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I’d helped where I could, especially with social media. When I was through, the Maritime Syndicate was going to be as popular as the Krals. Growing a syndicate these days was all about spin. Already, key human influencers were hailing the transfer of power to Brien as a step forward.
As for Brien and I, we’d snatched whatever time we could for ourselves: making love, taking walks, getting to know each other. We talked for hours, telling each other things we’d never told anyone else.
The better I got to know Brien, the more I realized how much he hid behind his Perfect Prince persona. The real Brien was darker and more complicated than the cool, self-assured syndicate prince. A man who could be ruthless when he had to and yet with an innate fairness that had earned not just my love, but my respect.
After all, I wasn’t exactly little Miss Sunshine myself.
He’d been acting a part as much as I was, which made it even more special when he dropped the mask and let me see the real man beneath. A Brien who was far from perfect…but he was perfect for me.
And I knew that right now, that clinical manner concealed a very real fear.
“You’ll be buried for a week,” he said. “Then when you wake up again, you’ll be so hungry for the first five or six days, you’d eat your own flesh if you can’t have blood.”
I swallowed dryly. That—the buried-alive part—was what I would’ve given anything to avoid. “You said it’s only a shallow grave, right?”
The grave he’d prepared was in a secret cavern beneath the castle so he could stay with me even during the day. He’d stocked the cavern with blood-wine so he wouldn’t have to leave. Only Cain and Talon knew the location so they could keep him in the loop about syndicate business.
Brien’s clinical manner fractured. He pulled me to him in a hard hug.
“I dug it myself,” he said against my hair. “It’s less than a meter deep and the only thing covering you will be sand. You won’t have any trouble getting out of it yourself, but if you do, I’ll be right there, helping you. I won’t leave your side the entire time.”
I briefly closed my eyes. “I know you won’t.”
We rocked back and forth, hugging each other like you do when it might be the last time.
Brien released me. He had one more thing to tell me, but at least he’d dropped the Dr. Leclerc façade. “You won’t be able to go out in the sun for years—I’m talking forty, fifty years, maybe longer. And I know how much you enjoy your food. You won’t, anymore. If you try to eat anything other than alcohol or chocolate, you’ll vomit.”
“Brien.” I summoned a wry, Lainey-Q smirk. “I know the risks. And living on wine and chocolate isn’t the worst thing in the world. Now do it already, before you talk yourself out of it.”Before you talk me out of it.
“You called your halmoni?”
“I did. She’s not…happy about this.” I made a face. “I’m hoping she’ll come around.”
She’d let me know straight out how insulted she was that I’d felt she needed protection. And where had I been the last two years?
After she wound down, I’d given her the CliffsNotes version of what had happened, then told her that I loved her and had mated with Brien. Then, like a coward, I’d promised to call her soon and hung up before she’d had time to do anything more than growl, “Have you lost your mind, Nikki?”
“Good.” He smoothed his fingers down my braid. “Just in case you don’t make—”
“I’m not going to die, understand? This thing between us—” I thumped first his heart, then mine—“will keep me alive.You’llkeep me alive.”
His Adam’s apple worked. “I will,” he said like he was taking a sacred vow.
“But I will miss the sun,” I admitted.
“I know, angel.” I felt his sorrow through our bond. “If I could make it up to you, I would.”
“Hey,” I said. “You have nothing to make up to me. This is my decision—I want to be turned. Everything comes with a price, and if I have to give up sunshine to have you, then I choose you. Now, c’mere already.”
I curved my fingers around the back of his skull and guided him to my throat. His fangs scraped the skin. He breathed out a curse—and sank them into my carotid artery.
The familiar pain, followed by a rush of adrenaline, flashed through my body. Brien inhaled deeply, drawing in my scent, a sound so erotic I shivered.
His hand stroked beneath my dress. I knew the moment he discovered that I wasn’t wearing panties. He made a sound low in his throat and tapped my mound, a small spank that made my inner thighs clench.
He sucked harder. My skin was on fire, my nerves on the edge between pleasure and pain. The aphrodisiac was in my blood now. Heat slammed through me, wave after wave of it.
I moaned, and then I climaxed, fast and hard, babbling, “Don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop,” over and over.
