There was no warning—no sound, nothing.
An arm circled my waist, catching me mid-run. I shrieked as my feet slipped out from under me, but I didn’t go down. I was hauled back and slammed into a hard, warm chest. My feet dangled nearly a foot from the ground.
Shock stole the very breath from my lungs. I knew who it was before he even spoke. It was his scent of lush spice and pine. It was the burst of rage-laced anguish and disbelief that mirrored mine, coming through my senses that I hadn’t closed down. For the first time since I’d met him, his emotions overwhelmed him and, therefore, me.
This was not the Hawke I’d fallen for so quickly that held me against him.
It was not the guard who’d sworn on his life to keep me safe, who now wrapped his fist in my hair and jerked my head back and to the side.
It was not Hawke’s hot breath that caressed my exposed throat.
It was him.
Prince Casteel Da’Neer of Atlantia.
The Dark One.
“An Atlantian, unlike a wolven or an Ascended, can’t be killed by a stab to the heart,” he growled, yanking my head farther back. “If you wanted to kill me, you should’ve aimed for the head, Princess. But worse yet, you forgot.”
“Forgot what?”
“That it was real.”
Then he struck.
Two twin bursts of fiery pain lanced my neck, causing my entire body to jerk. The burn traveled all the way through my body, stunning me in its intensity. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even scream around the pain.
His arm around my waist was like an iron vise as he drew long and hard from the wound his fangs had created. I shook, eyes peeled wide as my hands fell to his arm. My nails dug in. The burn, the deep, staggering pull against my throat as my blood flowed freely from me into him shorted out my entire system. The building scream clawed its way around the pain—
And then, within mere seconds of when he’d sunk his fangs into me, everything changed.
The intense hurting became something else, something overwhelming in a wholly different way. A new ache erupted inside me, heating my blood until it felt like every part of me was filling with molten lava.
My wide eyes were unseeing as the heat filled my chest, my stomach, and pooled in the space between my thighs. His mouth tugged on my throat once more, and this time, that pull went straight to my very core. My body jerked with a flood of pounding arousal.
He groaned, his arm tightening around me, and I felt him, hard and thick against my rear. I gripped his arm as tension coiled inside me—
Without warning, he ripped his mouth from my neck. He let go, and I stumbled forward, nearly falling. Trembling with confusion and the desire still sparking inside of me, I turned to him.
He stood several feet from me, his chest rising and falling with rapid, short breaths. His eyes were wide. Red smeared his lips.
I lifted my hand, pressing it to my neck. Wet warmth greeted my fingertips. I took a step back.
“I can’t believe it,” he said, and he ran his tongue along his bottom lip. His eyes closed briefly as he shuddered, letting out a rumble that reminded me of the wolven. His lashes swept up, and his pupils were so dilated only a thin strip of amber was visible. “But I should’ve known.”
Before I could figure out what he meant or what would happen next, he was on me, moving so fast I couldn’t track him.
His mouth crashed into mine as one hand shoved into my hair, his other arm clamped to my waist. I wasn’t just kissed.
I was devoured. I tasted my blood on his lips, on his tongue. I tasted him.
I wasn’t sure exactly when I kissed him back. Was it after a few seconds, or had I been kissing him from the moment his mouth touched mine? I didn’t know. All I did know was that I was starved for him, right or wrong, I wanted him.
That’s why I didn’t fight him when he brought me to the ground. The contrast of the cold snow against my back and the heat of his body pressed to my front drew a gasp from me. I didn’t think he heard it as it was caught up in his hungry kisses, and I realized then that he’d been holding back when he kissed me all the times before. Now, he wasn’t hiding who he was.
He rocked against me as he slid his hand over my waist to my hip. We moved, straining and gasping. His teeth caught my bottom lip. A brief sting registered, and he shuddered, groaning as the metallic taste renewed.
Breaking the kiss, he lifted up enough to look down at me. “Tell me you want this.” His hips were still churning against mine. “Tell me you need more.”
“More,” I whispered before I could even think about what we were doing, what we’d done—who he was.
“Thank fuck,” he grunted, and then he reached between us, his finger snagging the front of my breeches. He pulled on them hard enough to lift my hips. Buttons popped free, flinging into the nearby snow.
“Goodness,” I murmured.
He barked out a short, harsh laugh as he shoved my pants down until one leg was completely free, and the breeches snagged on the other ankle. “You know this shirt was beyond repair, right?”
“Wha—?”
The sound of cloth tearing was my only explanation. I dipped my chin, seeing my breasts. He was staring too, his hand tearing at his own breeches as his eyes tracked the streaks of blood dried along my stomach, moving over the hardening tips of my breasts.
“I will kill them,” he whispered. “I will fucking kill them all.”
I didn’t think he was talking about the old scars.
Then I wasn’t thinking at all.
He kissed me as he settled over me, between my legs, and then things…spun. There was no slow seduction this time, no long and drawn-out caresses and kisses. There was a pinch of discomfort, but it quickly gave way to the aching, pulsing pleasure, and there was no room in my body or mind or between us for there to be anything other than what we felt. It was just him and me, the taste of my blood and his on our lips, and this need I didn’t quite understand.
Around us, the snow fell heavier through the trees, soaking his back and my hair as we clutched and grasped at one another. There were only the sounds of our wet kisses, our bodies coming together and parting, and our moans.
One long, dragging kiss ensued, and then his mouth moved from mine to my chin and then lower, his lips and those sharp teeth gliding over my throat. His actions elicited a shiver that curled its way down my spine as he stilled above me. Was he…was he going to bite me again? Instead of fear, there was a rush of wicked heat. The pain from his fangs had been brief, and what had come afterward…
I squeezed his shoulders, too lost to even wonder if I shouldn’t want him to, too far gone to think about the consequences if he did.
I felt his tongue against my skin, circling and laving over the sensitive mark he’d left behind. Then he lifted his head. I saw his eyes long enough to see that his pupils had constricted before his lashes swept down, and his mouth was on mine once more.
And then he was moving again.
His hips retreating and then pushing back in, rolling and grinding as his fingers played with my breast. He moved slowly now, so lazily that I felt as if I were being strung out. I shuddered under him, slipping my hand into his snow-damp hair.
The tension was building again, coiling until I couldn’t take his slow, measured movements any longer. His teasing grinds and rolls. I lifted my hips, trying to urge him to move faster, go deeper, but he held back until I cried out and pulled at his hair.