Chapter 7: First Bite

The evening remained silver-wet as he arrived to see me out.

I had heard him coming first—measured, slow—down the run of marble hallway behind my rooms. The guards standing at my door stepped aside respectfully, heads bowed in deference—or awe.

My breast clanged resoundingly in my thudding heart as doors creaked open.

Kael stood there, his back softly glowing with golden light from the torches. He wasn't in his armor of velvet and black silk tonight; he was in dinner-down clothes, a black linen shirt with muscles on forearms, pale blue under pale skin, rolled up at the elbows.

It made him look.

More deadly.

More human.

He closed the door quietly behind him.

I'd risen off the cushy bench where I'd seated myself, nerves tingling on cables beneath my flesh. I hated that this was what happened around him—resented that merely looking in his direction could get me incited with flames at pit fire burning in the bottom of my belly, but my mind protesting in alarm.

"Take the necklace off," Kael barked, speaking in a near-breath voice.

The collar of velvet.

Mine. Mine and mine alone to claim as part of.

My throat closed up, but I obeyed. Shaking my fingers, I removed it and placed it on the table before me.

Kael's gaze never wavered from my face.

There was something in his eyes this evening—not the cold, calculating look he usually wore. This was starving. Hungry.

He took three steps across the distance between us.

"You remember the terms of the contract," he said.

It was not a question. It was a threat.

I nodded anyhow.

I had sold myself, my blood, my silence.

I was his now.

Chattering breath escaped my lips as Kael pulled a hand back to sweep the hair out of my face, exposing the curve of my throat.

His fingertips touch me hardly at all, and yet it is enough to make my knees shake.

I hated him for doing that.

"You will be quiet," he breathed, a dark soft puff of air. "You'll not leave until I release you."

I swallowed. "And what if I do?"

His lips curled into a brief smile. "Then you'll learn there are far worse things than the bite."

Shivering, I closed my eyes and receded, laying my neck bare.

I felt the harsh convulsion of his breath. Felt the pressure mounting between us, sudden and heavy as an encroaching storm cloud.

Then—fingers warm upon my jaw, prodding my head back yet further. His thumb rubbed against the throbbing pulse vibrating within my throat.

"So fragile," Kael drew in breathlessly, his tone low and somehow spoken afar. "So delicate."

I had to curse something back—let him know I was more than I seemed—but before I'd even managed to get the words past my lips, I could feel his mouth on me.

Not kissing.

Just. Breathing me in.

The touch of his lips was so light it didn't even register—a ghost kiss on the curve of my neck. My fists curled hard in my sides, nails into my palms.

Be still, I told myself. Be quiet.

And then, out of nowhere, pain raged through me—burning, stinging, and muddling.

His fangs pierced my skin with devilish precision, into the shallow artery that lay near the surface.

I gasped, my body contracting involuntarily—but Kael's arm wrapped around my waist, holding me against him.

"Shh," he breathed into my skin. "Breathe."

I tried to.

God, I tried to.

But I could not then, when all the nerves of my body burned like fire.

It had vanished in a flash, and a wave of burning heat flooded from my throat out to the tips of my toes. It was not bodily—it was something everywhere, this tidal wave of feeling: joy and terror, loss and desire, all jumbled up so I could not discriminate between them.

Kael swallowed it, and I felt its pull in my bones.

Could feel the invading closeness of it.

He was stealing from me what I required. What was holy? What I could not live without.

And yet…

And yet some part of me craved him, wanted more.

I hated myself for it.

I hated him for forcing me to hate it.

When finally he freed himself, blood had been scored along the line of his mouth, and his eyes—those unnatural, horribly beautiful red eyes—glowed in the dark.

We stared at each other for a long, long time.

Both gasping hard.

Both. Changed.

He licked the blood from his lips with the back of his hand, and then deliberately, slowly, licked it off.

I shivered.

"You taste."

He paused, hunting for the word.

"Divine."

I swallowed more raw pain in my throat.

"I'm not your wineglass," I managed to rasp.

Kael's lip curled to something akin to a smirk—but not. Cold. Sad.

"No," he told me. "You're my salvation."

I flared at the bitterness in his voice.

But before I could ask—before I could know—his step receded, it seemed space between us like it pained him.

"Get some rest," he gruffly spat. "You'll be needing your strength."

And then he was gone without warning.

The door clicked behind him, leaving me standing there with the storm brewing in my own heart.

I staggered back to the bench and fell onto it, laying trembling hands across the stab wounds in my throat.

They were already starting to close, healing in a manner that any run-of-the-mill wound was not.

Vampire's bite.

His bite.

I buried my face in my hands and fought to breathe as the whirlwind of emotions attempted to consume me.

I should despise him.

I did despise him.

And yet.

There was a shattered piece of me—shattered and distorted—who craved that touch once more. That fire. That insanity.

It terrified me more than anything else within this palace.

For if I did not watch out, I would lose more than blood to Prince Kael.

I would lose myself.

To be continued….