Page 16 of Vampire Runner

Ashe bites harder, my blood spilling over his lips to stain his chin.

I struggle against his hold, gasping out, “I need to touch you.” I whimper as he licks a long path up the column of my throat until he bites my lower lip. “Please.”

“You need to earn it, my dear wife,” he murmurs against my lips. His golden eyes are bright with lust, his words ghosting across my flesh with a dark, hedonistic promise.

“Tell me,” I whisper, nipping at his chin. The coppery tang of my blood teases my taste buds.

Ashe’s smile is sinful, his talon-tipped nails slicing through the remainder of my clothing. The silk of my blouse and my long skirt flutter to the floor around my feet. The bra I’d been given is already hanging from my shoulders, and with a heat-inducing bite, he snaps the straps, leaving me in the shockingly small underwear Josephine assured me was the standard. According to her, there are more revealing underwear, and I can’t imagine such a thing.

But if Ashe continues to look at me the way he is, I will happily wear whatever scantily covering items he wants. Under his gaze, I feel like the rabbit cornered by a wolf—the wolf fully intent on devouring me as an act of worship.

He holds my gaze, my chest rising and falling as my heart races, while he slowly—so damn slowly—traces a talon-tipped finger down from the hollow of my throat. Down between my breasts, making my nipples tighten, down the soft curve of my stomach before hooking it underneath the elastic of my underwear. I shiver, but it has nothing to do with being cold.

This, right now, is nothing like the first time we came together when I accepted I was his mate. That had been a thing of love and beauty.

This is darkness and promises violence. The claiming between two wild animals.

With a twist of his wrist, he tears the fabric from me, leaving me fully bared before him. I’m revealed to him, while he drinks me in like a dying man.

I struggle once more, wanting him as bare as me. I want him to feel what I’m feeling. What he’s done to me.

He tsks, the sound a low, sensual purr. “Impatient little mate.”

I bare my teeth at him, but the effect is less than I’d hope when his lips are slick with my blood. My magic crackles around us, traveling under my skin, desperate to join with him.

“Release me, Ashe,” I hiss.

“Are you begging me, Cassandra?”

“Yes,” I whisper.

As soon as the word leaves my lips, Ashe has me pressed against the wall.

“No,” he growls. He pins my hand above my head. “Do not move your hands, witch.”

“And if I do?”

The dark flash across his face has me tempted to disobey.

“Then I’ll punish you,” Ashe confirms. His lips twist up in a beautiful smirk. “But the real punishment won’t be the spanking. It’ll be taking what I want from you without ever letting you come.”

I groan, bereft at the idea of him withholding my pleasure. “Okay,” I whisper, dropping my head back against the wall to stare up at the ceiling. He releases my hands and I look back at him. He steps away, sliding off his black jacket and laying it neatly on top of the dresser along the wall. My mouth goes dry as he turns to face me after slipping his feet from his shoes and removing his socks.

In black trim trousers and a white button-down, seeing him shed his clothing feels more like he’s shedding his armor.

When Ashe unbuttons his shirt, revealing a triangle of beautiful skin dusted in fine hair, I begin to reach for him without realizing. His pointed growl has me flattening my palms against the wall above my head.

“This is torture,” I groan.

He shakes his head once in rebuke, before sliding the shirt off and laying it over his jacket. He meets my gaze as his hands go to his belt, unfastening it. “No. Torture is seeing your mate every day and never being able to touch her. Never able to taste her. Never sleep beside her at night and wake up every morning with her.”

He pauses, his belt dangling open. I watch as Ashe swallows, his throat working as his jaw tightens. “Torture is seeing the one person you thought would be beside you forever disappear from you. To have their body possessed by a demon.” Ashe’s eyes bleed crimson, the color seeping from the outer rim of his irises to spread towards his pupil. “Torture is wondering every single day if it’s worth continuing to live since your reason for living was gone.”

My heart cracks, splitting open as Ashe strips bare before me. Emotion clogs my throat, tears pricking the corners of my eyes.

“Ashe,” I whisper, choking on the guilt and pain that flood me. I’m drowning, unable to breathe as his pain becomes my own. “Ashe, I’m so sorry.”

Ashe stalks forward, naked and glorious, his arousal thick and heavy between his thighs. He grasps my neck, the side clear of blood. This time his touch is gentler, an anchor to ground me. “What did I say about you saying that?”

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