Mine.
The burn resumed control, flickering over my brain like a million electrical impulses, shocking my system with hunger so acute I nearly cried out from it.
I latched onto the other side of the woman’s neck, striking deep and sucking hard, taking in the sweet relief with gulps like it was holy water from the tap.
“Alek,” she whispered, weaker this time.
Her heart stuttered.
But this blood…it was somehow more…potent, rushing through my system in waves, washing out the tendrils of fire and drowning them until they were nothing but fizzling embers.
My vision normalized as the woman above me went limp, her eyes fluttering open just long enough for me to see emerald orbs that didn’t widen in horror or fear. No, there was love there. Acceptance. Giving.
“Let me in!” Someone shouted from beyond the door.
She loved me. This woman loved me.
Lyric. Oh God, Lyric.
“They’ll both die if you don’t let me in there!” the voice shouted again. It was a voice I recognized. A voice I trusted.
I opened the chamber door with a single thought, then licked a line up the woman’s throat, savoring every drop of her blood on my tongue as her heartbeat grew sluggish and slow, uneven. The chains that bound my wrists and ankles rattled like children’s toys as I yanked against my bonds.
“My lord? Lyric?” an older male called out.
I growled, locking eyes with the male and sinking my fangs into Lyric’s neck, making it clear that she was my mate, my love, my Lyric.
“Jesus,” a bigger male said from the doorway. Warrior caste. Powerful. Threat. “We have to get her out of here, he’s killing her.”
“Get out, you’re making it worse!” the other male shouted.
I shut the door in the hulking Scot’s face, then blinked as another mouthful of sweet relief poured down my throat. How had I known the other was a Scot?
“Alek,” the male said quietly. “Your eyes are blue, but there are still streaks of black blood vessels.”
So. Fucking. What.
I drank again, but the ravenous, tearing need was…gone. I was sated.
Lyric. I was killing Lyric. My mate.
I wrenched my fangs from her neck, turning my head away. “Lyric? My love?” The chains rattled but didn’t give, just like her breath shuddered, but she didn’t move. “Lyric!”
“My lord. Do you know me?” the male asked, coming forward slowly, making himself appear as small as possible.
“Julian.” Recognition slammed me in the face. I was Alek, king of the vampires, and Lyric was my queen and mate. Julian had been our most trusted scholar for hundreds of years.
“Yes, my lord.” His shoulders dipped as he sighed.
“Release me,” I ordered, pulling the chains. “She’s dying.”
“I know.” He pressed his lips in a line. “My lord, you were shot with Night Thistle.”
Pain exploding in my abdomen. Fire licking through my veins, seizing control of my brain. Begging for death.
“She’s dying!” I roared, feeling every stumbling heartbeat in Lyric’s chest as her heart struggled to push blood through her body that wasn’t there…because I’d taken it. I’d drained her.
“She’s a remedium,” Julian whispered. “She is the cure.”
Her blood dripped over my lips. I needed to seal the cuts. All of the cuts. Fuck, how many times did I bite her? Her neck was ravaged. “I don’t give a shit what she is as long as she’s alive,” I snarled.
“The blood of a remedium can heal almost any wound, my lord, but the graver the injury, the graver the sacrifice. The blood closest to her last heartbeat is what will cleanse the remaining Night Thistle from your blood.”
“Then let me die.” I twisted my head and licked over her wounds, groaning at the taste of her blood even as I despised myself for what I’d done. “You have to take her, Julian. Get her to someone who can feed her.”
My vision flickered back to thermals at the thought of another male touching her, giving her his blood. Stop it. She can drink from any male or female as long as she lives, jackass.
“My lord, listen to heart,” Julian said softly. “She won’t survive losing you. She’ll die of a broken heart and we both know it. So you must drink just a little more. Just until the veins of your eyes are no longer black. As soon as that happens, the Night Thistle cannot regain its hold. Then you must immediately feed the queen or we will lose you both.”
I moved my mouth to the other side of her abused neck and sealed one of the bites closed, then another. “She’s given too much.”
“If you have ever trusted me in your four hundred years, Alekxander, trust me now. Trust me as you did the night your parents died.” He stared down at me with determination in his eyes. “I took Avianna away from these shores. I took her to safety. I will do the same for you. Drink. I will not let you kill her.”
Already I could feel the bites of electricity in my brain, the poison refusing to let go. It surged like it was a living, breathing thing, fighting off its own death at the hands of its unwilling host. Get the fuck out.
I latched onto an open cut in Lyric’s neck and drank gently, listening to the sluggish beats of her heart that came further and further apart.
“There. Almost,” Julian leaned over me in a way I never would have allowed if I wasn’t tied to my fucking bed like the beast I’d become. No male should ever witness something this intimate between a mated pair, but it wasn’t like I had a mirror over the bed.
Another pull. Then another.
There were now almost two—no, three seconds between the beats of her heart.
Julian put his fingers over her pulse point and stared at me clinically, his eyes narrowing slightly as I took another tiny sip, my fear for her life overwhelming the basic drive to survive. I felt the poison dissipate as my powers came back with a roar, vibrating the very stones in the walls.
“There! Now!” His hands touched the clasps of the chains at my wrists and ankles, and they fell away with a clatter.
“Get the fuck out!” I roared, flipping Lyric under me.
“My pleasure!” he called over his shoulder as the male sprinted for the chamber door, which I already had open for his departure. “He’s okay! Hopefully they both will—”
I slammed the fucking thing.
“Okay, baby. Here we go.” I angled my neck over hers, but she didn’t strike. “Feed, Lyric!”
Her breaths were shallow, and those beautiful green eyes were shut. If not for the random beats of her heart, I would have thought she was dead.
I ripped open my wrist with a fang and held the cut over her parted lips. “You’d better fucking be right,” I muttered at Julian even though he wasn’t here. If I was pouring Night Thistle down my wife’s throat I was going to slaughter the goddamned scholar.
“Come on, baby, drink,” I ordered, stroking the column of her throat with my thumb and coaxing her to swallow. Drink, Lyric. Please, my love. I won’t live without you. Pushing the words down the bond that flickered between us, I used my powers to move the muscles in her throat, forcing each movement.
She came awake with a gasp, her eyes flying open. Bloodlust. She could have whatever the fuck she wanted out of me.