Altair
He held me.
The fool held me, his fingers carding gently through my hair. His heart was pounding so hard, it was all I could hear. And he surrounded me.
He was so warm all over, every single part of him. He let me slip my top leg between his, tuck my toes beneath the underside of his knee.
I drifted in and out of sleep, half aware because I wasn’t alone. For the first time in so long, there was someone beside me who made me feel safe and wanted.
I wanted to wrap myself around him and cling like those vines we’d found.
I wanted to bite every part of him and mark him as my own.
The second that thought crossed my mind, I froze. My tongue slipped over the sharp point of a canine and I shivered.
Was this what Victor meant?
I’d fed from humans before. Not under Ivan, and not while I was with the witches, but in the years between. I’d killed plenty—not everyone, but some. There were plenty who deserved it, the selfish and cruel, but Leo was neither of those things.
He was kindness incarnate, all warmth and generosity. His smile was so sweet it broke my heart a little every time I saw it, because how had I lived so long without it?
But I’d never thought to possess anyone before.
I’d never wanted ownership. The thought of turning a vampire, of having the same control over someone that Ivan had over me, turned my stomach.
Yes, sometimes it was tempting to think of how much easier things might be if I had a servant, a built-in ally who couldn’t betray me, but I knew what it was to have your will bent and shaped to another’s.
I didn’t want to be the source of that pain.
Only, curled against Leo, I desperately wanted to bite him, every inch. I wanted to bury my face against his neck, press my lips to his skin, and drink my fill.
The problem: I was sure I couldn’t get enough.
Maybe this was why Ivan had torn me open—this draw toward possession, this need to make him mine.
Other creatures felt love, but vampires? It must be some twisted, blighted thing.
I shivered, tightening my arm around Leo’s middle and burying my face against his firm chest.
He was here with me. He’d come of his own volition, and he’d looked at me with arms outstretched and hope in his eyes.
He’d wanted me. I hadn’t taken advantage. I hadn’t hurt him. I hadn’t lost control.
But could I?
I’d never wanted anyone like this, and it was all too easy to imagine burning the whole world down just to keep him at my side. I wouldn’t give it a second thought if he could still look at me and smile.
I’d turn into something worse than Ivan to keep him.
Leo must’ve felt the tension running through me. He inhaled through his nose, his chest rising fully, and when he let the breath out again, his hand swept down my arm.
“What’s the matter?” he whispered into my hair, almost too quiet to hear.
He’d been worried about waking Viktor before, and . . . truth told, no, I didn’t want his brother to catch him in my bed. It’d only prove his worst fears true.
I shivered, burying against Leo’s ribcage until he turned toward me. Both his arms wrapped around me, and I was spared having to meet his eye tucked into the curve of his chest.
He was damnably patient, just lying there, waiting for me to put myself back in order while his rough, broad hands rubbed my back.
I looked down between us, at my leg tucked between his and my hand curled around his hip.
I liked the way his skin looked against mine—like milky moonlight against burnt umber.
I liked the softness of the hair on his chest, bending beneath the bridge of my nose as I nuzzled into him.
I liked him. I was so fucked, but I did, and I wished so much that everything about me didn’t make his life demonstrably worse.
“You won’t let me—” My voice broke, which wasn’t fair at all. I didn’t have to breathe, so my throat ought to just cooperate, but it’d turned tight and dry, so I tried again. “You won’t let me hurt you, will you?”
I looked up at him, lifting my head, because I needed to see the truth. I needed to know if he was placating me or not. I needed to know that he could do what needed to be done if it—if it came to a choice between us.
Leo certainly looked like a man who could defend himself. He had dense, well-defined muscles. He was larger than me everywhere. And a werewolf? He ought to be able to manage it.
But he was soft and kind, and I didn’t know if he would.
He squeezed my waist and tugged me in. “You haven’t hurt me, Altair.”
His whisper was so ardent, we both froze to listen and see if it’d wake his brother.
The silence stretched on for thirty seconds before I dared to speak again. “Good, I haven’t meant to, but if I were to lose myself, my mind—if I tried to hurt you—”
“You don’t want to hurt me.”
I shook my head. “I don’t,” I agreed. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
I offered him a smile, but it was a weak, wavering thing.
“You’ll remember that, if I ever—if I lose myself.”
Leo’s brow furrowed. “Yeah, okay. I’ll remember that. And if it comes to it . . . no, I won’t just let you hurt me, but you’re not going to. You’re not losing your mind. You’re not a danger to anyone.”
Maybe he was just saying what I needed to hear, but I breathed in the comforting scent of him—trees and sap and wood dust and the scent of those flowers still lingering on his fingertips—and I nodded.
As much as I wanted to believe him, maybe he needed my assurance too, and I didn’t want to be a danger here.
I didn’t want anyone Leo loved to get hurt because of me, but I knew better than to think the witches were finished, or that Ivan would just let me go if he knew where to find me.
I needed to find a way to tell Leo the truth, that it wasn’t just the witches I had to contend with. I owed him that much.
But not right then, with pleasure still thick in the air and a dark, sleepy blanket closing over us both.
Leo cupped my cheek and leaned down to kiss me. He lingered, moving soft and slow, until I went lax in his arms again.
When he pulled back, he was smiling like he’d won a prize.
I couldn’t help but smile back at him and let the spark of hope he lit in my chest dance around a bit.
He pressed another kiss to my forehead. “Go back to sleep,” he whispered. “We’re fine here. I promise.”
I tried to believe him. I’d give anything for it to be that easy.
But I still couldn’t help wondering if he’d let me bite his neck. Maybe other places.
Maybe all of him.