He pulled back enough to meet my eyes, and the raw need I saw there stole my breath.
"If it meant what?" I whispered.
His hand came up, fingers ghosting along my jaw, and his voice was both harsh and full of longing as he said, "If it meant I could taste you. Just once."
The threads around us pulled taut, power building between us like a storm. I felt his hunger like a physical thing—for both my blood and my body—animalistic vampire instincts clawing at his control. Could feel my body and my magic responding, reaching for him with desperate fingers of light.
"This is insane," I breathed.
"Yes."
"We can't?—"
"I know."
"Then why?—"
"Because I can't help it." His thumb brushed my bottom lip, and I felt the shudder that ran through his hard body at the contact. "Neither can you."
He was right. Gods help me, he was right. Every cell in my body screamed for him and this connection that defied everything I understood about magic and fate and the walls that used to exist between our species.
My eyes fell to his mouth, slightly parted, the tips of his fangs barely showing. I rose up on my toes, drawn by forces I couldn't name. His head lowered, dark eyes black with hunger. Our lips were an inch apart when the power between us detonated.
The magical backlash threw us apart, sending me stumbling into the wall and him sliding back ten feet. His angry growl raised the little hairs all over my body as every streetlight on the block shattered. Car alarms shrieked. People screamed in the distance. The threads around us went supernova, then vanished completely, leaving me gasping in the sudden darkness.
"Talin!" Kenya's voice cut through the chaos. She appeared at the back door, fangs extended, ready for a fight. When she saw us—me pressed against the wall, Elias standing in the middle of the alley with his fists clenched—her expression shifted to something cautious.
"Am I interrupting?" she asked carefully.
"No," I said quickly, pushing off the wall on unsteady legs. "We were just... I was just leaving."
Pointedly ignoring the possessive sound that reverberated through the narrow alley, she reached toward me. "Are you okay?"
I heard what she was asking without saying it. Glancing toward Elias, who was still as stone, his eyes locked on her hand that hung in midair inches from my arm, I tried to reassure her. "I'm good."
"Actually," Kenya said as she dropped her arm, "I was just coming to find you. A few minutes ago, I felt..." She paused, looking between us, and I could see her gauging Elias's mood. When he appeared to be calming down, she continued, "Through my bond with Alex. I felt him." She gave me a sad smile. "I felt him. Like he was right in front of me. I swear I did."
My heart stopped. "You felt him?"
"Before all of this happened." She gestured at the broken streetlights. "Whatever you guys were doing, I think it reached him."
I glanced at Elias and found him watching me. The hunger was still in his eyes, but it was overlaid now with grim determination.
And he was right. "We need to try again," I said.
"Not tonight." His voice brooked no argument.
"But, Alex?—"
"Has survived two weeks. One more night won't kill him." He moved closer, careful not to touch me. "But you pushing yourself until you collapse might kill you. And that helps no one."
I wanted to argue, but he was right. I could barely stand. I felt like a bundle of exposed nerves, raw and oversensitive. And being near him...
"Tomorrow night," I conceded. "Same time."
He nodded once. "I'll be here."
The promise in those three words made my chest tight. I turned to Kenya. "Can you tell me what you felt? Every detail?"
