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A pause lingered.
“Yes, he was.”
“How? What does that mean?”
Alek took a long breath before answering. “Your father demanded respect. Not in the same way my father did; he was more hopeful. People feared him, but they also reveled in his presence. He was a force to be reckoned with.”
“How did he become the king?” I said next.
“The same way everyone else became king,” he explained. “You take it with blood, and you fight anyone who rises against you.”
I swallowed. “He was a killer, then?”
Alek didn’t have to answer. It wouldn’t take a genius to figure out that the previous leader of the Night Ravens would have killed.
“Your father had special gifts,” Alek added. “He could summon powerful forces, some that still I do not fully understand.”
“Forces? Like, magic?” I wondered.
“Something like that, sure.”
“But I thought you needed my blood to use… your gifts.”
Alek uncrossed his arms and followed me around the room, staring at all the same pictures. For whatever reason, this felt much more vulnerable than before. I was seeing a different side of him.
I paused on a younger photograph. Alek looked to be maybe ten, with not a single tattoo covering his skin. He smiled brightly, his green eyes glimmering like he didn’t have a care in the world.
Alek stood next to me now; covered with these memories inked in his skin and faint lines etched into his face. He held more now. More darkness, or more regret, I wasn’t sure.
Life had a way of doing that to us; of turning someone so pure into a creature of survival. We couldn’t be blamed for what life made us turn into, could we?
I sure as hell hoped not.
Alek had gone silent. When I glanced at him, he was staring at me. At my neck, rather, at the sliver of skin exposed above the neckline of my leather jacket.
His brows drew together. His jaw tightened.
“You drank my blood, and you felt it,” I said, my voice barely a whisper. “You felt the magic. You felt the power.”
“Yes,” he breathed. “It felt… unlike anything I have experienced before.”
A wave of heat rolled through me. “Do you think it’s because of him? His blood running through my veins?”
Alek smirked, but his eyes remained dark, trailing over my features like he was seeing me here for the first time.
“Lyra,” he purred, “please do not mention your father while the memories of your blood are running through my mind.” He slid his hands up my neck and tilted my head to the side.
I let him, exposing more of that delicate skin to him.
He had bitten me twice; once at the blood bonding, and once the night I had given myself to him fully.
Both times, he surprised me. Demons didn’t need blood to survive, but that didn’t make sharing it any less intimate for them. For us.
I shivered when his breath hit my skin.
“Your blood has power,” he murmured huskily, skimming his lips against the sensitive area. I craned my head even further, begging for more with my body. “You have power, Lyra.”
I was suddenly glad his hands were on me, holding me steady, because when his lips brushed against me, when his hot mouth moved against my neck, his teeth barely grazing the skin, I melted entirely.
