Chapter 72
Valen
I vaulted down the stairs of the secret passage that led from my cave, Belle cradled in my arms. Pain shot through my leg with every step, but it was nothing compared to the guilt and anger that burned through me.
She nuzzled her cheek into my chest, wincing from the movement and letting out a soft whimper. The matted blood on her thigh had woven itself into her scent—honey and jasmine laced with copper—but I could take no pleasure in it.
This was my fault. Every wound she’d suffered, every scar she’d carry—my fucking fault.
“Easy, princess. Try not to move.” My voice came out raw.
Her breaths were uneven, and if they grew any shallower, I’d have to convince her to drink my blood. The fact that I hadn’t already forced it upon her was a godsdamned miracle.
“Why do I hurt so much?” she whispered.
Because I was a damned bastard.
“Some of your ribs may be broken. A bullet grazed your leg. I’m going to take care of you.”
My jaw popped under the strain of clenching my teeth. I should’ve brought her back to the castle the moment she’d removed the bolt from my leg. Instead, I’d used her to murder Sarkis’s army, and it had broken her.
I’d broken her.
As soon as I reached the secret door to my quarters, I kicked it open, snarling as pain shot along my fractured leg.
“You’re hurt,” Belle murmured. “Put me down.”
“I’m fine, princess. It’s healing.”
She was in agony, and yet she was worried about me. I deserved the pain that every step earned. Welcomed it.
When we reached my bedchamber, I set her down carefully, my hands ready to catch her if she collapsed. I knelt and gently touched her thigh where her blood had soaked her pants, and she winced.
They’d shot my princess.
My hands shook. I would’ve slaughtered every surviving soldier, but I couldn’t leave her, not like this.
“The bullet grazed your leg. There’s nothing to remove.” I began unbuttoning her jacket, slowly and carefully, watching for any sign of discomfort. I gently eased it off her shoulders, then let my fingers hover over her ribs. “May I look?”
She nodded, and her gaze dropped to my bare chest. I’d jumped off the balcony when I’d shifted, and I’d only taken the time to pull on the pants in the cave.
Focus.
I gently loosened the laces of her leather bodice, my hand pausing before I lifted the hem of her shirt over her waist. My breaths grew shallow at the blue and purple bruises that spread across her ribcage.
Her magic had nearly torn her apart, and I’d let it happen. I forced myself to look at what I’d done—to burn it into my mind forever.
“I’m sorry. This is all my fault.”
“It’s not—” A wheeze cut off her words, and she pressed her eyes closed, pain shadowing her delicate features.
It was the worst kind of torture. My jaw ached from clenching.
She needed my blood, no matter how much she despised it.
She’d fight me, but I couldn’t stand by and watch her suffer.
The worst part—the part that made me a monster—was that I wanted to force her.
To press my wrist to her lips and hold her there until every bruise faded.
I wouldn’t. But gods, I wanted to.
I rose, teeth clenched. “I’ll send for poppy juice and valerian, along with a healer.”
“No.” She grasped my arm, wincing from the movement. “I’m not going to spend a week sedated in a poppy haze. There’s too much to do, too little time to break the curse.”
“The hell with the curse,” I ground out. “You are more important.”
Her eyes widened at the force of my words, and something raw moved through them. Then they hardened to shimmering amethyst. “Our time is running out.”
My shoulders knotted. She couldn’t possibly know how close I was to losing myself forever, could she? I’d never told her about the black scales.
Each was another tick of the clock.
It didn’t matter. Right now, all that mattered was her. “I can’t bear to see you like this, broken and hurting. I’m calling the healer.”
I rose, but her hand tightened on my arm. “There’s another way.” Her voice was barely a whisper.
Apprehension crept into her cheeks, and my pulse ratcheted. I kept my voice steady and as cold as I could. “What are you asking?”
“Give me your blood.”
Bloody hell.
I could taste her fear and doubt. And beneath it—desire. Need. Heat blazed through me, but I forced my breathing to slow. “Are you certain you want this?”
“I am.”
I lifted her chin, looking her in the eyes. “You’ll need to drink more blood this time, and that will come with consequences. I’ll be able to sense you more easily. Find you wherever you go. There will be no escaping me.”
The sick truth was, my blood or not, she would never escape me. I could never let her go.
