Azur’s groan reverberated in the protected cluster his wings made around us. My back arched off the door, my eyes sliding shut as I tilted my neck even more, making space for him. Maybe I would hate myself in the morning. Maybe the self-loathing would take root the moment the sun rose. Or perhaps even the moment he was done feeding.
But right then…if pleasure was what I received from this transaction—because that was what it was—then I would take it. I’d been restless all day. I didn’t care what he thought of me. A part of me needed this.
If there was a shred of something besides fear and hatred on Krynn, I was going to grab on to it with both hands.
I almost laughed in my delirium. He’d called me the slut when by his own admission, he craved my blood to the point that it infuriated him?
“What does that make you, then, Azur of House Kaalium, son of Thraan, and the High Lord of Laras?” I asked, my voice throaty. He didn’t even pause in his feeding, but I felt a rough exhale through his nostrils over my skin. “What does that make you, knowing you can’t get enough of my blood? Do you hate that too? Does it make you hate me more?”
Azur pressed into me harder, sliding his hard thigh between my legs, sparking a new kind of pressure and pleasure, though I wondered if he’d meant it as punishment. Or a warning.
His feeding turned into something new. Something darker. Something ravenous. He sucked harder. He drank more deeply, like he was determined to drain me dry.
I moaned, little gasping breaths flying from my throat, my eyes widening in disbelief. I felt one small flutter between my thighs.
Oh gods!
I struggled against him, knowing what would happen. Knowing what he was steadily driving me toward. But he didn’t let me go anywhere. If anything, he held me tighter. An unyielding wall whose stubbornness matched my own.
And when that pleasure burst?
“No, no, no,” I moaned, ragged, clawing at the tops of his shoulders, trying to keep my legs from giving out beneath me.
Crying out, I couldn’t help it as my hips rocked of their accord, as an orgasm ripped through my body, tearing me up from the inside out. Powerful and deep. Wanted and hated. Sublime and mind-numbing.
Azur laughed, but it was muffled against my neck, where his fangs were still imbedded deep.
His dark chuckle sparked my blood with fury because he knew. He knew what had just happened.
Can he feel it? I couldn’t help but wonder, dazed. Can he taste it?
He pressed his hips harder into my belly, grinding against me. Letting me feel the drag of his swollen, hard cock.
He’s affected by this too, I thought, feeling my lids go heavy.
That was when I felt it.
The unmistakable sensation of another orgasm building, right on the heels of the first. My legs tightened. The gentle pulsing deep inside my sex was turning into a steady, maddening need. My clit was fluttering and sensitive, but I dug my fingers into Azur’s shoulders, raking them down his thick leather vest. It was still cold from the wind outside.
His laugh abruptly died.
“Raazos,” came the soft word. Like a whispered curse. He was steadily rocking against me now, the grinding of his hips almost violent, rough. He groaned, muffled against my neck, “Fuck.”
Almost there, I chanted in my head, my head lolling against my shoulders as his grip on my hair loosened. So close!
And then…just as I was about to tumble over the edge, Azur pulled his fangs from me in a dizzying rush and retreated so fast that my head spun.
“No!” I couldn’t help but cry out, nearly on the verge of tears in frustration, already feeling the pleasure he’d built begin to slip away.
And then in the silence that followed…reality slowly crept back in. In sluggish, hazy moments until I felt my cheeks begin to burn.
Not again, I thought.
Azur had flung himself a few paces away, clutching the back of the chair that was perched close to the roaring fire. His grip was so tight that I thought his claws would tear through the material. His shoulders were heaving.
I hadn’t imagined it the first time, I realized, staring at him in shock as I clung to the handle of the door, using it to keep me upright. I’d have a bruise on my back in the morning from where it’d dug into me.
Azur was definitely bigger. Though he hadn’t grown taller, he was larger. Everywhere. His vest was nearly ripping open at the seams. And his pants might have been made of latex for all the detail they showed, including the veins on the underside of his cock and a strange, thick swelling at the very base of his shaft.
Suddenly, I felt overheated. The material of my night dress felt heavy and thick, though it was anything but. The bite mark on my neck throbbed. Between my legs, I felt slick and wet, evidence of my arousal and of my unexpected orgasm.
I waited for the self-loathing to come.
I waited for the disgust to rear its ugly head.
Only it never did.
As I straightened, the movement dragged Azur’s glowing eyes to mine. He was hunched over slightly, like he was catching his breath, using the back of the chair to support him. We regarded one another in the silence.
Even the fire popped with the tension filling the sitting room.
I waited for him to mock me.
I waited for him to sneer at how I’d come against him, moaning as he’d drunk from me.
Only he never did.
Instead, he said nothing at all as he straightened to his full height, his wings folding neatly behind his back.
“I won’t be shamed,” I warned him, the husky words breaking free from my throat. “Not by you. Not by anyone. I’ve dealt with it enough in my life that I refuse to feel it with you too.”
It was difficult to look arrogant and downright regal with a raging erection in supremely tight pants…and yet Azur somehow pulled it off. His eyes even narrowed on me, his lips pulling down into a familiar scowl.
Maybe if he knew that I received pleasure from the feedings, he would back off. He seemed to want to hurt me. He didn’t want to please me.
“For Alaire’s mercy, tell me, wife, exactly what shame do you think you’ve had to endure in your lifetime?” he growled. “The shame of your father’s greed? The shame of hiding your family’s ruin from the nobles in the Collis, fretting over the loss of your jewels and your estate and your precious keepers?”
My cheeks went even hotter. “You know nothing about me.”
His laugh was biting as he approached. “I’ve heard about the Hara daughters. I’ve heard you’re all spoiled rotten. Little grasping vines climbing up to stations high above them, spending credits that they don’t have on frivolous things that mean nothing, while their father begs for money from whoever is foolish enough to give him some. But let me tell you one thing, Gemma Hara. Desperation has a particular stench to it. It will warn everyone away. I could smell it before I ever laid eyes on you.”
A shocked breath escaped me.
The image he’d conjured…that wasn’t me. That wasn’t Mira. And for all her faults, if Piper had known about the debts, she wouldn’t have been so careless with our money. She would’ve been the first one to step up to try to fix our situation.