Page 30 of Blood & Bedlam

I’m a coward, and because I’m a coward, I’ve locked myself in my study and done everything I can to avoid crossing paths with Reine. It’s nearly 4 A.M. and I’ve drunk myself into a blood-soaked well of self-pity, but I need to get out of this room. With a sigh, I swing my legs over the side of the couch and peek my head out the door. It’s late, and with sunrise soon, the inhabitants of the Manor are settling in for the morning, leaving the common areas mostly deserted. My feet wander, then climb the staircase at the end of the hall. At the top, those cursed feet carve their own path, drawing farther and farther from the safety of my study, hauling my unsteady body toward my quarters where Reine sleeps.

I hesitate outside the door, knowing Juliette is inside with her.

I shouldn’t be here, but when my head falls gently to rest on the wood, I don’t hear her breaths. More than once since she’s been here, I’ve counted those breaths, the beats of her heart as she sleeps, but I can’t hear them now, and panic slices through me. I nearly crush the doorknob in my haste to get inside. I’m greeted with an empty room. The window is closed, and I struggle to put my thoughts in order, but my beast is raging inside of me, running off animalistic instinct. We trace her scent, mirroring her steps all the way into the walk-in closet. If I weren’t so besotted with the drink, I’d be alarmed that the scent is strongest near the mirror entrance, and when it ripples under our touch, we forge ahead, both beast and man, heart racing.

Her scent overwhelms me instantly.

In this sacred place, she stands in the moonlight from the magical window that doesn’t exist, in one of Mina’s gowns. Her dark hair falls in waves over her shoulder, eyes sparkling. She takes me in, giving an appreciative grin with every pass of her gaze. Reine looks ravishing, and the beast in my chest beats his own, demanding we go to her. I don’t seem to be able to tell him no.

My eyes trace her hands as she smooths down the front of the dress, the shadow of her body punishing beneath the sheer fabric. I’m pinned by the softness of her curves, her breasts paled beneath the moon and red material. Hunger, deep seated and primal, causes my mouth to water.

She shouldn’t be here either, and I have no idea how she even got in, but I can’t think about that right now. The critical thinking part of my mind completely succumbs to insatiable need.

Reine holds out her hand, palm up, and waits. A tether beneath my ribs responds to her call, wrenching me forward at breakneck speed, completely lost to her command. The air displaces between us, sending inky tendrils floating around her shoulders and collarbone, and we’re close, so fucking close it pains me. She smells divine, the heat of her blood warming the oils on her skin, and it’s a potent mix between the call of the Bond. Her hand in mine is an electric shock that shoots right to my cock, the skin soft and silky beneath me. A low groan rips from my chest, desperate to be closer, to feel.

It’s been so long since I’ve felt this.

“Vladimir.” She says my name in the old tongue, and my eyes flutter shut at the sound. It’s a symphony of comfort and familiarity that shoots through my body, nearly buckling my knees with pleasure. Her free hand cups my cheek. I nearly cry at the touch, at the power calling to me from inside her blood. My fangs descend fully with a sharp snap.

Ashamed, I turn away quickly but her hand on my face turns firm, guiding my eyes back to hers.

“Look at me,” she whispers, the honeysuckle wine on her breath sweet and enticing. “Please. Show me. Show me who we were.”

The plea in her voice ignites my blood, my heart clawing at its prison to touch her, to show her, to love her once more. I don’t know if it’s the words from Drake, her scent all around me, or the ache and longing that seems to match my own, but I want to give her everything she’s asking for and then some.

But she might not survive it. I might not, either.

“I’m holding on by a fucking thread here, melee stea,” I say gruffly, my voice rough and harsh with need and repressed desire. She’s too close, too tempting. In her eyes are the constellations I memorized a thousand times—the life promised and stolen from us both. But it’s the feel of her need through the tremble of her body against mine that’s my undoing.

“Fuck it.”

