Page 33 of Heir of Blood and Moonlight

“Did you tell anyone your suspicions about Micah?” I asked, my voice razor-edged.

“No.”

I searched his stony expression, his wary eyes. “Why not?”

“Because by the time I started putting the pieces together about who Micah really was to you, I was already in love with you,” he said matter-of-factly. “I couldn’t betray you like that.”

“But you could invade my privacy by pretending to be my cat,” I said, hurtling the words at him like stones. “You could lie to me.”

“That was different,” he snapped. “I was already there. The damage was done.”

My chest heaved with anger. “You should have told me!” I practically shouted.

Bastian stepped closer. “I would have lost you!” he hissed. “I was born a bastard, so I guess this makes me a selfish one, but I’m just fine with that because I wastherewhen you needed me. Because you’re still alive, and that isallthat matters to me.”

My anger fizzled away as I searched his eyes, seeing only honesty. Only truth. It had been so long since I had felt like I could depend on another person that the idea of cracking the hard shell that had formed around my heart seemed impossible.

“I don’t know if I can be what you want me to be,” I admitted, tears welling suddenly. “I’m scared, Bas.” I choked on a sob. “I’m scared because if I let myself love you, Iknowin my heart that I’ll lose you. You’ll leave me. Everyone leaves me.”

His arms were suddenly around me, holding my slick body close to his. I clung to him, digging my nails into his back.

Bastian cradled my face in his hands and tilted my head back so he could claim a kiss. “I will never leave you by choice,” he growled into my mouth.

I tore my lips away from his and leaned back enough that I could search his gaze. There was only one way to guarantee that. Only one way to ensure he was truly mine—forever.

I drew my bottom lip between my teeth, biting down until my canine punctured the flesh and the tang of blood touched my tongue. I lifted my chin, offering Bastian my bloodied lips.

He hesitated for a single heartbeat, and then his mouth was on mine.

Power welled within me as our tongues tangled. It surged out from my chest, a warm tingle that electrified the hairs all over my body and made my blood sing. Blood that was now inside Bastian, too. The power coiled, gaining strength and potency inside me.

We gasped as one, breaking apart as moonlight exploded from my skin. It surrounded us, washing over Bastian and sinking into him.

I stepped back, watching in awe as my moonlight slid under his skin, coalescing around his wrist in a sigil identical to the one encircling Gavin’s neck.

And as the last of my moonlight faded, darkness tunneled my vision, my knees buckled, and the floor rushed up to meet me.

Bastian caught me, and then the darkness swallowed me whole.

18

Iwoke to thedelicious taste of blackberries and pine coating my tongue and a wrist pressed against my mouth. Hot water rained down on me, and strong arms held me close against a solid, warm body.

I tried to lift my eyelids, but the blurry sliver of the world spun, so I squeezed them shut and instead focused on the intoxicating blood trickling into my mouth. Bastian’s blood, I realized in a moment of coherency. I gripped his hand and forearm, pressing his wrist more firmly against my mouth, and sucked harder. With each pull of blood, the world steadied, and my awareness solidified.

As the dizziness receded, need throbbed between my legs, and I rocked my hips in an attempt to rub myself against the solid length of Bastian’s thigh, which was flush against my bare ass.

“Not this time, Soph,” Bastian murmured. “I don’t want to hurt you more than I already have.”

I whimpered, rubbing my rump against his thigh again, even as I continued to draw his blood into my mouth.

Bastian sighed, and his free hand slid along my inner thigh, moving closer to the place where I needed him. I rocked my hips eagerly.

At the first touch of his fingertip to my aching clit, I moaned and sucked harder on his wrist. He stroked me gently, making slow circles around that tender, swollen bundle of nerves. I could feel his hard erection pressed against my side, and I wedged my hand between our bodies to stroke him in return.

“Fuck,” he groaned, and I smiled against his wrist.

The pleasure built quickly within me, despite Bastian’s light touch between my legs. It crested suddenly, sending a blissful wash of tingling warmth spreading out from my core in waves that waxed and waned in time with my swallows. I shuddered on the floor of the shower, cradled against Bastian’s body, as the combination of his blood on my tongue and his relentlessly tender touch coaxed the orgasm on and on into infinity.

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