“You’re violent towards me. You’ve smacked me, stabbed me, thrown things at me, made a mess of my throne room. You give such an uncivilized response to my hospitality.”
Adelasia looks up to the sky and then back to me. She takes a single step backward. “The sun is out. I could run away right now, and you could not chase me.”
I use my hand to make a sweeping motion across my body. “Be my guest.”
She takes off in a run and I scoff to myself as I watch her disappear down a hill. She’s heading East. It’s a straight shot from here to the Eastern cave entrance to the valley. She can’t miss it.
One of the supernatural abilities vampires possess is speed. I’ll use the underground tunnels and cut her off at the cave entrance before she can even make it a mile down the road.
I lean against the cave wall as I wait for her, with my arms and ankles crossed. I can hear her erratic heartbeat and heavy breathing long before she appears in front of me. She nearly falls over as she abruptly stops her sprint when she catches me wave at her from the shadows with a knowing glint in my eyes to reflect her frustrated expression.
Her chest is heaving with effort and she uses a hand to brace herself against the cave wall. Her hair is plastered to her milky skin, covered in a glistening sheen of sweat. Even from across the cave, I can see her pulse in her neck. It’s tempting. Intoxicating. I can hear how quickly her blood is running through her veins and I feel my fangs lengthen with the need to lick the salt from her skin before burying them in her neck. Thirst quickly replaces my teasing.
Ever since I tasted that small drop of blood that first night, it’s been driving me insane with need. Instincts have me pacing the hallway outside of her bedroom while she sleeps, contemplating another thousand years of immortality just for the divine pleasure of drinking every last drop of her blood.
I know she can see the change in my thoughts.
When vampires are hungry, our eyes turn black, our demeanor becomes dangerous. Every muscle in our body grows taut and ready to pounce. Our vampiric blood rushes to our eyes, our nose, and our ears to heighten our senses for the hunt, making us look even more of a monster than we already are.
Unable to control myself, I have her pinned against the cool cave wall in an instant. Her blood hums with adrenaline and fear and my fangs grow even longer, desperate to drink deeply from that pounding vein in her neck.
My mouth falls open with a thousand words I want to say, but the thirst keeps them trapped in my throat. “I…I need to taste,” I whisper. I close my eyes and growl as my fingers dig into the stone of the cave wall, crushing it under the ruthlessness of my grip. “Adelasia, run into the sunlight.” When she doesn’t move, I punch the wall, causing the entire cave to rumble. “Now!”
I can only stop myself for a second before I chase her out of the cave. She falls to the black stone ground lit by the bright sun just as I reach the entrance. My body trembles as I glare at her neck; I’m still wild with thirst at the sight of her. I can’t think about anything else.
I need it. I need her.
Though she’s in the sunlight, I find myself less aware of the pain of the sun and grab her ankle and pull her to me, grunting through my teeth as the light burns the skin of my hand. Adelasia whimpers as I drag her beneath me, pinning her legs down with my weight. I use one arm to tug her head to the side by her hair and the other to pin her remaining hand above her head. Adelasia struggles underneath me as hard as she can, but it’s no use. I’m too strong. Too thirsty. Too uncontrollable.
“Kaius, please,” Adelasia begs. “Please don’t.”
“I need to,” I growl against her throat.
“Don’t hurt me.”
“It won’t hurt. You’ll feel nothing…but pure…euphoria.”
My fangs touch the delicate skin of her neck. I can practically taste her sweet blood already.
“Lord Kaius,” a voice grumbles from behind me just as her skin is about to give way to my bite. I glance over my shoulder to see Dravon grinning. The shadows fall over his sharp features and dark hair, making him appear more dangerous. “You know it’s rude to feed in public and not offer to share.”
The sense returns to me at his voice.
He wants Adelasia. He wants what’smine. He wants to taste her blood as I have.
I suddenly become territorial in a way that's almost foreign to me. I pull her and I to our feet, turn around, and shove the girl behind me so that Dravon cannot see her. I hold her there by her wrist so she cannot run.
“Perhaps I wasn’t clear in the throne room, but she is not for sharing. She ismine. Find a female from my collection of cattle if it pleases you. Take ten of them if you must, but you willnothave her. This is the last we will speak of it.”
Dravon’s head tilts up in acceptance though his face shows he’s insulted by the obvious dismissal. He’s never liked being told no. “Very well,” he concedes, and then he peeks around my body to look at Adelasia. “Perhaps I’ll enjoy my feast in the room next to hers, so she can hear them scream.”
“Leave her be,” I warn.
Dravon snickers. “You do love it when they scream, don’t you, my Lord?”
I don’t answer. Dravon scoffs and then enters a set of tunnels that connects the opposite side of the valley to this cave, directly across from the one I came through. I face Adelasia once again and with a forceful but not painful grip on her toned bicep, I lead her back to the palace through the tunnels.
When we reach her suite, I let her go roughly. She stumbles into the room and clumsily tries to shut me out with the door. I stop her efforts with my foot.
