Page 50 of The Serpent’s Bride (Bloodlines #1)

Something pressed against her lips. Something small. She couldn’t tell what it was. “Open your mouth, my little killer.”

When she did, he placed a coin on her tongue. One of his many coins from his collection, she realized.

“Shut your mouth.”

Obeying, she couldn’t possibly guess what was happening.

He buried his head into her hair. “If you can keep your mouth shut while I fuck you senseless —without ever saying my name or pleading for more? You’ll get your wish. I’ll let you take a turn with me in the straps.”

Without any more warning, he doubled her back over. Grabbing her by the elbows, keeping her suspended in the air with his strength, he rammed himself inside of her to the hilt in one hard, unforgiving stroke.

Ecstasy, somehow more impossible than what he’d brought her before, threw her over that cliff and never let up. She had no idea how long he went at her like that. At some point, he put her head down, pinning her to the sheets, and used his height to his advantage.

It felt like the sheer pleasure would never stop.

The feeling of him. The sensation of him with her. In her. Surrounding her. Taking her. She couldn’t see. She couldn’t move. There was only him. Only Raziel. Only the vampire over her, claiming her, taking her, making her his .

Yes. She was his. She belonged to him like this.

One of them would kill the other before long.

His life belonged to her.

But like this?

Like this, she was his .

When his thrusts became uneven and desperate, he grabbed her by the hips and yanked her back against him, snarling.

With all his strength, he seemed intent on burying himself as deep into her body as he could possibly go.

She felt him twitch and spasm inside of her, felt the flood of warmth as he met his own release.

He roared into her hair, and the feeling of him inside her sent her to her own crescendo. The next few minutes were a blur as she tried to catch her breath. But when he took the blindfolds and the straps off, she was lying on her side, her chest heaving. Raziel was fetching her a glass of water.

And sitting there on the nightstand was a single gold coin.

She sighed. “How fast did I lose?”

Raziel handed her the water with a grin. “Less than ten seconds.”

“Shit.” She sipped the water, glad for the cold liquid.

He laughed. His own chest was rising and falling with the exertion. “You still earned a reward. We will arrive at the estate tonight.”

Shit. So soon? She thought the family estate would be farther away, not a single day of sailing!

“I have a special dinner planned for us tonight. Very private and romantic. Just Raziel and Monica.” He watched her thoughtfully, gauging her reaction.

“Where you plan on murdering me, right?” She arched an eyebrow at him.

“The ceremony is tomorrow, this is something for us, before the inevitable.” Raziel kept his expression unreadable.

Shaking her head, she sighed. “Don’t lie to me, Raziel. I know what’s about to happen to me.”

“Hm. We shall see. Dinner, first.” If he was lying, he was just as good at it as she was. Which was quite possible.

Smiling half-heartedly, she took another sip of the water he’d handed her. “If you’re going to kill me tonight, Raziel, just give me a quick death.” She paused. “And maybe a shower, first.”

He laughed—and it sounded genuine. Her bit of morbid humor had surprised him.

“Mmh.” Leaning in, he kissed her. Slow, but deep.

It was sensual, and when he pulled away, she had to blink her eyes back open.

She hadn’t realized she’d closed them. He smiled.

“I would say you more than earned both of those. For now, I’ll leave you to your shower, my little murderer. ”

His little murderer.

And soon, she really would be, wouldn’t she?

It was time. Nadi stared at the estate on the edge of the cliff.

The castle looked skeletal from the yacht—a bleached skull on a cliff with empty eye sockets for windows, staring, unseeing, at the world around it.

The roof had caved in over one wing, it seemed—the tower collapsing into the main structure of the building.

But for a structure that was well over a thousand years old, it seemed… in shockingly good condition.

Especially now that it was sitting so far outside the reach of civilization and was left to the Wild.

Ivan had gone ashore with some of the yacht’s staff with hatchets and cans of gasoline to hack and burn away the vines and anything dangerous from the Wild that might interfere with the “ritual sacrifice” of Raziel’s bride. She could see the curling white smoke of the fires that they had built.

Dressing in a short, thinly strapped black dress and thigh-high stockings with garters, she brushed out her hair.

And slipped the two sharp paring knives she had stolen from the bar into the lining of her bustier, one under each armpit. They were flat enough that they wouldn’t leave a bulge or be noticed. As long as she didn’t curl into a ball or have to do any random crunches, they wouldn’t puncture through.

Raziel was insisting on them being the only two in the estate for the sacrifice. Just him. And her. Not even Ivan would be there. He likely thought he was giving her privacy in her last gasps of breath.

Little did he know, he couldn’t have given her a better wedding present if he’d tried.