My lips crash against hers, and it’s deep, consuming. The sharp points of my teeth slice small slashes against her tender flesh, just enough to scratch the dermis. She cries out against my mouth but doesn’t relent, holds me closer with all the strength she possesses. I salivate when the droplets of her lifeblood trickle over my tongue, nourishing, rich and vibrant. Reine’s arms circle my neck and we move, my hands unable to resist feeling her, mapping out a body that’s been seared into the fabric of who I am for centuries. The thin fabric rips beneath my talons, drawing more faint rivulets of blood against her pale skin, but the enraptured moan that travels from her lips at the slight bite of pain sends me spiraling.

My movements are too fast and unsteady, but I lift her body anyway. Reine doesn’t hesitate, and in moments, her legs wrap around my waist like they were always meant to be there. The heat from her core presses against me, sending blood rushing though my ears. The throne of Wallachia sits under our painting, and I stumble back, cradling her neck to stop whiplash as I crash into the seat.

“More,” she demands, straddling my waist, grinding her ass against the fabric covering my cock. Her hands push my torso back and I comply, letting my shoulders rest against the ancient upholstery. Blood trickles from tiny cuts on her lips, from crescent-shaped slices against her skin, and it causes all my own blood to rush painfully south. We’re both breathing hard, and up close I can appreciate how fucking stunning she is, how responsive her body is to the trail of my fingers pressing against the light fabric covering her breasts, her hips. Her eyes are soft on mine, trusting. Reine reaches up to stroke my cheek, to trace her fingers against my lips.

“You’re so beautiful.” I press the words, full of awe, against the pads of her fingertips. She looks up at me through her dark eyelashes. Even straddling me, I’m looking down on her, committing every inch of her to memory.

“So are you.” She’s breathless, but her hands are steady as she unties the belt holding her gown together. Pushes the fabric open. I can’t breathe, can’t think, and when her hands come down to unbuckle my belt, when her fingers graze my cock, pleasure causes cum to leak from the tip. Reine watches me, my eyes first, then the tightening of my muscles under her strokes. My grip on her hips is too hard, but I can’t let go; I’m stunned watching her work. She slips her fingers under the skin around my crown and I see stars, her hands slick with the mess she’s making of me.

I can’t take any more.

The teases of her taste on my tongue aren’t enough. I move my hands over her torso, slow and deliberate. She gasps, relinquishes my shaft, and its poetry. I lean down to nip at the underside of her soft breasts. The bloom of crimson over her paled skin is the perfect arc of a painter’s brush, deadly, enamoring. My lips caress up her sternum, pressing against her rapidly beating heart, tongue licking the arousal and fear radiating from her body with each grind of her hips over my cock.

The vein in her neck pulses harder under my kiss, as I suck and pull at the paper-thin skin there. Reine’s hands are in my hair, her body riding mine, chasing the friction that’s giving her pleasure. She shifts up on her knees and offers me her lips while lining herself up, her breathy moans panting against my mouth. I let her take control here, need to know this is her choice because I’m too far gone to stop this.

“Are you sure?” I need to hear her say it.

Time stands still, both of us strung too tight with want and delicious ache.

“Devour me,” she commands.

I feel the moment the cosmos weaves our fates together, forever entwined into the fabric of the universe, when she settles over my cock, letting gravity sink her body onto mine.

No death, no life, no bliss I’ve ever known is more powerful than the two of us becoming one.

Her fingernails dig into the fabric of my shirt, her head thrown back on a moan, and when I’m fully seated inside of her, my cock pulses, swelling, needing every inch of me to fill the deepest parts of her. I pepper kisses over her jawline, over the exposed column of her throat. Reine rocks her hips, clenching and unclenching around me, and I’m struck by the power of her, how she takes her pleasure with confidence and command. Her fingers card through my hair, pulling my lips back to the delicate curve of her neck, and my body responds, caught in her rapture as deeply as she’s in mine.