Chapter 41
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Septimus’s body moved at once, graceful and yet so purely animalistic, like he was ruled entirely by his instincts.
Blink, and he was surging across the room. The ropes of red and black that connected us snapped taut. But he stopped short, barely an arm’s length away from me.
“Kyrene.” This time my name was nearly unrecognizable—a collection of syllables he only barely managed to grind out, desperate. Begging me to leave. Begging me to come closer.
I did neither. I stared up at his face—that flawless face, now marked with blood and dark shadows beneath his eyes and deep scratches on his left cheek. The eyes that I had found so captivating were now completely red.
My heart hurt for him.
Witnessing the curse dig into Septimus, who wore his polished sophistication like armor, felt sacrilegious.
Only now, with his self-control in shreds, fully exposing what lay beneath, did I truly understand how hard he had been working to maintain that facade.
And I recognized that exhaustion. It was the same ache I felt when I held Zefiah—the armor of the chosen one, so convincing that no one would ever look too closely at what it hid.
I was afraid.
I was afraid of this curse. I was afraid that it had already taken something that would never come back.
But I was not afraid of him.
“It’s all right,” I murmured, and slowly, so slowly, I reached for him.
He twitched away, then closer. A war with himself that he was neither winning nor losing.
“It’s all right,” I whispered again.
I slid my hand into his jacket. His flesh was so hot that I could feel its warmth throbbing through the thin fabric of his shirt. As my hand slid over his chest, his skin twitched under my touch.
My veins burned, reaching for him. The threads of our blood drew tighter, dancing around us now, fully intertwined.
I reached into his inner lapel pocket and withdrew a small wooden box. When I slid it open, at the sight of the cigarillos, he let out a hiss of disgust, lurching away.
I hate these things, he had told me.
“Get those away,” he sneered.
“Presumptuous,” I said sweetly. “They weren’t for you.”
I withdrew a cigarillo and a match. I struck the match, then lit the cigarillo. Septimus watched the flame warily. I watched his pupils dilate, contract, dilate, in lurching spasms, as the flame surged to life.
An elegant plume of sweet smoke bloomed from the cigarillo.
I stomped out the match with my heel. And then I lifted the cigarillo to my lips and inhaled.
Just as it had in the pleasure palace of Bosqua, the drug made me feel as if I had run headfirst into a brick wall. Were these stronger even than the ones he’d smoked there? Or were my injuries just making me more susceptible to its effects?
It was not altogether pleasant, and even the ways that it was were disconcerting, like my pain was being stripped away at the expense of my faculties.
The anxious thoughts in the back of my mind went quiet.
I no longer felt the pain of my wounds. I no longer felt Zefiah’s heavy silence in the back of my mind.
And yet, my awareness of my own body—my awareness of his—was all at once more.
I found myself staring into those red eyes and forgetting to blink. Gods, they were beautiful.
I drew in another inhale, then let out a long, slow breath. The smoke unfurled over Septimus’s face. His jaw was so tight that I could see the muscle twitching against his statuesque cheekbone. He was no longer blinking. No longer, it seemed, even breathing.
With my free hand, I unbuttoned the top clasp of my jacket. Then the next. My freshly exposed skin puckered at the wave of cool air.
I lifted my chin, tilting it to one side.
A fresh trickle of blood, as a scabbed-over wound on my neck reopened. Septimus’s nostrils flared. His body was so taut that his muscles visibly trembled with effort. All just to keep himself from moving closer.
I said softly, “Drink.”
A drug this strong, magically enhanced, would imbue my blood, and quickly. If Septimus wouldn’t smoke it, then I’d make sure he drank it.
His eyes glazed over. His muscles went taut. I could see the conflict warring over his face. The final, noble stand of the part of him who wanted to protect me from this.
Somehow, that protectiveness, that tenderness, frightened me more than the monster. I had dealt with countless vampire beasts. But at that glimpse of his fear on my behalf, I questioned myself. My stomach dropped, like I was standing at the edge of a great fall.
Because it would mean nothing to offer a monster my throat. But it would mean something, I knew, to offer it to Septimus. It would change something in a way I could not take back.
The last time he had tasted my blood, I had taunted him with it. I had been angry and hurt, desperate to prove to him that he was only an animal. Now, I offered it to him because I knew he wasn’t one—no matter what his curse tried to take from him.
