Page 7 of The Mafia Bloodline
And before I could move, before I could argue or even think of the bomb he just dropped, his mouth was on mine…searing, claiming, unstoppable. My thoughts shattered, the fight bled out of me, leaving only heat and fire and the terrifying truth that I didn’t want him to stop.
When his fangs pierced my skin, sharp pain lanced through me, but it melted instantly into something that stole my breath, a rush of heat flooding my veins, burning away everything but him.
His fangs slid free from my skin with a slow, deliberate drag that made my whole body shudder. My pulse thundered in my ears, my breath coming in uneven bursts. His mouth stayed at my throat, cool lips brushing the puncture marks as if sealing them shut.
“My name,” he murmured against my skin, the words a low vibration that rolled down my spine, “is Volken.”
The name landed like a strike in my chest, heavy and inevitable. Volken.It fit him. It was cold steel and night air and the dangerous quiet of a predator right before it lunges.
His thumb tilted my chin up, forcing me to meet his glacial eyes. “Now tell me yours,” he said softly, but there was no question in it. It was a command wrapped in velvet.
My lips parted, the word trembling out before I even realized I was speaking. “Runa.”
Something flickered in his eyes, it was dark, sharp, hungry as if my name wasn’t just a sound but a secret he’d been waiting to hear. “Runa,” he repeated, slow and reverent, like he was tasting it. “Mine.”
The word snapped through me again, sparking a heat low in my belly that had no business being there. My head spun, not just from the bite but from the impossible pull I felt toward him.
He was a vampire. A VAMPIRE. His fangs were still glinting faintly in the dim light, a predator’s mark, proof of everything I should have run from. And yet my body leaned toward him instead of away, my fingers itching to touch the lines of his face, to anchor myself in the cold strength of him.
What the hell is wrong with me? I thought, but even inside my own head the question rang hollow.
I’d just watched him move through shadows like he’d been carved out of them. I’d just felt his mouth on my throat. I should be terrified. Disgusted. I should be screaming.
But I wasn’t.
My pulse pounded in time with something heavier, something older, like his bite had woken something up in me I didn’t know existed. I was trembling, yes, but not with fear. With something reckless, dangerous. With want.
Volken’s hand slid up the back of my neck, his touch firm but not cruel, his eyes still on mine like he was reading every thought spilling through me. “I can feel it,” he murmured. “You’re fighting it, the bond between us, me. Don’t fight it, it’s pointless.”
“I…” My voice cracked. “I don’t even know what I’m feeling. I don’t know why…why I want…”
He leaned closer, his lips brushing the shell of my ear. “Because you’re mine now, Runa. And I’m yours. You don’t have to understand it yet.”
A shiver ran through me. My hands were still trembling, but I didn’t pull away. His words should’ve frightened me, but instead they sank deep, coiling like a secret I’d been waiting to hear my whole life.
And that terrified me more than anything.
Volken.
His name had my knees weakening, and as his arms locked around me, steady and unyielding, one thought drowned out everything else…I was his.
It wasn’t a choice. It wasn’t even a decision I could wrestle with. It slammed through me like a current, fire and ice twisting together in my veins, my pulse syncing to his in a rhythm I couldn’t escape.
Heat crawled over my skin, every nerve ending alive and sparking. My body felt alien and mine all at once, like I was being rewired from the inside. His gaze never left mine, and it wasn’t just a look, it was a tether, pulling, binding, sinking into places no chain ever could.
This must be the bond.
It was like I could feel him now, his hunger, his rage, his possessive fire curling around me. But threaded through it, terrifying and steady, was something else. Care. Safety.
The room blurred, my breath shallow, and when his mouth claimed mine again, the bond flared so violently I gasped against him. The kiss wasn’t soft, it was possession, his lips bruising mine, his tongue invading, taking. My legs buckled, but he caught me, his growl rumbling into my chest.
“Mine,” Volken rasped, the word vibrating against my lips. “And tonight, I show you exactly what that means.”
My protest died before it could form. My body leaned into him, desperate and traitorous, my heart slamming as if it already belonged to him.
He lifted me, carrying me with ease as though I weighed nothing, his mouth still devouring mine. When my back hit the bed, his weight followed, his hands already pulling at the clothes I’d worn, tearing at fabric with a ruthless impatience that had me gasping.
Every inch of me felt raw beneath his touch, like I’d been waiting for this moment without even knowing it.
