Page 93 of Taken By Touch and Torment

“Because all other blood tastes like shit compared to yours,” I said, gritting my teeth. “Because drinking from another goes against my every instinct, my every desire. It feels like I’m being unfaithful to you, after I’ve already betrayed your trust and failed to protect you in the most basic of ways.” I glanced at her collarbone, how it protruded more than it had before. “Feeding from you, of course, is out of the question. I know it’s best for everyone if I just close my eyes and replenish myself from a willing donor. It’s what’s best for you, most of all.”

Scarlett didn’t speak, and for a moment, I was terrified that I’d frightened her. I watched her eyes for signs of dissociation, but they remained sharp and focused.

“I’m not going to run from you,” she said. “Unless it’s because I want you to chase me.”

Her voice was soft, but her lips flashed that dangerous smile I thought I’d have to wait weeks to see.

“You can feed from me,” she said. “I don’t want you to suffer.”

“Fuck no. Absolutely not.”

My body was screaming for her, but luckily that wasn’t the part of me steering the ship. This had been a wake-up call. I needed to choke down someone else’s putrid blood as soon as we arrived back at the castle.

My shadows receded so she could listen to the live music again. It was extremely unlikely that anyone could hear us anyway, but I wanted to ensure it when it came to discussions of Crescent Haven.

Scarlett watched the musicians, her frown easing. “Rune, it’s okay?—”

“No.” I watched her fight the urge to brat off. “It’s only been a day. I don’t even want you to think about doing anything for anyone but yourself.”

She suddenly looked around, her eyes snagging on a human man on a vampire’s arm.

“Do you think Durian has mortal spies?”

I opened and then closed my mouth, staring at her in confusion. “What?”

This was likely another reverberation of her trauma, her inability to stay focused on the topic at hand. Or maybe she just didn’t want to think about feeding, which was understandable.

I, myself, couldn’t think about how she’d been used and brutalized without my shadows leaping from my body ready to peel born skin from bone.

It was more difficult to read her than it had been before she was taken. Not that it would stop me from adjusting, making sure that I understood this new version of her just as well as I did the last. I’d never stop trying to peer inside every dark corner of her entrancing mind.

She repeated her question, her eyes narrowing.

“It’s possible, but not in any meaningful way. His fanaticism tends to produce more religious agents of chaos than organized infrastructure. There are mortals who have been duped by him, sure, but they’re mostly impoverished, uneducated, and relegated to the born districts.”

I watched the way Scarlett had pulled back from me, her gaze still flitting around at the lookout behind me.

“They’re not going to try anything, Scarlett, I assure you,” he said. “Especially not through mortals they see as inferior and undeserving of rank.”

“What if word gets back to him that you and I are going out on dates in the city?”

I had to stop myself from asking a second, incredulous what? Because her line of thinking was not at all what I’d first imagined. I tensed, my shadows trembling and hunger multiplying the more power I restrained.

I searched her eyes furiously. “What the fuck does that matter?”

She flinched, and I instantly regretted cursing and using such a harsh tone.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

That nagging vision from when I’d rescued Scarlett reached up from my mental caverns—when Durian and Brennan had flown closer to her on their firebird, and she’d reached for them.

“You weren’t just ensuring your safety. It wasn’t merely because you didn’t trust me to save you,” I said quietly. “When you pretended you were glad your kidnappers had found you.”

She was quiet. Rage was hot and thick under my skin. The ground trembled, and my nearby men and women glanced back at me briefly to assess.

Scarlett’s eyes rounded. As soon as her hands began to shake, I closed my eyes. I whispered to my shadows, begging them to calm the hell down, no matter how badly I wanted to pull Scarlett close and never let her take more than three steps away from my side.

“I told you I fought my way back to you,” she said. “You might’ve gotten me over the border. But I got myself out of that damn palace. I was the only slave with power. And I still owe it to everyone I left behind to make it all mean something.” She paused. “I created something in there, something that started small and became so much bigger. A web of influence, a network of division. I don’t know how yet, but I’m going to figure it all out. There’s a way to stop this war before it destroys this island I love, this island I’ve barely gotten a chance to see.”

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