I laid my hand on his shoulder, gently urging him close. His muscles twitched under my touch, even through his clothing, responding to the contact.
I looked him straight in the eye, and murmured, “Drink, Septimus.”
And I slid my hand behind his head, fingers weaving into his silky fair hair, and pulled him closer. One small movement that destroyed whatever remained of Septimus’s willpower.
The groan he let out shuddered through his entire body as he fell upon me. His head lowered to my throat. I braced for his teeth. But instead, I felt only breath, heavy and serrated, against my skin. Slow, savoring. Like he had been wanting this for a long time.
In. Out.
I drew in a deep inhale of the cigarillo.
In. Out.
Septimus’s body shook with a low, nearly inaudible groan as his tongue came to the wound in the soft space between my shoulder and my throat—the one I had reopened. A twinge of pain, as he began to lap at the blood. A shiver of pleasure, as his touch soothed the hurt.
He let out a shaking breath as his mouth, his tongue, trailed up. His lips closed softly around the muscle of my throat. I was shaking, now, despite myself. When I swallowed, he pressed his mouth to the flex of muscle there, like a musician caressing the strings of his instrument.
His body leaned into mine, though still, it didn’t touch at all.
I let out a choking exhale that sounded weaker than I had wanted it to. “What are you—”
His teeth sank into my skin.
The pain was sharp and immediate. I drew in a breath, sucking in another inhale of smoke to smother my anxiety.
I had never been bitten by a vampire before—not for pleasure or in battle.
But I’d been bitten by wolves and grazed by the teeth of soulless, and only now did I realize that I had expected this to feel like that—like being mauled by a dog.
I realized, with a sudden, visceral shock, that it was nothing like that at all.
There was pain, yes, as his teeth pushed through, a pop of resistance giving under the certain strike.
A burning sensation spread through my veins, radiating from the bite, but it was warm and oddly pleasant.
His teeth withdrew quickly, and in their place was the soft touch of his tongue, smoothing over the wound.
It was that touch that shocked me the most. Because it was so tender. So gentle, even in Septimus’s feral state.
And then, he began to drink.
Immediately, he groaned against me, the vibration shivering across my most tender flesh.
I let out a ragged breath.
Holy fucking gods.
I was not prepared for what vampire venom felt like.
Like a match against my veins. Igniting weeks of tension, kindling primed under the surface—his lips on my hand at the Salt Keep, his eyes watching a hand up my skirt in Bosqua, his touch before we met Ix, every dream or fantasy I pretended I didn’t have.
All of it rushed to the surface with a power I was not prepared for. Want set ablaze.
It burned up my spine, between my thighs, over my breasts, radiating from the place where his mouth worked against my skin. I let out a choked sound, nearly inaudible. But perhaps he felt it, tasted it, because he moaned—actually moaned—in response.
Those trembling muscles in his arms, the ones that had been working so very hard to keep himself away, gave out.
My back slammed against the wall, backside resting against the ridge of a fallen beam. His body pushed against mine as my fingers dragged over his back. The full contact was intoxicating. His mouth deepened, tongue working to coax blood from the bite. My body burned everywhere that his touched it.
I wanted more.
My thighs opened slightly, making room for his hips to fit between them. Septimus seized upon this with a growl against my throat that rolled over my entire being. Swiftly, his hands moved to my backside, lifting me enough that he could slot himself firmly against me, aligning us perfectly.
I let out a ragged gasp at that—at the way our bodies felt, fully flush. His cock was rigid against his pants, and it nearly matched the aching throb of my desire. Agonizingly close, and agonizingly far.
He huffed an almost-laugh. His drinking paused. His tongue grew gentle, slow, again. Dancing over the bite marks. The wound. Pressing to different tender expanses of my skin, as if experimenting.
I drew in another deep inhale from the cigarillo. Perhaps some part of me hoped that it might still my hungers, as perhaps it did for Septimus. Instead, the haze only made it worse. Made me more aware of every stretch where we touched, and all the infuriating places we didn’t.
I could feel my perilous need bubbling beyond my control. I should, some logical part of myself knew, walk away. There was no part of me that doubted that, even in this state, Septimus would stop if I told him to.
Perhaps it had been enough.
Perhaps.