Tane entered with two others of his clan and glanced at the broken shards on the floor. “Don’t move. You’ll cut your feet.” He turned to his entourage. “Leave us.”
They left without comment except the one who entered first did smirk in my direction before following his commrades.
In silence, Tane and I stared at each other. I tried to cross my arms over my breasts, but my sliced arm wouldn’t cooperate. It was hard to look confident without clothes.
“Where’s Rurik?” He sauntered toward me.
“Gwen is showing him where to feed.” I retreated, but the step jammed a small spike of mirror into my foot. A yelp escaped me.
Tane held me close in his arms before I could blink. “I told you not to move.” He stood in the center of the broken pieces. “You’re so infuriating.” With a swift scoop of his arms, he picked me up and carried me to the bed. “Let’s get you healed.”
I rolled onto my side and glared at him. His dark eyes reflected no emotion, yet anger radiated from his body like heat. He wore a pair of black sweatpants and nothing else, not a mark on his skin where the steel bars had pierced him. Broad, muscled shoulders bulged with tension as they met a well-defined chest. His waist didn’t taper to his hips like Rurik’s though. He had a bulkier build. Where Rurik reminded me of a panther, Tane made me think tiger—big, strong, and dangerous.
I pulled a corner of the blanket and covered my front, but it left my backside exposed.
He snatched my foot and yanked out the shard of mirror from the sole. “Like you don’t have enough holes in your hide.” The bed sank as he crawled onto it. “Give me your arm.”
“Why?”
His eyes narrowed and a muscle in his jaw ticked as he clenched his jaw. Rage must be storming inside of him. Betrayed and imprisoned by one of his kind. The anger wasn’t at me, nevertheless I was the focus. Tane ruled all the vampires in the world, which made him the strongest. Not the best idea to piss him off.
I gave him my injured arm, the one Luckard cut with a blade to test our blood ties.
“Squeeze my hand.”
I tried to wrap my fingers around his, but even with Rurik dampening my pain they wouldn’t move much.
“Luckard cut the tendons.” His eyes met mine. “It hurt when he did it.”
“No shit.” I withdrew my hand. He’d felt the slice of the blade too. “Can we just get this over with?”
One corner of his thin mouth lifted. “I wish it could be that easy. If I let you feed, the injuries will close up and heal quickly. With this amount of damage, there will be a lot of scarring if done incorrectly. You might lose the use of your hand.”
I wanted to be whole again and realized at what lengths I’d go to be healed properly.
“Do you know how to do it right?”
He rolled his eyes.
“Of course you do, the mighty Tane’s been a vampire since the time of dinosaurs.” I exaggerated, but knew I was close. What’s a few thousand years?
His chuckle caught me by surprise. I couldn’t remember if I ever heard him laugh before tonight. It made him more human. He licked his lips. “T-Rex, my favorite.” The small amount of humor in his eyes changed his face. It went from intimidating to warm in seconds. He lay next to me and took my arm again. “I’ll have to lick the wound.
Something in the Nosferatu saliva helps with the healing. The stronger the vampire, the better the results.”
My heart took off at a gallop as I watched him bring my injury to his mouth. His tongue slid inside, however he never broke eye contact with me. Drawn into his gaze, my vision tunneled and only the dark pits of his eyes existed. I shuddered as he took a long slow stroke.
Tell me if it hurts. His voice sounded in my thoughts. It broke whatever trance I’d allowed myself to fall into.
“Don’t do that.”
He stopped and quirked an eyebrow. “The tendons may not reconnect.”
“No, continue with the healing, but stay out of my head.”
“Your shields are down. I took it as invitation.” He licked again.
“Rurik is shielding me from the pain.”
And he’s able to eat with all that discomfort?
Bastard. “What do you mean?”
By shielding you, he accepts pain onto himself. He glanced at me while he took another deep swipe. He didn’t tell you?
“No and get out of my mind.” I growled out those last words. Rurik took my pain.
This explained the waxy appearance of his skin and his grumpy behavior. “Can any vampire do that or are we bound as well?”
He sat and released my arm. “You’re not bound?”
“I don’t feel his pain like I felt yours.”
He rubbed his chin. “I don’t know. He loves you, I’ve no doubt, and that binds people in other inexplicable ways. We both entered your blood stream at the same time.
Mine came first, but you refused to take much and then drank deep from Rurik. The power in my blood must have overcome his, yet you didn’t feel the call to be close to me.
Our bonded humans generally want to be near.” With a shrug he turned to me. “We’ll have to explore it more. Lie flat on your stomach.”
“Are you going to lick my back?” A lead ball dropped into my gut.
“Do you want scars?” he snapped. “You’re not the only one who’s had to suffer. I’ve had a few harrowing days as well, and now having to deal with your insolence just tops it.”
I swallowed and lay prone. He had a point, but it went against my nature to be kind to him. Luckard spent one night hurting me, yet he had tortured Tane for longer.
“This will hurt, even with Rurik’s help, so I’m going to take over the shielding.”
I didn’t sense anything different except what aches I had disappeared.
He straddled my body without touching me. I could see his hand by my shoulder and sense his cool breath on my back. Goose flesh formed on my arms. The first initial contact of his tongue made me shiver.
He trailed the tip of it in slow, circular motions and moved up from my lower back.
Rurik is right. You do taste fruity.
“He told you that? When?” I lifted my head to glance over my shoulder.
Relax. He pressed my head to the pillow. We’ve always written letters to each other.
Did you think after Budapest things would change? We’ve always been friends.
“He never mentioned any letters to me.”
Do you tell him everything you do?
I thought of my meeting with Colby. Lies begot lies. Maybe we only fooled ourselves for the last eighteen months. Yet we were happy. “Why did you force a bind on me? You could have rescued Rurik and let him do it.”
No, I couldn’t, and I don’t need to explain myself to you.
I snorted. “Do you think I’m going to transform into a human slave?”
Not overnight. He moved to a deeper wound under my shoulder blade and pressed his knee to the side of my hip.
“Not ever.”
You’ve stopped complaining about my telepathy. The laps of his tongue grew bolder.
I got the impression of what a lollipop felt like. He moaned as he got closer to my neck. It wasn’t a sexual thing, Tane liked men.
His arrogance rubbed me the wrong way. It always did. I knew he helped me, but couldn’t stop the flash memory of Tane as a human from jumping out. Dragos shared it with me while he tried to tear my soul apart with grief. Tane kneeled before Dragos as if he were a god.
My demon jerked behind me. “How do you have that memory?”