Chapter 19
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CLAIRE
An unexpected gust of cold wind howled through the tent. I closed my book and rose onto my elbow, causing one of the heavy furs I was cuddled beneath to slip off my shoulder. I hadn’t anticipated the council meeting running this late.
“Your Grace?” I called, anticipation tightening in my belly.
For the past two weeks, I’d been doing my best to get closer to the Duke. Every night, after camp was made and he’d finished his council meetings, we’d stay up late, talking about the types of plants he grew in the glass greenhouses at Chateau Rose.
My love of flowers and working in the dirt and his love of science intersected, and I found I could talk to him for hours about how he managed to grow anything that far north.
Last night, he’d sat beside me and sketched out one of his greenhouses, telling me how difficult it was to lay each massive pane of glass.
I hung on each word, impressed with his dedication to growing food and herbs for the surrounding villages and his human staff, even though he ate neither.
“It sounds like a lot of work,” I’d said, meeting his ice-blue eyes, which held a measure of warmth I hadn’t seen before. Like the sky over an ocean on a clear summer day.
“It was,” he replied. He watched me for a moment that stole my breath, then canted his head to one side and ever so carefully pushed a stray strand of hair away from my face.
My cheeks heated at his touch. “But,” he said softly, “I’m not afraid of hard work.
Especially when the result is something that could last forever. ”
His words opened a chasm in my chest, and I swore he wasn’t talking about a greenhouse, but about something else. Something that I didn’t quite understand but that I felt in my bones.
The ghost of a kiss we only shared in my dreams warmed my lips, causing my breath to stutter.
“You want to say something,” Bastien said. Leaning in an inch.
It wasn’t words I craved. I ached to close the distance between his lips and mine.
Was desperate to curl his long hair around my fingers and pull him closer against my body.
To devour him. To let him devour me. Bite by bite until my eyes rolled back and my body shuddered, and he finally showed me what it meant to be wanted.
I’d decided to woo him into trusting me so I could kill him, but it was getting harder to reconcile what I’d grown up understanding about his kind with the things he said and did.
Bastien was forcing me to see him for who he was, night after night, and it was all very confusing.
Especially with the heady way his presence affected me.
“I think I’m ready for bed,” I said.
The Duke pressed his lips together, nodding once, then set aside his sketchpad and graphite and scooped me up like he had the first night we’d met. Surprised, I gasped, wrapping my arms around his neck to steady myself.
Our eyes connected, and my mouth softened for him. I knew if he kissed me now, I wouldn’t stop him. I’d fold like a house of cards. Desire and anticipation had my skin tingling with need. But it wasn’t my kiss that he wanted. It was my body. My blood. That’s why I was here.
Gently, he lay me on the pile of furs that served as my camp bed.
My hands reluctantly left his neck, gliding down his shoulders and grazing his chest before tucking them back at my sides.
He stared at me for a long moment as I lay there.
His hungry gaze trailed over the swell of my breasts, continuing down to my navel.
Down, further still. Lingering around the place where my sleeping shift had ridden up, showcasing my bare thighs.
I guessed what he wanted. And if truth be told, I wanted it too.
Without looking away, I spread my legs apart, watching him as he watched me.
I was so needy for him. So vulnerable. Spread open wide and exposed.
Ready to be licked and kissed and nipped at in the only way I’d ever been.
“Eat, Your Grace,” I said in a thick voice I almost didn’t recognize—spreading my legs wider, ready for him to crawl between them and drink from me as we’d done every other night in this twisted, dark exchange I’d come to thirst for as much as he. “I don’t want you to go hungry.”
Bastien grabbed my wrist, stopping me from pulling my shift up around my hips.
My eyes grew wide with surprise. “No,” he said sharply, even though the shadows under his eyes had appeared, and his transformation was imminent.
He drew a measured breath and released his grip on me, then said, “I mean, not tonight. I’ve kept you up too late. ”
His denial stung more than I thought it would. My body ached for him, for his touch. And it didn’t like being told no. A million thoughts tumbled inside my head, all of them screaming at me for being a failure.
He covered me in furs and sat beside the bed reading. Leaving me alone and frustrated. I turned away from him. When the anger and shame twisting inside me finally let me sleep, I closed my eyes and curled beneath the thick furs like I was retreating into a cocoon.
My sleep was fitful. Marred by dreams that felt too real. Of kisses. Of hands pressed into the bedsheets. Of that hardness between his legs pressed against my soft middle. Then, the scene shifted to a chilly autumn night, a full moon, and the shrill howl of a wolf.
I awoke the next morning feeling shameful and made the no-nonsense choice to rededicate myself to my mission. It was time to take things to the next level. I needed information about the relics he was stealing from the Lawless Lands.
Another gust of wind blew through the tent, bringing me out of the reverie and back to the present. I sat fully up, holding the furs against my chest. “Your Grace?” I called again. But only the wind answered.
I frowned. Had he gotten sick of me? Had he found another’s tent to warm him? What if he was there right now? It would make sense. I was just his sanguine partner, and it wasn’t my job to see to any of his other needs.
Maybe my plan to woo him had been stupid.
Jealousy like I’d never felt before sprouted in my stomach, and suddenly I didn’t want to be sitting here, waiting for him.
I forced myself to leave the warmth of the bed, wrapping my arms around my middle as I strolled through the expansive, multi-room tent, only to find one of the ties had come loose.
