Chapter 8
Aryana
Aryana’s body had been lit ablaze.
Shadows slithered over her, grazing her skin, lingering on her cheek, her throat, her thighs, with a relentless chilling insistence.
The raging inferno in her veins, a harsh contrast to the icy darkness against her flesh, made her writhe, her body begging for a release.
Zarathos’s fingers curled beneath her skirts. Ah, he wanted this too. She drank more, drawing the nectar over her tongue, swallowing it down. She needed him. Oh gods, she needed him like she’d never needed anything before in her entire existence.
Something was off with his blood. She could usually pull herself out of her haze and stop, but with Zarathos… With Zarathos, it felt so, so, so good. It was wrong. Something was wrong. And yet…
His fingers slipped closer to her center.
She dragged her hand over his sable chest, feeling every muscle, every spasm as her touch dipped inevitably lower. Now, she felt him straining against his trousers as she pulled the last button free.
Without a second thought, she reached in.
“Aryana,” Zarathos gasped. Light, clawed strokes scraped ever higher under her skirts, her core pulsing with a harsh anticipatory urgency that demanded gratification.
His bicep between her lips twitched as if he were about to retract it and she bit harder, taking more of his delectable essence inside of her.
Stop. I need to stop. I need to…
She moaned.
“Aran—”
Zarathos collapsed onto her.
Aryana gasped, jerking his arm away. When she sat up, the heat coursing through her cried out in dismay. She stared in amazement at the demon arch king slumped in her lap. She’d taken way too much.
Her body trembled at the intensity of the desire in her veins cooling. Maybe he’d recover, maybe—
She started to choke. She clutched at her throat, unable to breathe. What was happening? Vampires rarely choked or struggled to breathe, ever. Was his blood poisoning her?
But then she understood. She was dying because she was breaking their deal. Which meant Zarathos was dying. A dead demon arch king couldn’t win the Demon Trials.
He needed some of her blood.
She paled. This wasn’t allowed. Not on a harvest moon. The mating bond… darkness seeped into the corners of her vision. Damn it, she wouldn’t pass out.
She wheezed. If she didn’t do something, King Salen would find them in the morning completely lifeless.
His blood was in her veins. Would it revive him to feed it back to him? Enough time had passed that her body had added the rejuvenating effects of her vampire blood.
She had to hope it would work.
Not from her throat. No, that was much too obvious.
Zarathos lay in her lap, his hand already up her skirts, exposing her bare skin.
It was the fastest. She seized one of his clawed nails and suppressed a cry as she speared it into the sensitive flesh of her inner thigh, making her bleed.
She gripped his hair and hiked up her dress, shoving his face into that spot where the blood leaked, hoping it would be enough to revive him.
“Come on, Zarathos,” she gasped, as she swayed from side to side, fighting unconsciousness that would be their doom.
His tongue lapped against her thigh. It came out thin and pronged, unexpected, and wonderfully warm.
He grasped her leg and buried his face in her.
Shit, this actually felt good. She fell onto her hands and tipped back her head as her breathing began to clear and she could focus on the pleasure of him lapping up her blood.
But she couldn’t let this go forever. This time, she had to make sure that one of them had some sense of control.
As if he’d read her thoughts, Zarathos imbibed deeply from her veins, taking three long drags, his lips locked around her wound, and then drew away, swiping a hand over his face, clearing it of the lingering crimson.
A storm of panic filled his gaze as his eyes met hers. “Vampress. What the hell have you done?”