Desire in His Blood

Dragging in a deep breath, I slumped down onto a chaise lounge, plush and draped in black velvet. The whole room was appointed with expensive furnishings—including the largest bed I’d ever seen on a space cruiser, a glistening bar cart of multicolored liquors in various crystal decanters, and a complete Halo system installed into one of the wall panels. There was a second door that I assumed led to the washroom. And behind the bar cart, there were floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out into open space, dark and starry, where the ship was docked in a private bay.

Not even as soon as I got my bearings in the room, a gentle hum sounded and we pushed off from the docking port, the launch sequence seamless.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I clenched my fists in my dress, feeling my thumb throb. When I opened my eyes, I saw the dried stain of my blood, dark red against white cloth.

I thought of his voice, soft like smoke but as unyielding as stone. It was my fear that this was his room, his private quarters. When my gaze flitted to the bed, I stood and walked to the Halo panel. I tapped on the setting to darken the windows and to project the mountains of the Collis instead.

Home.

Not anymore.

I felt a breeze across my face as the Halo panel adjusted the temperature in the quarters to that of our province. I heard bird songs, bright and melodious. I smelled the pine trees after a rain. Instead of the darkness of space, I spied the peak of Mount Hara. I was transported home for a brief moment of time.

But instead of peace, all I felt was crippling worry. Worry that my father wouldn’t keep his word. Worry for my sisters. Worry that I would never see them again. Or Fran.

Instead of the bed, I curled up on the chaise. Lying on my side, I felt velvet tickle my cheek and I thought of the red glare of my husband, thought of the sound of his wings and the whisper of the blade across his palm, the slice blooming black.

With Mount Hara in my sights, we set course for Kry

For three days, I waited.

My trunks were returned to me on the night of the first day, and I could finally change out of my bloodied wedding dress. I pressed my face into the textures of my clothes, breathing in the soap Fran used to wash our laundry and feeling my throat go tight with grief.

On the second day of our journey, I spent it mostly curled up on the chaise lounge. Rivin locked the door whenever he came to drop off my meals—three a day. All were travel rations, dried chunky bars of high-calorie meals. His lips seemed to press tighter and tighter with every single one he delivered to me, and I wondered about that.

The second night, I decided to help myself to the bar cart, wrinkling my nose at the whiskey and going instead for the blue liquor of Bavian slew. It reminded me of the blue salt caverns, and I downed the first glass like a shot, the taste pleasantly sweet but tart.

It didn’t take much to get me drunk—I never drank, after all, leaving that particular habit to my father—weaving around my new prison, my head light, giggling like a loon.

The third day, I woke with a pounding headache and so incredibly nauseous that I slept as much as I could. The bed was still made. My meals were untouched. I never cried. Not a single tear, though inside, I felt shriveled and defeated.

When I woke next, I saw him.

With a gasp, I shot straight up from the chaise lounge, highly aware that my dress had bunched up during my fitful sleep and I had a sour taste of slew on my tongue.

Azur’s red gaze dipped to my bared legs, and I hurriedly tugged the material down, rising on shaking knees to stand before him. He had his arms crossed over his chest, leaning against the wall next to where I’d been sleeping.

How long has he been watching me? I thought, panic rising in my throat.

He was wearing a deep green tunic—the color of our dark pine forests in the Collis—that molded to his chest, highlighting ridges and valleys of sculpted muscle. His pants were black, his dagger present at the belt on his waist. He wasn’t wearing his gauntlets, revealing veined hands with long, strong fingers and surprisingly neat and shorn black claws.

He was studying me quietly, those eyes narrowed on me, his chin tilted down. Like a predator with prey, that gaze tracked my every movement. My every breath. My every fidget. And so I forced myself to be still.

Azur flashed his fangs at me when I held my breath—thinking it likely he could hear my thunderous heart—and I couldn’t contain my flinch.

“Gemma of House Hara,” he rumbled, the words drawn out. Mocking though soft. “Daughter of the Collis. I must admit, I expected more from such a noble house.”

I wasn’t surprised at the level of indignation that rose in my breast, even as nausea roiled in my belly.

The sharp words left my lips. I even smiled at him as I noted, “Yet you paid for me. You paid whatever I asked. Whatever I wanted. You were desperate to have me.”

Those red eyes burned. His glare nearly withered me where I stood.

Perhaps my pride would be my undoing. Perhaps it would be a blessing. Perhaps that berserker beast in him could be triggered. Perhaps my death would be quick, a flash of a blade, instead of the slow drain from his feedings. Because thinking of him taking my blood, knowing it would nourish him, strengthen him…it was sickening.

Azur pushed off the wall quicker than I could blink. Then he was leisurely circling me, once, twice, three times, like a beast about to pounce but not before making its prey fearful.

Chills ran down my arms when he stopped at my back, goose bumps rippling across my flesh. My heart felt like it was in the pit of my stomach. His scent drifted to me, a clean, woodsy musk like the silverdrops that bloomed only under a full moon in the Collis or of damp soil after a heavy rain.

His touch came, cool and unavoidable, oddly gentle. He swept my black hair over my right shoulder, baring my neck, his dull claws scraping over the column of it like a warning.

Azur gathered my hair in his large fist…

Then a ragged cry tore from my throat when he jerked my head back by my hair. Not hard enough to hurt but hard enough to make me claw at his forearms in panic and alarm. He pulled far enough that my back was arched, my neck completely exposed, my head craned back so I was forced to meet his eyes above me. To look up at him. To submit.

A vulnerable, uncomfortable position. One meant to make a point…that he owned me. That he had the strength to make me do whatever he wanted.

I dug my nails into his forearm, but he didn’t even flinch. I only dug harder, determined.

“Remember how you feel right now,” Azur murmured, his eyes trailing down the front of my body, catching on my heaving chest. “Remember the way your blood is rushing. How you’re desperate and squirming to get away from me. Remember this ache, little wife.”

There was a sting over my scalp as his grip tightened. A whimper escaped me, and I did the only thing I could of. He wanted me to submit to him? Never. Instead, I pressed my nails as deep into his forearm as I could and I clawed hard.

A hiss escaped him. Anger flashed and he pulled me closer. He bent over me. Roughly in my ear, he growled, “Because this is how you will feel every day for the rest of your life, Gemma of House Hara. I give you my word as a son of the Kaalium.”

His head lowered.

“No,” came the ragged plea when I felt the sharp press of his fangs against my neck. But I was powerless to stop it. I was completely exposed to him, made vulnerable and unprotected by his sheer strength.

His fangs pricked at my skin. His hot exhale of air against my jugular made my scalp tingle. He bit—but not hard enough to break my skin. It was a warning. There was only a sharp pressure, and then…