Page 54 of Veradel
“Is this how you treat the people you love?” I tease, trying to coax a smile onto her face.
We only had a few hours of sleep before the birds started their morning chirps outside our window, so dark circles haunt her undereyes… although that might be from the dead Chosen One, too. Myown chest is a raging battle, rage over what the Guardians did clashing against the flurry her words created last night, my heart trying to hammer itself out of my skin to get to her.
Shelovesme. She lovesme.If making this antivenom wasn’t so pressing…
Saskia rolls her eyes with the faintest smile lifting the corner of her mouth and glances at the syringe already laying on the counter. Taika, however, shakes his head.
“You need to bite him again so we can take advantage of the immediate immune response.”
Saskia stiffens, her gaze switching longingly to my neck, but she makes no move toward me or my endless supply of lycanthrope blood.
I narrow my eyes before I tip my chin up. “My blood is yours. For the rest of our lives, I want the privilege of keeping you alive.” I’m already half-hard thinking about her fangs piercing my skin. “Oh, not to mention that there’s zero fucking chance of me not contributing to bringing down the Wall—so bite me, little nightmare.”
She doesn’t need to be told again. As Taika turns away to busy himself with preparing the needle, she slinks onto my lap, the delicious pressure of her thighs clamped tight against my hips.
This time it’s slow. Methodical. Her palms skate up my chest, and even though they’re technically cold, the contact leaves me electrified. My hands wrap around her hips, trying to pull her even closer.
Those two sharp pricks against my neck sting so good that I have to repress a moan. Hers vibrates against my skin like a whisper.
I know she can feel just how much I like this, and there should be no doubt left in her mind about whether or not she’s causing me pain. There’s no denying how intimate it is, but we’re both restraining ourselves for Taika’s sake.
Too soon, she pulls away, standing up. The absence of her body leaves me even colder than before.
“Was that enough?” she asks Taika, licking her blood-stained lips.
Myblood.
“It should be,” he replies, interrupting my wandering lewd thoughts with a long needle that he holds up in front of his face. “Which arm would you prefer?”
I debate rolling up my sleeves before shrugging and just yanking off my shirt entirely. Then I plunk my left arm down on the table before Taikaconnects a thin rubber hose to the needle and then some sort of vial onto the end of it.
“Big breath,” he says gently. “This might hurt a little.”
“I’m not afraid of a little nee—OW! Dammit, doc.”
He shoots me an apologetic eyebrow twitch and mutters, “It’s just a blown vein. Haven’t done this in a while.”
“It can’t be any worse than my bite,” Saskia offers, sliding her hand over mine.
My blood slithers up the hose like a bright red snake and fills the collection tube within seconds. Taika pops the full one off and replaces it with another.
“Your bite means your mouth is on me,which is all I can ever ask for,” I tell Saskia as Taika keeps his rhythm, filling three more vials, one after the other. “This is a cold piece of metal in my vein.”
“Not anymore.” Taika eases the needle out, a bruise already forming—and already healing—where he punctured me. “You’re all done. Now, Saskia and I will centrifuge it, and your plasma will rise to the top, where we can extract it.”
The words sound like a foreign language, but I trust he knows what he’s talking about. “And what doIneed to do?”
Taika and Saskia share an amused moment before he shrugs. “Go away so Saskia can focus. You’re distracting her.”
My eyes find Saskia’s, and I want to bask in the hint of pink warming her cheeks. She’s trying not to look at my abs, I realize. Or the bulging muscles in my arms. Or my pecs.
“Fine,” I say, trying not to let my smirk touch my lips. “I’ll leave.”
But not before I rise to my feet, slide my hand around Saskia’s throat, and kiss her over her slow, steady pulse that picks up ever so slightly at my touch.
Satisfied, I stride out the door and step outside, where the pack all scrambles to their feet, like they’ve been waiting for me on the front lawn. Which, I guess, they have.
Gabriel steps forward with an exasperated sigh. “Well? Does it work?”
