Totally focused, fueled by pure panic and rage, Lilac slid the forceps in, widened it infinitesimally, and grasped the end of the bullet. When she did, Garin lunged at her, his jaws snapping in her direction.
Startled, she yanked away, squeezing the bullet in the prongs as she fell back on her ass—the tool ripping out of him. Lilac shrank away from the murderous expression that shadowed his features, dropped the piece in her hand, and hastily washed it off.
When the water ran clear, a mess of glass and iron sat in her palm.
The bullet hadbrokenin her grasp—half remaining in his muscle.
Slowly, she looked up at him. Garin glanced desperately up at her, his hunger and rage battling for his sanity. It was a wonder he was still seated.
“I’m so?—”
“Don’t,” he panted, begging when she stepped closer. “Go get Myrddin. Or Rupert. Don’t come near me.”
But there was no time. Raw hawthorn was lodged in Garin’s body, along with the broken glass, both cutting into him. He looked green. He might not be breathing when she returned to the room.
Garin’s eyes began to cross, saliva dripping from his twisted mouth.
Heart pounding, core throbbing, Lilac stumbled forward and placed herself in his lap. She used her ankles to sweep his legs open, spreading them to make his wounded thigh available to her.
Garin resisted for all of two seconds. Then, his nose found the curve where her neck met her shoulder, and he inhaled like a man starving. “Lilac,” he rasped, voice cracking. She could feel the tremble in his frame, the way he barely held himself together. “I can’t. Don’t—holyshit.” The words barely held form, broken and entirely unconvincing.
But she didn’t stop.Couldn’t. His need was a command on its own. She ground over his hardening cock—of her own accord or his simmering ache,she did not know—but Lilac pressed against him, offering warmth, and blood, and something that no longer had a name or held shape.
“What are you doing?” he growled helplessly, claws curled.
“Saving you,” she managed.
His answer was a sharp tug against her scalp. Fingers down her throat. “You’ll be dead before you have the chance.”
Lilac stilled in his lap.
For a heartbeat, neither of them moved. Then she slid to the side, trembling and perching herself on his good thigh. Her pulse was frantic with his hot breath, sharp fangs inches away from her neck. But her fingers were steady.
In her left hand, the hawthorn stake gleamed; she’d plunge it into him if he tried to attack her. In her right hand, she hovered the prongs of her forceps above the angry wound.
Garin’s eyes were slow to rise, still rimmed with hunger. But hers held.
“Trust me,” Lilac whispered, gritted her teeth—and hesitated before sticking the tool back in. If she’d broken the bullet, the pieces might be too minuscule to grab without repeated injury. She swallowed, dropped the forceps, and without warning—inserted her small finger into the wound. It grazed something hard—not bone. She grimaced, and Garin hissed against her skin, teeth scraping but not breaking as she dug deeper, and finally found the next large piece. Even his blood and muscle seemed repelled by it, and she managed to get her nail around it to scrape it out, to his most intense displeasure.
Lilac breathed through the stab of heat at her core—a punishing pain of want.
There it was. Glass, hawthorn, and a dull metal in two crumbled shards on her palm. She made sure before letting it fall to the floor.
She was about to get up, retrieve the key to undo his shackles so she could feel his hands on her?—
But the wound remained open and oozing. Confused, she swept the flaps of his trousers aside and peered closer. Was there more? Smaller pieces she’d missed? She wiped her hand across her front, ready to try again.
Then, Garin gave his next command, his breath against her hair. A single word, this time laced with conviction and unfaltering desire. “Still.”
She froze against him, her body instantly slipping under his spell. Securing her in place.
“Did you know this would happen when you enthralled yourself to me? Did you know that I’d need to feed more than the average vampire does?” Instinctively, she sidled closer, further onto his lap as his arms flexed on either side of her. “That all it takes is a simple injury for me to morph into something that can no longer wait the three days it takes before the discomfort sets in? I did not. Not until tonight.”
A strangled whimper of surprise rose in her throat at the fury in his voice. She shook her hair off her neck, encouraging him further; he didn’t bite, so she shifted in his arms to better see his face. It had barely been three days since their bond had formed. “But you’ve fed.”
“Bottled blood dulls the ache for a few hours,” he agreed. “But my supply is gone. I even had Agnes. She tasted as bitter as her tongue. Your sister was delicious, yet all I could think of was you. Each time I try to sate myself, I find myself hungrier than the last.”
Lilac swallowed hard, past the stab of jealousy at the reminder of Yanna. “I thought that stopped when I enthralled myself to you.”
