Page 149 of The Crown’s Temptation

That was the thing he understood later, in daylight, when there was nothing left to do but understand. The hum had not put the words in her mouth. It had gone into him, read what was already written there, and read it back to him aloud in her voice.

He had wanted to hear it.

He gave her what she asked for.

She scratched his back open. He bit through her ear and tasted her and she told him it was still not enough. He asked if she wanted him to stop. She said no. He asked again and she said no, delighted, breathless, and told him to stop asking like a boy who needed permission.

His pupils blew out. His eyes went black.

He flipped her over and drove into her, past the point where he had ever let himself go with anything that could break. Her hands found his back again and went in through the same furrows she had already opened. The pain of it moved him forward instead of back.

"Harder," she murmured.

He thrust harder. And harder.

"More."

He should stop. He could stop.

He pulled back and saw the blood.

It had pooled beneath her hips and soaked outward into the mattress and there was more of it than a body could give and keep going. She was propped on her elbows, watching him look at it.

She dipped two fingers in it and held them to his mouth.

"You are bleeding," he said.

"This is how I like it." She pushed her fingers past his lips. "More."

He knew.

That was the part he could not get around, after. He knew, and he understood what knowing meant, and the small rational thing at the back of his skull said she is human, she will not survive you. He heard it clearly.

He took her by the throat and gave her more.

And more.

He bit her and hit her and fucked her until she was a mess of bruises and blood, and the rational thing at the back of his skull stopped speaking in full sentences and only hoped.

"More," she breathed into his ear.

"You are only my little plaything." Her voice had gone almost fond. "Until I return to the man I love. Did you know that, Teorin?"

He knew that too.

They continued for what felt like hours until release came so hard he thought he might lose consciousness. Some part of him hoped he would. Hoped he would not wake.

He woke and did not know whether it had happened.

Morning.

He pulled the sheet back and his stomach turned. Blood dried down his thighs, across his feet, dark in the beds of his nails. It had gone everywhere she had been.

He closed his eyes. Opened them. Wondered whether she had survived it. Whether he could live with himself if she had not. Whether any human could survive him, and then remembered that he did not take humans he intended to let live. Humans were for fucking and feeding and, when it suited him, for killing.

He washed for a long time.

When he came out of the bathing room the sheets were clean. White, folded down at the corner the way the servants left them. The mattress beneath was dry. No basin. No linens bundled by the door. No water standing anywhere in the room.