“What I was promised.”
“And what was that?”
“In exchange for services rendered, the good man here bargained for blood. Yours,” he elaborated.
I wanted to shout my disapproval, but I was fading fast.
The last thing I heard was, “Very well,” Elena said. “Forgive me, but until I know for sure that my mate will survive, you won’t be getting anything. Come morning, if he’s still alive, you’ll get what you were promised.”
“I look forward to it.”
21
Elena
The sun rose and Rhys slept peacefully.
I didn’t sleep a wink for fear I would wake and find him as lifeless and cold as the stone surrounding us. So when the first rays of morning light filtered through the bedroom drapes and illuminated his chest still rising and falling, a bone-deep weariness spread through me from top to toe.
My wounded thigh and mangled feet ached something fierce, but the pain was shadowed by the relief that he made it through the night. That we made it. I wasn’t sure where we went from here, how we would deal with yet another threat, but I knew I couldn’t lose him. I could face my own death, but I couldn’t face his.
Even faced with the prospect of submitting to the vampire did little to dampen my spirits. When a knock came at the door and Soren peered in, a satisfied smile on his face, my relief turned to dread.
“Not one to waste any time, are you?” I commented. I wrapped my blanket around Rhys’s waist and shifted down to the foot of the bed.
Soren’s smile was feral, made even more so by his elongated canines. “I’ve thought of nothing else since I saw you. I do believe you will taste delicious. Certainlymuch better than your mate.”
I refused to show weakness, even though I had to be trembling. “Glad to hear it. Do you mind if we get along with it? I’d like to get back to him as soon as possible.”
“So eager,” Soren drawled as he grew near.
“Eager to be done,” I corrected.
Soren sat next to me on the foot of the bed. “Don’t be so rash, love. You may find that you like it.”
“Doubtful. And don’t call me that.” I resisted the urge to shrug away as he brushed hair away from my shoulder. He leaned forward, caressing my shoulder with his lips and I couldn’t help but shudder.
In one swift movement, he jerked me sideways over his lap until he cradled me in his arms. Compared to Rhys, Soren was more lithe, but if the effortless way he bore my weight was any sign, he was not to be mistaken for weak.
His arms contracted, and he pulled me close to his chest. My hands rested on his shoulders and I squeezed my eyes shut. Being wrapped in another man’s arms felt strange, forbidden, and unnatural. Soren was strange, forbidden and unnatural. When his cool lips touched my neck, I couldn’t contain the shiver.
Then his mouth parted and his tongue lashed out to wet the skin. From what Alaric explained after he gave me to Soren as a reward for saving Rhys, it produced a numbing agent to make giving blood more enjoyable. In the moment before his fangs pierced my skin, I wondered how that could possibly be.
Then his teeth punctured my neck and my fingers gripped the material of his shirt to keep from falling into a boneless heap on the floor. Liquid pleasure raced across my nerve endings and I had to bite my tongue to swallow the moan that surface. Soren did little more than suckle at my neck, but I felt it everywhere.
I sensed myself becoming weak, though I couldn’t discern if it was due to the blood loss or the state of euphoria. Someone spoke my name, but I didn’t pay it any mind. I couldn’t hear over the ringing in my ears anyway.
“Elena,” the voice said. I remembered enough for joy to spread throughout me, but I didn’t understand why until it repeated the word.
“Rhys?”I wasn’t sure if I said it aloud or thought it.
I blinked rapidly against the growing weariness. Soren still drew at my neck, but Rhys’s voice pulled me away from the drunken stupor. I glanced back up at his body, finding him restless in sleep. A thin sheen of sweat covered his chest and his limbs twitched. His lips pulled down in a frown and his head lashed from side to side. Was he dreaming? I must have been imagining it. I’d give anything to hear his voice again. A part of me was certain I never would.
The tide of pleasure beckoned. My eyes drifted closed again when Rhys bolted straight up, his chest heaving and eyes bloodshot. A thrill shot through me and I clutched Soren, who hadn’t seemed to notice.
“Stop.”
Soren didn’t heed his command, or maybe he didn’t hear it. Rhys threw the sheets away and I struggled more insistently against the vampire’s steel-like hold. The last thing Rhys needed was a fight with avampire so soon after being injured.
