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“Always, my orchid.”
Jax pressed tighter into my side as Xander’s head lowered toward my arm. Osric and Aaron seemed to hold their breaths, not making a sound.
Wanting to help but not wanting to watch, I closed my eyes as Xander’s mouth moved toward my wrist. I hoped it wouldn’t be too painful.
And it wasn’t. There was a brief prick, like an injection at the doctor’s office. The sharpness lasted less than a second, and was, in an odd way, a blend of pain and ecstasy all at once.
He fed. His hands clasping my wrist and arm firmly but gently, the soft press of his lips was all I felt from his mouth.
I opened my eyes. If I couldn’t have seen that his fangs were still extended into me, I’d have sworn someone was just kissing the spot tenderly. And it sent out a feeling of tenderness throughout my whole body. Like he was kissing and sucking spots all over.
I closed my eyes again, squirming. Not from discomfort or fear. From pleasure. My heart was beating faster and my limbs trembling as I pressed my thighs together, trying to control the growing pressure beneath my sleep shorts. It wasn’t helping that Jax was now wrapped around one side of my body.
Just as I was starting to feel a bit too flushed, and a tiny bit faint, the kissing stopped, and Xander said softly, “You can open your eyes, my darling.”
Aaron breathed a sigh of relief.
Jax inched back again and took a drink of his beer. “That made me kind of hot,” he muttered.
Xander’s fangs had retreated, but not to their normal position, and his tongue and lips were ruby red, but apart from that, I’d hardly have known what he’d just done. I looked down to see two red spots on my wrist, no more than a millimeter in diameter each. Wow.
Aaron came across and gently wet wiped my wrist, but there was virtually no blood to be cleaned.
Xander’s eyes and complexion bright, glowing with energy, he looked like the cat that had got the cream. Just, in this case, he was the vamp that got the blood. “How was your first feeding, my orchid?”
I didn’t want to mention the excitement I’d felt, as I wasn’t sure if that was normal or not, so I just said, “It was a lot easier than I’d expected. Quite easy, really. All that fuss for nothing. How do you feel?”
“Well, it’s hard to put into words”—he kissed my hand and stood—“I’d say…”
He blurred. Everyone gasped, staring at the space he’d just been standing in.
“What the fuck? Where’d he—” Jax’s question was answered by a knock of glass.
We turned to see Xander, grinning ear to ear, behind the balcony doors, standing between one of his coven members and one of Jax’s NN Lupines, both of whom were smirking and frowning respectively.
Xander then waved, as if saying goodbye. He blurred again. This time he reappeared by walking out of Aaron’s bedroom!
Mouth gaping, Jax almost dropped his beer. “I’ve seen vamps blur within a radius of a foot or two, but never anything like that. How in holy fuck did you do that?”
Xander flexed his biceps, bodybuilder fashion. They weren’t anything like Aaron’s, but they were noticeably buffer. “I feel like a billion dollars.” His gaze fixed on Osric, his eyes sly, words dripping honey. “And I look it too, don’t I, Your Highness?”
Osric’s answer made me jump in my seat.
“Yes, you do. Very handsome. Very handsome, indeed, old bean.” His eyes were playful, flirty, he was—he shook his head, as if waking from a trance. “What the fuck? Were you just…hitting on me?”
Aaron chimed in, making a face. “It wasn’t just him. You looked ready to get down and dirty there.”
Xander held his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “Oh, shit. I am sincerely sorry, Osric.” Xander’s grin disappeared and his face turned visibly sterner. “My powers of seduction have doubled. No, quadrupled. But”—he leaned forward and kissed my forehead—“I can also sense I have more control over them than before. Which is profoundly liberating. How can this be?”
“Ceci,” Aaron said firmly. “It’s all about Ceci. This is what Jax and I have been talking about. She’s strengthening our powers, the closer we get. You obviously needed intimacy on a vamp level to feel it fully yourself. And you feel more control over your powers, too, you said?”
Xander nodded. “Yes, the blurring and the charming.”
“Jax, you feel more connected to your wolf?”
“I do. It’s hard to explain, but aside from him being stronger, I feel like we’re more unified, more in tune with his thoughts and vice versa. You’re the same with your grizzly?”
Aaron bobbed his head side to side, sighing. “More in tune, in terms of sharing thoughts, visions? Definitely. Stronger? You all saw him. More in control?” He exhaled through gritted teeth. “I’m not sure anything can do that where he’s concerned.”
