Page 23 of Nearly Dead

I should tell him about Conrad.About the whispers.But what if it’s just my damaged mind playing tricks?

Please let it be my damaged mind.

“Leviathan?”I ask, hoping he tells me I’m wrong.

“Possibly.”Costin moves closer, and he touches my cheek, forcing my eyes to meet his.“Did something happen to make you think of him in particular?”

“He’s creepy.”A tremor works over me from his touch.“At my birthday, he gave me this eyeball-shaped ring.He told me I should wear it and that it’s enchanted with an old family recipe.”

The jewelry would have let him watch me like a supernatural spy cam.Thank the gods I never put it on.I wonder if he’s still trying to spy on me, if that’s how he knows what’s happening.

“He did what?”Costin looks as if he wants to go defend my honor.

I find myself reaching for him, needing contact, needing to feel something other than fear and confusion.I stand from the bed.My fingers brush his cheek, and he goes utterly still.

“Tamara,” he warns.“We need to talk about this.”

“Shh,” I answer, brushing my fingers over his lips.“Let me remember what it felt like before all this.”

I want the world to fade.I want to lock us inside this room and never leave.

Costin hesitates, then leans into my touch.His skin is cool beneath my fingers, familiar yet strange now that my own temperature has dropped.

“Everything is so…” I explore the subtle texture of his skin, the faint stubble on his jaw, details my human senses had missed.

“Heightened,” he finishes for me with a nod.

I pull him closer, and he comes willingly.He rests his forehead against mine.I breathe him in, noticing his stillness in comparison.I hear his heartbeat.

I’m not sure what to make of us.

Vampire and hybrid.

Sire and progeny.

Lovers caught in an impossible situation.

“I hate what you did to me,” I say, my lips hovering close to his mouth.“But I can’t hate you.”

He cups the back of my neck, gentle yet possessive.“I will find a way to make this right.”

I want to say there is no making this right.Even as I think it, I close the distance between us, pressing my lips to his.

The kiss is different now, hungry, wild.My hybrid senses make the sensations more intense.I can taste the lingering traces of blood on his lips, can hear the unnecessary breath he draws in.The sire bond surges between us, a living thing that both connects and divides.

When we break apart, his eyes are filled with red.“We shouldn’t?—”

“I know.”I can’t pull away, even as reality crashes in.“Nothing’s changed.”

I’m still a freak.

“Everything’s changed.”He steps back to put distance between us.“Except for my feelings.”

I snatch his forearm before he can retreat.My strength surprises both of us and he stumbles into me.The chains on my ankles rattle to remind me I’m a prisoner.I don’t care.Not in this moment.A primal need is taking over me.It’s hunger and rage and desire, all blended in an implosion I can’t control.

“Don’t leave me.”The growl in my voice sounds deadly and not entirely human.

Red fills the whites of his widening eyes in response to my aggression.A rumble starts in my chest as I sense his predator rising to meet mine.

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