Page 23 of Bewitched By a Vampire

Maybe he needed more blood.

He didn’t think that he did and he was sure he had drunk enough at the party to satisfy his hunger, but maybe the female had messed with his head enough that he wasn’t seeing things straight. He went to the dressing table and opened the small fridge next to it, took out a metal canister of blood and unscrewed the lid. Cold blood never went down well, but it was often necessary to drink it.

He brought the canister to his lips and paused, moved it away and stared at it. What if he didn’t need blood?

His cousin Snow had been told to drink more blood to appease his bloodlust.

How wrong the doctor had been.

Instead of helping his cousin control it, the extra blood had fed the beast, making it crave more and giving it more control over him.

It had led to his cousin massacring everyone at the chateau. His parents. His aunts and uncles. Even the children who had been staying there.

Even Night’s parents.

He focused on his body, unwilling to give his own bloodlust a chance to grow stronger. He didn’t feel hungry. He’d had a canister of blood soon after arriving at the mansion and he’d had several glasses at the party. More than enough. The sleeplessness was messing with his head as badly as Lilian.

He screwed the cap back on the canister and put it back in the fridge, and turned away from it. Found himself checking on her again. She still hadn’t moved.

Night swiped a pair of black trunks from the dresser and tugged them on. Maybe a walk around the house would burn off enough energy that he could sleep. Moving around the house wouldn’t be a problem. He had turned the heavy automatic shutters on before his guests had arrived and they would be down now, covering each window on the ground and first floor. As long as he avoided the areas used by the servants during the day, he wouldn’t be in any danger of exposing himself to sunlight.

But walking meant moving away from Lilian, to the point where he wouldn’t be able to sense her. He grabbed his trousers and slipped them on, his gaze roaming to the door as he fastened them. He would walk until she was at the edge of his senses and then he would come back.

He opened the door and paused at the threshold of his room, his gaze darting to his left—to her door. An urge rolled through him, powerful and commanding, and as much as he fought it, he couldn’t resist. He walked to her door and pressed his hand to the wooden panel as he focused on the other side of it.

She was very still on his senses.

Asleep?

Her heartbeat was steady and slow.

He locked onto it as thoughts of how fast it had been when he had last stood in this spot crowded his mind, and how fire had flashed in her eyes, provoking his desire and his bloodlust. He didn’t want her. He shouldn’t want her.

He wanted her.

He wanted her despite the dangers, despite the repercussions that would await them both if he surrendered to the attraction he felt, and despite the fact it would destroy his unbroken loyalty to his family.

He had been wrong about this feeling burning inside him.

It wasn’t a case of forbidden desire. It wasn’t lust. The fact his brother wanted to own her, that she was earmarked for him, wasn’t what made Night want her.

He closed his eyes and tipped forwards to press his forehead to the door and dug his fingers into the wood.

She was beautiful.

Reserved but spirited.

She hid it well, but there was a wild side to her.

And she was strong.

He couldn’t imagine everything she was feeling, the rollercoaster of emotion she had been riding from the moment Bastian had decided she would be his. Only an incredibly strong woman could handle what she had and still have the strength to keep fighting, to keep pushing for freedom.

And gods, he was a monster for denying her it.

The moment he had left her, he had been plagued by what he had done and the things he had said.

He had been thinking about what she had said too, and while he wanted to say that he was shocked to hear Bastian would do such a thing, he couldn’t. Unfortunately, he wasn’t really surprised that his brother’s servants weren’t all here by choice. The thought that Bastian wanted to impose a bond upon her like that, making it impossible for her to do anything but obey him, lit his blood on fire.

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