Page 14 of Blood Sanctuary, Part One

“A brisk walk to House Komnena will warm me up.”

He pressed his fingers to her throat. “Your pulse is racing. But there’s no need to be afraid.”

She clutched his hand. “Iamafraid. Why am I afraid, when you have been right next to me all night? Why did the last few hours feel like years, just because I couldn’t touch you? I thought I wouldn’t feel this panic anymore now that I’m with you, but it came over me during the banquet, and I cannot shake it off. It’s just like those awful months in Tenebra, when we were apart.”

Lio pulled his distraught Grace into his arms and smiled into the darkness over her head. “That’s exactly how I felt.”

She breathed another sigh and took a step backward toward her guest bed. “I can’t wait until after bedtime stories. I can’t wait to go home. I need you so much that making love to you is all I can do about it.”

To that declaration, the only worthy response Lio could find was to surrender his mouth to her again. With a little whimper in her throat, she fastened her lips to his and sucked his tongue.

Goddess bless. It was true. Even mortals felt the effects of Grace. More than lust, more than pining. Cassia suffered her own Craving for him.

He let her urge him along to the bed and offered his mouth for her consumption all the while. Petite though she was, with strength born of gardening and treason, she pushed him onto her bed. They sprawled together on the spacious mattress, her gown fanning around them, red as blood against the white bedclothes. His Hesperine physical prowess would not be necessary for what she had in mind. Grinning, he lay back for her so she could straddle him.

Her gaze locked on his fully unsheathed fangs. She licked her lips. Thorns, her Craving was rough and sweet. With trembling hands, she all but tore his robes open, and he helped her by getting her voluminous skirts out of her way.

Now she stared at his rhabdos. At the sight of how hard he was for her, she rasped a breath, and her lips parted. Cup and thorns. Cassia was ready to make a meal off of him.

She planted her hands on his chest, rose up on her knees, and came down on him fast. Her krana throbbed tight around him as if they had been teasing each other for an hour, not kissing with their clothes on for mere moments.

His head jerked back against the bed, and he bared his fangs. She rode him hard. He buried his hands in her skirts, forgetting to breathe. But she panted over him, breath after breath, pleasuring his senses. Her chest rose and fell within the confines of her bodice. The glyph shard swung at her neck with her wild pace, mesmerizing him into the pleasure that pounded through his body.

His hearing filled with the rustle of her skirts and the drum of her pulse, his nose with the smell of her body in a passion. Above him, her irises were a slim ring of hazel around her wide pupils. His tongue went dry, his thirst burned in his veins, but she fed him pleasure with every move.

Her eyes widened. A warning ripple flitted through her krana along the length of his rhabdos, and he shuddered under her. A long cry tore out of her, her body heaved once on his, and then her hips were writhing. He fisted his hands and watched her, felt her sate herself upon him.

Her head fell to rest on his chest, and she lay limp, catching her breath.

“Better?” he ground out.

“Oh Lio. It’s not difficult after all. It’s so easy. I just need you.”

She cuddled against him, pulling her knees up around him. Her soft, wet krana tortured his rhabdos with a tender caress.

He could barely speak around his fangs. “Now I need you, Cassia. Everything you’re willing to give me.”

“I want to be everything you need.”

He rolled her over, pushing her knees up higher as he drove down into her. She lay in a pile of crimson velvet and rocked under him with new eagerness, clawing her hair away from her throat. She met his gaze with glazed eyes and licked her lips again. She was inebriated with wanting and taking, as drunk as he on the Craving and the instinct to sate it at any cost.

He bared his fangs again, letting her see his hunger. Her hips shifted subtly under him, releasing, surrendering to his need. A fierce instinct awoke in him and overtook his body. He braced himself and thrust deeper inside her. He went still and held her under him.

She gazed up at him with an expression of fascination, her face just inches from his. Her breaths pressed her body against him. After a moment, she whimpered and tried to roll her hips under him. But he held her legs up and leaned into where their bodies joined, stilling her.

Tears slipped down her cheeks, and he trembled. A wave of sweet, painful intimacy swept through their Union. This was as it should be. If he joined their minds, he would climax now.

But he wanted to taste their bond, to join them completely with his fangs in her throat. He nuzzled her neck, and her head tilted back as if on reflex. Her pulse raced into a crescendo.

He bit her once to open her, a second time to penetrate her. Raw Cassia flowed into his mouth and heated him.

She clung to his shoulders and went wild under him. Her movements sped her blood flow and made her flood his mouth. Down his throat. Into his belly. Throughout every vein, coming to a head at the tip of his rhabdos inside her. He anchored her on his shaft while she tossed and twisted under him.

He gulped down countless missed feasts within moments, racing to have his fill before his body lost control. Her blood filled him until his vision hazed and his ears roared and he experienced her purely through his auric senses.

He bellowed her name in his mind as his climax and his magic surged out of him. Their bodies spasmed together, grinding into the bed. She called his name aloud, once for every pulse of his ecstasy inside her.

At last he lay tangled with her, his fangs still in her throat. Her blood sang in his veins, and pleasure left him languid in its wake. He blinked and dragged in a breath. When she smoothed his hair, he sighed and caressed her throat with his mouth. He smiled against her vein, then healed it with a kiss.

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