Page 223 of Blood Feast

“You loved me. Now let me love you. Promise me.”

He drew back from her just enough to reach his scroll case. He pried the dented lid off and pulled out what he’d been keeping inside the warded cylinder.

He presented their avowal cup to her for the second time.

She gasped. “You brought it with us?”

“I could leave everything else behind but this.” He wrapped both their hands around the cup. “You have all my promises.”

She bit her hand and squeezed her blood into the cup, then pressed it to his lips. He swallowed the fresh libation before it could cool. An echo of her power moved through him, and at the thirst that taste awoke, he groaned.

He opened his wrist for her over their chalice. She watched, her fangs unsheathing. Burying one hand in her hair, he poured his offering onto her tongue. She swallowed hard, his blood trailing from the side of her mouth.

A tremble in the ground made them grab each other for support. The pool roiled, and her roses trailed up their legs.

She cried out, her knees buckling. He caught her against him and held her up. Before he could ask her what was happening, power flooded their Union, showing him the patterns of her channeling.

Magic was churning up from the letting site, through her, and overflowing from their avowal cup in a pure, powerful flood.

The current pulled him in, washing through every part of him. Arousal slammed through him, and he groaned, pressing their bodies together.

She rose up to meet him and crushed her mouth to his. Their blended blood tasted of dark places and shining light.

Cassia, does this mean what I think it does? Our avowal cup is…

My third focus. Oh, Lio. It was here all along. You made it for me.

I crafted it from us.

Let me love you, she said again, trailing rough kisses down his throat.

He tilted his head backYes.

She stripped his battle-stained robes off him. Finally the smell of fire cleared from his head, and the heavy sweetness of her roses reached him. Pulling her robes down off her shoulders, he licked her skin. The sharp, rich flavor of her hunger broughthis fangs down. She tugged her clothes lower, and he chased her bare skin with his hands, running his palms over her breasts.

Fabric and leaves rustled as she slipped from his hold to kneel amid the roses. She reached a hand up to him. He let her pull him down to her.

She laid him back in the black flowers, running her hands over him. His eyes slid shut as he listened to her pulse. He’d had enough of death. All he wanted was the life inside her.

She took their avowal cup from his lax grip. He opened his eyes to see her biting her wrist. Her blood splashed into the clear chalice, filling it with red once more. The current of her magic swelled inside him, and his mouth watered.

As she slid her leg over him, he caressed the splash of freckles on the inside of her thigh. Straddling him, she tilted the cup, spilling her blood down her chest and over her breasts. The crimson flow parted around her pebbled nipples.

She put her hand to her breast and traced slow circles in the blood. Rising up on his elbows, he followed her motions with his gaze, his fangs throbbing. He flared his nostrils. As she played with her bloodstained nipple, he scented her pleasure.

She leaned down, letting him take her breast in his mouth. He groaned, licking her blood from the soft curve and sucking another taste from the taut peak. Thirsty for more, he caught the droplets falling from her other breast.

When she pulled back, he reached up to touch her, but she caught his hand. She sank her fangs into his wrist, and he grunted with satisfaction. Her eyelids grew heavy, and her throat worked, but she soon pulled her mouth back to add his blood to the chalice.

She poured the whole cup down her body. Now she traced her fingers between her breasts, down her torso, to paint her skin with his blood just above the apex of her thighs.

The sight unleashed his deepest instinct.Mine.

She opened his wrist to refill the cup again. He could bleed for her like this all night. This time, she splashed his blood across his bare chest and torso. Warm flecks spattered his face and hers.

Her eyes gleaming, she lowered her mouth to his heart. She made little moans in her throat as she licked her feast from his skin. The graze of her teeth around his nipple made him hiss.

She devoured him slowly, one mouthful at a time. Her tongue laved him into a daze of pleasure. There was no silence here, where her racing pulse defined the rhythms of magic itself.

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