Page 27 of Crimson Bond

And how had I ever believed I could get this close to her and spend this much time with her without falling head over heels back in love? Maybe I’d never stopped loving her.

Either way, I was screwed.

I couldn’t help how I felt, but Icouldstop this from going any further. We hadn’t done anything to earn Imogen’s death penalty—yet.

All I had to do was break this unbelievable soul-penetrating eye contact... and stop our breaths from mingling... and definitely stop myself from moving toward her mouth...

Abbi placed a small hand on my chest and stretched toward me, bringing her lips within millimeters of mine. My heart beat so hard and so fast it was literally painful.

Clenching every muscle in my body, I fought the overwhelming urge to close that miniscule distance and kiss her, wrap my arms around her, and pull her against me, under me—okay this wasn’t working.

I have to move away from her.

It took every ounce of strength I possessed, but I managed to roll over, turning to face the other wall and drawing deep, controlled breaths.

“Good night, Abbi,” I gritted out.

This time I was sure I heard a sigh. “Sleep well, Reece.”

14

Hail King Parker

Abbi

I wasn’t sure if Reece slept well, but I did not.

Not only did his massive size take up a ridiculous amount of the king mattress, his legs and arms kept wandering into my relatively small sliver of space. Every time I’d manage to calm myself enough to drift off, some part of him would touch some part of me, and I’d snap back awake again.

Heseemedto be sleeping pretty soundly. Maybe it was that thing he’d mentioned about a post-battle let down. Perhaps the adrenaline crash explained why he’d rolled away and started snoring instead of accepting my pathetically obvious invitation to kiss me.

Or maybe he likes his headattachedto his neck, dodo.

Right. The Bloodbound vows. Reece might not have slept with Imogen—yay yippee and yahooooo!!!—but he was still loyal to her.

Not soyay. But reality rarely was.

The reality this evening was that we still had about six hours left to go to Sudbury. Unless we wanted to play another game of Russian roulette in another hotel room at dawn—not smart—we needed to pack up and get on the road.

I woke Reece then dressed and gathered my things as quickly as I could. To save time, we opted to bring our blood bags along and drink them in the car rather than enjoy them in the room.

Actually, I didn’t know anyone whoenjoyedblood bags. There was just nothing yummy about the taste of cold blood. It was sustenance rather than satisfaction. The alternative was monstrous, though.

“Did you ever drink blood from the vein?” I asked Reece.

“What?” He whipped his head toward me, sounding like he’d been pulled from deep thought.

“Blood. From a person instead of a blood bag.”

His face, which had worn an almost dreamy expression before, turned sour. “Yes. Did you?”

“Yes. Just that once with Josiah. Since then I’ve stuck to the blood bags. Have you done it since you came to the Bastion?”

“Are you asking me if Imogen made me take the test?”

“I wasn’t exactly, but now that you brought it up... did she?”

He shook his head. “She’s not interested in whether I’ve got ‘the gift.’ I guess it has no value in the Crimson Court if you’re male.”

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