Desire in His Blood

She’d drawn the battle lines between us. But didn’t she understand? She would submit to me. Before I returned her, broken on her father’s doorstep, before I took everything else away. I would stop at nothing less.

My wings unfurled from behind me, and she froze when they wrapped around her hips and torso like a cocoon. To keep her still, to keep her from struggling away when she felt the prick of my bite. My wings wrapped around her like a vice, tightening, pressing her soft backside firmly into my front, making her huff out a panicked breath despite her bravado.

But I still wanted her to see. I still wanted her to watch what I was doing.

Our eyes met in the mirror as my head lowered to the column of her throat.

Her nostrils flared wide when my fangs pressed into the sensitive, heated skin. But she didn’t struggle. She didn’t move. If anything, her glare was a dare. A challenge.

Gemma made one desperate little sound as I broke her flesh with my bite.

A rough sound hummed from my chest as the taste of her blood exploded across my tongue. My venom unleashed, flooding into the wound as I drew out her blood.

On a particularly deep draw, ecstasy burst in my mind, momentarily stu

Gods. She tasted divine.

My claws bit into her flesh, dragging her closer, wrapping one arm beneath her breasts. Her scent lingered around us like a misty fog, delicious and perfect, almost as sublime as her taste. Rich and thick and hot, her blood spilled over my tongue, and I greedily drank down every last drop.

I need more, came the primal thought. My body was roaring to life. My strength was growing, my muscles expanding. A warning went off in the back of my mind.

Too close to the edge, it told me. Closer than you’ve ever been.

I pushed it away, shoving it back, even as my cock throbbed with the sudden overwhelming need of release. I ground into her soft backside, rutting against her like a mindless beast, getting lost in her scent even as I fed more. Harder. Longer. Deeper.

Then I heard a moan.

Small and stifled behind a bit lip. Her moan.

Reality froze my blood.

Understanding made me want to roar with resentment and rage.

No.

Why her?

Why now?

Gemma Hara, the daughter of my enemy, whose House I had vowed to destroy, whose will I was determined to break, was my kyrana.

My new bride was my blood mate.

Chapter 9

Gemma

I’d lied.

I was not my own.

Not right then.

I was his.

He controlled me.

He controlled everything.

I wanted to sob at the wrongness and the rightness of this unfathomable, taunting, drugging pleasure.

When I’d first felt the sharp prick of his fangs, I’d felt resigned. This was what I’d agreed to, was it not? This was the price for my family’s freedom. And I would pay it. A thousand times over.

Yet I’d also felt determined. Because I’d realized right then that Azur might be able to feed from me, he might be able to make me fear him, he might be able to keep me locked away for the rest of my natural life, but I was in control of my own thoughts.

It was my mind in which I would live. He could do whatever he pleased with my body and not even get close to touching me.

Azur wanted to break me?

He could try his hardest, but I refused to let him.

Only, at his first dizzying suck, I felt my body tingle and warm. Heat radiated out from his bite, the pinching prick of it already faded in my memory, giving way to something far, far more worrisome.

I panicked when the pleasure began to crest, sudden and alarming, making me gasp. I clawed at the strong, tight arm that was bracketed against my breasts, scratching and tugging, but I didn’t know if it was to keep him near or to warn him.

I could feel his warm tongue lapping at the bite. I could feel the sucking pull of his fangs, drawing my blood into his mouth. His wings were holding me in place, my body rendered powerless. Between my legs, I began to throb, flaring to life as my knees trembled.

A moan escaped my throat, unwanted but inevitable. I swore I could feel that mouth on every inch of my body, on my suddenly heavy breasts and tight, straining nipples, to my i

What is happening? I thought wildly, straining against him. I was aware of him in a way I hadn’t been before. The tease of his hair as it trailed over my shoulder. The hard press of his chest and ridges and valleys of carefully sculpted strength. His ragged breath and the sudden rocking of his body against mine. That was when I felt it…

The unmistakable massive length of his cock. Hard and fully erect.

My eyes widened. When he groaned against me, taking my blood deep, I went to my tiptoes, trying to keep his mouth on me, my head lolling, going dizzy.

I’m going to come, I thought desperately.

I needed to!

Biting my lip, I moaned, feeling a familiar flutter between my legs. I didn’t care anymore. My thoughts and needs hinged on his fangs in my neck. Nothing else mattered.

So, so close!

Then Azur froze.

I felt every muscle in his body stiffen and tighten until he became a column of stone at my back.

Then before I could part my lips in protest, he was tearing away from me.

I nearly cried out in frustration in my dazed state. My neck felt empty where his fangs should have been imbedded deep. I was shaking with my need to orgasm and suddenly so angry with him for denying me that once-in-a-lifetime kind of pleasure. Because I knew, undoubtedly, that was what it would’ve been.

Then I remembered myself.

When I did, I gasped.

When the reality of our situation crashed onto me like a pile of bricks, I felt deeply, deeply ashamed. Mortified. Disgusted.

My knees gave out from underneath me, and I tumbled to the soft rug that covered the stone floor, sitting splayed. I stared up at Azur in shock and disbelief, even as arousal still coursed through my body, even as my blood sang from his bite. Pressing the pads of my fingers hard into the twin wounds near my jugular, I focused on evening my breaths.

Never in a million years had I expected this from a Kylorr’s feeding, I thought quietly.

I almost laughed. Maybe it was their best kept secret. Maybe it was intentionally done.

Azur’s shoulders were heaving as he stared down at me. His eyes were glowing red. Like rubies in the darkness, illuminated like a blaze. And…had he grown? He filled more of the room, which seemed to have shrunk three sizes.

I watched as a tiny drop of my blood, red like his eyes, rolled off one of his ivory fangs. He caught it with the pad of his thumb, sucking it cleanly off as I sat, shivering, waiting.

The tension in the room was thick. So thick I could barely breathe. Like heavy heat during summer in the Collis.

I expected panic to rear its head after the embarrassment.

Strangely enough, I began to feel calm.

Maybe it’s from the blood loss, I thought. He’d fed from me hard.

Swallowing, I lowered my hand from the bite mark and pushed up to my knees. Azur watched me, tracking my every movement. The longer he stared, the harder and colder his face became.

But something was changed.

Azur was looking at me.