Page 33 of A Bond Beyond Blood

I licked my lips.My mouth watered at the beautiful sight, the promise of life pumping through her veins, the tease of what her blood might taste like.I’d finally tasted the paradise between her legs, which had only deepened my desire for her blood.Her ex-boyfriend’s unexpected reappearance made me burn with possessive need.

To claim.To take.To make her mine.

It thrummed in my blood.

Became a deafening demand in my brain.

My mouth watered as I watched the beat of her heart beneath the delicate skin of her throat.

I closed my eyes and clenched my teeth, waiting for the thirst to pass.

“What’s wrong?”she whispered.

I opened my eyes and she gasped, taking a step back.

“Don’t run.”The words were forced through clenched teeth and sounded like someone else entirely, thick with hunger...and terrifying—if the look in her eyes was any indication.

Jacqueline’s bottom lip trembled and I fucking hated myself for putting that fear in her.“You need to feed?”

I gave a curt nod.“I have to go.”

She nodded, eyes soft with understanding.

“I’ll see you at ten.”I left the shop so quickly all she probably saw of my departure was a blur of color.I needed to feed again, to sink my teeth into the neck of a willing donor andsoon, because I meant what I said.

Not until she begged for it.

Chapter Eleven

Jack

Giovanni had moved out of the neighborhood as soon as he turned eighteen.As the eldest of the three of us, he’d been our father’s pick for taking over the business, but he’d had his own dreams, his own goals.And, unlike me, he’d been able to pursue them.

Working at various restaurants in the city, Gio put himself through culinary school, then started his business when he was only twenty years old.

Fiorino’s Fine Foods began as a pickling and canning company, with Gio hocking his goods from the back of an old Buick, then morphed into a food truck, and when that went viral and he couldn’t keep up with customer demand, he eventually turned that business into a brick-and-mortar store just three blocks from the family butcher shop.

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