She drank. Not even stopping to question.
When she was done she handed the heavy cup back to him, noticing for the first time that she was naked underneath the sheets and propped up against a mound of pillows in a bed made for carnal pleasure.
She shivered when she saw the cuffs dangling from the post at the foot of the bed. Domino laughed, setting the cup on the nightstand before rolling to his side, his cock a hard, heated presence against her thigh and hip. “For kadines who need to be disciplined,” he said, splaying his fingers over her belly and making her cunt clench and flare in reaction.
Dakotah remembered the conversation he’d had with Fane. “We’re back in Kenton? This is where Sarael was taken?”
“Yes.”
It felt strange to end up here. A circle closing.
By the time she stumbled into the carnival, she had almost become a feral animal. Intent only on running, on surviving. On staying one step ahead of Victor Hale.
But as she’d traveled with the carnival, shared a home on wheels with Sarael, she’d slowly become human again. Found that it didn’t have to hurt to care about someone. And she’d cared about Sarael. She’d worried for her.
Dakotah’s gaze went to the cuffs dangling from the post and she frowned. Domino laughed again, leaned in so that his face blocked her view. “She was created for Matteo. From the moment of her birth, Sarael belonged to him. You will see her again and you can judge her happiness for yourself.”
His hand moved from Dakotah’s abdomen to her breast, his fingers tracing over a hardened, puckered nipple, his expression serious. “There is little separation between a kadine and the one who claims her. Her misery becomes his. Her joy is his as well.”
“Along with her thoughts and memories,” Dakotah said, the wine which had soothed only seconds before now churning in her stomach.
Domino stilled, her emotions battering him, warning him they were moving into dangerous, treacherous territory. It would be so easy to calm her, to remove her worries. To smooth them over so nothing stood in the way of his claiming her completely.
“It works both ways,” he said, closing the distance between their faces, his tongue lightly tracing her lips before his mouth sucked at hers in a gentle kiss. “There are no secrets between a male and his kadine.”
When she would have turned her head, his hand left her breast and cupped her cheek. Holding her in position, deepening the kiss, though it remained soft, persuasive. A heated rub of slick heat and wet desire. “There is nothing you can’t know about me,” he whispered, his gaze meeting hers. “The good and the bad.”
Dakotah closed her eyes, tried to close her mind and her heart, but it was useless. She’d come this far. She’d pushed the boundaries of her trust further than she would have thought possible.
“I’ve been with a lot of men,” she said, hating the starkness of her voice. “Not by choice, but it doesn’t matter. You’ll see everything I’ve done.”
His nostrils flared. Rage roared through him. Flashing red in his eyes and causing her to flinch and try to pull away.
Domino was on her in an instant. His weight holding her to the mattress and pillows as his eyes bored into hers. “If it wasn’t your choice, Dakotah, then I will kill any man who has touched you.” He leaned in, his mouth hovering over hers once again. “And I will enjoy every kill.”
Shock rippled through her, holding her as motionless as his eyes and will. She knew he spoke the truth. She felt it in every cell of her body. And for a second she filled with hate and the savage need for revenge. Allowed old, violent fantasies to resurface. “How?” she asked and this time her voice sounded hard, brittle, even to her own ears.
Domino smiled, a flash of fangs and ruthlessness. Alien despite the human flesh, despite the candles with their dancing flames, the trappings of romance he’d provided before waking her and offering her herbs and wine.
“Easily, Dakotah. I could have them hunt and kill each other if it would please you. I could command them to kill themselves.”
She shivered at just how powerful he was. “You wouldn’t end up being hunted by vampires and dhampirs for doing that?”
“Only if I risked exposing us by killing while feeding.” He pressed his mouth to hers briefly. “Shall I pledge to kill all those who have hurt or used you? Make it my gift to you for becoming my kadine?”
She licked her lips and his eyes darkened, desire moving through them. She knew he was serious. His offer genuine. His intent to free her from the demons of her past, not to enslave her.
He could make her his kadine without her consent. He could make her want to belong to him. But instead he was trying to give her a choice even though there really was no choice. Their wolves had decided that first night in the forest. Their blood had already mixed and mingled.
He was her future. She was his.
The Emperor to her Empress.
Dakotah wriggled her hand and he freed her wrist. She smoothed her knuckles over his cheek. When his sensual lips tilted upward in response to her touch, she smiled and allowed a lightness to fill her heart and chase away the old hatred and pain. “No,” she said. “Let the past stay in the past. I don’t want to spend my future revisiting it. Reliving it. Killing because of it.” She tangled her fingers in his hair, rubbed her mouth against his. “The night will be over soon, isn’t there something we have to do before that happens?”
Joy filled Domino. Intense and overwhelming. He rolled, startling her and making her laugh as he shifted her to the dominant position, forcing her to straddle him.
Her eyes widened when he reached over and lifted a small dagger from the nightstand, handing it to her with a teasing smile. “You have already demonstrated how handy you are with a blade. Choose a spot and take what I have to offer.”
Dakotah took the knife and leaned down, bracing herself on one elbow, her wet slit rubbing and sliding against his cock, her nipple aligned to his, two hard tight points pressed to one another. “Aren’t you worried what I might decide to cut?” she teased.
He laughed, looking fully human. A confident male sure of his woman. “And cheat yourself of the pleasure you’ll soon get only from me?”
She put the tip of the blade against his throat, lightly traced the pulse beating there in a steady, unhurried rhythm, then moved downward, following the trail of his blood until the blade was poised above his nipple. Only his cock reacted, jerking, striking her clit, the head leaking against her belly, causing more of her arousal to escape, to coat his shaft and roll down to his testicles.
His eyes were molten stone, dark temptation in a face she could spend a lifetime looking at. He hissed when she cut him. Then threw back his head with a groan when her mouth covered both the wound and the nipple.
Ecstasy tore through Domino as she fed. A wild rush that had him writhing underneath her, his hands spearing through her hair, holding her to his chest.
He nearly came when her fingers reached for his cock, when they guided him to her entrance and she impaled herself on him.
It took all of his control not to roll her to her back, to become the aggressor as his ancestors had programmed him to be. But the gift she was giving him was one he would treasure always. And so he let her feed. Let her take him. Control him. Ride him to a dizzying, all-encompassing climax, her mouth finally leaving his chest as her own pleasure crested.
Only then did he give in to ancient instincts. Become what the blueprint of his cells demanded. What The Heat coursing through them both demanded, his body taking hers time and time again, leading hers in a dance of pleasure, need and release, until they were both weak, sated, ready to welcome The Sleep as the first rays of the sun breached the darkness.