Page 36 of Touch of Oblivion (Woven in Time #1)

“My bite doesn’t just feed me, it consumes the donor.

” I shift slightly, the bed creaking beneath us, and take her hand in both of mine.

“There’s a rush of euphoria so intense it manifests as a physical need in the donor.

More importantly, while the vampire venom floods their system, it gives the vampire access to their thoughts and feelings, and a chance to alter them.

Most people don’t remember what they say or what they do while under the influence. ”

Her breath catches, but she doesn’t pull away.

“The stronger the magic in their blood, the harder it is for the vampire to control the donor. I don’t know what my bite would do, considering we don’t know the extent of your power.”

Her lips part, yet words don’t come. I can see her heartbeat in her throat again, fluttering with what I think is uncertainty to my admission.

“You’re saying you could possibly control me?”

“Yes,” I say matter-of-factly, not wanting to hide the extent of what she offers. “But I wouldn’t. You have to decide if you trust that, though.”

I watch her expression soften almost instantly.

“I trust you, Riven.”

Her whispered words land with more weight than anything I’ve felt in centuries. I blink rapidly, trying to process the immense gift she’s offering me. It isn’t her body that her trust comes from, but her heart.

I shift again, drawing her gently into my lap until she stares down at me. Her thighs straddle mine as my hands settle at her waist, grounding myself in the feel of her there.

“If I’m going to do this,” I murmur, voice threaded with thinning restraint, “I want to do it right, darling.”

She tilts her head slightly, eyes flicking over my face. “What does that mean?”

“It means,” I say, brushing the backs of my fingers along her jaw, “I’m not taking it from your wrist, because it hurts there. I won’t have that be the first thing you remember.”

I sit up, putting us nearly chest to chest. I lean forward, mouth ghosting over the place beneath her ear where her pulse races.

“Here,” I whisper, letting my lips trace the hollow just above her collarbone. “This should be all pleasure and no pain.”

She shivers before tilting her head to give me better access. “Do it, Riven.”

I pause one last time to memorize this moment. Her body straddled across mine, her breath even and sure. Her trust resting in my hands.

Then I kiss her, slow and reverently, my lips pressing my gratitude into each inch of her exposed skin. I trace the line of her jaw, the slope of her neck, until her head tips back with a gasp.

I sink my fangs in as I feel her pulse quickening.

The taste is immediate, and it's like the world explodes around me.

My mind swirls as if I’m the one with venom in my veins, yet instead of euphoria, it’s pure power that overwhelms me.

It detonates across my senses like lightning striking, flooding every nerve, vein, and hollow space inside me that I hadn’t realized was empty until she filled it.

A groan slips from me as I swallow it down.

Her blood isn’t just nourishment, it’s like an awakening, as if I’ve spent my entire existence drinking watered-down echoes of life, and only now have I tasted something real.

I’ve drank so little, not wanting to take more than I needed, yet with barely a mouthful taken, more power surges inside of me than I’d ever feel even after drinking a hundred bags of fae blood.

I grip her tighter, not out of hunger now, but awe.

This isn’t just the blood of another powerful magical being, it’s something else entirely.

I draw back slowly, forcing my fangs to retract and my mouth to close. Her blood sings in my veins, and I know with absolute certainty that I will never be the same after this.

I don’t know what she is, but she is not like anyone else on this earth.

Her body arches against mine with a soft, broken sound, her fingers tightening in my hair as a moan slips from her throat.

“You’re done already?” she asks breathily.

She moves without hesitation, hips pressing down into me, chasing friction I don’t think she realizes she's seeking.

And I…I’m powerless to her desires.

My grip on her waist tightens before I let one hand trail lower, gripping the curve of her ass as her movements grind against my already aching length. She makes the first move, surging forward to seal our lips together.

My growl rips through the kiss, low and involuntary as I feel the remnants of her blood in my mouth twining with her and soaking her lips.

She pulls back, eyes dark and dazed but focused, lips parted as she whispers, “Maybe I’m ready for more than kissing.”

I freeze beneath her, the sound of her words echoing through my mind. I was so lost in the power thrumming inside of me and the utter infatuation I felt with her surrender to me that I lost sight of what my venom is doing to her. What it makes her want.

“Darling,” I mutter as I draw back just enough to see her face, my lips still damp with her blood, my breath uneven where it tangles between us.

I prepare myself to pull forth any shred of control I can muster to tell her we can’t move forward while she’s under this influence, but the words stall in my throat.

I blink twice and pull back to glance between both of her eyes.

Her pupils aren’t blown and there’s no haze to her focus–that is usually what makes someone look drunk with our venom.

