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Sterling, I never meant to hurt you, or to make you think we might in any way, at any time--
You were never anything but proper, Elise.
His clipped, careful tone was brittle to her ears. But I still hurt you. He slowly shook his head. All of my decisions have been my own. You've done nothing to regret.
Don't be so certain of that, she murmured, thinking on all her past mistakes, not the least of which would probably prove to be the blasphemy of a blood bond she'd instigated with Tegan.
She felt the warrior's presence getting stronger within her, and knew that wherever he was in the compound now, he was coming closer. She could feel him in the warmth skating along her limbs, and in the prickle of the fine hairs at the back of her neck.
I appreciate your concern, Sterling, truly. But everything is fine. I'm fine.
His light brown brows were knit together in a scowl. You don't look fine. You look flushed. You have goose bumps on your arms.
It's nothing.
He stared at her face, which was probably pink with color from both the recent nourishment of Tegan's blood and the sudden flood of embarrassment that Sterling would soon guess the cause of her discomfort for himself.
That dawning came over him instantly. It was evident in the fall of his expression, then the glowering rage that filled his eyes with indigo fire.
"What did he do to you?"
Nothing, she said, awash in humiliation but through no fault of Tegan's.
You drank from him.
It was an accusation that Elise could not deny. It's nothing. Don't worry about me--
Did he belittle you into thinking you had to do this? Did he...seduce you into drinking from him? Sterling hissed an oath, his fangs emerging in his rage. I'll fucking kill him. If he forced you, I swear to you, that bastard will pay--
Tegan didn't force me to do anything. I went to him. It was my choice. I asked him to let me use him. It was my doing, Sterling. Not any of his.
You went to him? He looked at her as if she'd slapped him. You drank from him by choice. Jesus, Elise...why?
Because I made a promise to Camden that I'd do whatever I could to make sure no one else was hurt by the Rogues or those who serve them. I made a vow, but I can't live up to it if my body isn't strong. Tegan was right. I needed Breed blood, and he gave it to me.>Tegan sucked in a sharp breath as Elise fastened her mouth to his wrist and took another long pull from his opened veins. She moaned as she swallowed more and more of him. Her hunger was rising. Greed for more made her pull harder, deeper, even as she quenched herself on him. Her tongue was a moist, hot demand against his skin, but it was the light scrape of her teeth that made Tegan's sex surge even harder than it already was.
He knew he wasn't alone in his arousal. He could feel her body's response; he absorbed her thoughts and emotions through his fingertips, which were buried in the silky layers of her short blond hair, resting against the warmth of her nape. He indulged in a brief few strokes of her soft skin, then drew his hand away when the sensations became too intense.
Jesus, she was on fire with need--both the physical thirst and the carnal one that Breed blood inspired in females bearing the teardrop-and- crescent-moon birthmark.
Absurdly, Tegan fought to distance himself from the gravity of what was happening. He tried to occupy his mind with a clinical mental inventory of her features--anything to dull the erotic movements of her mouth on him--but it was no use. Elise was too real, too damn hot, the way her spine arched and snaked with each long draw of her mouth. Her breath heaved, rapid and deep, and her lips were making deliciously wet noises in the quiet of the room.
Her eyelids flicked open as if to beg permission and Tegan was struck by the lovely amethyst color of her irises now that hunger and desire had darkened them. Her cheeks were pinkening already from his blood in her system, her lips stained a glossy, beautiful red where they held fast to his wrist.
Finish it, he told her, his tongue thick, his own mouth dry as bone. Take your fill.
With a throaty groan, Elise pushed him down onto his back and followed him there, never breaking contact as she crawled alongside him on the bed, his arm raised to accommodate her continued feeding.
Even though he was hard as granite in his jeans, Tegan wanted to remain detached from the entire catastrophe playing out before him. He needed to tune out the incredibly desirable woman who was now writhing against him in nothing but a modest cotton bra and panties, throwing off erotic heat like a furnace.
And her emotion was swamping him. Her need was so raw, so honest.
Christ, he had forgotten what that felt like. He didn't want to think about how long it had been since he'd lain with a woman. Didn't want to acknowledge how empty--how willfully chaste, physically and emotionally--his life had been for the past five centuries.
He didn't want to think about Sorcha....
He couldn't think about her, not when Elise was driving him to the edge with every moan and sigh and catlike slide of her body next to him. To his surprise, he wanted very much to touch her-- not to flex his psychic talent a little more, but to just touch her.
Reaching over with his free hand, Tegan traced his fingers along the smooth line of her shoulder and upper arm. A spray of gooseflesh rose along the trail he'd made on her skin. Beneath the thin white cotton of her bra, her nipples tightened into hard pearls. He brushed his thumb over one pebbled bud, his breath catching in the back of his throat as she arched into him uninhibited, the blood fever from her feeding making her know no shame.
