Page 56 of The Pureblood Daughter
He watches intently as she lifts the rose to her nose and passes the petals across her lips.
“Good.” She tosses the rose to the grass and tips her head back just slightly, exposing her bare neck.
Theodore closes the space between them in a breath, his mouth coming down on hers with voracious hunger. His arms wrap around her, and her hands are in his hair, and she wishes he would push her up against the oak tree and have his way with every part of her.
His lips caress her neck, exploring her soft flesh, and the sensation sends pleasure burning through her body. She wants to know what his tongue would feel like between her legs, how it would feel to have his length inside of her.
“I want you,” she whispers, and as the night deepens around them, she can almost see the struggle for control roll across his body. His shoulders hunch ever slightly, and his hands tighten around her waist until she lets out a breathy moan. “Take me,lover.”
And she knows he’s going to.
The look that comes over him is one of lust, of hunger, ofthirst. A ferine growl rumbles deep in his chest, and his pretty incisors grow into pointed fangs.
But before he can tear her dress and shred her corset, a whisper sounds in the air just behind him, followed by a soft thunk.
Theodore jolts forward with a surprised breath, and Nadia’s eyes go wide as she follows his gaze down to his chest.
Protruding from the front of his right shoulder is a silver blade, the tip coated in his blood.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Nadia’s heart slams against herrib cage, and for a breath, all she can do is watch the blood drip from the tip of the blade, so red in the silver light of the rising moon.
Theodore looks up at her, and his violent gaze holds hers as thunder rolls above them.
“Run,” he whispers.
Before she can respond, he’s gone from her arms, his shape barely tangible as he vanishes into the greenery.
“Theodore?” she yells into the darkening night.
Overhead, the clouds now look ominous, and the sky shakes again with the low drums of thunder.
The garden descends deeper into darkness, and though her eyes quickly adjust, she finds herself lost amidst the dense greenery. There are so many paths down which to wander, trees stretching overhead and archways blooming with all manner of fragrant flowers.
“Theodore!” she calls again, but the only response is a bright burst of lightning high up in the clouds.
Closing her eyes, she searches for his scent—that delicately sweet, smoky aroma—and finds it, along with a tang of blood and the ripeness of blooming foliage.
Without a moment’s hesitation, she pursues him, trying desperately to follow his smell through the dark garden. It’s like trying to navigate a maze by moonlight—difficult, but not impossible.
His scent becomes stronger, but so too does the smell of blood.
When she bursts through an archway dripping in roses and finds him, he’s not alone.
Nadia gasps and drops her parasol as she comes to a halt.
Theodore and a man grapple for each other in the darkness, the strain evident in their grunted breaths and trembling limbs.
The blade is still embedded in Theodore’s right shoulder, winking in the obscured moonlight, and blood drips down his waistcoat, tantalizing and seductive even as he struggles to fend off his would-be killer.
With a growl, Theodore tackles the man, and Nadia lets out a small scream as they land hard in the grass.
Theodore whips around to look at her, his eyes crazed with anger and pain. He has the man pinned down, hands around his neck, and the fight seems very near to over, but in a moment almost too quick to catch, the attacker pulls a pistol from his overcoat and fires a single shot straight through Theodore’s chest.
“No!” Nadia screams, her voice rising to a wail as Theodore is blasted back and collapses in a heap upon the grass.
The edges of her vision go dark, and all she can see, all she canfeel, is Theodore lying on the earth, a silver blade through his shoulder and a bullet through his heart. It’s as if his heartbeat is her heartbeat, and she clutches her chest as the pace slows to a sluggish crawl. Each of his gasped breaths is matched by one of hers. If she didn’t know better, she’d think she was the one bleeding out beneath a sky roiling with storm clouds.
