Page 77 of Heir of Blood and Moonlight

Gavin stalked closer to me, a waning thundercloud. He raised his wrist to his mouth and savagely tore into his own flesh. “Hold out your wrist, Sophie,” he said, his bloodstained lips appearing almost black in the dim light.

I did so, my hand quaking.

Gavin held his wrist over mine, letting his blood drip onto my throbbing wound. The first contact stung but was followed a heartbeat later by tingling relief. I watched in horrified fascination as more and more of Gavin’s blood filled my wound and my flesh knitted back together with impossible speed until, at last, all that remained was a pink scar smeared with blood.

“Thank you,” I breathed, looking from my healed wrist to his. His own wound was already closed up as well. I raised my gaze to Gavin’s face, meeting his burning silver eyes.

“My blood is yours,” he said with absolute conviction. He stepped closer, leaning in to press his lips against mine in a brief but thorough and delicious kiss. When he pulled away, I was utterly breathless. He looked toward the back corner of the cell. “I’m afraid you’re the only one who can help him now. I’ll be right behind you, just in case.”

I gulped, my heart a heavy drum beat, and turned toward the corner. The lump that was Javier didn’t move as I approached. My feet seemed heavier with each step, but finally I reached him.

“Javier?” My voice was barely a whisper.

He wore a tattered blanket wrapped around himself like a cloak, concealing every part of him. My mind manufactured a stench, but there was no increased foulness on my inhale aside from the odor of dried blood and a scent like incense that dredged up long-forgotten memories. Javier was anundeadvampire, so his body didn’t function like a mortal’s—or even like a shifter’s or an elemental’s. He didn’t eat food or sweat or pass waste in the familiar sense. His body didn’t naturally do anything stinky, so he just smelled like himself.

I crouched and reached out, taking a guess at where his head was likely to be. Holding my breath, uncertain what I would find, I pulled the blanket away.

“Oh Javier,” I said when I finally saw his face, the air hissing out of my lungs.

His once handsome face was gray and gaunt, his eyelids shut and his cracked lips parted. He had always been clean-shaven when I knew him, but he now wore a full beard. According to my eyes, the man before me was not alive. But I could still feel him, in my heart, in my soul. His crippling fear and desperate hope. They clawed along the bond we shared, luring me ever closer. I just hoped that spark of life was enough and that he wasn’t already too far gone.

I closed my eyes and bowed my head, fresh tears sneaking free and streaking down my cheeks. For a decade, he had been my whole world. He had been the only reason I survived the attack. The only reason I was still alive today. It shredded my heart to see him like this.

Sniffling, I drew the combat knife sheathed on my hip and gritted my teeth before dragging the blade across the heel of my palm. It used to drive me nuts when characters in the movies cut their hands to draw blood—couldn’t they find a body part they used less frequently? But here I was doing that exact same thing. The bite of the blade was white hot, and I hissed in a breath. I quickly wiped the blade on my pants and re-sheathed it, careful to capture the welling blood in my cupped palm.

A low, keening moan filled the space between Javier and me, and it took me a moment to realize the sound was coming from him. Hope surged within me. There truly was life in him yet.

Raising my bleeding hand, I dropped my knees to the floor and leaned in. His nostrils flared as he breathed in the scent of my blood, and his lips pulled back, his dry tongue darting out, searching.

“Here,” I whispered, dipping a fingertip in the welled blood and coating his lips with the thick liquid.

His eyelashes fluttered as he tasted my blood. I would have sworn I heard my name in his exhale.

Encouraged, I reached out, curving my good hand around the back of his neck and gently tilting his head backward. I fit the side of my bleeding hand against his bottom lip and tilted it, slowly pouring the collected blood into his mouth. He swallowed once. Twice. Wincing, I pressed the cut to his open mouth to let the fresh blood seep into him directly.

His eyelids snapped open, and his eyes locked with mine, his irises burning like superheated metal. The first pull of blood from my open wound was pure agony, but the second seemed tobe dragging blood from low in my abdomen. The third pull made me gasp as a needy ache settled unexpectedly in my core. This was a completely different experience than the brutal pain of a moment ago with Thane. Despite his deprived state, Javier was being incredibly gentle, careful to not even let his sharp teeth graze my wound. Because he was my consort and we shared a bond? Or did he simply have that much self-control?

My breaths came faster, desire suddenly raging within me. I squeezed my thighs together to ease the throbbing ache between my legs.

Javier tore his mouth away from my hand, his lips and chin coated with my blood. “Luna?” he rasped, his brow furrowing as he scoured my face, likely reconciling the woman I was with the girl he had known. His features appeared slightly less gaunt, and his deathly pallor had faded, leaving his skin closer to the light brown I recalled from my youth. “Did they capture you?”

Lowering my bleeding hand, I shook my head, forcing a shaky smile. “I came to rescue you.” I shrugged one shoulder, wincing as I pressed my other palm to the open wound to stave off the bleeding. “I owed you one.”

He laughed, but it devolved into a cough.

My smile turned limp. “Do you need more?” I asked, raising my hand.

“No,” he practically growled, and I drew back slightly. His features gentled. “If I take any more, I won’t stop with blood.”

“Oh,” I said, not fully understanding him. Finally, I realized he was talking about sex—withme—and my cheeks heated. Apparently, I hadn’t been the only one aroused by his drinking of my blood, and I assumed that was the long-neglected bond at work, pushing us toward a fullcommunion.

“Sophie!” Gavin hissed from close behind me. I had been so focused on Javier that I completely forgot Gavin had followed me into the cell.

My head snapped around so I could see him.

“We’re out of time. The shifters are coming down. You need to get out of herenow.” He crouched, reaching an arm into the corner behind Javier to help the other vampire up to his feet.

I stood and started toward the cell door, noting that only three of the other cells were open, with Bastian currently kneeling as he sought the matching key to the lock on a fourth cell door.

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