Page 66 of Claimed By Blood

“But you had Gideon and the others…”

I snort, because IwishI’d had the pack back then. “Not for almost sixty years. I was alone, and I had no connections. No way to find you.” I take a deep breath, not sure if I should admit the next part. “I left the resistance behind for a while, traipsed all over Europe, searching for you, and then the Americas when Cain moved his Court there. Almost died or got recaptured a hundred times… Then I went back to the resistance, hoping that with the right resources I might be able to get somewhere, but…”

“The Triumph happened,” she breathes, filling in the gap.

“I tried,” I insist, shifting my weight and propelling my body up to grab a handhold beside her. “I… failed.” God, it hurts to admit that. “I’m sorry.”

She’s stopped moving, but she still won’t meet my eyes.

“I’ll do anything, even though I know that will never be enough,” I continue, when I can’t take the silence anymore.

Eve gives me a look I can’t quite decipher. “You’re not at all who you were before, are you?”

Scoffing, because she’s probably right, I meet her eyes and mutter. “A lot of shit changed when I lost you. I was a cocky idiot before, and look where it got me.”

Without replying, she shifts her grip and starts climbing once more.

I’m almost certain I’ve just fucked up when she calls down, “What’s number six?”

Relief washes over me, and I glance up only to get side-tracked again by her gorgeous ass as she claws at the rock with her foot. I’d gone soft during my confession, but my cock rears up again like a damned Eve-seeking-missile.

“Six.” I pause, pretending to think while I attempt to subtly adjust myself while clinging to the cliff face. “I’m a walking buffet.”

I’d give anything to have her fangs sink into me again. Her venom must be addictive, because there’s no other explanation for the way that the memory of her bite haunts my dreams.

“True,” she muses, heaving herself up the ledge. “But what if I’ve gone off your blood?”

“You think my blood is delicious,” I retort. “Unless somehow becoming a ghoul has soured my taste…”

I know it hasn’t. She didn’t complain when she drank from me back at the safe house.

“Maybe I was too addled by silver last time to notice,” she murmurs speculatively. “I suppose I’ll have to drink from you again to make certain. After all, you dragged me out of the base before I could grab breakfast.”

If not for immortal reflexes, I would’ve fallen off the damned cliff.

She wants to drink from me.

Suddenly, the urge to just use my immortal speed to climb this cliff is overwhelming. My focus narrows down to the finish line, and I push myself harder, silently willing her to do the same.

But Eve wants to play with my emotions, because she keeps herself to the same deliberate and painfully slow mortal pace, and I—still leery of going ahead in case she falls—am forced to match it.

We finally haul ourselves over the edge, and a sharp wind immediately hits me, laced with biting granules of sand that sting my flesh. The desert around us is empty and peaceful—beautiful in its own, alien way—but I can’t pay it any attention while Eve’s standing next to me. She consumes all of my attention without trying, or noticing.

Always has.

“Breakfast?” I ask.

The breathlessness of my own voice sabotages my chipper attempt to hide the hopefulness in my voice, and she chuckles in response.

“You seem a little winded,” she teases. “Do you need a second to catch your breath?”

Fuck. No.

In two strides I’m in front of her, and she doesn’t fight me as I haul her against my chest until her face is inches away from the vein at my throat.

The move backfires. Spectacularly.

Because nowmyface is also inches away fromherthroat. Shit.

---