Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 67437 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 337(@200wpm)___ 270(@250wpm)___ 225(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67437 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 337(@200wpm)___ 270(@250wpm)___ 225(@300wpm)
I really needed a plan. Who is guarding him?
I closed my eyes and focused on my powers.
How many people are out there?
I sensed the energy of the blood around me, pulsing through the air.
Three guards.
I placed my palm in the direction of his tent’s velvet curtained entrance, opened my mind, and surrendered into the depths of crimson energy.
To absolute my shock, my spirit hooked on to not a few beings, but tons and tons creatures.
I tensed.
How did I do that?
I could feel at least two to three hundred soldiers in the area, marching, sleeping, or cleaning. Their vibrancy coursed through as I explored every facet and nuance of their blood.
How is this possible?
Never had I been able to hook on to more than three creatures at a time.
Mumbling something in his sleep, the Quiet King tightened his hold on me, moved his head forward, and buried his face within the curve of my neck.
Get off of me.
My nerves frazzled.
I lowered my hands and trembled against him.
How will I escape? Even in his sleep he won’t let me go. And why. . .did I sense so many vampires outside? How is that possible?
There was a clear logical reason for why my sensing ability had accelerated to mega proportions, but I couldn’t let my mind go there.
Did this monster. . .give me this? How could that be?
In between deep snoring, the Quiet King possessively inhaled my scent and groaned, triggering a wave of power to vibrate across my skin.
Stop smelling me.
I gritted my teeth.
He loudly inhaled again.
Next, a dark growl left him.
Fear rocked through me.
No. No. Not gone. Still sleeping, he murmured in my head and rubbed his lips against my skin. The blood mage is here. Safe. Mine.
I am not yours and never will be.
His steady breathing caressed the curve of my neck and set off a riot of shivers along my skin.
Sweet. Exotic. He sniffed my neck. Floral. Mine.
Horror quaked through me.
Never, and stop smelling my skin.
I trembled.
Instantly, the last conversation I had with Ian out in the forest came back to me. I’d been trying to tell him that I would be fine rushing by the Quiet King’s camp. I had been too confident and all wrong.
Ian’s words entered my head.
“Seraphine, you truly smell like a blood mage. It would be impossible for him to ignore you—”
“If I go further to the left—”
“There is no left or right, he will catch your scent.”
“I can go further away.”
“You can’t because your scent is. . .” Ian sighed. “Seraphine, your scent is love. It is a gentle symphony. A tender waltz of sensory delight.”
I had parted my lips.
“It is fresh roses mixed with the fragrance of affection and the perfumed promise of healing and power. My brother will smell you and he will come because he is a king and it is in our nature to taste you. Do you understand?”
My eyes watered as I wished I were back in that forest with Ian far away from the Quiet King. I would have been happy to be with Camille too, helping her with that idiotic plan of uniting the other blood mages.
In fact, I could have been anywhere but here, and been grateful because of it.
How could I have been so stupid? So. . .wrong?
Sniffing me once more, the Quiet King groaned against my neck.
And then suddenly, this. . .ache for him. . .it rose within me. It deepened and smoldered inside my bones with an intensity I had never before known.
I began to yearn for him, and I did not want to at all.
Why is my body reacting that way? Stop it.
The Quiet King groaned again and the ache within me became stronger.
No.
I did not know what this ache meant.
This insatiable need to be consumed by him, but it was right, and it was wrong. I tried to make sense of the sensation.
It was not lust or passion.
It was not the rising sparks of love.
It was not desire.
And I didn’t want to think about it too much more than that.
Leave my body. Now. How could I ever want a monster to touch me?
I desperately tried to push the ache out of my core, but it stayed right there.
Groaning, he moved his head away from my neck and lay back on his pillow. Here. She’s here.
Not for long.
His eyes remained closed as he parted his lips, exposing erect fangs.
At the sight of them, that ache within me grew to a thunderous craving.
No. Stop it.
Swallowing hard, I fought against it.
This is just the addiction of a bite. It is what the other blood mages in the dungeon talked about.
I had never been bitten before in my life, only drained. Of course the first vampire to pierce me would be a monster. That was how extraordinarily depressing my life was.
Damn all the gods! They do not love me and never will!