Page 87 of Of Spindles and Nightfall
Her lips parted. “I was just—”
“And you thought it would work?” He released a strangled laugh. Gods, how close she’d come.
Her gaze widened. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He snorted. “You’re such a terrible liar. This…”—he touched his Bloodbound mark—“This…”—he pointed to the spot on her thigh—“It is all fake, Aryana. You have no idea what I can do to you.” The desire in her eyes somehow sparked higher at that, and his body took notice. “You have no fucking…”
He needed to get out of there before he did something that would be irreparable for both of them. Stumbling to his closet, he pulled out a potion and summoned the shadows.
He reappeared in Vivane’s room. He surveyed his surroundings, but she wasn’t present. Good. Setting the potion on the mantle of the fireplace, he reached down to his armored bottoms and freed himself. How quickly she’d made him harden, and it had been damn near painful, strainingagainst the fabric. Wrapping his hand around his hardness, he groaned as he squeezed. He had to get the vampress out of his head.
He moved his hand back and forth. Gods, her scent had been so intoxicating. It was in his mind, in his nose. The feel of her body. How he’d wanted to do more to her, to take her at his will. The beast purred with pleasure.
“Aryana…” the name slipped out before he could stop it.
And then he was picturing her pretty lips around his cock at the opening ceremony. Of how easily she worked him into a frenzy. Shit. He’d liked that. And when her venom had entered him, it had nearly brought him to his knees. His grip tightened as her lips had then. And holy hell, when she had sucked it had felt—his breaths came rough, his fingers digging into the wood of the mantle, as his other hand pumped harder, faster with each torturous memory of her mouth clamped so unforgivingly around him.
Not to mention the way she had appeared out of nowhere like an unstoppable warrior and rammed that sword ruthlessly into Xaphoron’s wing.
A gasp tore out of him, and he arched as he spilled onto the flagstone, his senses filled with his vampress.
And yet, despite the pleasure racing through him, a hollowness gutted him. The beast remained unappeased. He groaned, resting his head against the mantle. It would never be satisfied until it hadher.
Re-buttoning his armor, he grasped his potion and stumbled over to a chair at a nearby table to the side of Vivane’s bedand sat.
This potion that he both needed and loathed. He removed the cork.
“Having fun without me, Zarathos?” a sultry voice sounded behind him. Vivane crossed into his vision, her eyebrows raised and a slight pout on her lips.
“Forgive me. I needed a moment, and yours was the first place I thought of.”
“I see.” She stepped over to where he’d left indentations in her intricately carved wooden mantle. “You required my chambers, but you didn’t need me. That makes me feel so flattered.”
He offered no reply. He didn’t want to offend her, but it had also been the truth. His grip tightened on the potion.
She stepped over to the table and rested her elbows on it, leaning forward. “Tell me what is going on, Zarathos.”
He looked at her, uncertain. Unburdening himself to Vivane in the past hadn’t been an issue. They understood each other. But now that he had someone to protect, everything had changed.
She studied him through narrowed eyes. “You came here. I can tell the potion’s effects have completely worn off. If I had someone else in these rooms, if someone besides me had scented you—”
He swore. “It is wearing off faster than it used to.”
“And what is the cause of this sudden change, pray tell?”
He glared at her. “You think I know?”
But of course he did. And Vivane wasn’t one to be put off by avoidance tactics. “It doesn’t have anything to do with that Bloodbound mark on the thigh of that vampire princess, does it?”
Something plummeted into his stomach. That was right, she was a succubus. She sensed Bloodbindings. “You saw it?”
She gave him a flat stare. “That is the only spot she keeps wrapped up tight. The rest of her skin is flawless.”
Luckily, Vivane was the only succubus that had gotten close to Aryana here at his castle, or that would. Zarathos would ensure that. They didn’t need another catastrophe like when he and the vampress had gone for the scepter.
His hand closed on his bicep where his mark lay. “It’s causing all sorts of havoc.” He could have sex with the elixir in his system without it wearing off. He’d done it many times. It had to be the bond that was ruining everything.
She laughed.
