Chapter 43
Belle
I straightened my spine and winced, my body protesting. Still, I managed to glare at the king. His clothes were torn, his arm and thigh bleeding, and he’d nearly had his skull crushed, yet he was worried about me. It made no sense whatsoever.
Neither did staying out here any longer.
As much as I wanted to bring down a bloodgolt, I’d been hurt worse than I’d admitted.
Pain arced up my arm, and my shoulder screamed.
I’d been lucky the blow hadn’t left me paralyzed, though the frozen ground hadn’t done me any favors.
Every part of me hurt—just some worse than others.
I glanced mournfully at the broken handle of my father’s hunting knife lying a few feet away, coated in blood. The blade was probably still in the bastard boar.
Temptation tugged at me. The wounded bloodgolt would be easy to track. If I had a clean shot—
“I can see what you’re thinking,” Valen all but growled. “It’s not happening.”
He frowned and reached for me—an excruciating sting shot along my wrist and up my forearm, pulling a gasp from my throat.
“What’s wrong with your hand?” His jaw was set so hard, I feared his teeth might crack.
“I must’ve hurt it when I landed.” I gingerly slid off my glove, revealing a screaming red bump on my palm.
Valen cursed and yanked his dagger free of its sheath. “You should look away. This is going to hurt.”
“What the hell are you doing?” I tried to pull my hand back in panic, but his hold was unbreakable.
“Look away, princess.”
There was something beneath the fury in his eyes that chilled me to the bone.
I looked away.
“The bloodgolt’s bristles are laced with poison,” Valen said, voice low and ominous. “Your gloves should’ve shielded you from it, but it looks like one of them slipped under the edge of the leather.”
“Do you hav—”
I screamed as his blade raked across my palm, and my arm jerked instinctively. His grip tightened like bands of iron, locking it in place.
His fingers dug into my flesh, and I felt something slide free. A scream tore from my throat as fire burned up my forearm. I twisted in his grasp, glimpsing the blood coating my arm, and I looked away, trying not to vomit.
His fingers pressed on my forearm, and I yelped.
“Does it hurt here as well?” He continued pressing further up, and when I nodded, he moved to my bicep.
Sweat slicked my brow, and my breaths came fast. “Yes, there, too.”
“Your kind are so fragile,” he growled, visibly upset about that fact, as if it were somehow my fault that I didn’t have immortal healing power.
“I’m not fragile,” I hissed.
He paused, meeting my eyes. “No. You’re not. That’s why you’re going to agree to what happens next.”
He lifted his wrist to his lips, his fangs sinking into his flesh.
I stared at the tinge of red on his lower lip in rising horror. “Absolutely not.”
“You need to drink.”
I shook my head, panic threading through me. “There must be a healer at the castle.”
“I’m not going to risk that. Right now, our time is measured in minutes, not hours.”
No. I’d sworn when I’d joined the resistance to never give into their kind, to never let them ensnare me like this.
“I know what happens when you drink an immortal’s blood, Valen. You lose yourself. They have a hold over you. I am not doing it. I’ll mend in your infirmary.”
“You won’t make it to the infirmary. The bloodgolt’s poison can kill one of the beasts—and princess, you’re no beast.”
“Please—”
“You will drink freely, or I’ll make you.” His voice was feral, ringing with anger and something else. Fear? Self-hatred?
I wanted to rage against him for taking this choice from me. It could be a trick to intoxicate me with his blood and turn me into his thrall, yet I saw no deception behind his mask. His face was drawn, his eyes filled with a darkness I’d never seen before. He was actually worried. For me.
The forest was beginning to waver and bend, and the throbbing in my arm had spread along my collarbone. I gritted my teeth against the growing pain. “If this is a trick, I promise I will kill you.”
“No trick, princess, but you’re welcome to try to murder me a dozen times if that’s what will convince you to drink.”
“Godsdamnit.” I lowered my mouth to his wrist and drew my tongue across the crimson rivulet.
