Page 29 of Queen of Ashes and Scars
I said it. All of it. I feel both proud and heartbroken as I brace myself for impact, Leo’s features slowly decomposing in an array of emotions I can’t quite make sense of.
One thing is for sure: he’s not smiling.
“Don’t you need a first-blood?”
“I can hire someone else to take care of my staff—drink from a few different people instead of just one. Many vampires don’t have a first-blood. Or lost them a long time ago.”
“No,” he declares.
I lick my lips, wondering what he’s saying no to. I offered him an array of choices… No could mean a lot of things here, and I don’t want to get my hopes up. “I might have to do a lot of hard things as queen, but I can’t face eternity knowing that you hate me. I’ve got a chance to make things right—”
He storms to his feet, the chair careening to the ground behind him. “It’s too late!”
I force my beast not to run after him, the need to sink my teeth inside him and make him mine again and deny everything I’ve just said quaking through my body.
With a low hiss, I glue my ass to the chair like my life depends on it. “You can start over. You can go back to your old job, or find a new one.”
He braces his arms on both sides of the sink, leaning forward, and stares off through the opened window, his chest heaving as though he can’t quite breathe anymore. “I can’t.”
I rise to my feet, the need to go to him trampling all reason. “Why not?”
He spins around, panting hard, and I hold back a few inches, my fangs tingling my gums.
“Because of you!” he rasps angrily.
Without another word, Leo crushes his lips to mine. The stormy kiss is hurried and desperate, and it knocks the wind out of me.
It’s a loud argument. A declaration.
We lose ourselves in each other in the sunny kitchen of his mother’s house, the sugary taste of lemonade still glazing his warm lips. A drugging sense of urgency spices up the air, and I stand on the tip of my toes, my feet slipping from my sandals. He hoists me up on the small kitchen table, the skirt of my loose summer dress riding up to my hips, and I make space for him, eager to be cocooned in his warmth.
He buries a hand in my dark mane, and his hot lips dip to kiss the swell of my breasts. I arch my back, my nipples hard and sensitive as he loosens the white ribbons of my front corset, one passionate tug at a time.
The dull thump of a knock is followed by the squeak of the front door swinging open. “Leo? Leo, please, I need to—”
I hop to my feet and straighten my dress over my exposed cleavage. Leo’s arms fall at his side, his expression unreadable as he cranes his neck around to greet his unexpected guest.
The girl’s gaze drops to the ground, her cheeks flushed and her heart wild as a hunted rabbit. Her curtsy is about the stiffest one I’ve ever seen. “Your Highness.” Tears spill over her lids, and she struggles not to blink, her wide eyes almost glassy. “See? I was right about you. I’ll see myself out.”
Leo closes his eyes and rests his forehead on mine, his lips curled down.
“She was your girl?” I breathe, understanding the weight of what just happened. Only a blind vampire wouldn’t have caught the huge ring on that girl’s finger, and my heart breaks for him. And here I am, telling him I want to get married to someone else…
“Yes,” he admits.
“And now she’s not.”
He tucks a loose, wavy strand of hair behind my ear. “Now she’s not.”
I spare a glance to the closed door his ex-fiancée just vanished through. “Do you want to run after her?”
“No.”
A thrill shoots up my spine at the honesty in his tone, and guilt immediately quakes my chest. “I’m sorry.”
He squints at me, his tall frame caging me in. “Are you really?”
I grip the table behind me. This is the man I met over brunch, the man who stole my breath and my heart with one sentence next to a fountain of champagne. With a sheepish smile, I caress my mark at the base of his ear. “No.”
