“You know,vampire,” Gray said, turning over in my arms so her backside fit snugly against my front. We’d spent the last hour devouring each other without words, but I could tell from the teasing tone in her voice that I was quickly heading for a battle of wills.
“Just say it, little brawler.”
“I was just thinking about our deal, and all of our conversations since then, and I seem to recall something about pre-conditions.”
Biting back a smile, I said, “I’m certain I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“No? You don’t remember that whole ‘in my bed, I’m in charge, and you will beg me for it’ thing?”
“My memory is… not what it used to be.”
“This certainly doesn’tfeellike your bedroom,” she went on, ignoring me.
I smiled into her hair, inhaling her sweet scent. “No, it doesn’t.”
“And I don’t recall having to beg you for it.”
“No, you certainly didn’t.”
“Interesting, D. I really thought you’d stick to your guns on this one. Are you really that much of a pushover that you’d let one little witch take advantage of you?”
“We’re in the Shadowrealm,” I reminded her. “Technically, it doesn’t count.”
“Ah, I see. The old ‘what happens in the Shadowrealm stays in the Shadowrealm’ defense.”
“Indeed.”
“So you’re saying you want to take it all back?”
“What I’m saying, little brawler…” I nipped the back of her neck, making her squeal. “…is the moment we get back home, all the old rules apply. I will take you in my bed, and youwillbeg me for it.”
She wriggled against me, the touch of her soft, warm flesh making me hard as steel. “Ha! I think we both know who’ll be doing the begging in this arrangement.”
“You win,” I said, knowing full well she was right. Now that I’d tasted her, filled her, there was nothing I wouldn’t give her, nothing I wouldn’t do to hear the hum of pleasure in her blood as she screamed my name.
I pressed another kiss to the back of her neck, then reluctantly crawled out of bed. The temperature outside had dropped to below freezing, and I worried she’d grow cold again.
After seeing her in the snow like that, bent and broken, so pale she was nearly blue… I never wanted her to be cold again.
I placed a few more logs on the fire, stoking it back to a crackling roar.
When I returned to our bed, she was staring up at the ceiling, her face contemplative.
I crawled back in beside her and pulled her against my chest like before, her back to me. I liked her this way, safe and protected in my arms. “What are you thinking about, love?”
“Our blood bond,” she said, her voice made even softer by the crackling fire before us.
“What of it?”
“Does it connect our memories, somehow?”
I considered her question. “I suppose it’s possible. It allows me to sense you and your magic, so it stands to reason it might allow you to sense certain things about me as well. Why do you ask?”
“You said you healed me with some of your blood.”
“Yes, but it was a very small amount. Nothing that would harm you.”
“I remember tasting it now,” she said. “The richness on my tongue. It wasn’t like Jonathan’s. It was… soothing. I felt it sort of… I don’t know. Like I wasn’t actually swallowing it, but letting it sink into me, deep down. Immediately after that, I drifted into this strange dream… But now I’m thinking maybe it wasn’t a dream at all.”
