Page 92 of The Madness Within

One finalclick.

One last exhale.

And then I turned to him.

“Was that dramatic enough?” I whispered.

Dorian crossed the room in a single breath. Grabbed me by the jaw and kissed me like he wanted to drink my magic out of my throat. “You have no idea what you just started,” he growled.

“Then show me,” I dared.

We didn’t make it to the bed.

The table. The floor. The fucking wall, everything became a battlefield dressed in shadows and flame.

He tore my shirt in two with a snarl, baring me to the cold air and his hungry eyes. I clawed at his belt like I was starving for him, because I was.

We collided, all teeth and tongues and tangled limbs, devouring each other with no room for gentleness.

He took me like a beast loosed from chains, his hand buried in my hair, yanking my head back just enough to bare my throat. The other gripped my hip hard enough to brand me with his fingers, pulling me against him until I felt nothing but him, deep, punishing and perfect.

My knees buckled with every thrust, every ragged moan, every filthy word he growled against my neck. I screamed his name like a prayer, a curse, a need I didn’t care to survive.

Then he bit me.

Sharp fangs sank into my neck, and the pain bloomed into ecstasy. I arched into it, into him, feeling the heat of my blood rush from me into his mouth as he drank deep, possessive, reverent.

My nails dug into his back, and I didn’t hesitate, I bit him, too, my teeth piercing the curve of his shoulder, tasting the dark, electric rush of him.

We moved together, bodies wild and slick, and soaked in blood and want, until the candles guttered out. Until the walls were smeared with the evidence of our hunger. Until we were one wrecked, sacred ruin.

After?

We lay there on the floor, breathless and stained. My body wrecked. His chest rising and falling against mine. And for a moment, I didn’t care about tomorrow.

Because tonight, I was his.

And he was mine.

And he said it, “Two must become one.”

Chapter Forty

??Bound in Flame and Flesh

Ember

We returned to my mother’s home just before dawn, the sky bruised with the promise of morning. The silence inside was heavier this time, not haunted, but waiting.

As if the house had been holding its breath for me to come back, not just as her daughter, but as something more.

Dorian’s hand stayed on my lower back as we walked in, grounding me, steadying the storm that still pulsed beneath my skin.

The mirror was shattered. The sigils were still burning on the floor. And I wasn’t the same girl who walked into this house.

I was something more now. Something ancient. Something dangerous.

And Dorian saw it.

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