The world shifted, everything coming into sudden focus. The scent of his blood and sweat was heady and irresistibly masculine. The air burned against my skin, and the shadows of the forest sharpened. My heart thundered as the poison ripped through me like wildfire.
“You’re going to have to taste more than that,” Valen murmured, his gaze fixed and unyielding. Heat and hunger blazed in his honey eyes. I should’ve been terrified. Instead, something wicked and wild awoke inside me.
Was he enjoying this? Of course he was.
“I really hate you right now.” I squeezed my eyes shut and brought his wrist to my mouth, this time letting my lips touch his skin. I sucked in, drawing his wicked life force into my mouth, and swallowed.
My body came alive in a way I had never imagined. Shivers chased my skin, and the pain radiating through my arm receded into nothing more than a pulsing throb compared to the heat burning through me.
I whimpered as unbidden desire built low inside. Hell. His blood didn’t just taste good. It was everything. I pressed my lips harder against his wrist, sucking hard, drawing him into my mouth. I wanted more. It was like I was floating away, leaving the person I was behind for the person I’d be.
“That’s enough, princess,” Valen said, his voice sharp and thick. “Stop.”
I didn’t. Couldn’t. His voice was like gravel against my hypersensitive skin, and a strange molten heat flared deep within my belly, burning away every pretense I’d built against him.
He tore his wrist from my grasp. “That’s enough.”
I threaded myself into his arms, pleading. “I need more—more than blood.”
“You don’t,” he growled deep and low. And yet his hands slid up my thighs until they were gripping my bottom and guiding my hips against his hardness. I gasped as he dipped his head to my neck, his mouth teasing the sensitive skin below my ear. “This is just my blood talking.”
Was it?
He peeled me off him and set me down. “You’re not thinking clearly, princess.”
I reached for him, but he pushed me back.
A distant part of me knew he was right, but in that moment, my need was greater. It was desperate and consuming, and I ceased to care about anything else. “I know you want me, Valen. This is it. This might be your only opportunity.”
There was no doubt about what he wanted. The hunger in his eyes. The way his hands had raked over me, the way his body awoke under my touch…why wouldn’t he give this to me?
He leaned close and brushed his fingers along my jaw, the sensation—somehow both rough and gentle—danced across my nerves in the most agonizing way. “Maybe, but I’ll take that chance, even if I come to regret it until my last dying breath.”
“Why?” I rasped.
His eyes dropped to my mouth and darkened. “Because I don’t just want a piece of you, princess. I want all of you. And neither you nor I am ready for that.”
The weight of his words broke through the haze, the truth in them pulling me back to reality.
I slowly retreated from him as if stirring from a fever dream. The effects of his blood still coursed inside me, but beneath the pulse of him was an undercurrent of fear. Not of him, but of myself. Of the impossible emotions I’d begun to feel for him.
No. Not that I felt—it was the effect of his blood. Nothing more. A delusion.
It had to be.
I cleared my throat, mortification burning through me. “Is this how it always is when you share your blood with someone?”
The king didn’t answer.
My spine stiffened. “What is it?”
The ghost of something crossed his face before he masked it with a wry grin.
“For someone who despises the ground I walk on, I’m surprised by the intensity of your reaction.
Usually, the craving is only that strong for someone who already wants to fuck me.
” He paused, his eyes searching mine. “Of course, that wouldn’t be possible now, would it? ”
My pulse drummed beneath my skin, the sensation heightened and unsettling. “No, it wouldn’t.”
His lips curved in a knowing smile, and I narrowed my eyes at him, wishing I could impale him with my knife—unfortunately, the blade was broken.
“What have you done to me?” I asked.
Though his gaze was dark and unyielding, there was a glint of amusement in it.
He stepped forward and dragged his thumb across the corner of my mouth, drawing up a smudge of blood, before slipping it between his lips.
“Only what I had to. Don’t worry, the side effects will wear off in a few hours, and you can go back to wanting me dead. ”
Three horns blared in the distance. The hunt was over.