Page 47 of Forged in Blood

His eyes return to my face, and they pierce my soul. There’s something behind them, something deeper than rage. Curiosity, perhaps. “What did she taste like?” he asks.

I take a step closer to him. “You felt her. That’s why you came to my room. Tell me what she is.”

He growls, revealing a glimpse of his fangs. Experience tells me I should back down, but I can’t. I need to know the answer more than I need air.

He hisses out a breath, and it’s enough to make the hairs on the back of my neck stand to attention. “Tell me how she tasted,” he commands once more.

I lick my lips, desperate to taste her again. But she’s already gone, and the memory of her is not nearly enough to satisfy the building craving that’s already snapping its teeth at me. I haven’t experienced bloodlust since I was turned, and it’s not an experience I wish to repeat. But that’s the closest sensation I can compare this to. “It’s hard to explain. Sweet as fuck. Addictive. But it was more than that. It was the way she made me feel. Like there was literal fire running through my veins. Fire and immense power. What is she?”

His jaw tics. “A witch, maybe. A powerful one.”

I shake my head again. He’s lying. “I’ve tasted witches before. That wasn’t it. What the fuck is she, Alexandros?”

He rubs a hand over his thick beard and sucks on his bottom lip. “I do not know.”

“Youdon’t know?” I scoff. He’s thousands of years old. There is no creature on this earth he hasn’t tasted.

He glares at me, that low growl simmering in his throat.

“So taste her for yourself. Taste her and tell me.”

He’s out of his seat in a flash, and he wraps one strong hand around my throat, pinning me against the wall, his fangs exposed. The swiftness of his reaction takes my breath away. “No! And you are forbidden from tasting her again. Do you understand me?”

The beast inside me responds on my behalf. A growl rips from my chest, and my upper lip curls back, baring my own teeth.Hewants to taste her again, even if that means my certain death.

Alexandros slams me against the wall. “I said, do you understand me?”

My throat works beneath his palm, and I grit out, “Yes.”

He releases me, and I rub at my raw skin, twisting my head from side to side.

He returns to his position behind the desk and slumps back into his chair. “I know you are thirsty.” Through our link, he can easily feel the need for her coursing through my veins. “But tasting her again is not going to slake that thirst, Axl.”

How about I don’t give a fuck if it slakes my thirst. I need to taste her again, even if I die trying. But I don’t say that, and I suspect I don’t have to. He knows what this feels like. “You speak like you know from experience.”

The vein in his temple throbs.I have lived for over two millennia. There is very little I have not experienced.The anger in his tone comes through even more keenly with him speaking into my mind.

Yeah, he knows. Of course he does. “So tell me what she is.”

He shakes his head. “As I said, I do not know for sure.”

So taste her!That beast inside me taunts him, and I growl at him to shut the fuck up.

Alexandros snarls. “Keep your bloodlust under control, Axl, or I will be forced to do it for you.”

Closing my eyes, I twist my head from side to side and try to drown out the ravenous hunger pervading every cell of my body.

His hands are on me again, this time on either side of my face, and his voice is gentler. “You are stronger than the beast inside you. I taught you better than this.”

I gnash my teeth.I know.

I reopen my eyes, and he gives me a single nod before turning back to his desk.Go clean up your mess.

Chapter

Twenty-Nine

XAVIER

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