I went to refasten it when I saw Bastien’s nephew, Tyson, staring at me from a few paces away.
He looked resplendent in his royal blue cloak with gold stitching.
His dark hair pulled back, and his bronze skin shining under the glow of the moon.
He ran a thumb across his lower lip, looked both ways, then made his way over to where I stood.
I braced myself, unsure what to expect. Bastien had allowed him and Okeri to ride with the guard the past few days, allowing me some alone time, and we hadn’t said much to each other except to exchange pleasantries.
“Good evening,” the vampire said, bowing at the neck.
I curtsied politely, giving him the honors he was due as a viscount, but I felt uneasy speaking to him alone.
“I couldn’t help but hear you calling for my uncle.”
I closed the folds of my robe as tendrils of embarrassed heat raced up my neck.
Tyson offered me a charming smile then he tapped the side of his ear.
“Us vampires have very good hearing, as I’m sure you know.
A blessing and a curse, if truth be told.
Especially in a camp this small. We hear everything.
Every stubbed toe, every moan of pleasure.
” He pursed his lips and leaned conspiratorially in.
“Be grateful for the limits of your mortal hearing.”
“Oh,” I said as heat crept into my cheeks. He’d heard our whispered conversations in the dark. And my moans of pleasure as he fed.
“Is there something you wanted? From my uncle, that is?” Tyson asked, and I couldn’t tell if he was fishing for information or trying to be helpful.
If his hearing was as good as he boasted, he knew things I didn’t. Perhaps forming an alliance with the young vampire wasn’t a bad idea. “That is very kind of you to ask, My Lord.” I shivered from the winter chill, and Tyson unfastened his cloak and offered it to me.
“Please. Take it. I can’t stand to see a woman shiver.”
I accepted it hesitantly, setting it over my shoulders and sighing into the warmth it provided. “Has the council meeting finished yet?”
Tyson raised a mischievous eyebrow, and a smirk settled on his face. “It has.”
That jealous snake in my stomach started writhing once again, and I looked over Tyson’s shoulder, hoping to see a hulking, stoic blond vampire stalking through the night, making his way toward me, but he wasn’t.
Tyson leaned in closer and cupped a hand to his mouth, inviting me in for a secret. Nervously, I bent forward, allowing him to whisper in my ear. “My uncle has secluded himself in a feeding tent. Just over there.”
I followed his finger to a cluster of small tents. Why would he be in a feeding tent? We had our own tent that we’d been making good use of. “Should I—”
“Join him?” Tyson offered, finishing my sentence.
I nodded.
He lifted a shoulder, feigning indifference. “If I were my uncle, I’d very much like to see you. But, alas,” he said with a sigh, “I am not him, as he constantly reminds me, and therefore cannot give you very good advice.”
The sudden urge to find Bastien overtook every other thought in my head.
He hadn’t fed from me last night, and I wondered why he hadn’t come to me tonight.
I reached for my gloves, which were just inside the tent, and slid my hands into the fur lining, then laced up my boots.
The younger vampire stepped out of my way as I left the warmth of the tent and shivered again.
Despite the chill, the heat generated by the jealousy twisting in my stomach was enough to keep me warm.
“Which tent?” I asked.
He bit his lip before pointing to a small clustering of tents closer to the edge of camp. “One of those.”
Hugging my arms to my chest, I thanked him, then stormed off. Not caring if Bastien and his excellent hearing heard my approach as I crunched through the thin layer of snow. If he was feeding from another or… or doing other things, he could be just as embarrassed as I was.
Two of the tents had the curtains drawn, and with halting steps, I peered through the flaps of the closest one, but immediately backed away when I saw a man from Bastien’s council with another. Both of them shirtless. Definitely not feeding.
I curled my hands into fists and made my way over to the tent.
My breaths became shorter the closer I got.
Forcing myself to verify my worst suspicions, and satisfy the voice in my head that was telling me I was a complete and utter failure, I peered through the closed flap, and had to hold my breath at the sight before me.
Bastien. Naked from the waist down. Sitting on a cushion. Head tipped back. Fisting the hard length of flesh between his legs.
He wasn’t with anyone else, and he certainly wasn’t feeding.
He was… well, I didn’t know what he was doing.
All I knew was that it was the most decadent thing I’d ever seen.
The sight of him doing whatever it was made me clench with desire.
I struggled to look away from the action of his hand.
The way he massaged himself up and down in a fevered way.
Like he was chasing something. Something I wanted to chase, too.
“Claire,” he whispered through our bond like he was speaking in my ear, pumping himself harder. Spreading his legs wider.
The way he said my name had every nerve standing on end. I gripped the tent flaps to steady myself, thankful that his eyes were closed and that he was completely lost in the moment.
“I’m going to come so deep inside you. I’m going to give you all of me.”
With those words ringing in my ears, Bastien moaned, and hot release spilled over his hand. I couldn’t look away. Transfixed by what he’d said and what he was doing. Continuing to work himself up and down.
I told myself to leave, to go back to our tent, but I was frozen in place. Chest heaving. Body trembling. The ache between my thighs pulsing. There was nowhere else I wanted to be.
The snow crunched beneath my feet, and his eyes flew open. For a heartbeat, neither of us moved. I could tell by the look of mild surprise on his face he hadn’t realized I’d been watching him. Which meant I had two options: turn around and leave or stay.