Page 57 of House of Crimson Hearts
In blood.
In bonds.
In life.
And law.
We’re connected in the most intimate way, our life-forces united. The smell of us is euphoric. It peels off her arms and chest like perfume and fills my nose like a drug.
Shit. I can’t leave her now. I don’t want to.
She ismine.
My thighs burn with the speed at which I’m sprinting through the territory. Her fingers wind through my hair, she tilts my head towards her. No. I cannot do this. I will not.
I need to get away from her. I can’t trap her like this it’s not fair. She doesn’t understand what she’s asking of me.
Finally, finally, when I can’t take the scent of us mingled together for another second, I burst through the castle doors. I race across the ground floor and up to my private wing.
That was my second mistake. I should have dropped her in the guest quarters and fled to my wing. I just needed her off me, away from me. So I could set her free.
I need you to believe me when I tell you that I tried. But blood lust already had its claws in me. I thought I was doing the right thing taking her to a place to fully recover.
But I failed her. The urge to take her, make her mine, too much.
I could smell my scent all over her. She smelled like my domain. Shit. I drop her in my master bathroom and push her, fully clothed, into the shower.
I flick on the showerhead and warm water streams out. I plead with it to wash away the scent.
It doesn’t.
I was too late.
The scent of her, of me, pools inside the shower, mixing with the steam. Cloying in the air as a smoky euphoria.
She is already mine. The shape of us hardens inside me, the bond blooming in my heart. I was never going to let her go. I owned her now. And much as I didn’t want to admit it, she owned me.
Her lips part. “I’m going to take my clothes off now,” she says as she pulls the remnants of her top off, letting it drop and splash in the basin of the shower.
Her skin is so pale compared to the tanned olive of mine. Blood streams down her stomach, a faint silver line dividing her stomach the way it’s divided our lives. Before tonight and after.
“We shouldn’t do this,” I say, unable to peel my eyes away from the hard plains of her abdomen.
“I want to,” she breathes.
“It’s not real, it’s blood lust.”
“Never heard of it.”
“Probably because you’ve only witnessed humans drinking from common vampires. If you feed from me, or any of the original three or our direct sires, like Dahlia and Xavier who mother turned, then it does something else to you. It…”
“Arouses us?”
I nod.
“Well, Princess,” she says, a commanding tone running through her voice. “You’re the one who fed me, so I guess you better get on your knees and do something about it…”
She unbuckles her trousers, her eyes never leaving mine. And that, in itself is a drug. To have someone look at me. Really, truly, stare in my eyes and not hate me, or fear me, or want to flee from me.
