12 #2
Air rushed from me with the word, “Oh.” I twined my fingers together. Staring down at them, I asked quietly, “What does it feel like?” When he didn’t respond, I lifted my eyes. “To be fed from.”
I’d heard it was pleasurable. I’d also heard it burned.
Voran blinked, brows bunching.
I’d surprised him again. It shouldn’t have pleased me to achieve such a thing, yet it did. A tiny victory in a battle I’d already lost.
Just when I thought he might not tell me, he said, “The females I have fed from…” He rubbed the bristle forming around his mouth. “They like it.”
He didn’t appear to be lying. But maybe these females had pretended to enjoy it because he was a prince. Also because he was positively terrifying.
Though he quickly dropped it to his lap, I still caught the tremble of his hand.
While looking at it, what he’d said had me deducing out loud, “No one has fed from you.”
“Feeding is intimate,” he said. “Dual feeding is another thing entirely.”
The almost careful way he’d spoken those words intrigued. It made me wonder why he wouldn’t wish to be that intimate with someone. Valadorn wolves were renowned for their beastly appetites—hunting, feeding, and especially fucking.
Being that a direwolf normally sat upon the Stone Throne, royalty was no exception.
I couldn’t imagine this prince would lay with people without ever letting one of them feed from him. My cheeks flushed from the mere thought, and I stared hard at the dusty floor. Feeding was intimate, he’d said, and I was about to let him—
Just get it over with, I inwardly berated.
Without looking at him, I offered my wrist.
“No.”
My eyes darted to his face. “No?” I repeated.
His own gaze moved from my mouth to my throat. Stayed there until his intent was clear. My stomach hollowed, then filled with dread. His teeth at my throat…
He could shift, or even partially shift, and rip out my jugular with one bite.
“Maybe we can start with the wrist. Just to make sure it won’t—”
“Move your hair.” An accented order. “Unless you want me to do it for you.”
But I kept talking. Kept panicking. “What if you get carried away?” My nervous laugh twittered through the room. “I’ve heard of that happening, and as much as I don’t like the archive’s rules, I also don’t like getting into trouble. If you take too much, I might sleep for days to recover—”
He gripped my hair in his fist.
I gasped. Pain pricked at my scalp.
Then he scowled at the dark strands. His fingers loosened. A thick section of hair was collected between his thumb and forefinger. Rubbing the curling ends, he muttered, as if to himself, “Like fucking silk.”
As he rubbed more strands between his fingers, I sat so perilously still. My chest tightened and tightened until I feared I might say something for the sake of speaking—or expel the small amount of food I’d eaten.
“I can hear your heart scream.” The bed whined as he moved closer and turned. His knee touched my thigh. “Scared again.” He shifted my long hair to my other shoulder.
“Nervous.”
“I’ve proven I can be gentle.”
It seemed unwise to tell him that he’d just pulled my hair.
He released it and ordered, “Tilt your head.”
I did. My eyes squeezed closed, as though it would help me to forget what was happening while I awaited the arrival of his teeth at my throat.
They never came.
My tunic slid over my shoulder. He held the material there as warmth encountered my skin, then glided over it. His mouth, I realized, my eyes opening wide.
“Breathe.” A harsh whisper.
Air fled me so fast, I made a slight noise. I braced for his teeth again. Only for him to lift his head and touch my shoulder instead. He traced my skin with the rough pad of his finger.
Confused, I looked at him.
But his attention didn’t leave my skin as, slowly and repeatedly, he rubbed his finger from my neck to the edge of my shoulder.
He appeared to be fascinated by the tiny rising hairs.
Before I could wrap my head around that, he pressed a featherlight kiss between my shoulder and neck. I shivered, and he drew back to look at what he’d done—at the gooseflesh his tickling kiss erupted.
I had no experience with sex. I was to remain intact for the one I would marry. For the husband who would one day be my king. Yet I’d heard enough, and read enough of Celestine’s books, to understand that this—what this beastly prince was doing—was a bit unusual.
Yet warmth spread from my stomach. My breathing quickened, even as my heartbeat became lazy. Sluggish.
As his finger skimmed my skin, he inhaled deeply. “Your scent changes.”
He silenced my attempt to speak by returning his mouth to my shoulder. This time, at the curve of my throat. Another whisper-soft kiss was given to my skin. Then another. The next one was firmer, his mouth opening ever so slightly.
