Page 102 of Fang Fatale

“Are you going to kiss me,” I say, “or must I write it in blood?”

He blinks once. Then twice. A full, lazy, scorching grin spreads across his face as his fingers slide to the nape of my neck, drawing me in. He kisses me like he’s verifying that I’m real.

The kiss is less graveyard elegance and more kitchen counters and spilled wine, and by the time I break free, I’m grinning like a complete fool.

I want more.

Everything.

Before I can lean in again, he freezes, tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, and murmurs, “Are you sure?”

It isn’t a test. His voice is gentle, but his eyes are ancient and unreadable.

I nod. “I’m not a damsel, you know.”

He arches an eyebrow. “I would never mistake you for one.”

He lifts me effortlessly, like I’m a bundle of laundry, and plants me atop the counter. He trails soft kisses along my jaw and down my neck, pausing at the pulse point as though seeking permission. When he finally sinks his teeth in—just enough to make me shiver—it feels like months of tension unspooling in one sweet exhale.

He pulls back, his lips at my ear.

“Tell me to stop.”

I whisper, “I’d rather you didn’t.”

CHAPTER 16

ALARIC

Her words—her shuddering, low-voiced “I’d rather you didn’t”—hits a switch in my spinal column, and for once I let the animal in my marrow take the wheel. You’d think being part monster gives a man an edge in the romance department, but more often it’s the opposite: centuries of shared shame, and you learn to put up so many guardrails that you forget there’s a road meant for driving off them. But Birdie is the kind of girl who invites disasters, sweetly and with eye contact, and tonight I want to become one for her.

So I do what I’ve been threatening to do for months and kiss her like she’s a first edition and I’m a careless, greedy collector. My tongue traces the seam of her mouth, one hand on her cheek and the other braced on the countertop, and she makes a soft noise that undoes me completely. There’s no small talk now, just the two of us, and the perpetual hush of things about to break.

Birdie’s hands find my chest and slide up to my neck, nails scratching lightly at the hairline. The smell of her—brandy, burnt sugar, and a note of garden dirt—coils around my head like a hypnosis. I want to memorize every microexpression, every tremor she tries to hide. I want to imprint this version of her—a little reckless, a little scared, lips stained purple from the wine and the effort of kissing me back—onto the inside of my eyelids.

“Alaric,” she murmurs, voice tight with either nerves or anticipation (can’t tell, don’t care). “You know what you’re doing?”

“I thought I did.” I brush her lower lip with my thumb, not missing the way her breath catches. “But you keep recalibrating me.”

She fixes me with a look that could drop a puma at thirty paces, then licks her lips—a move clearly designed to liquefy my brain. “Take me to bed.” The command is feathery, but it lands with the gravitational force of a planet.

I laugh, low and genuine. “Birdie, you don’t know what you’re egging on.”

She leans forward, presses her forehead to mine. “I have suspicions.”

Fair enough. I sweep her off the counter and into my arms, and she makes a protest noise—half laugh, half yelp—but she doesn’t squirm. Her legs wrap around my waist, and she holds me so tight I’m afraid I’ll bruise. Good. Let her. I want her everywhere. The hall to her bedroom is perilous, lined with battered bookcases and the odd hanging crystal, but I dodge them on muscle memory, not willing to let her feet touch floor until I absolutely must.

Her bedroom is chaos: sweaters and notebooks, a dried bouquet of yarrow, Barnaby passed out on a plush bed in the corner and some kind of plush lizard giving me the evil eye from her pillow. I deposit her there, but before I can say anything cute, she yanks me down by my collar and kisses me with an impatient, searing heat.

I want to savor her, immortal patience and all that, but Birdie is having none of it. She tugs at my shirt with small, insistent fists, like she’s opening a stubborn Christmas present. Buttons fly, and I’m laughing as I free her hair from its elastic, letting it spill over my hands like melted chocolate. She shoves my shirt down my arms, traces my scars like she’s taking inventory, and hums in approval over each one.

“That was a railway spike,” I say, tilting my shoulder so she can see the white puckered scar near my collarbone.

“Did you deserve it?”

I consider. “Probably.”

She laughs, and it’s the kind of laugh meant only for a two-person audience. “Show me more.”