"Son of a bitch," Lucan hissed.
They all stared at Pike, who was laughing now, even as he dropped to the floor and began to convulse. Foam curdled around his mouth as the poison tightened its hold on him. "You're too late, Lucan. Just like I told you." His giggle cut short on a pained groan. He started gasping for air, already in the throes of death.
"Come on," Lucan said, motioning for the others to follow him. "Let's get the fuck out of here."
As they left Arno Pike writhing and dying in the middle of the vacant warehouse, the vampire's taunts echoed behind them.
"You're too late ... Dragos has already won."
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
TAVIA CRIED OUT in pleasure as she arched beneath Chase, swept into the thrall of her third orgasm in as many hours. Her bliss was sharp-edged and raw, untempered. She rode it with abandon, curling her fingers into the hard muscles of his shoulders as he rocked into her body at a fevered, animal pace.
She loved the way he fucked her. Loved how strong and powerful he was, something unearthly and dark. She loved that he coaxed the same from her. Loved how he welcomed the savage, needful part of her that was anything but human. Demanded it from her. And she loved how every touch and kiss and fevered thrust claimed her as his.
She was his; her heart knew it as surely as did her molten blood and body.
A hiss escaped her as he plunged deep into her core, filling her, touching a place that belonged only to him. She threw her head back on the pillows, lips peeled back from her teeth and fangs as she gave a ragged shout of release. "Yes. Oh, fuck, Chase ... harder. Don't stop." With a roar boiling from between his gritted teeth, he grabbed her ass in his hands and hauled her to him, lifting her hips up to meet the crashing intensity of his thrusts. He pounded her with unbridled fury. His cock stretched her tight around him, as hard as steel inside her, relentless, dominating.
A snarl tore loose from him as he pumped harder, deeper, their amber gazes locked. His glyphs were wild and alive with dark colors, all the shades of desire and need. Hues that rode her own bare skin as he pushed her toward the crest of another orgasm. He bore down on her with tight, fevered strokes, his fangs huge and gleaming under the harsh twist of his beautiful mouth.
"Tavia," he rasped, shuddering against her with the force of his release. The hot rush of his seed flooded her, and she came with him, panting and mewling as her body detonated around him, her senses shattering into a million glittering pieces.
In its wake, there was hunger.
She hadn't fed since the first time with him. Now, with her every nerve ending alive and electrified, she craved his blood with a ferocity that bordered on madness. She couldn't keep her eyes from the throbbing pulse at the side of his strong neck.
Her mouth was tinder dry. Her gums pounded at the base of her extended fangs. She wet her parched lips, gazing up at him from under the thirst-heavy droop of her eyelids.
He understood her need. His amber irises flared brighter, pupils thinning to slivers as he watched her home in on his drumming heartbeat.
"Christ," he whispered, reverence and profanity all in the same breath.
She lifted up from the bed, bracing her palm against his chest and shoving him onto his back. His lungs sawed as she crawled up onto him, his body hot and powerful beneath her. She bent forward, licked a slow path along the taut column of his throat, playing the tip of her tongue over the fat vein that ticked so deliciously below the surface of his smooth skin.
She teased it with the sharp tips of her fangs, wringing a strangled groan from him in the instant before she sank her teeth deep into his flesh.
She moaned as his blood gushed over her tongue, hot and tingly and dark. She swallowed it greedily, relishing the spicy, exotic taste of him. As she fed, he lay rigid beneath her and stroked her back and unbound hair. She didn't know if her feeding brought him the same contentment it did her. All she knew was the thrumming beat of his pulse against her lips and in her ears, the drowning roar of his blood as it flowed into her muscles, bones, and cells. It quelled the savage pound of her senses. Nourished her as though she'd been starving for it all her life.
When she'd had her fill, reluctantly she swept her tongue over the punctures to seal them. She didn't realize his anguish until she dragged her sated gaze up to his face. His lips were bloodless, drawn back from his teeth and fangs in a tortured grimace. He rolled away from her on a rough curse, his big body shuddering as he swung his legs over the edge of the bed and raked his trembling fingers into his damp hair.
His hunger owned him. It raked through her now, the savagery of his blood thirst eclipsing all the pleasure and comfort she'd taken so selfishly from his vein. It tore her open inside, bringing with it a cold, empty ache in the pit of her soul.
God, how he suffered now.
She didn't know how he could withstand such agony. Just the echo of it in her own blood was enough to suck the air from her lungs.
She gasped, clutching at her abdomen as his pain knocked her down onto the bed. She writhed with it, her body jackknifing as the anguish of his hunger swam through her like black, burning acid.
HE WAS HURTING HER.
The thought slammed into his hungered mind even before he pivoted to find Tavia's naked body constricted in an anguished ball in the middle of the bed.
Ah, Christ.
"Tavia?"
It killed him to see her in such pain, to know that it was his agony clawing at her. His affliction transferred to her through the blood connection of Tavia's bond to him. Because of that bond, his suffering was hers.