They both went motionless. Heartbeat . . . heartbeat . . . heartbeat . . .

“Ummm.” She cried out, lapping at him. He set back into the kiss, giving to her as she was giving to him.

Yet she still hadn’t moved over him. He gripped her hips and pulled her along the top of his shaft.

That was all it took.

She screamed against his mouth. Her orgasm made her suck on his tongue and rock atop him, her slickened pussy slipping from the base to the crown.

Ecstasy.

He shuddered, on the verge of coming instantaneously. The reasons why he couldn’t pin her down and rut, spending so deep inside her, grew dim.

She pulled back to rise up over him, undulating her hips as her eyes slid closed. Blood spilled from the corner of her lips. Mindless.

Voice thick, he said, “You’d drink me till eternity, if I let you. Become a little glutton for it.”

“I would,” she moaned, piling her hair on her head. “Pierce you day and night.”

“You’d drink me alone, forever.”

She licked her lips as her hands dipped to caress her body. “You alone.”

“Already you can’t live without my kiss.”

“I can’t . . . can’t . . .” Blood trickled from her chin, hitting her breast. His lifeblood had never looked blacker than against her alabaster skin.

Like paper inscribed with ink, her flesh was marked by him. Marked with his scent. She was his possession.

Obsession.

Yet he knew nothing about her. He reached forward, caging her delicate throat with his fingers. “Tell me anything, woman. Anything I don’t know about you.”

Dazed, she murmured, “Your blood isn’t tainted. I can taste heaven.”

His breath left his lungs. His fingers went limp. His arms fell back. “Move on me, then,” he ordered her. “Make me come!”

As she snapped her hips, that urge to shove himself inside her grew overwhelming, his body fevered for release.

Right on the edge, he stared up at this female. Hair wild, eyes onyx with need, lips black from his blood. Pierced sex, navel, nipples. Plump breasts quivering.

He’d never forget the sight of her like this. Not even if he lived for another seven thousand years. He’d never seen anything so stunning.

She could make me wish I got a mate.

But she was still weakened, hadn’t drunk enough. His undeniable urge to come battled an inexplicable need to care for her. He sliced his neck and pulled her down to him. “Feed.” Arms coiled around her, he awaited her fangs.

“I don’t want to take too much.”

“Drink!” he commanded her. “Feed from my body till yours is sated.”

He growled as she sank her fangs in so slowly, penetrating his flesh like a leisurely lay.

Lids heavy, he stared at the ceiling, struggling to process his actions, what he was feeling. As her bite made him come, he nearly bellowed once more. Instead he clasped her tightly to him and rocked her as she fed.

TWENTY-THREE

With her head upon Rune’s chest, and his heart beating against her ear, Jo tried to stay awake to replay everything.

All the pleasure he’d delivered when questioning her, and then in the hours after she’d fed.

All the things she’d learned—about life, him, herself.

Before they’d even gotten started he’d told her vampires had to eat to be fertile. She’d never thought she could have children of her own. Now, there was the possibility.

She couldn’t get the last fourteen years back with Thad, but maybe she could have a kid who reminded her of him as a baby. Maybe, one day, he would be an adoring uncle.

Possibility. The future began to spread out so brightly before her. With that thought in her mind, she slipped into an exhausted sleep.

Dreams arose. More memories of Rune’s? Vague impressions filtered through her awareness. . . .

—Queen Magh viewing him in his court dress, her pride over the “sexual weapon” she’d molded.

—His sense of foreboding when he spied desire in her eyes, and then her fury at him for causing it.

—His sleepless nights leading up to his first mission. He’d traveled with a Sylvan delegation to the Wiccae nation of Akelarre, masquerading as the son of a fey ambassador. His presence was to be a token of goodwill from one healing kingdom to another.

But his target was not what he’d expected. Even to save his mother from a fate worse than death, Rune wasn’t certain he could go through with this.

Because Magh had no interest in assassinating the warlock who’d cursed her husband. She wanted the warlock alive to bear the sorrow of his beloved daughter’s death.

A girl turning sixteen years old—Rune’s age.

“You’ve been invited to her birthday celebrations. Seduce her, cur,” Magh ordered him. “Make her love you, as you have all the others. Then strike. She’ll die with a heart full of love, a mind full of dreams, and a body riddled with your poison. . . .”

Compliments through dinner, murmured flirtations during cards. It wasn’t long before the young witch was infatuated with him. She was fair of face, but young for her age.

Had he ever been so naïve?

She whispered in his ear, “I want you for my birthday present.” Then she gave him directions to a hidden alcove beside her bedchamber. “I’ll raise the protection wards for you.”

He forced himself to smile. She was guarded like a treasure by magicks and warlock sentries. Nothing could possibly get to her.