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‘Well, don’t look at me,’ I snapped, ‘I had my own problems, if you remember.’
‘Had your scent not engulfed me, I would have known they were there.’ He ran a fingertip over my injured shoulder. ‘Was I supposed to come into the park with you?’ His touch skimmed down my damaged arm. ‘Would you have stood back while they attacked me? Would you have watched, and applauded? Was that why they had to improvise?’
‘Ri-ight, just because a fae tries to reshape your thick head, you think I’ve set you up!’ I snorted. ‘Well, if we’re talking stupid ideas, what about the revenants? You just said they could only be made by a vampire, so maybe you made them. ’Cause there’s no way I’ve got anything to do with any vampire.’
‘But you dohave something to do with a vampire, do you not, Genevieve?’ His hand circled my left wrist, turned my palm up.
Pain raced up my arm like wildfire and I screamed before I could stop myself. He touched a finger to my palm and the agony was gone, snuffed out like a light.
‘See how your body responds to me.’ His voice held sorrow.
Another touch, and the pain burnt through my shoulder again—only I couldn’t scream; he wouldn’t let me. All I could do was stare at him wide-eyed, my heart pounding under my ribs.
Then the pain was gone again and I sagged in relief.
‘You will not struggle.’ The words were an order. ‘Else I will be forced to return the pain. Do you understand?’
‘I get that you’re into torture,’ I ground out.
‘No, I am not.’ He gave a resigned sigh. ‘But I am also not squeamish.’
‘Fuck you.’
‘Maybe later.’ Mocking amusement lit his face. ‘But first, we will settle this matter between us?’ He made it a question.
Like I had any choice ... I nodded.
‘Last night, outside the police station.’ Malik stroked my palm. ‘I was surprised at how easy it was to enter your mind and influence your body with my thoughts. Why, I wondered, was that?’ He glanced down at my open hand. ‘You even offered me your blood, almost without demur. It was unexpected, especially for a sidhe.’ Blood blossomed, four bright half-moons across my palm.
The sight was just as terrifying as it had been the first time.
But even more terrifying was the lack of those hazy feelings; I didn’t feel that desperate need to give Malik whatever he wanted, and I realised just how much he had been playing with my mind, right from the first.
Now he was playing with my body, leaving my mind my own.
He stretched out my arm, brought my hand to his mouth, and I knew it should hurt; I could almost hear the bones grating against each other where they were broken. But I could feel nothing other than his cool breath over my skin, his tongue warm on my palm.
I stared, unable to deny the fluttering in my belly, cursing myself that I could still want him.
‘But your blood has already told me who your Master is.’ He sank his fangs into the mound at the base of my thumb, and a shudder rippled through his body.
The sharp sting spiked low inside me, making me gasp with pleasure.
‘ The taste of you was of her,’ his voice whispered through my mind .‘ Only I would not believe it.’
‘I have no Master,’ I hissed through clenched teeth.
He lifted his head and sighed, sounding both sad and threatening. ‘She is not strong enough to Bond with such as you, so I imagined I was mistaken.’ A pinprick of red glowed in his pupils. ‘Only then I found her, and the demon inhabiting her body, trading in her soul.’ Keeping his eyes on mine, he fastened his mouth again over the bite on my hand. ‘ Her taste was of you.’
Heat sparked between my legs and I dropped my head to my knees, trying to ignore it, trying not to hear the soft sounds of his feeding. His fingers tangled in my hair and he lifted my unresisting head. ‘And when she plunged her knife towards my heart’—he took my other hand, pressed, it to the pink starburst scar under his ribs—‘I understood.’
Images and words from the night before slipped like a slide-show into my mind. His insistence that I was Rosa, the pleasure of his bite, the terror that he would kill me, my Alter Vamp stabbing him, the memory of him callingme, callingto my blood.
‘No,’ I whispered, my mouth dry. ‘I have no Master.’
A bleak expression crossed his face. ‘To take you as her Bond, to join with you, is worthy revenge.’ He kissed his lips to mine and I tasted my own honeyed blood. ‘She knew how much I coveted you,’ he murmured, ‘but to allow a demon to use her soul is something I can not allow.’ His mouth brushed against my ear. ‘You shall give her a message from me. It is the only reason I do not kill you.’ His words made me tremble.
I saw myself reflected in his obsidian eyes, but I skated as though on black ice, fearful of what might be hidden in their depths. ‘I. Have. No. Master.’
He smiled. And my fear dissipated as liquid warmth pooled inside me.
Smiling back at him, I touched my fingers to his perfect pretty face.
He sat and stretched his legs out. ‘I carry the True Gift, Genevieve.’ He threw back his head, exposing his neck, and drew his thumbnail down the side of his throat. Thick claret-coloured blood seeped from the slash and my pulse beat eager and fast.
His beautiful face filled with peace as he pressed a fingertip into the wound. The trickle ran faster, to pool in the hollow at his throat. ‘The blood is strong here, nearer the heart.’ He reached out, traced a cool, wet line down my jaw. Tilting my face, I nuzzled into his palm, darting my tongue out to taste. He slid a hand round my neck, his thumb stroking over the pulse thudding in my throat.
‘Come. I freely offer you my blood.’
I rested my hand on his chest. His flesh was cold and still. Unease rippled through me, then it was gone. I leaned over him, inhaled the copper and liquorice and sweet Turkish delight of his blood and underneath, a rich, dark spice that was all him.
Shivers pricked over my skin.
The pressure of his hand on my neck increased, pulling me closer.
I looked up. His eyes were black pools, tiny flames flaring in their pupils. Fear made my mouth dry, tightened my stomach.
Come, so I may offer you healing, his voice whispered in my mind.
Need swept through me and I touched my lips to his blood, its rich tang sparking against my tongue. I covered the slash with my mouth and sucked. The glorious nectar slipped cold down my throat, spreading a dazzling chill that frosted over the jagged edges of my pain and burnt it away.
‘Enough,’ he murmured, hands clasping my head, pushing me away.
Desperate, I sucked harder, teeth biting into his skin, fingers digging into his flesh.
‘Genevieve, it is enough,’ he ordered. ‘You will stop.’
No, not enough. Never enough.The thought scattered his hold on my mind with glittering light and Glamour burst golden. I melted into him, not caring where I ended and he began, wanting more, needing more, taking more—
He shuddered beneath me, the sudden beat of his heart thudding against my breast, a promise of more to come. I lifted my head, spilling my magic over and around him. It was too long since I’d taken the pleasure it wanted. He rolled us until he was staring down at me from above, his hands capturing my wrists beneath my back, his fingers pinching into my skin. Lust and magic fizzed in my veins, demand throbbed hot and wet between my legs. Flames burned deep in the black of his eyes and his lips pulled back from needle-sharp fangs. Through the material that separated us, I felt him pressed against me, hard and ready.
‘I am no human or newly Gifted vampire to be caught in your magic, Genevieve.’
‘And I am sidhe, and you can’t hold me with yours, Malik.’ I paused on the edge of the precipice, knowing I wouldn’t stop him, that I didn’t want to, even as a sliver of terror sliced into my gut. Who would be the master, who the slave? Or would we be neither?