The violence fuels a different hunger, a desperate heat that has nothing to do with feeding.
“No,” I tell her. “I am better than I have been in many years.”
She moves closer, stepping carefully around the bodies scattered between the trees. When she reaches me, she stops close enough to touch but doesn't. Not yet. She is assessing what she sees, deciding how to respond to this version of me.
Her breathing changes as she takes in the carnage, the blood on my hands, the way I tower over the destruction I've caused. Her scent, sharp with arousal, cuts through the metallic tang of blood and my control frays.
“I've never seen you like this,” she says.
“Because I had buried it beneath diplomacy and careful control because unleashing it served no purpose.”
“And now?”
“Now I have a reason to embrace my true nature.” I reach for her, bloodstained fingers touching her cheek. She doesn't flinch away from the contact. Instead, she leans into it.
Her pulse quickens under my touch, and I see herpupils dilate as she processes what she's seeing. Not the careful lord who feeds from her throat with such restraint, but the predator who just painted my grove with enemy blood.
“How do you feel?” she asks. “Right now, after killing for the first time in... how long?”
I consider the question honestly. How do I feel? Not guilty or diminished, as centuries of imposed restraint taught me to expect. Not empty or drained, as the old hunger used to leave me.
“Satisfied,” I say finally. “Complete. As if I have been only half myself for decades, and the other half just returned.”
“The feeding did that?”
“The feeding gave me the strength to do that. Your pain, freely given, transformed into power I could direct instead of desperate need.”
Understanding passes through her expression. She sees the connection between what she provides and what I just accomplished. Not just sustenance, but the foundation for controlled violence when circumstances require it.
“Vasek underestimated you,” she says.
“He underestimated us. He saw my frenzy as weakness, distraction, loss of control. He could not conceive that finding the right source would make me more dangerous, not less.”
I pull her closer, until she is pressed against my chest. The scent of her arousal strengthens, and I realize sheis trembling. Not with fear—with need. Watching me unleash violence has awakened her own hunger.
My hands find her waist, fingers digging into the soft fabric of her dress. She's so small against me, so fragile compared to the destruction I just wrought. The contrast makes my cock throb harder.
“The other lords will make the same mistake,” I continue, my voice dropping to rougher tones. “They will see our connection as vulnerability to exploit, never understanding that it is the source of new strength.”
“Until it's too late to correct their error.”
“Yes.”
She rises on her toes, bringing her face closer to mine. In the pale light filtering through the grove canopy, her eyes show the same hunger that drives my own nature. She wants what I am, especially after witnessing what I am capable of when unleashed.
“I want you to feed from me,” she says. “Now. Here. While the satisfaction is still fresh.”
Feed from her while the joy of successful violence still courses through my system. Take her pain while surrounded by evidence of what protecting her means to me.
“Here?” I ask, gesturing toward the bodies scattered between the trees.
“Here,” she confirms without hesitation. “While you still smell like blood and danger. While I can still see what you really are.”
My mouth finds the pulse in her throat as I breathe in her scent. Honey and copper and arousal, the combination that has become more necessary than air. But also something new—excitement, anticipation, the eager surrender of someone who has found exactly what she needs.
My teeth extend, sharp points pressing against the pulse that beats so frantically beneath her skin.
My teeth extend, sharp points pressing against the pulse that beats so frantically beneath her skin. “I might hurt you,” I rasp, the words more of a promise than a warning.
