Page 32 of The Way You Bite
Dominic put the knife causally on the desk. He held his hands up in an almost teasing way to the male. His eyes dared the half vamp to move. He took one step in the guy’s direction.
The half vamp backed up.
Vee’s legs collapsed her to a kneeling position.
Dominic shook his head and looked dismayed. “You see, my darling little Velveteen? He is not good enough for you. He cannot protect you in the manner you deserve.” Dominic kneeled beside her and caressed his hand against her cheek. “I do this because I love you, you know. You are too young to know what is best. Being with this coward is not what you need. I promise I will always take care of you. I have found someone for you. Someone worthy.”
Vee pulled herself up using the edge of the desk. She grabbed the knife and sliced it down Dominic’s face, leaving a three-inch cut in his cheek. “Now we’re even.”
He screamed and clawed at his face as if it was burning.
“It’s not real,” Lexan said as he restrained Vee to the bed. She bucked and lashed out with her teeth. Her nails cut deep furrows into his forearm.
Suddenly, she went still. Her eyes were open, glazed, dilated, and fixed on his arm where red liquid was cresting and running from the lacerations.
“Vee? You with me?”
With morbid fascination, he watched her tongue dart out and moisten her lips. She leaned forward and delicately licked the blood from his forearm.
“No, don’t.” He yanked his arm away. Lore held a demisang needed werewolf blood to transform, but he didn’t trust rumor. He held his breath. No taking away any toxic reaction now. Even a few drops of his blood would kill any full-blooded vamp.
Nothing happened as she continued to stare at his wrist where he still bled. She reached out, touching his arm. A little bit hadn’t hurt her. Maybe…
“Vee?” he asked again. Nope, the girl was in la-la land.
She brought his wrist back to her mouth. The motion of her tongue as it too slowly lapped against his skin along the furrows, healing where it touched, mesmerized him. Her lips were incredibly soft. And gentle. And very warm.
Without warning she bit. Fangs straight into his wrist like a viper strike.
Shit.
Ouch.
He yanked, but the motion didn’t detach her mouth. At her first deep suck, he tensed and then trembled. He was so cold as memories of the past paraded through his brain. Although he’d never been bitten—that would’ve killed a vampire—too much had been done against his will by those with fangs. Memories… Humans covered in bleeding holes just like the ones on his wrist during a vamp feeding frenzy. He’d been forced to be part of the “entertainment” many times. Of course, he didn’t drink blood, and no one drank from him. But Mercutio, Dominic’s father, used Lexan’s brother to control him until Mercutio accidentally killed his brother during a blood-letting orgy. That moment had been the turning point, the moment he killed his captor and the War began.
Vee wasn’t Mercutio. She wasn’t blood related, and so far she’d shown no hint of Mercutio’s twisted enjoyment of other’s distress. He’d only seen compassion and courage from her.
The memories drifted away as he registered the slow burn for sex cycling up. Her warm lips moved against his wrist, hot and sucking. He should pry her off. Fatal blood volume loss for a vampire’s victim took less than five minutes under the sucking of a hungry vamp. He’d seen it far too many times in Mercutio’s household. How long had it been?
But he paused. She needed this. It wasn’t hurting her. Something shifted in him. She was going to survive because of him, because of what he could give to her. The honor to provide that which his mate needed to survive was his.
Lexan felt something in his head pop as her scent reached him in a fresh wave, calling to him, priming him.
The view of her mouth latched onto his wrist…it was actually beautiful, not the disgusting act as he’d assumed. He wavered. Too much.Stop her.
He pried her off, applying so much pressure he worried he’d break her teeth. Damn, she was strong.
She let out a little compliant moan when he finally dislodged her mouth, but she fell back, immediately unconscious.
He gripped his wrist over the oozing punctures and backed away until he smacked against the wall. His knees buckled, and he slid to the floor.
Being only part vamp, he still worried his blood would be toxic to her in too high a dose.
