Page 68 of Nightshade

His hand slipped up my back, and his fingers tangled in my hair. Rather than pull me away, he dragged me in.

Then I felt it—his cock rigid and trapped between our bodies, indelible proof that he wasn’t lying to me. He wasn’t naive and romantic—or not only those things.

He liked this, and no, feeding from Leo was nothing like eating any kind of food. The very thought was absurd. No food in this world could make me feel seen and safe the way he did. No food tasted like sunlight and the joy of his laugh and hope.

This? I could do this forever. And happily.

I reached between us. His breath stuttered at the feel of my hand wrapped around him, and he whined when I let go of his neck.

“Altair—” he begged.

“I know,” I promised. “I will, just⁠—”

I needed him inside me again. I needed to know that he was happy too, that he felt the same swell of pleasure he gave me.

I shifted forward, holding him steady under me as his blunt tip spread me wide. I shivered, sinking down and taking him inch by inch. I was already loose, already slick, but the sensation of having all this was overwhelming. It left my thighs trembling on either side of his hips.

He grabbed my legs and dragged me in, a deep, lazy kind of movement. “Altair, please,” Leo whispered, pink-cheeked and needy.

I bit him again, and he cried out. The wolves could hear, but right then, I didn’t care. Didn’t care a bit, because Leo was asking for this and I’d give him anything—anything I had in this world or the next, if he meant everything he said and kept meaning it.

I drank him down greedily, and when I was finished, I pushed him onto his back. He smiled up at me, eyes dazed and glittering, and I rode him until he came and each bounce on his cock sent his spend trickling down the backs of my thighs.

I licked his neck clean of every drop, but my bite was still there, just a little mark, and my heart thrilled to think it’d made him happy, even if it would be gone by morning.

CHAPTER 35

Leo

I slept after giving Altair blood, which made sense. I hadn’t slept well the night before, and giving blood meant I needed to do a better job of getting enough food and sleep, not worse.

My cheeks flushed at the memory of the discussion with Altair.

Not that he’d reacted badly, just . . . it was a big admission, wasn’t it? That I wanted to be the only one to feed him. More than admissions of soft feelings, or that I wanted his gorgeous body like I wanted air. Those things, somehow, weren’t quite as telling in my mind. They didn’t say that there might be something wrong with my brain the way “I only want you to feed from me” did.

It was possessive, and I might not know the extent of his unlife with Ivan, but I suspected he’d had enough of possessiveness to last a hundred lifetimes.

Plus it spoke to my sad little need to be the most important person in someone’s life. I recognized it. I knew it was a fault, and not a good, normal thing to want. But I’d never been that for anyone.

Sure, Mama loved us all equally.

I even believed that, because she’d never given any indication that she loved Aleks more than Viktor and me, even though Aleks was her blood son and we weren’t. She was Mama. She was perfect.

But that still meant I was one of three. No one had ever put me first before, and some selfish little piece of me wanted that so much it hurt.

I stretched, long and slow and feeling a little luxurious, even though I was just in my own bed in my own room. There’d been a time I hadn’t been sure about having a roof over my head, though, so maybe it was luxurious. A bed big enough to fit me, on the second story of Mama’s enormous home.

With Altair curled up next to me.

It kind of sounded perfect.

But then in the middle of my stretch, the skin on my neck pulled strangely, and it made me pause. I sat up, looking across the room at the mirror over my dresser, and almost had a heart attack right then and there.

I had a scar on my neck.

It wasn’t a wound, not still open and dangerous. It also didn’t look like the generic “vampire bite” wound from movies and the like, just two little punctures. No, it looked like . . . like a mating mark. A whole bite.

As though in a trance, I climbed out of bed and crossed to the mirror, staring at the shape of Altair’s mouth on my skin.