“Dragos shared it as he tried to convert me to worship him. Are you done yet?”
“Yes.” He rolled off to lie next to me.
I turned my head on the pillow to see him better. His mouth was painted ruby with my blood. He licked at it as if savoring the flavor. “You never answered my question.”
He glanced at me.
“Why bind us? You hate me.”
“Hate is too strong a word. I find you annoying. But for me to rescue Rurik I had to kill Dragos. I couldn’t do it. I loved him too much. It’s why I asked for Rurik’s help.” He gazed up at the ceiling. “He had already given up Budapest to follow you before we captured him at the house. Once he found out how I used you to weaken Dragos, I doubted he’d ever speak with me again.”
“So you wanted to make sure you had a link to him after things settled. Me.”
He smiled. “Have you been having any odd cravings?”
My breath caught in my throat. “Yes.”
“Blood?”
“Not any blood. Just Rurik’s…” I fiddled with the sheet. “And maybe yours.” I remembered how it smelled.
“You’ve been needing more and more of Rurik’s blood?”
“It’s like a hunger I can’t stop.” My words were barely audible.
“He must have had suspicions that something was wrong. Why else bring you here?
Most bonded humans don’t need to consume more than once a year, but if left unattended they can go strange.”
“You mean crazy. If I feed from you will I get better?”
“We’ll find out.” He reached up to his neck. The nail on his index finger was purposely pointed and he used it to cut his skin. A thin trail of blood trickled down. The hunger I spoke of soared.
My mouth watered and I crawled over to him.
He tucked his hands behind his head and allowed me to drink.
I couldn’t angle my mouth to make a good seal to his skin from where I lay so I climbed on top of his chest. My body finally got what it had been craving, the blood of my vampire master. How did I let things get so wrong?
My back tingled and itched. I clasped his shoulder with the injured hand that wouldn’t function earlier and pulled myself against his broad body.
The door creaked open and I twisted to see Rurik step through.
“What the hell is going on?”
Tane shoved me off and slipped off the bed to stand next to it. “I’m healing her.”
Chapter Seven
The momentum of Tane shoving me off his chest as Rurik came into the room sent me bouncing on the covers. I flinched, expecting pain to tear through me, yet nothing happened.
“I was healing her.” Tane sounded as if he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. I had to admit it looked bad. He only wore track pants and I wore nothing except my birthday suit, but come on, it was Tane. We could barely stand each other and on top of it, he was gay.
Rurik slammed the tray of food he carried onto a nearby coffee table. The plate rattled and the drink slopped over the edge of the glass. “You had to wait until I left and sneak in here like a rat?” He crossed the room and shoved the Nosferatu against the wall.
Tane didn’t fight back. He allowed Rurik to push him. The Master of all vampires could turn my lover inside out if he wanted to, however he did not deflect Rurik’s fury.
He diverted his gaze to the floor as if he couldn’t meet his friend’s glare. His head bounced off the wall as Rurik shoved him again with more homicidal force.
“How could you betray me like this?” Rurik shouted in Tane’s face. “It’s not enough you steal her bond, you need to seduce her as well?”
I sat up and pulled the covers to my chest. A flush of color rose in Tane’s cheeks. He glanced at me over Rurik’s shoulder. No desire lived in his stare. He didn’t want me. My lover saw things that didn’t exist.
Watching these two predators face off, I recalled their friendship, their letters.
They’d known each other longer than I’d been alive. An uncomfortable feeling settled in the pit of my stomach.
“Don’t touch her. Understand me?” Rurik tried to shove Tane out of the room, but the Nosferatu grabbed his wrist.
“She’s my blood slave. Don’t make me quote our laws.” The mask of guilt he wore crumbled and the anger that seethed when Tane first entered the room resurfaced. A vein pulsed in his temple as he held my lover back.
“You can choke on those laws. You’re supposed to be my friend.”
“Which is why I’ll let you keep her!” Tane released Rurik then stomped across the room and threw himself onto the sofa. Crossing his arms over his chest, he glowered at us. “She’s healed, you’re welcome.”
Rurik turned toward me and quirked an eyebrow in my direction.
I twisted at the hips and showed him my back.
He ran his hand over my skin. “Beautiful. Not a scar.” It gave me a pleasant shiver.
Most relationships lose that magic touch, the one which makes us quiver inside from just a brush of fingertips. He still did it to me. “It’s the least you could do after placing her in harm’s way.”
“What?” The disbelief in Tane’s voice rung true.
Wheeling back around, I saw him lean forward and brace the edge of the sofa seat with his hands.
“I didn’t swing the whip.” His knuckles turned white.
Rurik stood between us, his back to me. “You didn’t answer their demands. I saw what you let them do to Eric. You would have let them do it to Connie.”
If the tension got any thicker in the room, I’d drown in it. I reached out and touched Rurik’s hand. “He did his best to make them stop hurting me.”
He glanced at me over his shoulder.
“Tane really did try. They were going to kill us no matter what he told them.” I glanced past my lover to my demon. A glimpse of gratitude flickered in his eyes, but it passed too quickly for me to be sure. “There’s nothing for you to worry about, Tane doesn’t like women, remember?”
My statement didn’t have the reaction I’d hope for. Rurik’s brow furrowed and he frowned at me while shaking his head. “Don’t be so naïve. He likes both.”
A slap to the face would have surprised me less.
Rurik sat on the edge of the bed next to me and faced his so-called friend.
He had touched me, hell, he had licked me. God, I could be so stupid. I glared at my blood master across the room who sat with an innocent angel’s expression on his face. I mouthed the word asshole in his direction.
For a brief moment, he struggled to hide a smile.
Had he been trying to seduce me? Like that would have happened, give me some credit. I wanted to laugh out loud, except my night had already been filled with violence and I didn’t think insulting Tane would be such a smart move. I defended the fiend instead just to make peace between them. “He wasn’t trying to seduce me, only heal me.”
“But you drank from him.” Rurik glared at me.
I nodded. No need to bring up the licking part.
“Your bond to him is real then.” It sounded like he didn’t want it to be true. The defeat in his words hurt me.
“Your love binds you both together. It’s something just as strong.” Tane’s soft words barely reached my ears. “You must have suspected she was changing, otherwise you never would have brought her to my city.”
Sorrow aged Rurik’s immortal face as he lifted my chin so our gazes could meet.
“Change?” I felt my eyes go wide. Even with the blankets wrapped tight around me, I seemed very exposed. I looked from him to my lover as if they’d grown horns from their heads.
“The bloodlust,” Rurik answered.