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The bed dipped and she was once again cocooned in his reassuring warmth. She shivered as he pulled her to his lap and lifted her.
“You’ve left me no other choice, little one.”
Her ear pressed to the solid wall of his chest. The familiar, steady beat of his heart comforted her through the darkness. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
The first scent of blood awakened something inside of her, but she was still too weak to open her eyes. Her jaw slackened, her fangs punching through her gums when he smeared the blood over her lips. She struck like a viper, sinking her fangs into his flesh and latching onto his vein with greedy need.
He grunted, and those first few spurts of his warm, life-giving blood returned her strength. It trickled down her throat, and her hands curled around his arm, holding him to her mouth as she drank heavily.
“Take what you need, little one. I am yours.”
She drank like a babe. The involuntary response to the source of food as natural as a baby’s instinct to nurse.
Her lightheadedness subsided. The internal disquiet that had been punishing her for days uncoiled and repaired. The tension in her shoulders disappeared with the ache in her head, and a delightful euphoria took hold.
Gentle fingers stroked through her hair. Christian.
She’d recognize his touch anywhere. She welcomed it, and leaned into it because she loved when he touched her.
“That’s it,” he whispered, his voice no longer sounding miles away. “Take as much as you need.”
She gorged herself, moaning deeply as she accepted his blood into her body without inhibition. The longer she sipped the more aware she became. Her hips shifted, seeking purchase and her claws dug into the muscled flesh of his arm.
The scent of his desire crept into her, feeding her own. She wanted him. Needed him in every sense of the word.
Overwhelmed by gratitude for his offering, her chest tightened. This was what she needed. He knew she would, yet he refused to pester her about feeding once he gave her his word. He left the choice to her and tolerated her nagging hunger pains for days.
His perseverance proved his commitment to the truth—to her. He truly did want trust between them, because even now, as her cloudy mind awoke and her body repaired, she recognized that she was not under any form of compulsion.
Her lips dragged over his shredded skin and she opened her eyes only to gasp at his torn flesh. She’d been so starved, she’d ravaged him. Blood seeped and gathered at the raw wound As she looked up at him, her eyes brimming with regret. “I hurt you.”
“No, pintura. There was no pain.”
The gnawed pulp of his flesh was irritated and raw. He kept his wrist exposed to her, an ongoing offering to take more. She licked her lips, sensing his encouragement but sure she’d had enough.
“Take a little more. You’re still rather weak. It will make you strong.”
Looking up at him with uncertainty, she pulled his wrist back to her mouth and slowly opened her lips. She no longer needed to bite, and regretted tearing into him so brutally.
He watched her drink her fill. “Good, pintura. That’s very good.” The fingers of his free hand caressed her hair and shoulders.
Her gluttonous moans took on a carnal tone as his aged blood pumped through her veins.
He tasted rich and potent. As her strength returned, she softly purred.
“Ah,” he grunted as she finally let go.
“Did that hurt?”
He shook his head. “Quite the opposite.”
She blushed and instinctively licked over his torn flesh, cleaning away any mess and closing the wound. When his arm pulled away, the skin was unflawed. Perfectly unbroken, she wondered how such a thing could be possible. And how did she know to do that?
“It’s called innate intelligence,” he said, reading her mind and trailing his fingers through her hair as she rested in his arms. “Your body knows what it needs and it will make those unconscious choices for you.”
She supposed it was like choosing to breathe. Feeding was an involuntary act. She’d tried to control the primal instinct, but the dogmatic impulse would always be stronger than her will.
Christian breathed out a jagged breath. “Never again, Delilah. I forbid it.”
He wasn’t flaunting his authority. She’d truly scared him when she passed out.
She realized now how futile her resistance had been and agreed, “Never again.” She couldn’t go back to the shaky, malnourished, lethargic weakling she’d been. “I’m sorry I scared you.”
“Shh,” he gently caressed her cheek. “We’ve moved on. All is forgiven.” His smile was fragile, too delicate to reach his eyes.
She lifted her hands, admiring the healthy pink glow of her skin. Her plump veins darkened and her flesh no longer clung to the bone.
“It is God’s design.”
She didn’t need to assign miracles to a supreme being to believe they existed. He called it God, she called it nature, either way, her body just proved how seamlessly it could self-correct by design.
