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“Harder.” I slip my hand between us and rub my clit, watching his shoulders ripple as he holds my free hand above my head then kisses my neck.

He changes pace. Does as I’ve asked.

Heat and pleasure dance on my skin and become a new kind of pain. A torment. A frustration. An explosion that’s building and building inside me, coiling around my limbs, making my eyes roll back and my breath hitch and my toes curl.

He lifts my legs a little, tilts his pelvis, and starts hitting the spot that make stars explode behind my eyelids.

“I want to see your face,” I moan into his ear. “I want to watch your face.”

He obliges, sitting up so he can see all of me.

Normally, I’d feel totally exposed like this but the way he is staring at me makes me feel like a goddess.

“Fuck, you look beautiful, kitten.”

His eyes trail down my body. He looks as if he might devour me whole. His hips slam into mine, and the bed creaks beneath us both.

I cry out but tell him not to stop.

I close my eyes, but when I open them again, he is holding his wrist against his mouth. I am still touching myself when he bites down on the vein and pierces it with his fangs.

Blood trickles down his arm and onto my stomach. He wraps his other arm around me and lifts me so I’m sitting in his lap. I curl my legs around him. He is still inside me, but now he’s offering me his bleeding wrist.

“Drink. My blood will do more for your pain than those pills will ever do.” He meets my eyes. Inky pools of salvation.

I shouldn’t do this.

I shouldn’t want to do this. But the thought of having his blood inside me is so overwhelmingly powerful that I can’t stop myself.

I grab his hand and seal my lips over the open wound.

When I start to suck, Lucien groans and thrusts into me harder.

His warmth fills my mouth, coats my tongue. Metallic but oddly sweet. It drips onto my chin.

“Luna...” Lucien gasps my name like a prayer, his jaw clenched tightly as he watches me. Then he cups my face in his hand and eases my lips from him. “That’s enough now, kitten.”

I am panting. My body is on fire.

A gentle warmth begins to spread through my body, starting as a tingle in my throat.

The constant ache I’ve grown accustomed to doesn’t disappear entirely, but it softens around the edges. It’s as if someone has turned down the volume on my pain, from a blaring roar to a more manageable hum. The sharp twinges in my joints are suddenly duller, less insistent.

As I wrap my arms around him and grind my pelvis down onto him, I realize my limbs feel different, too. Lighter. When I roll my shoulders and tilt my head back so he can lick the blood from my chin and my throat, the familiar stiffness is there, but muted.

Energy trickles through me, not a surge but a gentle stream.

For the first time in years, I feel a glimmer of what it might be like to live without constant pain.

Pleasure builds inside me. No longer fighting to rise above my pain, it rips effortlessly through my body, and I start to shake. Sweat beads on my shoulders and between my breasts. Darkness swells in the corners of my vision. Lucien holds me tighter, and fucks me harder, and when I climax, I dig my nails into his back and hold onto him as if I might dissolve completely if I didn’t have him to keep me here.

As Lucien watches me come, his entire body tenses up. He groans loudly, and the sound increases my pleasure. He stares at me, thrusts harder, then stops. His warmth fills me, hot and beautiful.

I expect him to pull away, but he doesn’t.

He stays inside me, stroking my back, holding me tightly against his chest.

I notice that my hips aren’t aching, and my back isn’t either, and when he lowers me down onto the bed, I slip into a deep, easy sleep.