Her hold on my face tightens, stare digging, and I feel her teeth pierce my flesh. Feel the growling sound she’s making rattle through her chest to mine.
Warm blood dribbles down my chin, and every cell in my body locks.
“Phishious—”
She bites harder.
“That hurts.”
Keeps snarling.
Her eyes are wide and fearful, ferocious and accusing all at once. She blinks, snarls, and a tear escapes.
My heart flips, almost choking me.
Holding her stare, I trail up the line of her spine, feeling her smooth skin burst with goosebumps as my fingers glaze the side of her neck. I thread them through her soft tendrils, skimming her skull. Once my entire hand cradles the back of her head, I clench a fistful of hair, tugging gently.
Her lids flutter.
“It’s okay,” I battle out. “I’ng orite.”
Her sound softens.
“You can let go.”
So fucking slowly, she eases her jaw open, though I keep pulling her head back—seeing my blood coating her teeth and chin and throat.
Fuck.
I suck my bottom lip into my mouth, tasting me. Tasting her—smooth like the ocean and just as crisp and clear.
From somewhere deep inside me, Zykanth stirs. One small slither of movement that has my heart leaping high into my throat.
‘Zyke?’
Silence.
But that tiny slithering motion … it’severything.
Vicious rips away, leaving me bereft, cold, and drained.
Empty.
She scurries down to my feet, wraps her hands halfway around my ankles, and begins lugging me along the clifftop, toward the red pool gurgling near the edge.
“You’re very … emasculating … sometimes,” I battle out, feeling the stone grate at my skin. Watching the sky slip by between heavy-lidded blinks, not even bothering to fight. Not even sure I could.
She hooks her hands under my arms and tugs me forward until I’m folded with my face in her neck, groaning from the strike of pain that stabs through me.
I blow a shuddered breath. “I want to sleep,” I murmur. “Please.”
Her hands slide around my waist and, taking my weight, she pulls me into the swirling warmth, a sigh easing out of me that morphs into a whimper as she lowers us onto a smooth stone ledge—submerged until the bold, red water laps at my clavicle.
Her hands weave between us, fiddling with something. I don’t realize what until the material swirling against my skin is suddenly yanked away, leaving no buffer between our bare flesh.
I don’t pull from her neck, even as her bareness straddles me. Presses against me. Does things to me that I can’t bring myself to be ashamed of.
There’s a wet plop behind me, and she eases me back until my head is resting on the pile of her sodden shirt.
