Page 60 of The Crimson Princess
“Will my father be able to sense that? Or feel it?”
“You’re still as equally gale as you ever were vampire,” Demetrius replies. “I don’t see that as an issue.” He’s so unconcerned with the topic that he moves on. “Right now, rest. Tomorrow you can fight werewolves all over again if you want, but I need you to give it a little longer.” A small vial appears in his hand. “This will help with the nerve pain. It’s just a little magic of my own making. It’s good stuff. Drink it before you sleep.”
He offers it to me and I accept. “Thank you again.”
He gives me another chin dip as acknowledgement before pushing to his feet and heading for the door, my mind racing with all the questions I didn’t get answered. Toren closes the space between me and him and catches my chin to meet his stare. “What do you want to know?”
“How do we know my immunity won’t wear off?” I ask.
“I’m different.You’redifferent.”
“We don’t understand what that means for me. I carry the mutation.”
“We’re different, Satima. The bonding spell helps you respond to my blood.”
My finger run over my palm where I’d cut myself, where we’d joined hands and he’d spoken that spell. That one decision might have saved my life. “And when you remove it?”
“Do youwantit to be removed?”
“Doyouwant to remove it?”
“No. I do not.” His hands come down on my arms. “You need to rest.” He blinks us to the edge of the bed, and a moment later my change of clothing has been reversed, the skimpy gown, all that covers me.
He eases us onto the mattress and claims the vial Demetrius had given me, removing the plug on top. “Drink it down.” He presses it back into my hand.
I down it and warmth slides along my throat, a heavy sensation washing over me. “Is that a sleeping drug?”
“No. We would have told you.”
I press my fingers to my temples. “I feel lightheaded.”
“You need blood.Myblood.” He lifts his wrist toward his mouth.
I capture his arm. “Why does this feel weird now that I’m not laying on the forest ground dying?”
He runs his hand over my hair. “There’s nothing weird about anything between us.”
“Except for the fact that I’m part gale and we’re nearly at war. I really don’t want you to be my enemy, Toren.”
“I’m not your enemy and I never will be your enemy.” He cups my face and tilts my gaze to his. “I need you to remember that. No matter what happens. I am not your enemy.”
“What’s going to happen, Toren?”
He lowers his mouth a breath from mine, and murmurs, “This,” and his tongue presses past my lips, caressing deeply, until I moan with the taste of him, and he eases me down onto the mattress.
Our heads settle on a pillow and our lips part as he bites his wrist, and the scent of his blood is suddenly everything, everywhere. Amber. Why does his blood smell and taste of amber? He rolls meto my back, him on his side next to me, as he holds his wrist to my mouth and there’s no fighting the clawing hunger inside me.
I reach for his wrist, and my mouth closes over the wound on his arm, the sweetness of his blood awakening my tastebuds and I have no off button. I drink and I drink until he pries his arm from my grip and replaces his wrist with his mouth, his kiss as addictive as his blood. I roll to my side to face him, and when our lips part, my hand is pressed to his face. For long seconds we just lay there, breathing together, the intimacy between us as thick and rich as his blood. “Why do you taste and smell like amber, but what you drank from the goblet did not?”
“I told you,” he murmurs, “my blood is different.” He kisses me again, hard and fast and then shifts to his back, folding me close, my neck resting on his shoulder, his hand on my head. “Rest, princess. I have much to show you tomorrow.”
And as if he fully commands my body, my lashes lower, and I ease into the darkness calling me, but not before a dark image claims my mind. Toren, King Toren, and my father, standing in the center of the arena, in a death match, one of them to die.
Chapter twenty-six
KingToren.KingKillian.A fight to the death.
That nightmare haunts me for hours upon hours, and I wake to a sitting position, my breathing ragged. My gaze sweeps around the room to find Toren nowhere in sight, my fingers curling around the blankets that have somehow found their way on top of me. Outside the window there is nothing but a thick heavy darkness, but for a splinter of sunlight promising a new day. My heart is racing and I have no idea why other than I feel as if time is sliding away, as if I’m supposed to be doing something other than sleeping. As if I’m about to lose everything and I have no idea how to stop it from happening.
