Page 63 of The Vampire Debt

I continue to back up until I hit the wall, and even then, I press myself into it, trying to become invisible.

As soon as the doors close behind the woman, he prowls toward me. I turn and run.

I make it as far as down the hall to the music room when he catches up to me, blocking my path.

I back up, but with each step I take, he matches it with one of his own. I stop when the backs of my legs bump into one of the furniture pieces.

“What are you doing?” he snaps.

“I-I was looking for you… I was worried,” I stammer.

Alaric raises his brows in surprise. “Why in the Otherworld would you be worried?”

I lift my chin and ask, “What were you doing to her?”

The thin line of blood in the corner of his mouth is still there. He takes a step closer and I ball my hands into fists at my side, determined not to move or flinch.

Until now, he had never shown this side of himself to me. He had consumed blood before, I know he had, but it was always in a glass, where my mind could come to terms with it. Seeing him drink from that woman, her intoxicated smile as he drained her life away, makes my stomach clench.

“Why does it surprise you that a vampire would need blood to survive?” he asks mockingly, his tongue darting out to lick at the blood. His fangs show themselves in a humorless smirk. “Did you expect I would live off air and moonlight?”

“You would have killed her,” I accuse him. Shock crosses his features before his eyes narrow.

I glare up into his face, meeting his gaze with unwavering steel in my own eyes. He takes one more step closer, closing what little space between us that remained, but he doesn’t move to touch me.

“Make no mistake, Clara, I am every inch the monster you have known us all to be,” Alaric practically purrs out, his voice sending shivers down my spine.

The way he speaks is both a threat and something deeply sensual all at once. The words caress my skin like the lightest touch of his fingers. I feel myself start to waver and I shudder at the realization that I want him to touch me.

“I’m not afraid of you,” I say, meaning it. He’s trying to scare me, but even now, if he wanted, he could have killed me before I could think to stop him. But he hasn’t, his posture isn’t even threatening, instead he looks as though he’s holding himself back from something far more dangerous to us both.

And part of me is responding to that part of him.

I don’t think about what my life used to be, what it is now, the events that led me to this exact moment, the reasons why I should hate him, or anyone other than the man standing before me, and the way he makes heat curl in my veins.

His deep sapphire eyes darken until they are almost completely swallowed by his pupils.

Without thinking, I lean forward and make contact with him. That slight touch is all he needs.

In a move too fast for me to see, one of his hands tangles in my hair, the other curves around my waist and draws me into him so I’m pressed tightly to him, in a hold that mimics the one he’d held that woman in. I can’t get away, even if I wanted to.

My breath picks up at the contact. Alaric’s warm breath brushes against my cheek. He tilts my head to the side, leaning his face toward the crook of my neck, and places his mouth against my skin. I wait for him to bite down, but he doesn’t.

“You’re playing a dangerous game, Clara,” he says against me. His lips caress the sensitive spot of skin as he leaves a trail of kisses moving up my neck to my jaw.

“I want you,” I say breathlessly. I don’t mean to speak out loud, but the words slip out on their own.

He lets out a low groan deep in his chest and pulls back slightly, his eyes fluttering open to meet my gaze for just a second. The heat there startles me, and I feel my own desire grow. “Your words are a sweet poison on your lips, and I can’t help but drink them from your lips.”

I don’t know if it’s him that moves or if I do, or both, but his mouth is on mine, hungry and devouring. I melt into him. I know I shouldn’t want him—he is everything I hate and despise, and I am everything he loathes.

But Idowant him. I want to lose myself in this moment, to drown in how he makes me feel, and it leaves an ache in my core.

I run my hands up his arms and lock them behind his neck. There’s something about that movement that makes him pull away.

He lets go of me and backs away. We look at each other as if we are both waking from a dream.

My skin still burns with his touch and his kiss, taunting me.