Page 37 of Taste of Fate

He didn’t even look at me, just led the dragon woman to one of the couches across the room and invited her to sit down, which she did.

I forced my gaze down to my cutting board, trying to figure out why this was affecting me so much. Cyan had told me he didn’t want to settle down with anyone. I knew this, objectively. He was doing us both a favor, not forcing the blood pet commitment on me or himself. And not limiting himself to one source of blood must have also meant by extension, not limiting himself to one sexual partner.

I just never expected him to flaunt his partner right in front of me. It had to be considered disrespectful, right? I was still his blood pet, under his protection even if he took no blood from me.

Ignoring him was like trying to ignore a blaring siren. I heard his laugh across the room, the sound of his voice and hers, though I couldn’t make out the words.

A presence came up beside me, but I didn’t dare look up on the chance that my eyes would fill with tears.

“You alright, Tavia?” It was Desmond checking on me. So the awkwardness wasn’t all in my head, but obvious to everyone else. Great.

“Mm-hm.” If I used actual words, my voice might choke.

Laith came up to my other side, blocking my view of Cyan and the dragon woman. “It’s dickish, what he’s doing,” the other vampire muttered. “Even if your relationship is platonic, you don’t bring someone new to the clan home for everyone to see. It’s just messy and fucked up.”

“He’s looking this way.” Desmond sounded amused. “Mind if we stick close to you, Tavi?” He said my nickname loud enough for Cyan to hear. “Cy’s looking tense. I daresay he might be jealous.”

“Doubt it,” I muttered, still focused on my chopping. “But sure.” Honestly, it was nice to have two vampires in my corner when Cyan clearly wasn’t.

“Oh, he’s fuming.” Desmond laughed louder, his head bent toward me like I had made a joke. “Can I tuck your hair behind your ear? I think it’ll make his head explode.”

That actually made me chuckle a little. “Sure.”

“I can feel his eyes like fucking daggers in my back.” Laith leaned his forearm on the counter, slouching his upper body to become eye level with me. “So what human food are you making, Tavi? Smells…interesting.”

“It’s—ow, fuck!”

Desmond had chosen then to touch me, and the graze of his fingers on my ear made me startle. At the same time, I’d been pitting one of the firmer avocados and the knife slipped, the blade sinking into the thumb of my opposite hand.

Blood immediately welled at the cut, and I barely had time to consider the two vampires hovering over me when chaos erupted.

There was hissing, snarling, and commotion all around that was too fast for me to track. Desmond flew backwards, his back slamming into the refrigerator across the kitchen. I turned to see Laith getting up from the floor, like someone had knocked him down. He was all the way in the middle of the great room, closer to the couches than the counter where we’d been standing.

The same couches where the dragon shifter woman sat wide-eyed, but Cyan wasn’t with her.

“Tavi.” His low voice sounded rough, if even pained. And so close. “Tavi, you’re hurt.”

Gentle hands directed me to turn around, and there he was. Cyan was shaking and breathing harshly like he was running a marathon. His fangs were the longest I’d ever seen them, and he looked not just pained, but tormented. Tortured.

“Let me see.”

Faster than I could comprehend, he grabbed my hands and pulled them apart. The cut I’d been applying pressure to continued to bleed, dripping over my wrist, palm, and onto the floor.

Cyan’s grip on my hand became crushing as he hissed a deep inhale through his nose. “Fuck.”

I was actively bleeding, my hand throbbing in pain, not to mention shocked and confused, and I still couldn’t ignore the sexual moan in Cyan’s voice as he said that word.

He brought my injured hand to his mouth and dragged his tongue along the trail of my blood. “Oh, fuck,” he said again, the curse sensual and reverent.

I almost said the same curse myself. His tongue was a hot caress on my skin, bringing a flush of heat to every part of my body and an aching need between my legs. He continued licking the spilled blood on my wrist and palm, and every stroke of his tongue might as well had been against my clit. My breaths grew shorter, tension and sensitivity winding up in every muscle as this vampire held my hand and licked the blood from my wound.

My confusion only heightened, but that didn’t diminish that I was more turned on than I’d ever been in my life. What was happening? Cyan looked like he was in a trance, or drugged. His eyelids were heavy, dark eyelashes fanning over his cheekbones as he turned my hand over, his incredibly soft mouth trapping every drop of blood that escaped my cut.

He reached the wound itself and sucked, sealing his lips over the cut in my skin. The pressure of his mouth drew a moan out of me, along with a full body shiver. I’d never felt anything so, so good. If his tongue on my skin started me toward an orgasm, he would get me there in no time now. Each draw of my blood into his mouth hit my clit with a stroke of pressure, the same sweet ache coiling in me tighter and tighter.

And he moaned against my skin as if answering me, as if this made him feel just as good as I did.

“Cyan…” I wanted him to hold me, maybe lie me down or press me against something, because I felt like I was floating away. I needed solidness and purchase, something to hold onto.

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