Page 58 of Vows Forged in Blood

A moan slips past her lips and the sound has a direct line to my cock. I’m hard as steel in seconds, desperate for her, barely holding onto the tiny shreds of my self-control that are left. Sheslides one hand into my hair, clutching me to her neck while she maneuvers the other beneath my shirt. I hiss in a startled breath when her fingers graze my skin, my muscles jumping at the contact. Her touch is like fire, consuming me, branding me, forging me into something new.Hers. I’m hers.

I know I need to stop. I know I need to pull myself away from her, because if I stay, I’m going to do something that’s impossible…but I can’tthinkwhen she touches me like this, when she moans and grinds her hips against mine, begging and needy. The smell of her is enough to make my muscles quake, my fangs sharpen, my cock throb. She moves her hand around my hip and up my back, seeming not to know where she wants to touch me and settling for everywhere. She writhes beneath me and I don’t have the strength to stop myself from arching my hips forward, my aching cock pressing hard against her.

She gasps, nails digging into my lower back.

“Alaric,” she breathes.

All I can think about is sinking my cock and fangs into her delicate flesh, of feeling the heat of her body and her blood, of claiming my mate. I claw my fingers into the dirt on either side of her head, seconds away from sliding my fangs into her throat, but the sounds of approaching soldiers give me just enough clarity in my lust-addled mind to stop this insanity.

I quickly pull away, practically leaping off of her. She gasps and presses herself up on her arms to stare at me where I stand a few feet away, breathing hard and clenching my jaw to regain my composure. Her pupils are wide, her pulse racing, her cheeks flushed. Her hair is a tangle of fire and grass and sticks, but my gods, she’s never looked more beautiful.

Before she can say a word, a handful of soldiers pour down the hill towards us, a chaotic chorus of voices filling the air.

“Sir! Are you alright?”

“Oh gods, Lady Dahlia! I didn’t know she was here.”

“Fucking biggest herd I’ve seen pass through in years.”

I move forward again and help Dahlia to stand as the men converge on us.

“We’re both alright,” I say over the din, causing them all to quiet immediately. “Harkness, escort my Consort back to our cabin if you will?—”

“I’ll do it, your highness,” a voice rings out. I glance up to find Takara, Dahlia’s Keeper, bolting down the hillside. She’s a bit disheveled and I can smell Malcom all over her. From what I hear, the two of them are all but betrothed at this point. She reaches us and pulls Dahlia into her arms.

“Are you doing this on purpose? Trying to get yourself killed or maybe just to scare the life out of me?” she demands. My lips twitch in amusement. Takara is not to be trifled with—it’s one of the reasons I selected her as Dahlia’s Keeper—and I appreciate her fierce love of my mate.

“Definitely just to fuck with ye, of course,” Dahlia says with a roll of her eyes, her brogue slipping a bit with the stress of the situation, I imagine.

“I figured as much, you little wench,” Takara says in response, cupping Dahlia’s cheeks affectionately. “Come on, let’s get you home and in the bath. You’re a mess.” The vampire plucks a twig from Dahlia’s hair and she huffs out a laugh. She meets my gaze for a moment, so many unspoken things passing between us before Takara pulls her up the hill.

“I want patrols of these woods added to the rotation immediately to keep an eye on the hellcat migration. They don’t usually use this path through camp, but if this herd did, another might as well.”

“Yes, sir,” they all say in unison.

Now that the danger has passed and I’m coming down from the ecstasy of having Dahlia in my arms, the enormity of what had happened here comes crashing down. It threatens toswallow me, but I manage to keep everything at bay until I give a few more orders to the men and make my way to my chambers.

I hit my knees as the panic and fear and desire and love and need and protectiveness and anger all attack me at once, like wild beasts caged inside me now freed from their prisons. I claw my fingers into the floor as everything comes for me again and again, an enemy that won’t relent.

I could have lost her. I somehow saved her. I have to protect her. I was almost too late. I need to be better. I have to be more. I can never be parted from her. I need her. I want her. I love her.

The last thought silences the rest and allows a cool, calm to settle over me. It’s the most important one after all, the only one that matters anymore. I let it echo in my mind like a mantra, a lullaby to keep the nightmares at bay.

I love her.

I love her.

I love her.

I haveno idea what to do. I know that we cannot continue down the path we did in that field today…but, whatever shifted inside me and gave me the power to save her will not recede. It will not answer to my will. It will not be controlled. It wants one thing only…and that thing, is my mate. I’d tried to talk to Elias about it earlier, but it hadn’t been at all helpful.

“Elias, I…fuck, I almost…” I leaned over my desk, palms on the smooth, wooden surface. I tried to slow my breathing, to force my body to heel and stop reacting to what had happened earlier, to what hadalmosthappened.

“Kissed her? Bit her? Fucked her?” he asked, clearly not worried about my panicked state. In fact, the bastard was smirking like a very clever cat and I wanted very much to put him through the wall.

“All three,” I said with a growl, “right in the middle of a fucking field.” His smirk turned into a full-on grin.

“Gods that’ssexy. Come on, you have to admit it’s sexy!”

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