Page 18 of Blood Tribute

“You can’t read my mind!” she protested again.

“But I can sense what gives you pleasure…and I have five hundred years of experience with the female body.”

She gasped, bracing her hands on his chest for support.

Wrapping her hair around his other hand, he pulled her closer. He kissed his way roughly down her throat, his caresses a smooth torture between her legs. “One release is never enough for you, is it?”

She swiveled her hips into the rhythm of his touch, chasing the sensations.

“Do you have to pleasure yourself over and over to feel satisfied?”

Hecouldsense her darkest desires. He increased the pressure of his fingers. She sank into his touch, her thighs trembling as he built the delicious tension inside her. Her body responded to his dexterous hand with such greed that she could feel herself crashing toward release already.

He eased off, leaving her quivering on the edge. “Is it hard to be quiet when you climax?”

She bit his shoulder to keep from moaning.

“I’ve covered your room in veil spells. I’m going to make you scream for me tonight, and no one will hear you.”

“I’m not that depraved,” she rasped.

“There is nothing depraved about your appetites. You need someone as hungry as you are to enjoy them with you.”

He struck her throat. Pleasure tore down through her body and flowed up from his hand. His ravenous sucks at her vein and the relentless glide of his fingers crashed together, too intense.

She stifled her scream against his neck. When the first waves had barely eased, he kept drawing on her throat, holding the thread of tension taut inside her. She snapped, and longer, deeper spasms wracked her body, leaving her gasping with relief.

He could make her come apart all night. His wicked power could exorcise her desires.

But the force of his bite weakened. The poison was working.

His grip on her hair slipped, and his other hand slid out of her gown. Cold struck her throat as his jaw went slack. It was already over.

It was time for her to act.

“Nora?” he wavered.

That plea pulled at her heart.

She eased his head back on the pillow. Her pulse raced with a panic she had never expected. All she could think was that no one had ever showed a shred of respect for her foolish drawings except this Hesperine.

Lies. All of it. This illusion of closeness meant nothing. His seduction would only lead to her paying for his brother’s death for all eternity.

Nora reached under her skirts and slid the blade along her thigh.

When she raised Arceo, his eyes widened, and he tried to lift his hands. But she held him down easily. Who was the helpless one now?

A scream of rage tore out of her as she brought the blade down.

FIVE

The Forgotten Martyr

I

Dav watched the blade comedown, his immortal body powerless to stop her. Nora’s outcry echoed through the Blood Union, a lifetime of anguish lashing out in one act of fury.

Dav’s magic roared from him in answer. That flash of power revealed the truth. He was the target of her blade, but not her anger.

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