“You’re welcome.” It was oddly comforting to watch him eat. “I thought my blood might make it easier for you to stomach.”
“I never thought of it. We’ll see in a few hours, but I already feel better.” He bit his lip. “I suspect crafting such a concoction would be even too nauseating a task for Lorietta. If I asked, Meriam might finally ask me to leave.” He placed the mug upon the sauce, the hunger in his eyes replaced with a wanton curiosity. “You handled it well.”
“The blood?” She shrugged. “I spent the other night covered in it. Drinking it, fucking you while covered in it. By this point, I think I’m immune.”
Garin laughed—threw his head back and chuckled, his fangs exceptionally shiny in the dim light. He then sighed and looked down at her hands, where her nails dug into her palms.
“You’re in pain,” he observed.
“If you can call it that.” It was monthly, some days worse than others. Tonight she could barely stand the sensation of the fabric rubbing against her nipples. She could feel every strand of hair grazing her face, the heat from the hearth intensifying everything and making her restless. “And you’re still hungry.”
“I appreciate you noticing. It is of my own volition, I assure you.”
She stood from her seat. “For me.”
“For you. Always for you.”
Without hesitation, Lilac seated herself on his right thigh.
He stiffened, his hands fisting into the blankets.
Noticing his reaction—well aware she was being unreasonable considering the boundary she’d just set—Lilac reddened and made to stand. But Garin’s arms shot out and wrapped around her waist, pulling her leg over his side until she was straddling him.
“At The Fool's Folly, in that room, my instincts to protect you were infiltrated by a yearning and confusion I’d never felt before. It was a hunger that did not wish to end, nor destroy. It wanted to own. Devour. I’d never been more afraid. It nearly overpowered me.”
Feeling his length rock-hard against her inner thigh stole her breath. “Nearly?”
He chose to ignore this. “From the moment you sought refuge at the tavern, you have consumed my every waking thought. Whether in disdain, anger, admiration—or something else entirely. It didn’t take you enthralling yourself to me to do that.” His gaze dropped to the bloodpooling at her cheeks. “It’s as if I’d never known desire before I met you, but I am glad for it. You rouse a fire in me I thought I’d lost long, long ago. So, regardless of our time together, the chaos that follows, or whose kingdom you belong to, I can only hope you feel the same. That you find a lifelong, steadfast ally and—” The muscle under his eye twitched. “Andfriend, in me.”
Lilac regarded him in pity, suppressing a cruel laugh. She rocked forward, savoring the stifled groan that escaped his lips when she rolled her body against him. He shuddered beneath her when she lightly raked her nails along the back of his neck. He was a vampire, barkeep, knight—but stillverymuch a man. His head began to fall back in ecstasy, and she wanted nothing more than to run her tongue along the divots in his collarbone, up the delicious side of this throat.
She pointedly glanced down at his flexed arms on either side of her. “Is this what friends do, Garin?”
“Modron help me.” Growling, he shifted his hands—which had been gripping the meat of her ass—back onto her waist, lessening the pressure of his touch. “I don’t want to undo what little trust you must have left in me.”
Lilac felt her fury slipping from her fingers. She couldn’t forget Garin’s scathing demands at the inn, or his anger at realizing their thrall bond. She couldn’t forget his preemptive betrayal. His cunning and lies. “I think you’re wrong. I think you care very little for the trust I have in you.”
“Then why are you in my lap? What is it you want—and will you please stop riding me over my trousers before answering?”
“For you to help me,” she blurted, as if he’d pulled the truth from her. She was almost ashamed. His touch, his tone, his breath on her throat turned her irritation too easily into impulse. “We can help each other.”
Understanding slowly crossed his face. Then, warning. “You said you belonged to the emperor. Rightfully so.”
“I said, you will not take of me that which I give to him. My body and heart will be his upon our vows,” she said, repulsed by her own trembling words. “But as your thrall, my blood remains yours to take. However you wish.”
Disbelief marred his careful expression. “You’ve thought on it? You’ve changed your mind this quickly?”
“There’s little to think about.”
Whateverhewas thinking, Garin held his tongue—with great effort, it seemed, by the way his jaw remained flexed.
It was clear he wouldn’t move. Or at least make the first one.
Lilac took his face in her hands, stroking his cheek reassuringly as she bent to him. Their mouths met, softly at first. Then, she engulfed him. Her hands went into his hair, her tongue tracing his bottom lip before pushing past it, scraping one of his fangs. She smirked into the pain as their mouths filled with warmth and the taste of iron.
“Your blood comes secondary to you,” he groaned into her mouth. “I wantallof you.”
The weight of his words was nearly enough to make her take her slip her dress off right then and there. Her insides felt like they were on fire, her thighs spasming, the pain melting into mounting pleasure, desperate for release. But she held firm, even as his tongue explored her—even as his lips moved to her jawline.
