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“Kiss, kiss,” I said, leaning in to press my lips against his. Nobody resisted Cherish, the daughter of Myst. And truth being, the minute my lips were on his, he stopped fighting. The venom in my kiss had him snared, and I climbed atop him, riding him hard, riding him rough, riding him even as my teeth nipped holes in his flesh. I bloodied his lips and then his neck, and then, as I came—hard and hungry—I lunged for his throat, shifting into my creature as I did so. I fell into the bloodlust with a fury, until there was nothing left on the ground but a few bones and the stain of glorious, delicious blood.>Lannan was shouting.
The weight of the Blood Oracle—far heavier than I would have imagined—kept me pinned. I turned, trying to claw my way out as he struggled with Lannan, who was attempting to pull him off me. The sounds of the two vampires fighting was like a horrible battle between two lions, kings of the hill waging war over the queen.
My hands on the floor, my fingertips pressed hard against the tile, I struggled to drag myself free. Check and Grieve were running toward me, and I held up one hand to them. Grieve reached down, his fingers clutching mine. He began a steady tug, trying to ease me out, as Check slid his arms beneath mine.
I groaned as something snapped in one of my legs. Not a loud snap, but enough for me to know that a muscle or a tendon or something had ripped. A few seconds later, the pain hit in my ankle.
I gritted my teeth, trying not to scream, but at that moment, Check managed to dislodge me and I pushed away the numbing ache.
As he pulled me from beneath Crawl’s body, there was a momentary lull in the fight, and then something long and sharp with several blades ripped through my leg, tearing into the flesh.
I screamed as the blood began to fountain, the gashes burning their way into my leg. There were screams—I think from Luna—and a lot of shouting, and the next thing I knew, Crawl’s hand was off my leg.
“She’s bleeding out—look at those wounds!”
“Get her jeans off her.”
I wanted to ask where Geoffrey and Leo were. I wanted to see what was going on with Crawl. But all I could do was stare unfocused at the ceiling while someone tugged on my jeans. The pain of the material sliding over the wounds was exquisite agony, and I moaned, biting my tongue to keep from screaming again. I was fading in and out now and slowly began to feel myself sliding out of my body. I shifted. And then, as everything began to go black, I heard Lannan.
“You have no choice. She needs my blood—it will bring her back from the brink because, Princeling, if you don’t let me do this, your fiancée will die and take the queenship down the drain with her. When Crawl wounds, be it his fangs or his talons, there must be a transfusion of vampire blood. Any magic-born or yummanii bitten by the Old Master is doomed to bleed out. She’s not so far gone that it will turn her, but there’s very little time. Do you want her to live, or will you let her die?”
As his words began to sink in, so did the realization that I was dying, and that once again, Crawl was responsible.
Grieve let out an anguished cry. “Go then, do it…I know what will happen, and I accept. Just save her.”
The next moment, somebody was forcing my lips open, and then a few drops of blood began to trickle into my mouth, and it was the sweetest ambrosia I’d ever tasted. Rich and thick and familiar. I licked my lips to catch the stray beads, sucking them in. Suddenly so thirsty I wanted to scream, I opened my mouth willingly as Lannan pressed his wrist to my lips, an open cut bleeding slowly, and I suckled, taking his force into my body, feeling it cascade down my throat.
As I eagerly drew his blood into me, the pain in my leg began to subside as a warm, sinuous energy unwound from the base of my tailbone, snaking its way up my body, flushing me deep like a blush to the core.
I let out a slow moan, this time from pleasure rather than pain, as the blood raced down my throat, freeing me from the ache of my torn flesh. But then it started—the heat racing around my cunt, waking me up as it traveled up through my breasts, through the road map of veins running through my body. I sucked deeper still, the crimson river flowing through me, infusing me with health and strength and desire.
And then my eyes opened, and I was staring up into Lannan’s face, that glorious mane of golden hair falling around his shoulders as the jet black eyes watched me. No breath, no rise and fall of the chest, and I tried to remind myself that he was dead, that he was a vampire, but all I could think about was having his hands on me, having him hold me down and drive himself into me again and again until I forgot everything except those ancient, glazed-over eyes.
The very air acted like an aphrodisiac on my skin, ruffling past like a ribbon of silk, and I let out another moan as every faint whisper of wind became a tease, as every sound became amplified. My body was a live wire, sizzling like hot oil, and I reached up, grabbed hold of Lannan, and pulled him down to me, locking my lips with his.
A faint sound caught my notice, and my wolf howled, but I pushed it away. The only thing that existed at the moment was the Blood Fever, the drive to spread my legs and beckon my dark angel inside. I kissed him, deep, probing his mouth with my tongue, running it over his fangs.
Lannan stared down at me, a triumphant smirk on his face, but then he held me down, pausing, and looked up. “I’m taking her out of here. The Blood Fever is so high that she’ll die if I don’t quench it. Regina, you know what to do with Crawl. The rest of you—my men will escort you to safety. Geoffrey and Leo are still at large.”
His words registered through a fog, and I let out a faint whisper.
“Geoffrey—Leo—my cousin…Rhia?”
“Shush, my sweet Cicely. You are still weak, and you burn with Blood Fever. Save your worries for later. Your cousin is safe, and so are your friends.”
In the haze of lust, my skin was so hot it felt like I was going to burn into a crisp, burn into a cinder. I fell silent. Vague images fluttered past—Grieve, my love, but even my heart couldn’t withstand the flame racing through my veins. I thought I caught a glimpse of him, but then, in a flash, he was gone and I wasn’t sure what was real and what wasn’t.
The next thing I knew, we were traveling at blur-speed, and as I watched the walls rush by, I began to sweat. The Blood Fever was hitting, and hitting hard.
Blood Fever. Whenever one of the still-living drank from a vampire without being turned, the blood boiled in the system, churning through the veins like a river of passion, driving mortals into raving nutcases. The only release, the only way to calm the blood, was to fuck your brains out—to ride the drive into submission. Primal forces were unleashed with Blood Fever, filling the body, overriding logic, overriding love.
We passed into the night; somehow we were in a car—Lannan’s limousine—and he laid me back against the seat, the leather creaking as he adjusted me beneath him. The smell was old, and moneyed, and I wondered how many times Lannan had fucked someone in this car.
He held me down, pinning my wrists over my head. “Move your hurt leg to the side,” he whispered.
I slid my left leg to the side so it was off the seat, bending my knee so my foot was braced against the floor. I was sweating, the glistening beads slowly trickling down my face, dripping onto my chest. All I could think about was how close his lips were to mine, how cold his hands were against my skin, how there was no rising and falling of breath from him. He had conquered death, and I hated him. And yet…and yet…I craved the force of his body against mine.
Lannan licked my neck, trailing his tongue down toward my breasts. “Salty. You’re salty. And your breath, it comes so hard. Panting, are we? Girl, you want me. I can feel it. And this time, I want to hear you say it. Beg me, Cicely. Beg me and I’ll give you everything.”
