“I understand.” He drew close and narrowed his eyes at her. “So, how do you feel right now, physically, I mean?” He knew enough about the blood rose phenomenon to know which direction to probe. “Does your chest feel better than it did before we made love?”
“What do you mean?”
“Lighter? Not so full?”
“Well, sure. I just fed you.”
“Right, except for one thing. That’s not something my doneuses would ever say.”
She laughed. “That’s silly. If they donated, they’d feel this way. You know, lighter, here.” She pressed a hand between her breasts.
“No. They wouldn’t. It’s not the usual reaction to feeding a vampire.”
Somehow, that got her attention. “What are you saying?” She searched his eyes, but appeared only confused.
He put a hand to his abs. “For the first time in twenty years, since I became a mastyr, I have no pain. None. Do you get it now?”
Her head moved slowly side-to-side. “Have you been taking herbal anti-acids or something?”
He could smell her denial, her complete unwillingness to understand what he was saying. “Let me spell it out for you. Holly, you’re a blood rose.”
~ ~ ~
Holly had known the feel-good wouldn’t last long. But she hadn’t expected to be tossed into hell within a matter of minutes of riding to the heavens.
The Goddess, who ruled the realm world and the afterlife, had to be laughing her ass off right now.
“You can’t be serious. This isn’t possible. I’m not a blood rose. I don’t even really know what that is.”
“You produce an extra supply of enrichened blood meant for a vampire like me. A mastyr.”
She stared at him hard, maybe trying to mentally force him to take his words back. Her hands hung at her sides, yet kept balling into a pair of hammer-like fists. She wanted to throw a few punches. Hard.
He was close enough. She even lifted her hands, but couldn’t bring herself to hit him. It wasn’t his fault, or maybe it was.
In her frustration, she planted her hands on his chest and shoved him, or tried to. It was like trying to push a concrete wall.
He caught her arms at the wrist, though gently. “I’m not the enemy here. I didn’t create this.”
“The hell you didn’t. I wasn’t a blood rose before tonight, before I healed you of that poison. That was when this began, this heaviness in my chest.”
“And now it’s light, isn’t it?” He released her wrists.
“Very.” She pressed both hands to her face. “This can’t be. It’s the last thing I wanted.” She dropped her hands away. “When I came to the Wild Boar, I wanted sex. That was all. I was hungry. Needy.”
“But that’s part of it. Don’t you see?”
“Sex?” The word came out on short huff.
“Yes, the insatiable cravings between us. It’s part of the package deal.”
For a moment, her mind took her back to what she’d just experienced with Rez. No wonder it had been beyond amazing. She was a blood rose, a phenomenon in the Nine Realms built for a mastyr vampire, to ease his suffering.
She rubbed her forehead with her knuckles, trying to push the memory away. She took a moment to calm down then lifted her gaze to him once more. “You’re not what I want.”
“You’re not exactly my type either. But I know one thing. Your university boys never sexed you up like that, did they? Before tonight, you were as uptight as any woman I’d ever known.”
He was right.