Page 11 of Princess of Thorns and Ruin

“I’m so hungry for you, Leo,” I whimper, the weight of the moment catching up to me all at once. I glide closer and rest one palm over his furious heart. “What if I can’t stop?”

He shrugs away the possibility. “I’ll die.”

My hand shakes over his solid chest. “How can you say it like it’s no big deal?”

“Is it?”

“I don’t want to kill you, Leo.” I wet my lips, my gaze riveted on his neck.

A long shiver passes through him. “You shouldn’t start at the neck, then.”

The suggestion gives me pause. “What?”

“You should bite my wrist first. It’ll be easier to deal with if you…make a mess.”

My mouth fills with saliva as I flip his large hand over and trace the deep lines in his palm, the rough calluses of his hands scattering goosebumps over my neck. “I won’t be able to make it feel good. Not yet. There’s an art to the bite. Time, power, and control will allow me to make it pleasurable to mortals—to you.”

Leo shakes his head forcefully. “That’s fine.”

“It’ll hurt,” I explain more clearly, thinking he doesn’t understand. The gossip in town probably never mentioned how painful the bite can be. After all, the normals there gladly volunteer to feed our family’s envoys in exchange for the heady pleasure it procures.

“I prefer it if it hurts.”

Is he a pain junkie? Is that why he volunteered? Despite the throng of questions spiraling in my brain, my teeth chatter, and I graze his pulse point with my fingertips. Fangs pierce my inflamed gums for the first time. A wince escapes me at the sharp, foreign sensation, but I run my tongue over them, curious.

“Hurry up,” Leo growls.

My jaw ticks. How dare he rush me in this moment?

The hollow thuds of his quickened pulse drown out my admonishment. My nostrils flare, alive with wildly different aromas than the ones I’m used to. Leo’s dry, masculine scent lulls me closer. Sand and salt mix with fear over his thick, smooth wrist. Fumes of despair tickle the back of my throat, and a bottomless hunger rattles my chest.

My brand new set of teeth nicks his offered flesh, and velvety blood coats my tongue, hot and rich. The luxurious taste of salt, musk, and citrus drives me wild, and I tear through his soft flesh without mercy, widening the small puncture wound to a large gash. Leo grasps a fist of my hair, tearing me away from his wrist with a strong grip, his precious blood trickling to the ground. A hiss escapes me, my transformation incomplete, but instead of warding me off, he wrenches me up to his neck. The sight of his jugular cramps my stomach with need as my heart swells to the size of a sun and beats long and hard in my chest.

One. Last. Beat.

Teeth pierce flesh. Blood flows.

Ecstasy crashes into my veins as his life essence flows into me, binding us in a macabre dance of dominance and submission.

Tingles and needles scatter across my neck, my breasts, my arms and legs… Nightfall comes in powerful, unforgiving waves like a million ants marching in to wage war against my mortal flesh. Cell by cell, it tears me down and molds me into something else. Something better, darker, and a tiny bit evil.

Thunder rumbles across my muscles as Leo spices up my mouth, throat, and belly. It’s a craving I’ve never known. The cold is gone, replaced by Leo’s heat. Borrowed heat. Stolen life. I want to bathe in Leo’s blood.

I shove him down on the bed and swallow gulp after gulp, each of them more delicious and empowering than the last.

Hunger turns to greed. Girl becomes demon.

One delicious pulse after another, blood sprays the roof of my mouth. My prey’s heart tumbles once. Twice.

I blink, my eyes open to the room I’m laying in, to the clothes I designed, to the man I chose to drink.

Prey? No. Leo. A man. My first-blood.

With a whimper, I tear myself away. He lays on the bed, white as the satin sheets beneath him. My hand flies to my blood-stained lips.

He’s too pale, and his heartbeats are sluggish.

I killed him.

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