Desire coiled deep within her, flowing out to every nerve ending as Kellan suckled from her palm. Her blood stirred to new life with each passing second, awakening to his kiss. She could feel it racing through her veins, eager to feed him. Arousal burned hot and fast within her, wet need pooling between her thighs. Twin points of radiant electric light bloomed inside her, one in her core, another at the spot where Kellan's mouth was fixed to her.
"God, Mira . . . you taste so fucking good," he murmured. "Your blood is so sweet, so powerful. Holy Christ, I can feel you in my muscles and bones, in my senses . . . so damn good."
She caressed him as he praised her, and between their naked bodies, his cock stood erect, stiff and heated, while she was melting. Craving to be filled by him.
"Yes," he said, his voice thick and hungered. "I can feel your need through the bond. I can feel your pulse, as if it's my own." His tongue swirled one last time into her palm, gently, sealing her wound. "I never realized how strong it would be . . . how complete. But I need to be inside you now."
Without another word, he gathered Mira up into his arms and placed her back on the bed. He prowled over her, strong arms braced on either side of her, his big body poised above her in the dark. And his eyes - she was bathed in their glow, mesmerized by the desire she saw smoldering in Kellan's otherworldly gaze.
She'd never seen him look so formidable, so incredibly powerful. He was magnificent in this state, fully transformed, nourished by the new bond that linked him to her for as long as they both drew breath. He was dark and fevered and gloriously aroused, and she quivered to feel all of his heated focus trained on her.
She was ready when he entered her, so ready. He drove in deep, the feel of him enormous, harder and hotter than ever as he moved inside her body. His mouth found hers and he covered her lips in a kiss that was demanding, fevered . . . thirsting.
Mira clung to him, wrapping her legs around him to bring him closer. She wanted to be fused together with him. Couldn't get close enough.
She cried out when Kellan's mouth left hers, then gasped as it drifted lower, settling just below her ear. "Take me," she whispered as his lips found purchase on her neck. "All of me, Kellan. Take me."
His answering snarl was feral-sounding and raw as his mouth clamped down more seriously against her throat. Desire spiked into her core as the tips of his fangs found their place at her carotid. Mira put her hand in his hair, fingers burrowing into the thick waves. She tightened her fist in demand, holding him in place. "Take me," she rasped. "I'm already yours."
"Yes," he answered, rough and wild and carnal. He made a sound of dark hunger in the back of his throat. "Mine," he said.
Then he pierced her.
Mira's gasp was pure elation as his fangs went deep, and his hips thrust hard and long between her open thighs.
He would be dying soon - in a few hours or days or weeks, he couldn't be sure - but Kellan had never felt more alive.
Pride swelled in him at the pleasured sound of Mira's cry as his fangs penetrated her delicate flesh and pierced the artery that pulsed so robust and lovely against his tongue. Possession rocked into him like a massive wave as her body clung to him, her sleek, wet channel enveloping him, milking his cock as the first tremors of her orgasm began to ripple through her.
Her mounting climax echoed in his own consciousness, in all of his senses. Such was the power of the blood bond that now joined him to her. He should hate himself for taking this step with her, knowing there was no future in it. But she felt too good, tasted like sweetest heaven. And he'd wanted this intimate, unbreakable connection to her for too long.
He was greedy for all she could give him now, primal in his claiming of her body and her blood. She belonged to him. Her whispered pledge spurred him on now, made his thrusts urgent, his bite locked onto her with animalistic fervor, drinking her in.
She was his.
In this moment, she was his forever.
So easy to think it. So tempting to believe that he could stretch this moment into an eternity with her, keep Mira at his side as his mate for as long as they both drew breath.
And it was nearly impossible to resist the need that rose in him now, a need that urged him to complete the blood bond, to seal their connection by opening his own vein and feeding Mira a taste of him in return.
He wanted it with a ferocity that staggered him.
She wanted it too. He felt her craving for him, raw and thirsting. He heard it in her breathless moan, as she clutched at him and arched beneath him, her head craned to the side on the pillow, granting him total access to her carotid.
She wanted more of him. More than he was willing to give. He couldn't let her drink now, not when her link to him would only increase her pain tenfold when they were parted by death.
"Please," she gasped. "Oh, God . . . Kellan . . ."
God help him, he nearly gave in to her plea when she came in that next instant, her fingernails scoring his shoulders, his name a throaty roar as her release crested and broke. He wanted to bleed for her.
More than anything in that moment, he wanted to bind her to him and give her the same depth of pleasure she was giving him now. But he reined in the impulse with narrowly held control and dubious honor. Pressing his mouth to her open vein, he sealed the punctures with his tongue and braced himself for the rolling tide of her climax. Every nuance of her emotions branded themselves on his senses. She came with the same unbridled intensity that she did most everything else in her life, her climax astonishing him with its force as the waves of her body's release flowed through his veins as if his own.
He couldn't slow the tempest building within him now too. With Mira's orgasm still crashing over him, Kellan came too, shouting with the ferocity of it as his seed blasted out of him, scalding and ferocious.
And Mira's sweet, welcoming body accepted all that he had to give.
He didn't know how long it took before the aftershocks finally began to recede. Could have been moments. Could have been hours.