Page 34 of The Ballad of the Vampire Prince

“Then why haven’t you?” He has not taken a drop of my blood since that morning.

“I don’t need it yet.”

I don’t need you.

I lower my head and look away from him.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he says in a voice that sounds like the darkest of lullabies.

You already did.If I still cared, I might have challenged him and quip with that. But now that I know we have no chance, I don’t bother.

I am a disgusting curse bearer…

Svenn suddenly wraps his arms around me.

A small inaudible ‘What?’ escapes from my lips.

I cease to breathe knowing he can easily crush me if he wants to. I’m beginning to feel like the silly first pig again, or even more foolish than that. I didn’t just build my walls out of straw; I got captured by the wolf twice today.

“I noticed you were in pain this morning,” he says, his breath dancing on my neck, sending tremors down to my spine.

I nod softly.

It almost sounds like he cares. My pulse quickens the moment I feel his calloused hand over my back.

“If you’re not planning to send me to crush your enemies, then let me help you with this at least,” he murmurs in my ear.

A wordless gasp falls from my lips as his hands dig into my sore muscles.

What kind of help is this? I don’t trust my voice enough to speak.

His fingers continue their leisure, unhurried exploration over my body. I have seen his hands rip apart people to pieces and yet they’re being so delicate and gentle with me.

Wait—he’s giving me a massage?

His technique is a little untrained, as if Svenn had just learned this from a book and decided to test it out on me. But still, this feels like utter perfection to me. Every stroke of his hands leaves a burning fire in their wake. They move to work lower over the base of my spine.

Oh gods. That feels so good.

My whole body is awakened by a strange sense of familiarity over his presence. It’s humming with delight.

Hey, I remember you.

Every nerve in me resurrects to life after being starved of his attention for so long. I focus on anything else in the room to avoid myself from responding inappropriately to the feel of him. But my brain suddenly decides now is the time to list all the things I want from Svenn.

I want to feel the weight of him pressed against me. I want his large, capable hands wrapped around me. I want to bury my face in his neck and breathe in his scent. I want to trace my fingertips over his chest, his back—over every inch of him. I want him to lean down and whisper dirty things to my ears. But the thing I want most is for him to look me in the eye the way he did that night.

Fool. All the things I want are the things I can’t have.

He’s being nice again. This could be a trap, a way for him to shatter me into a million pieces so I can never rebuild.

I know enough not to trust him anymore.

Walls of bricks, not of straw.

He pulls back to look at me. “Does it still hurt?”

“Less,” I admit.