Page 30 of Fangs

Long, gleaming. Wicked. FANGS!

He has FANGS!

“W-what are you?”

“I am your worst nightmare, Lucille.”

Shadow-claws seize me and yank me against the hard wall of his body. His mouth drops to my throat. Icy breath ghosts over my pulse, and then his fangs scrape against my sensitive skin.

“Please,” I whisper.

I must be losing my mind.

His entire body goes rigid. “Please what?”

“Please,” I choke out, voice breaking. “Don’t stop.”

A broken, animal sound rips from his chest. Razor fangs pierce my neck like white-hot needles. Fire explodes through every vein at once. My body seizes—once, twice—then locks.

His shadows hold me rigid while he draws long and deep from the wounds, swallowing my blood in ruthless, greedy pulls. The burn and the relentless tug at my throat short-circuit everything. Sensation floods me.

One more hard pull from his mouth, and the sensation shoots straight down, a direct line of pure need straight to my core. My body jerks as raw, pounding arousal crashes through me. A molten ache blooms low in my belly, turning my blood to liquid heat. Pleasure races through my chest and stomach before pooling heavy and throbbing between my thighs. Every pull of his mouth now yanks straight at that aching center. My hips jerk. The flood of need hits so hard my knees nearly give out.

He groans against my skin, arm tightening, and I feel him—steel-hard, massive—pressed against me. Tension coils vicious and sharp. He lifts his head. Eyes glowing red, lips wet and dark with my blood, chest heaving. Shadows whip around him like a living storm.

“Lucille.” My name comes out ragged. “I shouldn’t have—”

I don’t let him finish.

I launch myself at him. My mouth crashes onto his. I taste my own blood on his tongue—copper, salt, and pure sin.

Ghost

POV BLAKE

Istruggle to stop drinking from her. Every fiber of my being screams to take more, to drain her dry, to consume every last drop of her intoxicating fire.

“What are you?” I murmur, tearing my mouth from her throat.

The taste of her floods my senses—honey and lightning, warmth and eternity. I stagger back, my chest heaving, my entire body trembling with the effort of restraint.

“What—” I stare at her, confusion warring with hunger. “That was not supposed to happen.”

I reach for her throat, my fingers tracing the twin puncture marks. Blood wells beneath my touch, and I feel the pull of it like a physical force. The spark. The impossible snap of something ancient locking into place.

“The bite,” I manage, my voice rough. “It shouldn’t cause this reaction. Pleasure like that only happens for one who is already bound.”

My mind reels. Vampires do not mate with humans. It is impossible. It has always been impossible.

And yet. I felt it. The mating bond. It snapped into place the moment my fangs pierced her skin. A connection so deep, so primal, it shook the foundations of my two-hundred-year exile.

The flush on her cheeks, the wild pulse at her throat, the hunger in her eyes that mirrors my own.

She is different.

I tasted it in her blood. Liquid sunshine. Ancient power. Magic that should not exist in a mortal woman.

The question burns in my mind. I have lived for millennia. I have tasted the blood of kings and peasants, warriors and saints, the pure and the damned. Never—not once—have I tasted anything like her.