Page 73 of Love Bites Extra Hard

I probably deserved that.

“If you want to go, you need to feed. You’re radiating magic, and you’re not strong enough to stay on my back right now.”

“Fine.” Avery gritted the word out.

I crouched down to clean her legs.

She was so fucking beautiful, my chest ached.

I’d nearly lost her.

I would do whatever I had to, to make sure it didn’t happen again. Whatever it fucking took.

I stood up and scanned her body for more blood. She looked down at herself, and made a quiet, strangled noise.

Though she was mostly healed, the skin was still recovering. You could see the wide wounds, pink with recovery as her body continued fighting.

The claw marks tore through her entire abdomen and chest, and were on her throat, too.

“Fuck,” she whispered.

I bit back a retort that wouldn’t do a damn thing to help.

Fuckwas the tamest possible response.

“I thought I was strong enough to control him,” she said softly. “If I knew this was a possibility, I never would’ve risked it.”

“That fucker raped and murdered seventeen women, Avery. You may damn well have the strongest seduction magic on the planet, but seduction isn’t enough to keep that bastard at bay.”

“He didn’t hurt Stella.”

“She was the one woman in the castle he couldn’t have gotten away with attacking. She was too powerful. And sleeping with her kept him under the radar.”

“You think he used her?”

“We know he used her. He said as much, in the beginning.”

“Shit,” she whispered.

I scrubbed a small streak of blood off her hip, then stepped around her back to see if I’d missed any there.

Finally, she was clean.

She released my arm and eased my hands away from her skin. “I’ll get dressed while you wash up. Afterward, I can feed on you.”

When there was clothing between us.

She didn’t have to say the words for me to hear them loud and clear.

“Be careful,” I warned, my fists clenching slightly with the effort of letting her go.

We’d only be apart for a few minutes, at most, but it still scared the shit out of me.

“I’ll be fine.” She slipped out of the shower, her movements slow and uncertain. I gritted my teeth against the need to go with her.

She’d be okay.

She had to be.

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