Chapter Sixteen #2
“But it also means I’ll take part of your life force. Every time I feed, it drains you a little. Too much, and it will kill you. And once the bond is that deep...” I open my eyes, meeting her gaze. “There’s no going back. You’ll be tied to me in ways that transcend death itself.”
She’s quiet for a long moment, processing. “Do it.”
“Tessa—”
“We might die tomorrow, Vex. Both of us. All of us.” Her hands fist in my shirt. “I don’t want to go into that fight with anything held back. No reservations. No what-ifs. If feeding from me gives us a better chance of surviving, then do it. Please.”
The please breaks me.
“Not here,” I say roughly. “Not in this room.”
“Your room?”
“Our room.”
The correction makes her smile, small and fragile, but real.
She takes my hand, and together we navigate through the clubhouse to the sanctuary of our shared space. The room still smells of us, her shampoo, my leather, the lingering ghost of past intimacy.
The moment the door closes, she’s on me.
Her mouth finds mine with desperate urgency, hands already pulling at my shirt. There’s no hesitation, no careful exploration. This is need stripped bare, ferocity wrapped in love, the knowledge we might not have another chance making every touch vital.
I walk her backward until her knees hit the bed, and we fall together in a tangle of limbs and shed clothing. Her skin is warm under my hands, alive, and I catalog every detail, the curve of her waist, the sharp inhale when my mouth finds her throat, the way her pulse jumps under my lips.
“I love you,” she gasps as I work my way down her body. “God, Vex, I love you so much—”
“I know.” My hands map her ribs, her stomach, the sensitive spot on her hip that makes her arch. “I know, because I can feel it. Every moment. Every heartbeat.”
When I finally settle between her thighs, she’s already trembling. I take my time, building her higher with tongue and fingers until she’s sobbing my name, hands fisted in my hair, body wound so tight she’s nearly vibrating.
“Now,” she begs. “Please, Vex, I need—”
I rise over her, and the look in her eyes steals whatever breath I have left. Trust and desire and love so fierce it manifests through the bond as physical sensation, wrapping around my ribs and squeezing.
When I push into her, we both go still.
The connection is overwhelming, not just physical, but emotional, spiritual, something beyond words. I can feel her pleasure as my own, feel the way every thrust sends sparks racing up her spine, feel the building pressure as she climbs higher and higher toward release.
“Bite me,” she whispers, tilting her head to expose her throat. “Take what you need.”
“Tessa—”
“I trust you.” Her hands frame my face, forcing me to meet her eyes. “I trust you not to take too much. I trust you to know when to stop. I trust us.”
The words shatter the last of my resistance.
My fangs extend, venom flooding my mouth, and I lower my head to the juncture of her neck and shoulder. Right over the mark. Right where the devourer has tried to claim her.
“Mine,” I growl against her skin.
“Yours,” she agrees.
I bite.
The first taste of her blood is revelation.
Not just sustenance, but something deeper, richer, more essential.
Power floods through me, her power, warden blood mixed with human resilience, seasoned with the strength she’s been building since the day we met.
It sings in my veins, sets every nerve ending on fire, and through the bond I feel her experiencing the same thing.
She’s taking from me too. Not blood, but essence. My strength, my speed, my centuries of survival instinct. The exchange is mutual, balanced, perfect.
The bond doesn’t just deepen, it transforms.
We’re no longer two separate beings connected by magic.
We’re something new, something forged in desperation and sealed in blood.
I can see through her eyes, feel through her skin, taste through her mouth.
She’s in my head and I’m in hers and the boundaries between us blur until I can’t tell where Vex ends and Tessa begins.
She comes with my fangs still buried in her throat, pleasure crashing through both of us like a tidal wave. I follow her over the edge, her blood on my tongue and her name a prayer on my lips.
When I finally pull away, sealing the wound with my venom, we’re both shaking.
I roll onto my side, taking her with me until she’s draped across my chest. The bond surges between us, wide open, and I feel everything, her bone-deep exhaustion, the warm curl of her satisfaction, the new strength thrumming beneath her skin.
