Page 26 of Ophelia's Vampire

“Take a step back,” he murmurs.

I’m about to ask why, but he crowds into me and I step without thinking. My back hits the ivy-covered wall behind me and Casimir presses even closer. With one hand sliding back into the hair at the nape of my neck and the other settling on my lower back, he tightens his grip to hold me in place.

“This might make you feel a little… wobbly,” he says by way of explanation. “Wouldn’t want to ruin your pretty dress by getting it full of grime if you swoon, would we?”

I huff an irritated breath. “I can handle it. You can just get on with—”

“So impatient.” He clucks his tongue softly, the cool caress of his breath breaking over my skin. “As you wish, sweet Ophelia.”

And, with that, Casimir strikes.

10

Casimir

Biting Ophelia was a mistake.

A massive, life-altering mistake, as her blood flows freely from the wound I’ve made.

She’s sharp spice and rich, dark wine. She’s sin and salvation. Temptation and torture.

As good as I may have thought she would be, the reality of sinking my fangs deep and drawing from her, of tasting her, of feeling her body go loose and trusting in my arms and hearing the breathless sigh of pleasure she can’t hold back is nearly enough to obliterate me.

Another draw of heat, a pulse of mind-numbing pleasure more delicious than I’ve experienced in my four hundred years, and Ophelia’s arms wrap around me. Grasping at my shoulders, tangling in my hair, I almost think it’s her silently telling me to stop, when she pulls me closer.

Closer. Gods save me.

Because it’s not just me affected by this bite. It’s not just my control hanging by a thread.

Ophelia is wild and wanting beneath my hands, against my lips, where my fangs pierce her skin. I taste it in the vivid notes of pleasure in her blood, feel it in the racing of her heart, andhear it in her soft gasps and moans as she tries to adjust to all the sensation of accepting a vampire’s bite.

Her first.

I’m a seven-times-damned creature for it, and it shouldn’t please me as much as it does to know she’s never experienced this with another. Knowing I’m the first to taste her this way draws on some deep, deranged instinct that whispers darkness in the back of my mind, little bursts of insanity likeclaim herandkeep herandmine.

Stop. I have to stop.

This is nothing more than a ruse. A piece of physical disguise meant to make it easier for us to complete the work we’ve been tasked with.

And a gift. Always a gift.

I meant what I told Ophelia. I just never imagined the magnitude of the gift she was giving me.

If I had, I might never have accepted it at all. For her sake. For mine. For the certainty that something has shifted between us, something irrevocable and too large to comprehend while her blood still fills my mouth, my veins, my soul.

I pull away.

My knees buckle.

The sight of my mark on Ophelia, the glaze of pleasure over her brown eyes when her heavy lids flick open, the hitch in her breath as she tries to control whatever it is she’s feeling, all of it threatens to unravel me completely.

“What,” she says, voice hoarse and raspy, “the fuck was that?”

Ah, there’s the Ophelia I know.

She places both her hands on my shoulders, pressing firmly like she’s going to shove me away, and the pleasure in her eyes starts to melt into something that looks much more like horror.

“A moment,” I murmur. “Give me just one more moment, Ophelia.”

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