Page 53 of Heir of Blood and Moonlight

“No,” I said, shaking my head against him. My heart hammered in my chest as I considered my next words carefully. “I know Sombra’s not real—not my idea of him, anyway. It wouldn’t be the same as before. Besides . . .” I wrapped my arm around Bastian’s middle and pulled myself so close to him I was practically half on top of him. “I think I love you like this even more.”

He became very, verystill. After a few heartbeats, he finally exhaled and relaxed beneath me. He pressed a kiss to the top of my head and murmured, “I love you too, Sophie.”

31

Iwoke suddenly, myheart pounding and my breaths quick. Bastian’s bedroom was dark, and a glance up at the face of the shifter holding me like I was his own personal teddy bear told me he was fast asleep. My dreams had been a discomfiting mix of bodies writhing in either pleasure or pain. I had flitted from scenes of having my body worshipped by my seven immortals to long walks through a dank dungeon to brutal battles ending in fields of broken bodies, Gavin and Bastian among the dead.

I needed air and movement to clear my head and shake off the disturbing images.

Ever so carefully, I extricated myself from under Bastian’s heavy arm and scooted to the edge of the bed. The thin cotton of the T-shirt stuck to my clammy skin. Feeling gross, I stood and crossed to the door to the en suite bathroom, twisting my hair up into a messy top knot.

I took a quicker rinse in the shower than I had intended because I sensed Gavin approaching almost as soon as I steppedinto the steaming water. I hastily donned the full-length silk dressing gown I had left hanging on the hook on the back of the bathroom door after my previous shower, and feeling like the heroine in a gothic romance novel, I headed across the bedroom for the door to the hallway. Gavin was a few steps away, and I didn’t want him to wake Bastian. The shifter’s day had quite possibly been even more trying than mine.

“Hey,” I said to Gavin, still tying the robe’s belt as I eased the door shut. I pulled my hair free from its ridiculous-looking bun, hoping to look a little less like a slob around the always-put-together vampire.

Gavin looked impossibly elegant as he strolled up the hallway with his hands tucked into his front pockets, his sigils fainter than before. He stopped well within my personal bubble, standing closer to me than would have been comfortable had we not been all up in each other’s business multiple times already that day. He wore the same impeccably tailored gray slacks and white button-down shirt from earlier, but the polished clothes did nothing to civilize him as he slowly scanned me from the feet up, no doubt noting the way the silk clung to my damp skin. Desire awakened within him, rousing my own.

“What’s up?” I asked, leaning back against the door, my voice breathier than before. I glanced down at the front of his pants, noting the growing bulge. “Besides the obvious,” I teased.

Gavin planted one hand beside my head on the door, the other remaining in his pocket. He loomed sexily, if such a thing was even possible. “I have something for you.”

I angled my face up toward his and smiled sweetly. “Besides the obvious?”

He made a deep, rough noise that rumbled through his chest and made me clench my thighs together. “You are insatiable.”

I frowned, pouting a little. “Maybe you just haven’t tried hard enough to sate me yet.”

He closed his eyes and drew in a shaky breath. “I still have much to do tonight, so if you wouldpleaseshow some restraint . . .”

Sighing, I slouched back against the door. “Fine,” I said, reining in my inner vixen. “What do you have for me?”

Gavin pulled his hand out of his trouser pocket and held it up, a vial of Javier’s blood tincture pinched between his thumb and forefinger. “Modified, as promised,” he said, nimbly unscrewing the cap with the pad of his thumb and tip of his finger. He brought the open vial to my lips. “Open for me.”

I did so without hesitation, eager to welcome at leastsomestability back into my life. I desperately needed to be able to go more than a few hours without requiring acommunionwith an immortal.

But this modified tincture wasn’t a permanent solution. I would only be unshackled from uncertainty once we either found Javier and made him an actual functioning member of my harem or when the blood bond I had been so oblivious of all these years finally broke with his death. I didn’t have much of the tincture left, thus my extreme rationing over the past few years, so it wasn’t like we had an indefinite time to find my Prime Consort.

The tincture dribbled over my tongue, faintly bitter but lacking the tang I had come to expect. The sigils on Gavin’s face and neck brightened a little, rather than fading, as had happened the last time I took the tincture in his presence.

I swallowed, and my lips spread into a broad grin. “It worked,” I laughed. “I still have mysight.” The wards on the walls continued to glow silver, many accented by a colorful highlight. My brow furrowed, and I frowned slightly. “I haven’t seen any ghosts,” I mused. “Is that strange?”

Gavin shook his head and tucked the empty vial back into his pants pocket. “The residential wings are warded against them, all but the High Queen’s chambers,” he said. “For privacy.”

“Oh,” I said. “That makes sense.”

Gavin raised his hand again, settling it on my neck, where he stroked up and down seductively. “Would you do something for me?” he asked, so close his breath caressed my lips and chin.

“Maybe,” I said, my voice throatier than before.

The corner of Gavin’s mouth tensed, hinting at a smile. “Go to Ash,” he said. “Bind him.”

My eyes widened, and I leaned sideways to put a few inches of distance between us. “Now?”

Gavin nodded, a single dip of his chin. “It will be as good of a test of the efficacy of the clean tincture as we’re going to get, short of waiting days or even weeks to see how long it will tide you over.” After a moment, he added. “Thane may not have that long, and if you’re determined to help—”

“I am,” I said, nodding adamantly.

“Then you’ll go to him?” Gavin asked.

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