A Shadow in the Ember (Flesh and Fire 1)

I’m going to feed from you, and I’m going to fuck you while I do it.

I shuddered as a rush of damp heat flooded me. My eyes were open, but I saw nothing as his mouth tugged on my throat. My blood was on fire, my head falling back against the wall, cushioned by his hand. I moaned, and he sucked harder. I felt the pulls of his mouth all the way to my core. My body reacted out of instinct. Instead of trying to get away from him, I slid my hand up to the soft strands of his hair and tugged him closer, holding his eager mouth to my throat, wanting to be…devoured by the intensity brewing in my body. Wanting to be devoured by him. I moved without thought, rocking against the hard length of his thigh. The tension deep inside me erupted without warning, the pleasure lashing out in sweeping waves. I trembled and shook as I rode the powerful release.

I panted, gasping for breath and shuddering. As soon as the ripples abated, the pulsing tension built once more at my throat and under his lips as he continued feeding. It traveled through my body in a series of sharp tingles. My heart raced as the acute tension built again at my core.

He made another sound against my throat, a deep, rumbling growl that should’ve concerned me, but I was far past the point of being cautious. I pulled on his hair. His fingers dug into the thin material of my bodice. I jerked, gasping when he pulled hard on the front of the gown. The sound of tearing cloth scorched my ears, sending another bolt of arousal through me. He tore the gown from the bodice to the waist, freeing my breasts and my upper stomach. The sleeves of the ruined gown slid down my arms. A ragged cry parted my lips as the tips of my breasts brushed against the coldness of his blood-slickened chest. Letting go of his hair, I shrugged off the sleeves of the gown. The material pooled at my hips.

I wanted to feel more. I wanted to feel him. I wanted.

Nyktos lifted his head away from my throat, and suddenly I was staring up into swirling quicksilver eyes. They were so bright and so full of life. Neither of us spoke as my attention dropped to his parted, ruby-red lips. My gaze moved lower to his blood-streaked chest and flesh that had already begun to heal and seal itself closed. And lower still, to those once-jagged wounds that were now pink welts across his tightly coiled stomach muscles.

What my blood did for him was nothing short of miraculous. Maybe even more so than the ember of life. Or at least it felt so in that moment.

I looked even lower and felt a little weak. But I didn’t think it had anything to do with him feeding. The throbbing length of his cock was visible through the flaps of his breeches and the head jutted up toward his navel. The tip beaded pearly liquid as it twitched.

Nyktos looked at me, his swirling gaze so intense that it was like a physical caress against my breasts and belly. I looked down at the shimmering bluish-red blood smeared above my navel and across my breasts and nipples.

His hand slid from my hair, dragging the curls forward over my shoulder. Strands fell across a breast as his fingers curved around the heavy weight. A breathy moan left me, and those eyes flew to mine.

It took me a moment to remember how to speak. “Did you take enough?”

“It will have to be enough,” he answered, his voice thick with smoke and need and…hunger. He drew a thumb over the hardened nub of flesh and then stepped back from me. I felt the loss of his heat immediately as he stared at my partially exposed body, the hollows of his cheeks unforgivable. “Has to be.”

I glanced at the wounds on his chest. The one I had inflicted on him the night we’d found Andreia had healed immediately.

He hadn’t taken enough.

But I’d be lying if I said that was the only reason that propelled me forward. That it had nothing to do with all that desire for him—desire that had nothing to do with a duty that no longer mattered.

I wanted this. I wanted him. Me. For no other reason than for myself.

And he wanted this, too, even if he hated me.

Heart thumping, I reached down and slid the gown over my hips, taking with it the flimsy undergarment. I stepped out of the pile of clothing and stood before him completely nude.

He shuddered. “Sera…”

Throat dry, I placed my hand between my breasts, sliding my fingers down my stomach, drawing his stare to where they came to a stop just below my navel. His lips parted, his fangs appearing once more. The sight of them caused a throbbing ache in my throat, a reminder of the pleasure-pain of his bite. “You haven’t taken enough.”