Her lips pulled into a weary smile that barely reached her eyes. “That doesn’t sound much different from the way things are.”
“It’s very different,” I growled. “I will be inside you forever. You will be mine.”
“I thought I already was.”
Hearing those words from her lips made me want things I shouldn’t want, couldn’t have. “Be careful what you say.”
Even if we managed to somehow break the curse in time, she’d see my true self one day: a broken and miserable bastard. A woman like her deserved far better—and yet, I would claim her if she gave me the chance. Because I was selfish. A tyrant. A monster, uncontrollably obsessed.
“I want this, Valen. I need your blood.” She rolled her lip between her teeth. It was like a lightning bolt, and I cursed the gods for bringing such a sweet thing like her to me.
“Fuck, princess, you can have all of it.” I drove my fangs into my wrist, the last shreds of restraint I possessed crumbling away.
I was already rock hard, and it was going to be a damned struggle to keep my hands off her. The fact that I could even think of such things when she was in agony proved what a sick bastard I was.
She gently took my wrist and pulled it to her, then pressed her unbearably soft lips over the crimson trails of blood. Her eyes locked on mine. Then she drew my life force into her mouth, and my cock ached with need.
What would it be like to drink from her? Would she ease my hunger or stoke it further?
She would destroy me.
I had to stop this madness. This wasn’t the time for my selfish, twisted fantasies. I was healing her wounds that my failures had caused—and that was all.
Yet I could think of nothing but the wet sound of her lips moving against me as she drank me in, the way her throat worked with each swallow, the way her jasmine scent bloomed as her blood mingled with mine.
I needed to taste her. To be inside her.
To have her every way imaginable, even if it would never be enough.
Because with her, I knew it never would be enough.
I forced myself to look anywhere but at her crimson lips. Her skin had grown radiant as the bruises faded, and the bullet wound on her thigh had stitched together. It was working.
She’d had enough. I should’ve stopped her, but I didn’t.
I let her drink, savoring every second. My living blood coursed through her veins, calling to me with a beat that wasn’t my own. Much longer, and I would lose all control. She moaned against my skin, like my blood was nectar, as if she yearned for me as much as I did her.
Impossible. That was nothing but a delusion.
When she looked up at me with those doe eyes, my throat tightened with shame. She was so innocent, and I would do nothing but taint her with my dark desires.
“That’s enough,” I said roughly, pulling my wrist away. The bastard in me wanted to lie to her, to tell her to drink so deeply that my blood would infiltrate every last inch of her, but I couldn’t.
“I need more,” she said, her breaths heavy as she reached for me.
“You don’t.” I held her back with my free hand as the wounds on my wrist healed. Disappointment flared in those pretty lavender eyes.
My restraint was frayed, and the sight of my blood staining her beautiful lips was more than I could take. “I should go.”
But I couldn’t. I didn’t even step away. I was rooted in place, ensnared by this intoxicating woman.
“Please stay,” she whispered.
Her scent had changed—the honey now molten, thick enough to taste, the jasmine deepening into something heady and full.
My hands curled into fists as every fiber in me hummed. I didn’t know how long I’d be able to resist her. “That’s a bad idea, princess. Right now, I want you as fiercely as you crave my blood, and if I don’t leave…”
The words died in my throat as my hungry gaze dropped to the swell of her breast, the memory of kissing her in the garden, her soft moans. My voice was thick with a need that I had no right entertaining.
“You will what?” she asked.
Her luscious scent clung to me, her heat blazing across the inches that separated us. Every muscle locked, ready to obey her every demand, but I couldn’t bring myself to speak.
“I think you want to stay,” she said breathlessly. “But you’re afraid.”
“Afraid?” I arched one eyebrow at her. “I’m the dragon king.”
“Afraid that you’ll hurt me, that I’ll blame you, that I don’t really want this.” Her tone was thick with need, absent of all traces of pain. “I do want this. I want you.”
I reached up and dragged my knuckles along her jawline. “You don’t.”
She couldn’t possibly want me. I didn’t deserve her.
She gripped my hand. “You don’t know what I need or want. I make my choices, not you, your highness.”
She was irresistible in her defiance, so damned fierce, so relentless.
And the gods only knew I was weak.
I pulled her closer, my breath warm against her ear. “You certain you want to entertain my wicked desires?”
She looked up with eyes that threatened to take my soul. “Tell me them all.”