The Promised Queen (Forgotten Empires #3)- Jeffe Kennedy Page 0,28
grasped for balance. “What are you doing?”
“Feeding you,” he replied calmly and in a tone that brooked no argument. Lying back against the pillows, he adjusted me so I sat mostly reclined against him. The heat of his body melted through me, and I doubted I could’ve mustered the desire to resist, even if I’d had the ability. “We’ll start with a wrist and see how that does.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You don’t have to. Let me handle this for you.” Picking up the knife, arms in a circle around me, he precisely placed the edge of the blade against the pulse point of his wrist and sliced. Bright blood welled up and, before the cry of shock passed my lips, he’d pressed his wrist to my mouth. “Drink,” he ordered me. “It’s what you asked for.”
His blood filled my mouth, hot and salty sweet. It reminded me of the flavor of his seed, which I’d gladly swallowed before. But this was his blood. In horror, I tried to refuse, but he held it there in an implacable grip, staring me down. “Try, Lia. Just try this. One swallow.”
I couldn’t. How bestial and monstrous and yet … The hunger took over and I swallowed. Then again.
“That’s it,” he coaxed. “Calanthe wants blood, and so do you.” His eyes closed in satisfaction, relaxing as I willingly drank now, like a babe at her mother’s breast. “I wondered, you know, how you could be both flesh and flower. Now we know, huh?”
The lifeblood filled me, heating that persistent damp chill in my bones, filling the aching hollows where there had been stagnant pools in my death-riddled flesh. I drank until the blood slowed, and it wasn’t nearly enough. The savage need for more drove me and I bit down, drawing hard. Con made a sound part pain, part laugh, and levered me away with his superior strength, gentle but inexorable. “No teeth, blossom. I don’t want my arm in shreds. Hold still a moment.” He contained my thrashing. “You’re already stronger,” he noted, pressing a cloth to his seeping wrist. “Now the other side.”
With equal dexterity, he held up the uncut wrist near my face, sliced it, and pressed it to my mouth. He held me in that embrace as I drank with less desperation, gazing at the ceiling mosaic with my head resting near his heart. It thumped, loud and steady, and my own heart slowed its frantic race, evening out to match his. See? I do have one.
When that wound, too, slowed in its seeping, I let it go, licking the sluggish creep of blood. He levered up to study my face, relief smoothing away the worry. “Your color is much better. And your eyes are brighter. How do you feel?”
Less like I was going to die. The sarcastic thought felt more like myself, and the starving rage had backed off. “Better.”
“Still hungry?”
Yes. But I didn’t say so. At least my mind had sharpened enough that I could control the animal desperation. I wouldn’t drain him to save myself. “No.”
“Yes, you are. Don’t lie.” He shifted me, picked up the blade again.
“You’re out of wrists,” I protested.
“But not blood.” Lifting his chin to expose the clean-shaven skin beneath his beard, he set the point of the knife against his throat. “You’ll have to place this one since I can’t see.”
“Con…”
He looked down at me, chin still raised. “Do it, Lia. Let me do this for you. Please.”
I’ll pay any price. He would, too. With a sigh of resignation, I lifted my fleshly hand and guided the point of the blade to a place where the pulsing blood rose to the surface. “There.”
He grunted and pressed, but the leverage was wrong, the skin giving without parting. “Can you help?”
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Those sharp teeth of yours hurt more, but if we have to do it that way, we will.”
Maybe I was still asleep and all of this was a continuation of the dream. Gathering my determination and courage—how funny that it took bravery to hurt someone else—I pushed the knife into his skin. It took more pressure than I’d expected, but his skin finally parted and the blood gushed out. I made a sound of dismay, and he laughed as he cupped my head and guided me to his throat.
“That’s why I like black,” he said, his hoarse voice vibrating under my lips. “Hides blood well. Can’t say the same for your sheets, but we’ll change them.”