Page 13 of Blood Sacrifice

There was the moment Salvator found me in the darkness, pulling me against him until I calmed down. My body heated at the memory of being pulled against his hard chest, his hands clutching me. The sensation of his body carrying mine when I could walk no further, my arms and legs wrapped around him. Every moment replayed in my head right up to the moment I watched him walk away from me.

Then my mind travelled through time to today, and the scene replayed in modern times, with the same wide shoulders and lean hips, the same gait as he made his way through themarket. My skin hummed at the memory of his hands on it, butterflies erupting in my chest.

It couldn’t be.

Salvator was dead or he would have used my pendant to find me.

I tried to wake myself, tried to escape this nightmare, but it refused to release me.

“You need to breathe.” I heard his voice in the darkness. “Stop fighting and just breathe.”

“You’re dead,” I whispered. “You left me and never returned.”

A sensation of soft lips touched my forehead and my body stilled. “I could never leave you, Lunabelle. Mates are for life.”

I relaxed into the rise and fall of his chest, his fingers tracing trails over my skin. “I waited for you,” I revealed. “I stayed close to the border for years.” More atrocities had been revealed every day, but I had stayed in the hope that Salvator would find me.

“Wars take a long time to burn out.” His voice still held the slight accent he had from childhood.

I had dreamt of him before, my mind trying to keep his features alive. In my private home, there were drawings that I had created from memory, some from magic so that I always had a reminder of him.

There was something different about tonight, almost as if his touch was real, the sensation on my skin caused by his touch. I had tried to find another lover, but something always stopped me, an external force that refused to let anyone close to me.

I remembered every stolen kiss and promises made to each other, holding hands and moon-gazing together. The nights we couldn’t get enough of each other, driven by that animalistic need to mate. There was a craving inside me that demanded Ithrow caution to the wind and experience the sensation of skin sliding against skin in the erotic dance of desire.

The sensation of his fingertips on me ignited the smouldering embers deep in my stomach into a blazing inferno. My hand caught his, moving it from the innocent area he touched to my breast.

His low gasp in the darkness made me hesitate, but his fingers spread across my delicate flesh, his thumbnail grazing my nipple. His touch sent tremors rippling through me, goosebumps rising to meet his fingers.

I rolled over, hitching my nightdress up my thighs as I straddled his lean hips. In this dim light, I couldn’t see his face, leaving him an anonymous lover. His hands curved around my ass, dragging me closer to him as I ground myself on his pelvis.

Our mouths seemed to have a magnetic pull that drew them together with a force I couldn’t resist. My lips brushed against his in a light caress, testing and tasting our reactions. His fingers tightened on my ass and my hands grasped his face as I gave myself up to emotion. Salvator’s tongue seduced and bewitched me, dragging me into a world where I was a slave to sensations. His mouth spoke to mine, creating a spell that held me captive, his hands hauling me closer to the hardness of his chest.

I had never had a dream like this before, my body warm and flushed, an uncomfortable ache between my legs. Salvator rolled me onto my back, his weight holding me prisoner to his strength. My legs wrapped around him, claiming his body back in return, my body arching in need.

When Salvator dragged his mouth from mine, we were both breathing heavily, our chests heaving. His forehead pressed to mine and all I could see was the dark beauty of his eyes.

His ghost had followed me my entire life, the promise of what might have been a constant pain in my heart. I had lived along time and truly believed that you only had one soulmate, and they tended to be reincarnated at the same time as you, so you could find each other again in the crazy mess of life and learn to love them all over again.

“This is madness,” he said, his lips touching mine as he spoke. “I need you more than words.”

Something sharp grazed the seam of my mouth and I groaned, my thumb reaching up to find his canines lengthened, his eyes glowing a soft amber.

“Please,” I muttered, canting my head to the side to offer him my throat. I needed to feel his teeth biting into my flesh, the climax of him claiming me in a way only he could. Tingles tippled up and down my spine, my stomach tightening at the thought of that intimate gesture.

Salvator’s teeth grazed the delicate skin at my throat, his lips leaving the hint of a kiss. When his canines sank in, my eyes flew open, and I was lying in a hotel room alone and covered in a layer of perspiration.

“What the hell?” I muttering, dragging my heavy limbs out of bed, my flesh covered in goosebumps, and my hair tangled around me. I stumbled to the bathroom to wash my face with cold water. The woman who stared back at me from the mirror had flushed cheeks, bright eyes, and swollen lips. I tentatively touched my lips and swore I could still feel the imprint of Salvator’s mouth.

“He’s dead,” I told myself in the mirror. “You accepted that fact a long time ago.”

It didn’t change the truth that he was the one man who had a hold on me. I had searched the world for him, looking for him in reincarnated souls, other lycan packs, but my soul didn’t recognise him anywhere.

My mind flashed to the man in the market, and I splashed more cold water on my face to try and clear my head.

“It’s because you’re home,” I rationalised. “You’re seeing what you desire the most.” There were a lot of tall men with dark hair in the world. I was just spooked because of what had happened the past few days.

I opened the window to allow some air into the room, my heart still beating fast after that dream. I’d had erotic dreams before, but this time it felt as if it was real and not a dream. The clock on the wall revealed it was just after three in the morning, but I could no longer sleep.

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