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He arched an eyebrow and gave her a once-over that raked her from head to toe, leaving fire in its wake. “Is everything okay?”
“Yes,” she said, lying poorly. “Thank you.”
“Good, come. You will sleep in here with me,” he said, extending an arm in the direction of the tent.
Mina felt the color drain instantly from her face. Sleep…with him. “I will not sleep in a pine box.”
The king threw his head back and laughed. “Oh, the myths you humans came up with certainly are entertaining.”
Glaring at him, she swung her hand and gave him a soft swat in the chest. “Now youarelaughing at me.”
He held up his hands. “Forgive me, Princess. Your statement simply caught me off guard. I often forget how little you all know of what really goes on over on this side of the mountains.”
She nodded slowly, glancing past him to the camp that sat quiet around them. “It does seem I have a lot to learn.”
“If you’re willing, then I will teach you. This need not be an unpleasant arrangement, Starlight.”
“Why do you call me that?” she asked, tilting her head to the side.
His easy smile faltered, and he folded his hands behind his back. “You are beautiful, Princess. A light in this darkness, and for my people the only things that shine like you are the moon and stars. While the moon is both ever-changing and ever-present, the stars are balls of fire that burn fiercely before they’re gone. As fiercely as the warrior’s soul I see in you.”
As he spoke, he reached to tuck a stray hair behind her ear and Mina gulped. “Oh.”
“Come, there is a chill in the air,” he said, turning back to the tent. “and you need rest.”
Mina watched as he marched past her into the tent and her jaw dropped. His words…they’d been so soft, and sincere. She couldn’t wrap her mind around them. How could this man be the same creature her teachers had warned her about?
Looking around the camp again, she saw soldiers milling between the campfires, women and younger faces helping tend to the horses. How many of them were vampires? They couldn’t all be, could they? They had to feed on something…or more correctly someone.
Anger flared in her chest, and she spun around marching into the tent. “Vlad! Am I here to be your feed bag? A walking source of blood for you to drain at your leisure?”
The king looked up from where he stood on the far side of the tent, laying down his sword. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“Don’t play dumb,” she hissed. “You’re a vampire. You heard what I said.”
“I heard it, yes,” he said through his teeth, his fangs flashing in the firelight. “But that does not mean I understood it.”
Between them sat a large brazier, warming the open space, and beyond it laid a large bed fit for a king. Laden with furs, she couldn’t deny it looked comfortable, but these were questions she needed answers to before she went anywhere near it, or near him.
Mina’s jaw twitched. “Why am I here? Do you intend to try and feed off my blood?”
He blinked at her a few times, and then set his sword down on the table beside the bed. “You are here to be my queen, should you choose to go through with the wedding. As for drinking your blood, that is something partners often do among my people, it is an intimate exchange. I would never force you into that, I’d rather you’d begged me for it.”
“Beg?” She laughed. “Why would I ever beg—”
He shot forward and in the blink of an eye, he stood before her, less than an inch of space between them. His hand rose and he brushed his fingers over her cheek, staring intently at her lips. “Have you ever laid with a man, Princess, or touched yourself in the dark of the night?”
Mina felt the blood rush to her cheeks for the second time, and her toes curled as she fought the urge to press her thighs together. “Why?”
His lips curled to the side in that wickedly crooked grin she’d already grown to enjoy, and he leaned in close to whisper in her ear. “If I were to take from you while my cock sat buried between your thighs, it would be the sweetest pleasure, far more than you could ever achieve with your own fingers, or with any other man.”
Mina’s eyes drifted closed as he spoke, and she shivered. As pleasant as his offer sounded, she couldn’t shake the idea that he would be feeding on her blood. She would be his food.
“And what if I didn’t want you to bite me?” She asked, looking up at him through hooded eyes.
He brushed his thumb over her lower lip. “Then I wouldn’t. You cannot return home, Princess. But I will not force you to be mine either.”
“But I’m supposed to be your queen, am I not? Your wife?” She frowned