Something in her has shifted, changed at the cellular level, and the power humming through her feels like an echo of my own.
“Holy shit,” she breathes.
“Yeah.”
“I can feel you. Not just emotionally, I can feel your body. Your muscles. Your senses.” She lifts her head, eyes wide. “Vex, I can see in the dark. And everything’s so much sharper. Sounds, smells, everything.”
“It’ll fade some as your blood is metabolized. But you’ll keep the core enhancements. Strength, speed, resilience.” I run my fingers through her hair. “You’re not human anymore, Tessa. Not entirely.”
“What am I?”
“Mine.”
She smiles, pressing a kiss to my chest. “Good answer.”
We lie there in the dark, wrapped around each other, and I let myself pretend for a few stolen moments we’re not about to ride into battle. That we’re not going to face down a primordial force of destruction. That we might actually survive this.
But then Tessa shifts, and I see it.
A shadow, barely perceptible, clinging to the corner where wall meets ceiling. Not a natural shadow, something else, something wrong. It pulses faintly, as though breathing, and the mark on Tessa’s shoulder gives off the briefest flicker of cold light in response.
The shadow recoils from the light, then slides across the ceiling and disappears through a crack in the doorframe.
And I know, with the certainty that comes from five hundred years of hunting and being hunted, it’s connected to Prophet somehow.
I’d seen something similar earlier, when we were all in the war room.
A flicker at the edge of my vision, gone before I could focus on it.
But now, with my senses heightened by Tessa’s blood, I can see it clearly.
Whatever that shadow is, it’s been tracking him. Maybe for hours. Maybe for days. And it feels ancient, patient, wrong in ways that make my vampire instincts scream danger.
I should tell Prophet. Should warn Blade. Should—
But something stops me. Some deeper instinct says this knowledge is dangerous, that speaking it aloud will tip our hand to forces we don’t fully understand. If I’m wrong, I’ll cause unnecessary panic. If I’m right, and that thing knows I’ve seen it...
No. Better to watch. To wait. To gather more information before raising the alarm. I file it away, tucking it into the back of my mind where even the bond can’t find it. Whatever the shadow is, whatever it wants with Prophet, it’s a problem for another day.
Right now, I have Tessa warm and alive in my arms. I have a battle to prepare for and a club depending on me to keep my head clear and my focus sharp.
The shadow can wait.
“What are you thinking?” Tessa asks, her voice drowsy.
“That I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure we both survive tomorrow.”
“Promise me something.”
“Anything.”
“If it comes down to a choice, me or the club, choose the club.” She cuts off my protest with a finger on my lips. “I mean it, Vex. These people are your family. They’ve been your family for longer than I’ve been alive. Don’t throw that away for me.”
“You are my family now.”
“Then consider it my dying wish not to be the reason your real family gets destroyed.” She meets my eyes. “Promise me.”
The word sticks in my throat, but the look on her face demands honesty.
“I promise,” I lie.
Because when it comes down to it, when the moment arrives and I have to choose between Tessa and literally anything else in this world, there’s no choice at all.
The pull began two years ago, the second I saw her behind the counter, smiling at strangers.
It sharpened during the nights I kept silent watch outside her home. And it sealed itself the moment I brought her into my world of monsters and magic.
Tomorrow, I’ll choose her when we ride into battle, even if it means burning the whole world down to keep her safe.
The bond between us thrums warm and strong, an unbreakable tether refusing to be ignored.
Whatever waits on the other side of dawn, we’ll face it together, and God help anything that tries to take her from me.
I’m done holding back, done being cautious, done pretending I’m anything other than completely, irrevocably, catastrophically in love with this woman. Let the devourer come. Let the world end. I will reduce everything to ash before I ever let her go.
Outside, the clock ticks toward midnight, each second dragging us closer to the moment everything changes. The ride begins soon, and with it, the final battle for Tessa’s soul, and for our survival.