My Blood Is Yours (The Summoning #1)

Please don’t be mad

PLEASE DON’T BE MAD

HERE’S THE FIRST COUPLE CHAPTERS OF MOTH & FLAME TO EASE YOUR PAIN (FROM THAT CLIFFHANGER) + A BUNCH OF OTHER STUFF AFTERWARDS

MOTH & FLAME | HELLA | SIX MONTHS AGO

My fiancé’s cock pulses inside me as we drink from one another’s veins. If it weren’t for our Sanguinati venom, I wouldn’t be able to achieve orgasm. Even as I do, it feels less like an orgasm and more like the sad flutter of a once-proud flag, now tattered and torn.

Love is for the poor because they have nothing else to live for.

My mother repeats those words to me every time I plead with her and my father not to force me into a loveless marriage with Alister.

To them, marriage is about strengthening allies, bloodlines, and fortunes– not love.

After a myriad of threats and curses sworn by my parents, our entire family, the entirety of the Blackspire Blood Vaults board, and seven months of procrastinating and desperately trying to escape my fate, I finally succumbed to the inevitable and accepted the engagement proposal to the so-called charming and charismatic Sanguinati male currently sliding his still-hard cock out of me.

I hadn’t had high hopes, considering his family is notorious for their unsavory methods of conducting business, but they are wealthy and powerful, much like my own family—which is all that seemed to matter to them. Our engagement won’t be publicly announced, nor our marriage, to assure my safety. My fiancé and his family have many enemies, and if they know who I am, it puts a target on my back.

As Alister’s eyes lift to mine, there’s no warmth or sign of the charm he so generously bestows on others. I’ve given him what he wants.

Blood.

And every time I give Alister my blood and my body, I feel less and less like myself. Like he takes a part of my soul with him every time he fills me with his cum and then silently leaves. Thankfully, I won’t have to see him again until tomorrow morning. If I’m really lucky, not even until the following day because he’ll be too busy with his morally depraved clients and distracted by his harem of mistresses.

Skin crawling with the need to rid myself of his essence, I wipe between my legs with a soiled sheet and lie in bed, waiting for him to shower and leave for work. With my eyes steady on the clock, time moves at a glacial pace. When the bedroom door shuts, announcing his departure, a heavy sigh escapes me. I finally rise out of bed, able to dress in peace without the weight of his soul-crushing presence.

Every day, my driver takes the same route to my office. As usual, numbness suffuses me as I stare out at the pristine steel, stone, and glass architecture that define our crowded, lonely city.

The singular bright spot amongst a palate of grey is the luminous, flame-filled glass sign reading Moth & Flame, framed by elegantly sculpted stone and opaque, mirrored windows. As ever, something inside me stirs at the sight of it, even with its foreboding wrought-iron doors.

When it first opened, only a handful of months ago, I’d searched on Spyder’s Web to discover it’s a kink house . Essentially, anyone over the age of two decades can show up and be manually stimulated by someone who will act out their kinks.

It’s a rather ingenious idea. I imagine it saves many individuals from sexual repression and aggression, not to mention bringing fulfillment and intimate connection to the otherwise lonely populace of Dreadmere, Gothika’s capital city.

Since I first laid eyes on it, I’ve secretly longed to go there—if only to meet its owner, Draven Morainu. Shrouded in mystery, not a single one of the detectives I hired could uncover anything about him. Eventually, I resorted to utilizing the only colleague my fiancé has ever introduced me to—Lazarus, Gothika’s most nefarious crime lord, renowned for knowing everyone and everything about them—to help me find out who owns Moth & Flame and uncover any other gems he could find.

In the span of a single breath, I discovered Draven Morainu is a retired Reaper–one of the elite within the Blackspire Empire’s special forces division–and an exceedingly rare being: Nykanthros .

One who wields shadows and possesses a bestial form. According to Lazarus, in Draven’s case, his bestial form is some kind of monstrous Lykos creature that looks half-fae, half-giant wolf.

Lazarus grinned when he mentioned something about him being a little older. I recently faced my hundredth year, age is just a blur after that.

Now, I imagine you’re asking, “Isn’t that mildly unsettling, stalker-ish behavior?”

Without a doubt.

Do I care?

Not in the least.

Was it dangerous and reckless to visit the lair of Lazarus himself?

Abso-fucking-lutely.

Do I now owe him a favor because he refused my money?

Yes.

Am I terrified of when and what that favour will be?

Also, yes.

Was it worth it?

Fuck, yes.

My face is rather recognizable, and if anyone were to catch me patronizing a kink house , I’d probably be flayed by family, ostracized by the public, to then be brutally murdered by my horrid fiancé. Not because he gives a batty fuck about who I have sex with or who manually stimulates me , but purely because one of the few things he actually cares about is public perception.

Akash forbid I seek pleasure from anyone but him when he spends every evening glutting himself and his cock on his mistresses. A fact for which I am supremely grateful, as it allows me a brief reprieve.

So, in the shadows, I shall remain, admiring Mr. Morainu from afar.

My heart withers at the thought.