Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 84864 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84864 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
“Bite,” she ordered, her fingers threading through my hair to hold me at her throat.
“Grace,” I moaned. The temptation was too much, and her permission…
“Fucking bite me!” she demanded.
My fangs struck deep and I lost all semblance of control as her honey-rich blood filled my mouth, coated my throat. There was nothing like her on the planet. She was life and love wrapped around me, taking every thrust as my hips swung wildly, claiming her over and over.
I drew from her throat and relished every second, memorizing the taste of her on my tongue, the feel of her pussy fluttering as she came again from my bite, the sound of her sweet cries in my ear as I fell over the precipice, giving in to the pleasure that barreled down my spine.
My orgasm nearly took out my knees, but I threw out a hand against the pillar to keep us upright.
Her blood, gods, her blood hit my veins like high-test gasoline.
And she couldn’t afford to give it.
I fought every single instinct that demanded I drink my fill of my mate, then sustain her own life with mine, and withdrew my fangs from her throat, closing over the pinprick wounds with a lick of my tongue.
Grace moaned, her legs falling limp around my waist.
I caught her by the backs of her thighs and lowered her to the pool, sliding out of her with a regretful groan.
“That was so delicious,” she said, grinning wide as I tucked myself into my pants and hauled the wet fabric back where it was supposed to be.
I cupped her cheeks and studied her eyes, guilt hitting hard and true. “You’re sure you’re okay? No headache? No dizziness?”
“Nope.” She slid her hand up my shirt. “Just pure post-orgasmic bliss.”
“Thank the gods.” I scooped her into my arms, lifting her high against my chest, careful to keep the fabric of her dress over her now-bare ass, and then walked us out through the curtain of water and back into the foyer, where the other vampires stood paused, all dressed to the nines.
“Think they know?” Grace asked, laying her head on my shoulder.
“Nope.” I stepped out of the fountain, then released the power I’d held onto so tightly, letting time snap back into place.
Every head in the foyer turned toward Grace and I, and every expression was a varying degree of perplexed. They glanced between where I’d stood with Grace what was a second ago to them, and where we were now, dripping water onto the pristine floor.
One of the nobles lifted her hand to her necklace, blinking quickly.
I felt the heat of Grace’s blush against my neck as I walked past them, leaving wet footprints.
“Might want to watch your step,” I said over my shoulder to the gawking nobles as I carried Grace out of the Domum. “Floor seems a little wet.”
Grace laughed.
I kissed her forehead and decided that if I could freeze any moment of my life and live there, this would be it.
16
GRACE
It had been seven weeks since Ajax brought me into the safety of the royal vampire estate.
Seven weeks since my world had been changed in ways that were exponentially more drastic than what my own doctor had told me days before.
Seven weeks of discovering vampires were real, I was mated to the best one ever created, I was a quarter vampire, and telepathic.
And somehow, despite all those fantastical, world-changing revelations, I was still dying.
My fingers trembled as I flipped the pages in an ancient tome, sitting at a wide table in a comfortably lush chair in the archives room. The place smelled of dust and aged paper and leather and it had become somewhat of a second home to me, especially when Ajax was off with his brothers, helping with the war efforts.
War. Efforts.
I never thought I’d be so close to a war, let alone one I’d never known existed. I worried about Ajax when he was gone, despite knowing he could more than handle himself. Hell, he could stop time and move out of the way of a bullet—he was that powerful—but that didn’t mean he had eyes everywhere. He couldn’t always see the threats coming and that terrified me. When my mate was off the property, I felt it like my soul was stretched thin—a rubber band on the verge of snapping—and it never went away until he returned home.
I wondered what would happen to the bond after I passed? Would Ajax always feel that loss or would he be able to grieve and move on and find love again?
Irrational jealousy and hope mixed together in a swirl of uncomfortable emotions. I hated thinking about him with anyone else, but I would never want Ajax to live his immortal life alone.
“Down here again?” Julian—the king’s historian—asked, coming around one of the tall, dusty stacks that surrounded my table.