The Vampire King's Contract Bride
in-that cursed hour w
slick gel onto my fingertips. The cool sting of it against my raw, swollen skin made me flinch.
ting whether to co
ar
led vampi
om of a blood pact
something had changed. He looked... sharper. More solid. His form, once shadowy and intangible like
flicked down to t
ing shimmered faint
ime," he murmu
for
of me again, moving with his usu
ani
. just a
raying it would dull the sharp, searing pain from the p
en-I s
i
sed, terri
eth, reaching out with trembling fingers to s
ushed his length, it jolted
ire bod
rowled, his voice tau
ders and pinned me down with the br
hrust a reminder that I wasn't
no longer felt like I was being ripped open. Still, there was no kindness in what he did. No
t bled, desperate to f
rimso
d appeared on m
have with the black m
ation crept in. My body, traitorous and exhausted, responded. Pressure moun
n-I sha
as my vision blurred and my limbs shook. For
old was pressing against my shoulder. I
ma
ic was lying behind me
t would
fr
eal face-was o
ld I
impse of his hairline, the graceful dip of a widow's peak.
from my body. Cold. Unnatural. A sli
uld glimpse another inch of him, his hand shot out
n
imacy w
that followed, I fel
disapp
s still a
rehead couldn
still dark when I fe
I realized, with a shock, that he wasn
hat couldn'
ys kept his cl
ately regretted it. I wasn't
ing cold sliding out of me
er the covers, pulling the blanket tightly aro
mort
d and indifferent as ever, ever
said with a low laugh, "when yo
ere soaked, as if someone had spilled a bucket of water across the
e covers, unable to even breath
ritualistic layers of his robes shifted over his bo
s long as you keep it close, that
Sigil
ed to me, and for the first time, it appeared fully solid. No flick
gination-he was
't turn
our chest," he sai
ike that,
oked
hung cold and heavy against my skin-a deep crimson blood-sigil in the shape of a car
dense arcane markings, and at
didn't r
exmoor, two words. Bu
nifying lens in frustration. "Who the hell carves this much text onto something th
re hollowed out than ever. "Nothing forged from the arcane is with
ter that thing attacked you," I snapped. "You sh
ce, sweetheart. Danger comes wrapped in purpose. I've ma
ered a bit, I'll return to the ancestral m
than anyone. Our bloodline had always been tied to the supernatural. The family's greatest fe
ter everything he'd been through in the
ocus on school. Don't be like your brother, who thinks 'studying' m
world-he was still haunted by what happened to my mother, who di
uld I stay
vampire lord marked me as his brid