Page 68 of Bite of Passage
“There was long-term planning in place.The moment she arrived, the teenage witch knew who she was and what she had to do.I don’t know what that means.That loony mage you keep probably knows what’s going on.The good side of all of this is it probably means she’s going to become a full vampire.Right now, you need to screw down a tight lid on any panic about the prophecy and keep it closed for about three hours.We have to ride.Fast.”Cade glimpsed behind him as he mounted his horse.“I think if we push these mangy beasts to the extreme we can make the mountains.Then we go west.”
“I’m east.”
“They’ll expect you to go to your place.We’re going to mine.”
“You have a place west of here?”Skarde tugged on his coat, lifting Gemma onto the horse in front of him.
“Yes.The heat works at my place, unlike yours.Given the impending blizzard, we’re going west.I refuse to freeze my ass off in your stone mausoleum should Petra decide to lay siege to us there.You have a newly transitioning vampire to care for.The wild part comes next.She’s going to want a hell of a lot more than blood.”
ChapterTwenty-Eight
Gemma had never been socold.She remembered bits of travel, such as the jarring movement of the horse.She had no idea where she was or whose bed she now slept in.Wait, this wasn’t a bed.What the hell was this?A cot?
Someone had washed her.There was no blood anywhere, and she was in new clothes—a man’s extra-large Renaissance festival shirt.A touch to her side found the knife wound was gone.
Her hand flew to her neck.Nothing to feel there, but she remembered…something.The witch knifed her and she was dying.Then, Skarde’s teeth in her skin.It hadn’t hurt.Had he turned her?
Now she was terrified.
He’d bitten her.A quick touch and…sharp canines.
Oh my freaking God.Was she a vampire?
Skarde eased next to her on the rickety wooden structure.It creaked complaint under the strain of his extra weight.He pushed his damp hair off his forehead.No longer did he wear leather, instead wearing a shirt and regular pants, although not jeans.Brown cotton pants.
“What did you do?”Gemma sat up quickly.Dizziness slammed into her mind and forced her back to a prone position.
“We’re going to get to the panic and the talking part of this.I haven’t allowed myself to go there yet either.But later.”He bit his wrist.“Take my blood.”
“What?No.Eww.Never.”
He held his wrist to her mouth.
When the aroma of his blood registered, she moaned.“I thought we had to drink human blood.”
“The best blood for our kind is from each other.”
She couldn’t breathe.Her teeth hurt.This wasn’t a hunger.It was starvation, as if she hadn’t eaten in months.Skarde rubbed the bleeding rivulets against her lips.A lick…a groan.She latched on, instinct taking over.
As she drank, the dizziness disappeared.The chill vanished.In its place, the warmth of his blood flowing into her mouth and down her throat consumed her.Hormones went wild in her body with an unrelenting force.
Without breaking contact with his wrist, she memorized the details of him.The chiseled planes of his face, the stubble along his jaw, the long dark hair that fell past his shoulders, unbound and curling from a recent wash.Need pounded through her.
“I can give you that too,” he said.
Was he reading her mind?How did he know she wanted sex?
Need for more of his glorious blood warred with the warning in her head.The tone of his voice… Was this the real Skarde or the fake Skarde who could seduce anything?
She released his wrist, pushing it back to him.“I don’t need a pity fuck after you turned me into a… Oh, hell.I can’t believe you did it.”She covered her eyes as she sat up, this time without the woozy sensation.
“That you’ve made the transition to become one of us is a miracle.”He lifted her hand and kissed the palm.“There hasn’t been a new vampire that’s fully made the turn in over a century.You are the most exquisite female of our kind that I’ve ever seen.”
“This is unreal.You shouldn’t have done this.I asked you not to.”He’ll come to hate me.Because he believes in a stupid prophecy.“You and me?We’re done.”
His face darkened.And goddamn if that didn’t excite her.This was Real Skarde.No hiding the genuine emotion.
His fist wrapped in her hair, controlling her head as he loomed above her and leaned in.“We arenotdone.We’ve barely started.I’ve never waited this long to have what I wanted.”He leaned in to press his face to her arched neck.“I want you in every sense.To taste all of you.To be inside you.”
