that she carried not one, not two, but three babies inside of her.

Soon his.

The other thing he knew for sure, something he’d have to bring before the preternatural council, was the alterations of her blood. Her DNA had been modified. It wasn’t what made her his match. The Archangel of the Great Spirit did that, but it was the reason for her current state.

But the council could wait. Saving Michaela was Amaros’s primary goal.

His grip on the back of her neck held fast and firm, keeping her fixed against his voracious mouth.

He dragged his other hand over the slope of her ass, sliding it to the perfect spot where her backside ended, her supple thighs began, and her legs parted.

Later he would attempt to figure out the enigma of how a perfectly plump ass developed on such a lean form.

He growled as the enticing heat of her pussy warmed the tips of his fingers.

If he hitched her knee up to his hip, it would open her thighs nicely and provide him with easy access, glide his fingers into her slick pussy.

And it was wet, and he could smell the thick nectar of her arousal perfuming the air around them.

The scent was so heady that he got drunk on it.

He lived for the nefarious scent of a woman—it was a gift.

She was a gift.

“Please...” she rasped along his ear.

He knew this stage. The woman was out of her mind as she hovered in the valley between desire and death.

She’d willingly allow him to continue to sup from her as long as he brought her to multiple orgasms, not caring if the la petite mort became the big death.

People who were sucked dry by a vamp died in ecstasy.

It was the reason vampires ripped the throats out of their enemies and gorged on what poured out, never piercing or giving them the powerful serum.

Oh, angel, just wait... you will have everything you desire . Amaros could not wait until they were fully mated, and he could communicate with her telepathically while he fed; they fed.

However, he could be patient because they’d have centuries before them to have such moments. Amaros needed to tend to his mate now that he’d sated his hunger.

Right now, he needed to begin her transformation.