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He couldn’t quite stifle a shiver. Unwelcome anticipation almost overpowered the ominous sense that something sinister lurked just beyond his comprehension.
Her voice was thick with promise. “That is what I want of you, mon petit vampire. To watch you become all that you are meant to be.”
Something about her scent. It wasn’t right. But the thought vanished as quickly as it appeared when the earthy smell of blood burst into his awareness. It was the human’s. There was a fresh wound on his wrist, which he offered to Dominique. The blood welled and glittered in his enhanced vision, captivating him.
Out of the corner of his eye, Dominique saw Bijou smile, serene and confident, and had a fleeting sense of a trap closing around him. She knew he would do her bidding without protest—even kill for her again. It was true, and it didn’t matter.
Hunger in all its forms seized him. With his last shred of reason, he recalled Samantha’s suggestion and focused on this craving that defined him, blocking out all else, tried to direct it, command it to only taste, not to savage. He would lick the wound and seal it, savor the flavor, and eliminate the unbearable temptation.
The moment his tongue touched the blood, he knew he had made a fatal mistake. The moment after that, he didn’t know why. Then the concoction of drugs and serum in the man’s veins cast him into dreamy oblivion, and he no longer cared.
Dominique didn’t remember who he was, much less where, until ecstasy shuddered through his body and emerged in a hoarse cry. He was sprawling on the settee, his head pillowed on the human’s lap. His jacket and pants were undone, his shirt torn, and his hands were claws that dug into the full hips of the woman straddling him, riding him with abandon.
Using him.
Suspended between shock and delight, he watched Bijou’s rapturous face as she rocked against him a few more times. Those extraordinary breasts bopped and spilled from her dress, which was hiked up over her hips. She arched and moaned in orgasmic bliss.
The man’s dark hands roamed over Dominique’s bare breast and hard belly with great care, as though studying a piece of art by feel. The tenderness in that touch instantly brought Cassidy to mind along with the sharp prick of guilt—and the certain knowledge that he would never feed from her again, never be part of her again. Not after this.
After all the battles he had waged with himself over this, all he felt now was relief. The decision was made, his path set. He would let the girl go to live the human life she deserved, and he would be his true self. He was done fighting.
Bijou smiled down at him. Her fangs retracted, and her eyes cleared to their luminous green. A strange light shone in them. “I was right. You are magnificent.”
“As are you.” He meant it, but something still troubled him. Something…something about her scent.
She swatted away the human’s hands and lay down on Dominique’s chest. It was triumph he saw in her gaze as she settled her chin on her folded hands and watched him at close range. Smug triumph, he realized, but the twinge of disquiet he felt was fleeting. Given how hard he had fought her before seeing reason, she was justified in celebrating her victory.
“And now?” he prompted.
“Join me.”
She said more, but he no longer heard her. Her breath against his face was steeped in blood: vampire blood.
His blood.
She had fed from him.
Her serum was in his body.
His thoughts were not his own.
Which is why he didn’t allow them.
Reacting instantly, he flung her to the ground and pinned her there, slamming his forearm against her throat. Her eyes bulged with shock, caught by surprise despite being able to read and manipulate his mind now.
He let his rage rise. “How dare you!”
Bijou gasped a little, trying to draw breath to answer or scold or command. An overpowering urge to release her seized him. Dominique fought it the way he fought the beast—with a bargain. He would release her, but on his terms.
“How dare you feed from me, salope!” He snarled into her gaping face before pushing her head aside, his fangs sliding free. If she could plunder his thoughts, he could plunder hers.
The moment he would have struck was the moment he found himself thrown back with a violence he would not have believed her capable of, not given her age. Or the age he believed she was. Which was not her age at all. The taste of the human’s blood had told him so because it contained large quantities of her serum, and there was not a hint of spring to be found in that.
“That is enough,” she said, standing over him. Her command cut through the music, cut through his mind, and threatened to cut through his will. “Either accept what is, or suffer the consequences.”
He secured his pants as he got up. Taking a page from the book of Jackson, he drowned his true emotion, his fear—and the nagging compulsion to submit—in a storm of fiery indignation.
“You are not strong enough,” he growled.