He was now so close that his arm brushed mine. So close that I heard his breaths harshen and the low rumble in his throat. Felt the heat of him emanating from his bare chest.
A strange haze blurred the room, as if I’d found myself in a dream.
A feeling that went beyond anticipation curled my fingers into his messy bedding. I knew what he was about to do, but I didn’t brace. I no longer feared it. If anything, I wanted it—wanted to tell him to do it.
Just as the absurd thought entered my mind, his teeth entered my throat.
I tensed and hissed.
He inhaled sharply, then exhaled with a groan as he dragged his tongue over the punctures. It got rid of the sting, yet I still couldn’t breathe.
Not until he clasped my cheek and jaw and murmured against my throat, “Breathe, little bird.”
Trapped air shuddered from me. I wondered if that was what broshklin meant in the old language—little bird.
Then his lips settled on my skin, and he sucked and sucked.
He filled his mouth with my blood before swallowing it with groans that grew louder, deeper each time. And each time he sucked, a pleasurable tug accompanied it. A sparking cold sensation pulled through me from my core.
I didn’t know when I grabbed him. I didn’t even know how long he’d been feeding. But my legs felt tingly. I squeezed his arm so tight that he ceased drinking.
“Your pulse slows,” he said, his accent thickened. “Lie down.”
But I clung to his arm instead. The room failed to reshape. I reached for his chest. It was hot, a little sweat misted, and as ribbed as a washboard.
When the cloud began to dissipate and I realized I’d been touching his abdominals, I pulled my fingers back. “Sorry,” I muttered.
He didn’t seem to care.
As he lowered me over his bed, he confirmed as much. “Do it again.” My drowsy eyes widened when he used his knee to knock mine open. “I like your tiny hands on me.”
“They aren’t tiny.” It was all I could manage to say as he settled atop me.
“They are very tiny.”
My vision cleared enough to see his bloodstained lips, and my head enough to wonder just what this prince intended to do with me.
Before I could think of anything, he nudged my chin up with his nose for better access to my throat. He licked it. Dragged his tongue to the punctures and flicked them with it. My fingers scrunched the bedding.
Then he sucked again. This time, he did so slowly, as if no longer as desperate.
It was just as pleasurable. Then, even more.
Each pull from his lips made that tug of cold pleasure at my core last longer. Made it feel more intense. My toes curled within my boots. My hands found their way to his broad back, drifted over taut muscle to where his torso tapered. His skin was so warm and smooth.
A snarled groan, and he dropped his hips. Perhaps so I would touch more of him.
But his erection met my sex through our clothing. His hips jerked. Pleasure surged. My body heated like it never had before, and I moaned.
Voran lifted his head. Searching my face with a scowl, he asked throatily, “Hurt?”
My chest was rising and falling too fast. I didn’t dare try to speak. I shook my head and absorbed the enormity of him above me. His perfect lips were crimson and parted. His brows sat low over heavy-lidded and assessing eyes.
Nostrils flaring, he determined, “You liked it.”
I did.
I didn’t say so. Unable to see past the breadth of his shoulders, I began to panic. Began to feel ashamed of myself. I was lying beneath a wolf who’d saved me to feed on me. A prince who committed atrocious acts for his king.
For his uncle.
His eyes were fastened to my mouth. As he stared at it, his long hair fell over his shoulder to tickle my cheek. Coarsely, he murmured, “I want to kiss you again.”
My stomach shrank. My heart fluttered like a caged bird, even as rational thinking took over and my mind danced toward dark places.
Very likely places.
I put my hands on his chest. His incredibly warm chest. Pulling them back, I said in a rush, “I need to go.”
He pushed up and cocked his head. “Where?”
“Duties,” I lied, and awkwardly slid out from beneath him to the floor.
Mercifully, he didn’t stop me.
But before I reached the door, he said, “Lie. You feed the gardens in the mornings.”
The cold lunch on his nightstand might as well have been the bell tolling three times.
He’d been watching me.
I ceased fussing with my mussed hair as the truth awakened like ice crusting my veins. As what Voran Valadorn wanted from me became impossible to deny. He didn’t want my blood. He didn’t even want to kiss me.
This prince wanted to ruin me. To aid his uncle’s crusade by lying with me.
To destroy my father’s reputation by destroying mine.
Without looking at him, I said, “I don’t care how big and scary and mean you are, wolf prince. Nor do I care if your scratches sully my neck forevermore. I will never allow you to take advantage of me in that way.”
I hurried into the hall before he could threaten me again.