Page 35 of Princess Claimed

My field of vision expands beyond the deep pools of Ana’s eyes to take in more of her face. Her lips are beyond luscious, soft, deeply pink and quivering slightly as her exhales bathe their surface. I’ve never kissed any woman, certainly not in a passionate way. The Master’s training taught me to find the act vile. Using aversion training, he made kissing seem disgusting, and yet my lips are twitching as blood rushes into them.

I’m desperate to press my mouth against hers. My cock throbs too, and I marvel at how my body has enough blood to flood both my lips and my cock at the same time. Not to mention my heart.

I’m intoxicated. Drunk on Ana—on her scent, on her beauty and kindness, on her strength. I’ve been fully captured by Ana, caught in a trap from which I don’t want to escape. After so many years of blocking my emotions, I can’t process what’s going on.

“How did you get free from the soldiers?” she asks.

I snap out of my emotion-drunk haze, and more horrid memories shift me back to my story.

“The soldiers beat me. They pounded me. They kicked me. They laughed about how I didn’t deserve the mercy of their swords; they joked about how they didn’t want to dirty their weapons with my Irish blood. Swords already coated in the blood of my family.”

“Oh, Crusher.”

“That night, I got my first glimpse of pure cruelty. True evil.” Anger rushes, filling me with a more familiar emotion.

“I’ve seen that kind of evil too,” she says, and her voice washes my anger away, filling me with comfort and hope. Although I’m not sure what it is that I’m hoping for.

“Evil exists,” she continues. “I know that. But I also know that most people in the world are good.” She places her hand over my thumping chest as if to suggest I have some good in me too. “I believe that with all of my heart.”

“I believe in goodness too,” I tell her. “Especially since I met you…” Shaking my head, I sink back into her eyes. “You have so much light in you, Ana. You’ve made me see the world in a whole new way.”

A smile spreads from her eyes to her lips, and I shift, moving my mouth closer and closer toward hers. I desperately want to feel the soft skin of her rosy lips touching mine, to test their texture, to feel their movement, to taste her.

“How did you survive?” she asks.

Again, I’m drawn to the past, but part of me remains floating in the present and hoping for a future that includes kissing Ana.

“The men left me for dead.” Cupping her face in one hand, I tip her chin toward me and lightly brush her lower lip with my thumb.

Her body trembles at the touch. So does mine. Feck.

If my finger felt that good on her mouth, how will I survive contacting her lip to lip?

“Most of my bones were broken,” I tell her. “Some of my internal organs were crushed, barely functioning, but by some miracle—” I shake my head; it was more a curse than a miracle. “The Master found me. He used his blood to heal me, and then he took me to the Institute. He helped me recover and grow strong.”

I glance away, ashamed by those days.

Ashamed of how I reveled in the Master’s attention. I felt such pride as I became his favorite, as my body grew bigger and stronger with the rich diet of red meat he fed me, a diet unheard of in those times, beyond the most wealthy. And our diet at the Institute was supplemented, I realize now, with vampire blood that helped us grow even more quickly and increase the chances that we’d become large, strong humans before we were turned.

“Thank you,” she says softly, and I fall again into her eyes. “Thank you for sharing that part of yourself.” Her chest swells with a long inhale, her breasts rising under the crystals adorning them, and I’ve never wanted to be so close to another being before.

I want to be more than close. I want to live inside Ana. For her to live inside me. The thought is so powerful I’m no longer sure I can survive without Ana at my side.

Chapter

Seventeen

Ana

Tonight has been the best of my life. I’ve never felt so happy, so alive, and it’s impossible to pick a single moment as the most fabulous. When Crusher told me we were going out, and then Flame surprised me with this gorgeous gown—at that moment I thought I couldn’t ever be happier. That I’d hit my peak.

But then once the gown was fitted, Blade brought in a vampire named Frederick to do my elaborate hairstyle. I was positive that would be the peak of my evening. The peak of Frederick’s too. He was thrilled to be invited inside the brothers’ quarters. And then, when I first saw the Philadelphia Museum of Art, with its grand façade and long set of stone stairs all lit up by shining spotlights, I knew I’d entered heaven.

Simply being out amongst people, normal people who don’t know who I am, feeling their eyes on me and admiring my gown… Tonight, I’ve been the happiest I’ve been in a very, very long time.

And it kept getting better.

Dancing with Blade and Flame was electric. At times it felt like we were alone in the room, and at other times I delighted in the attention of the crowd’s eyes on the three of us as we danced, not to mention Crusher’s admiring gaze from the table.

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