I felt the vastness of her power, but I still expected a bite like mine, drawn this close to the heart, to at least leave her body trembling beneath the weight of euphoria. To influence her decision even slightly, but there’s nothing.

She’s not responding to the chemical rush, or the addictive haze of venom coiling through her veins. She’s not being guided or manipulated.

She’s freely choosing this and voicing her own desires.

My breath shudders out as I sit up straighter, brushing her hair back from her chest with reverent care, and I press my forehead to hers.

“My bite didn’t influence you at all,” I murmur, voice barely audible.

She lets out a single chuckle, as if I’m being ridiculous.

“I feel a heat within me,” she admits as her lips curve slightly. “But that belongs entirely to my body responding to my own desires for you that have been building since the day we met. Not your bite.”

I exhale through a trembling breath and let my fingers skim her cheek, trailing down to the curve of her throat where the punctures are already beginning to close. “Do you know what that means?”

She tilts her head just enough to challenge me, fluttering her lashes intentionally slowly. “That you aren’t as powerful as you built yourself up to seem in your explanation?”

I huff a breath that is half-laugh, half-surrender. She has me so wrapped around her finger.

“You have no idea how badly I want to wrap your hair around my hand and fill your mouth until you can’t sass me,” I whisper darkly, enjoying the way her eyes widen and her heart skips a beat.

I file that away for later, focusing back on the more important revelation she needs to understand. “You’re not just resisting me, Wren. You’re immune to me, which means you should be immune to all vampires.”

I wait for the implications to hit her, but she merely shrugs, admitting, “That’s a relief.”

I expected finding out such an important fact to derail her previous desires, but she still traces lazy circles against my shoulder with the pad of her thumb. She still straddles me with flushed cheeks, parted lips, and a look in her eyes that says she is so very focused on the thing she wants.

Me .

It wrecks me.

“Say what you want,” I whisper, not because I doubt her, but because I need the echo. I need to feel her certainty ringing true above my own desires.

Her eyes don’t falter as I study them like I’m searching for cracks, for signs of indecision, but they hold.

“I want to feel you, Riven,” she says, and her voice doesn’t tremble. “I don’t know what I need or what to expect. Only that my body demands you satisfy this ache. ”

Her admission steadies something in me even as it unravels everything else.

The part of me that wants to worship her aches, the part of me that wants to ruin her trembles, and somewhere in between those truths is the part of me that knows this moment must be cherished.

“I told you before, darling,” I whisper, “I know exactly what you need.”

Her fingers are steady, deliberate, and when they slide beneath the fabric of my shirt, my breath stutters. Not because I’m surprised by her initiation, but because I’ve never been undressed like this.

Not by the hands of someone else. Not by someone whose gaze says, I see you and I want you anyway.

She draws the shirt upward, slow and unhurried, her knuckles grazing my ribs, my chest, and then my throat. The sensation is maddening in its soft intimacy.

My muscles lock beneath her touch from restraint so sharp it borders on pain. I’ve broken hundreds of bodies with these hands, commanded nests with a single glance, but right now, I can’t even remember how to breathe.

When the fabric clears my head, she tosses it to the floor. I force myself to take deep, steady breaths to stop myself from rushing her. I want her to know she’s in control here as her gaze drifts down and her lips curve into a smirk .

“I see the appeal of training now,” she muses, running a hand along my abdomen before pushing at my chest.

My back falls to the bed, leaving me staring up at the woman who has absolutely ruined me first.

Her mouth brushes against my abdomen, slowly tracing the planes of muscle with aching tenderness. She kisses over old scars that have never meant anything to anyone besides me. I close my eyes and my jaw clenches because I don’t know what to do with the way this feels.

It feels like she somehow reaches my soul with each touch.

She keeps moving upward, torturously gentle.

Across my sternum and over the center of my chest, where I have never let anyone linger near my heart.

I may have taken people to bed, but never did I trust them.

Never did I ache to breathe in their essence.

Never have I wanted to let someone in like this.

My heart kicks once, hard, and I swear she feels it because she pauses briefly before pressing another kiss there, like a promise that makes my throat swell with emotion. By the time her lips graze my throat, I tremble beneath her from my need.

It’s not my desire that matters right now, though, it’s hers.

She kisses beneath my jaw and then higher until her mouth meets mine again. It’s slow and certain, and it feels like she claims me in her own way.

When she draws back, her eyes find mine, grounded and resolute. She lifts her hand to my cheek, thumb sweeping a drop of wetness I hadn’t realized fell from my eye.

“I need you now, Riven.”

My throat is tight and my words raspy as I force them out. “I’ll need you forever, darling.”