Casteel was hungry.
Starving.
Was it for blood? He’d said that Atlantians needed the blood of their own. Had he been…feeding? Surely, he had. There were Atlantians here. He’d bitten me a few days ago. He’d drunk from me, but not a lot. I had no idea how potent my blood was, but if it could make vamprys, I imagined it held some allure to him. I also had no idea how often an Atlantian needed to feed, but that sumptuous, heavy feeling coursing through the connection sparked a primal sort of knowledge that this wasn’t just about satisfying a physical hunger.
But under the hunger, I didn’t feel any other emotions. The razor-sharp sadness that always cut through him was absent. I didn’t know if any part of Casteel or even Hawke was inside him now.
My heart pounded as I tugged on my left arm, the one still pinned to the bed beside my waist. His grip loosened, and he then let go, but he didn’t move. I was overly aware of how close his breath, his mouth was to the most sensitive part of me and where I knew a major artery waited. His head turned just the slightest bit, and his chin grazed the crease of my thigh. Several inches lower, closer to the knee, were the gouges in my skin that looked like claw marks but had been made by the teeth of a Craven. I felt none of the horror and fear as I had then, nor the revulsion and certainty of death. All I felt was a delicious ache.
The hand that held the knife to his throat trembled as a forbidden pulse of arousal thundered through me. It was wrong, and I shouldn’t feel the heat, the dampness gathering there. But it also felt right, and so natural, even while none of this seemed natural.
He made that sound again, the rolling rumble, and my entire body shuddered. I could barely breathe, let alone think. My senses were firing all at once, and when he dipped his head, my arm went lax, bending to accommodate. My fingers spasmed open, and the knife fell to the bed beside me.
What are you doing? What is wrong with you? What are you—？
He gripped my hips with both hands, lifting me, and then his mouth was on me, obliterating the panicky questions. The air left my lungs as his tongue sliced over the very center of me. This wasn’t like the last time, the only time. There was no teasing, slow exploration as he guided me into the wicked act. This time, he devoured me, capturing my flesh with his mouth, delving into the warmth and dampness with firm, determined strokes of his tongue. He fed from me as if I were the sweetest nectar, the source of the very life force he needed. I was consumed.
Crying out as my head kicked back, I was lost in the raw sensations. My body moved of its own accord—or tried to. He held me firmly in place, and there was no matching the sinful assault, no escaping it even if I wanted to. Fierce heat built inside me, twisting and tightening as everything in me seemed to concentrate on where he was. My back arched as I grasped the sheets fitted to the bed. His lips moved against me, his tongue inside me, and the sharp graze of his teeth scraped the bundle of nerves. The sensation echoed in the healed bite mark on my neck. It was too much. I screamed as I shattered, breaking apart into a thousand satin-garbed shards of pleasure as intense, stunning release rolled through me in undulating waves.
I was still trembling when I felt him lift his head. Blinking my eyes open in a daze, I lowered my chin and what little air had entered my lungs left me.
His eyes were pitch-black now, no amber to be seen, but they weren’t empty and cold like the Ascended’s. They were endless and heated, but equally disconcerting to look into. His glistening lips parted—
A terrace door swung open, and a gust of wind swept through the room and over the bed as Kieran stormed inside, his hand on the hilt of his sword.
He drew up short, brows inching up on his forehead. I had no idea what he could see or how much Casteel’s body shielded since the curtains had been pulled back. “I heard you scream,” Kieran said in way of explanation. “Obviously, I misread the situation.”
There was no time to feel the burn of mortification. Casteel’s head swung in Kieran’s direction. A violent snarl of warning doused the languid heat in my body. That was a far different sound than what I’d heard from him, even when he first woke. This promised blood-soaked death.
“Shit,” Kieran muttered, his pale blue gaze widening on the Atlantian. “Cas, my brother, I warned you this would happen.”
I had no idea what Kieran had warned Casteel about, but I could see his muscles tensing, preparing, and my gift…oh gods, my gift was still open, still connected to him. What I felt from him then truly scared me. The acidic sting of anger mingled with a charred taste I was unfamiliar with, but whatever it was, it was bad enough that I feared for Kieran’s life.