“I need you.” The words were wrenched from somewhere deep inside, giving voice to a feeling I’d never dared admit aloud.
He rested a hand on either side of my head, his presence blocking out everything else as he leaned over me. “Zorah. You already have me, love. You only ever needed to reach out and take what was offered.”
Since the only alternative to kissing him would be bursting into tears, I pulled his head down to mine, surrendering to his mouth. This must be what it’s like not to be afraid, I thought, letting everything else fall away beneath the weight of those softly demanding lips.
We kissed for ages, hands roaming to feel skin against skin, rather than to seduce. Rans’ animus was a low hum of warmth flowing into me. I let it come, enjoying its sweetness, but did not pull more from him. Eventually, with the darkening sky outside the window ceding its light to the small lamp next to the bed, I pushed Rans to lie on his back so I could straddle him.
We were still kissing, but I pulled back so I could watch his face as I positioned his hard length at the entrance to my passage. His eyes flared as I angled my hips and he slid inside. But I was looking too deeply, and what I saw in those depths burned like a hot brand. That, combined with the delicious stretch as he filled me, was too much.
I closed my eyes, rolling my lower lip between my teeth as I focused on the physical rather than the emotional aspect of our joining. But gentle fingers stroked along the line of my jaw, lifting my chin.
“No, Zorah,” Rans said softly. “I want you to watch. See what you do to me.”
I kept my eyes squeezed shut, assaulted on all sides by feelings, but those fingers continued to cup my chin in silent command. Eventually, with a deep breath, I opened them and looked at the man beneath me. Really looked.
“That’s it, love,” he said, rewarding me with a slow roll of his hips. His eyes flared brighter, and his voice gained a deeper resonance. “Pretend I’m compelling you if it helps, but you will see me while I’m making love to you.”
My chest hitched. We both knew that I was immune to his gaze, but I could still feel its effects. And he was right—damn him. It helped. I gave myself over to his command, staring deeply into his eyes as our bodies moved together with sinuous, unhurried movements. It was completely different than any sex we’d had with each other before, and at times, I wasn’t sure I would survive it with my soul intact.
But perhaps that was the point.
Rans had fed from me, and I fed from him in return, but mostly, we just existed with each other. Every so often, one or the other of us would shiver beneath the force of an orgasm, but I was part succubus, and Rans had drunk my blood, and just because our bodies climaxed, that wasn’t a pressing reason to stop what we were doing.
I think I must have spent hours just draped over Rans’ body with his arms wrapped around me and his cock nestled hard and heavy inside me, soaking in the way his skin felt against mine and tracing the wispy curls of his animus brushing against my magical core.
We fell asleep at about the same time, still joined together. When I woke up hours later from blessedly dreamless blankness, the sun was high in the sky outside. I was tucked against Rans’ side, his fingers tracing the knobs along the back of my neck with soothing pressure.
“Morning,” he said gently. “Or... possibly afternoon.”
I smiled against his chest. “So, vampire morning, then,” I suggested.
He huffed a breath of amusement. “Something like that, yes.” Then he sobered, though his fingertips continued their slow massage. “I hope you’ll agree that our new goal in life should be to spend every single night exactly like this,” he said, his voice growing serious. “But... for now, maybe you should tell me what it was you learned in Hell about Nigellus and the Tithe.”
EPILOGUE
MY FEELINGS OF peaceful belonging faded slowly into sadness as I contemplated what I still needed to tell Rans about his mentor. I rolled onto an elbow so I could look down at him, noting that the clear blue eyes whose depths I’d drowned in last night had closed off. Not necessarily closed off from my presence, I knew—but closed off against what was coming. I wondered if Rans had harbored his own suspicions about Nigellus, or if this would come as a complete shock to him.
I took a deep breath to steel myself, and brushed my knuckles over Rans’ temple and cheek.
“I really didn’t want to have to tell you this,” I said, “but once the human tithelings in Hell reach adulthood, they’re given the option of imbibing a special kind of wine that heals them and slows their aging process to almost nothing. The demons use magic to produce enough of this drink that everyone who wants it can have some, because it relies on an ingredient of incredible rarity.”
Rans remained silent and still. I swallowed hard, and continued.
“It’s an ingredient... with only one surviving source in all of the three realms,” I said as evenly as I could. “Rans... Nigellus has been harvesting your blood without your knowledge. And he’s almost certainly been doing it since shortly after the end of the war.”
Blue eyes slipped closed before I could see the pain in them, though the face they were set in might have been carved from alabaster.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “But there’s more. I think Myrial is trying to destroy the treaty and restart the war. She... he... is the incubus that got my grandmother pregnant. And I’m pretty sure she was also behind the attack at the club—an attack with silver knives and bullets. If she could kill
