Page 125 of When the Woods Go Silent

“You can leave. I won’t stop you,” Torrence says, not moving a muscle toward me.

“The rooftop,” I guess, remembering how my neck was sore. Remembering how I thought it was from sleeping on it funny.

“And the picnic.”

I remember how sleepy I’d gotten, how I drifted off curled in his arms.

A kitten tucked between the paws of a wolf.

The longer I sit, though, listening to the rustle of leaves and the call of birds, the more I realizeI’m still here. He didn’t harm me, and I haven’t run away. Torrence seems to realize it too, and he turns to watch me, wary and disbelieving.

“What do I taste like?”

The question is out before I can think better of it, but his response is so worth it. A throaty groan. His eyes roll back a little.

“Ruby, you’re fucking delicious. Better than anything I’ve ever created in my kitchen.”

I can’t stop the giggle either, or the oddest streak of pride. It’s ridiculous, and I don’t fucking care.

“And the power I feel after you - it’s stronger than I’ve ever felt.” The admission brings a flush to his cheeks, and I sit up a little taller.

“I give you power?”

“If I could live on your blood forever, I think I could beat her.” Torrence scrubs his hands over his face, as though he can’t believe he’s telling me this. “I don’t want you to think-”

“Do it,” I demand, before I lose my nerve. “Show me what it does to you. What I do to you.”

I make fun of fated mates, but really, is there anything sexier than seeing the power you hold over someone, combined with the power they gain from being with you?

It’s what women really, truly want. We want men to recognize that their power comes from us. Everything they have comes from us.

Without women, men are nothing more than warrior animals, snarling and fighting and fearing each other in the darkness. With us, they have access to peace and love and the strength of community. And with each of those things comes more power than any weapon.

Creation will always trump destruction.

“Do it, Tor.”

“You should be asleep first,” he protests, shaking his head, but I see the glint of sharp teeth between his lips.

“I want to feel it. Even if it hurts. I want to see what changes about you.”

“Ruby... this is dangerous.” He actually sounds afraid, but it does nothing to deter me.

“And I’m saying I trust you to keep me safe.”

A strangled noise gets stuck in his throat, and his indecision is all the answer I’ll ever need to the question of whether Torrence is meant to be just another beast, or if I can tame him enough to bemybeast.

A beat of silence passes, and then he’s barely an inch from me. My chest heaves with anticipation, a tantalizing snake of fear coiling around my hips and dipping between my thighs. Heart pounding, I bare my throat.

With a groan that tells me he’s given in, Torrence gathers me to him, burying needle-sharp teeth in my skin.

I gasp as it burns and stings, hurting fiercely until it doesn’t.

The pull of blood from my neck turns into the push and pull of really good, rough sex - dizzying pleasure followed by aching pain, around and again in a circle that quickly becomes my entire spiraling world. I expected to feel weaker, drained, but the crackle of energy passing into his body from mine is a spark to ignite an all-consuming fire.

The power comes back to me, then to him again, passed in a closed circuit of electricity between us until he breaks free with a heave.

My head lolls back on his arm as he stares down at me, haloed by the sun behind him, face darkened in shadow. He glows amber now, not only his eyes, but everywhere. An ember in the center of the fire that is us.

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