Page 206 of A Vow of Blood and Tears

“I know it hasn’t been long since you’ve overcome your fear of me feeding from you. But… I must ask you to overcome any disgust you might feel about feeding from me—”

I leaned forward, cutting him off with a kiss. It was a hard kiss, full of fangs and sharp edges, his lips still warped by the fiendish transformation, but a touch I had craved from the moment I’d woken up outside the keep.

When I finally pulled away, Bane was silent, gazing up at me and breathing hard.

I nodded.Yes. Yes. Yes.

Anything to have my hands back, so I could touch him, feel him, speak to him. The thought of drinking from him, using my own blunt human teeth to pierce flesh and the hot warmth of fresh blood, didn’t cause me any disgust at all.

How could it? It was so simple; we were meant for each other in all aspects.

His nervous swallow was loud in the dark bubble of the tent. “Then you should drink now, if you think you can. The sooner you’re better, the sooner we can leave Foria.”

I nodded again, slipping from the cot, and Bane took me into his arms as he folded himself on the floor, holding me with my legs wrapped around his hips, chest to chest.

I settled against him, the curves of my body molding against his hard planes as they always did, and rested my head on his shoulder. My arms remained pinned between us, useless and aching; I would have given anything to be able to wrap them around him now.

I sat up, licking my lips and preparing myself to bite. How was I going to manage to cut through that thick, armored flesh—

Bane reached up, a claw poised over his throat. In the flickering light, I saw the beat of his pulse, the shimmer of his ashen skin, the black gleaming ridge of the sharp tip pressing through it…

With the tiniest, most careful crook of his finger, he opened a wound; dark blood welled, shining, and the phantom taste was stronger than ever.

I almost flushed with embarrassment—to think he’d expect me to try to bite through that armored skin myself.

“There,” he breathed. “Come drink, lover. Take all you need.”

Shockingly, I craved the blood; my mouth watered at the sight of it, like dark syrup. But I had needed him. ‘Missed’ wasn’t a strong enough word.

Irequiredhim in order to live, and now that he was here, I wanted him to know that the letter was all lies, that he was mine as much as I was his.

I kissed his mouth again, tongue flicking out to lap at a fang, and trailed my lips over the scarred ridges of his jaw. Bane exhaled, his breath rattling in his throat as I kissed a path down to the glistening wound.

The spicy iron taste filled my mouth, the heat of his blood burning down my throat and lighting a glowing coal in my belly.

He tipped his head back slowly, heart pounding against mine as I drank. His arms wrapped around me, holding me possessively.

The taste of his blood was almost intoxicating, the lingering pains in my broken body subsiding into a warm serenity.

He exhaled with every pull, clutching me close. “More. Anything you need.”

I ran my tongue over the corded muscles of his throat, tasting spice and skin, the wound healing slowly. The glowingcoal became a fire, warming my limbs, suffusing my limbs with energy.

But my hands remained motionless.

As it closed into a scar, I pressed another soft, lingering kiss to the mark, licking his thick blood from my lips.

Bane opened his eyes and began stroking my back slowly, from the first nub of my spine to the base. “Soon, Cirri. I know it pains you. Soon.”

I tried to flex my fingers within the bandages, but it was all bound too tightly, the sticks keeping them still.

But I trusted in him. So I laid my head on his shoulder, knowing everything would be all right, and slept.

I waited until nightfall,when the tent was empty. They had set no guards on me, perhaps expecting that I’d sleep through the night full of Bane’s blood and Wyn’s pain-deadening drugs, but my husband’s essence instead lit a fire inside me that refused to die.

He had whispered to me before he went, telling me that they needed help recovering the bodies of their own, those knights injured by fleeing wargs; I had kissed his hand, falling back into a light slumber.

And then I’d woken, sure that the moon was high, with the flame of his blood licking white-hot tongues of fire inside me, the sound of the brambles hissing in the distance like a whispering voice.

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