“Can I talk to you? Alone. Please, Daniela, just a few minutes of your time.”
“My queen, this is ridiculous,” Jádian said. “Remember what he did to you last time?”
Murdoch cast him a killing look, then turned back to her. “I have an idea—there’s a way we might be together.”
“What? How?”
“When I drank from you before—”
“Why bring that up to me?” Her hand flittered to her neck at the reminder.
“Because now I know why it was so irresistible to me.”
Jádian said, “Because you’re a parasite.”
“Jádian!”
“He plans to bite you again.”
“Of course he doesn’t. Murdoch, tell him.”
“Daniela, speak with me alone.” Somehow he managed to make it to his feet. “I swear I won’t do anything to you that you don’t agree to.”
His words piqued her curiosity. He hadn’t promised not to hurt her, not to bite her, yet she felt no threat from him. “Very well,” she said, turning to Jádian with raised brows. After a hesitation, he turned for the door, stonily silent.
As soon as they were alone, Murdoch demanded, “Are you marrying him?”
“What? No!”
“Nïx told me you were.”
“She must be confused then, or you misheard her. Now, tell me. What were you talking about?”
“Daniela, before I took your neck, I’d dreamed of doing it. More and more as we grew apart. Every night. Now I believe it’s the way for us to be together.”
“I don’t understand.”
“With your blood in my veins, everything felt warm to me. My brothers were chilled, but I couldn’t stand to be near the fire. Your blood made me cold.”
“That can’t be right. I can’t turn you into an Iceren.”
“No, but I can pick up characteristics of your kind,” Murdoch said.
“Do you have the skin markings, then? Are you unaffected by the sun?”
He shook his head. “There was a blue tinge under my eyes, but not the body markings. When I tested my skin in the sun, I still burned, even when I was immune to the cold.”
“Immune? Then why are you freezing right now? How did you get frostbitten?”
He ran his bandaged hand over the back of his neck. “The effect only lasted a couple of days.”
“So for this to work, I’d have to repeat that pain?”
“One last time. After that, as long as I drank every day or two, I’d never hurt you again. We could be together.” His voice went lower, and his eyes flickered black. “In all ways.”
Her mind was whirring. Yet then she recalled what had happened after the last bite. “But I–I went unconscious.”
Looking shamefaced, he said, “I took too much. I wouldn’t this time. I know I don’t deserve your trust, but I’m asking for it anyway.”
“Why should I do this?”
“Because I’m in love with you,” he said—without a hint of hesitation.
Her lips parted and the world seemed to shift under her feet. After what he’d done to reach her, she had to believe he did. But to hear him say the words, with his eyes so intense and dark…
Maybe the vampire did always come through in the end.
“And I think you love me, too.” Hope tinged his words.
She turned away, breaking his searching gaze. “Maybe that doesn’t matter,” she said over her shoulder. “Maybe we’re only fated to make each other miserable. You forget we’d fought before all this happened. You’d given up on us.”
“No, just before I returned that night, I realized that fifty years was nothing if we could be together. I’d come back to tell you that. But then I saw you kissing Jádian…”
She faced him once more. “I’m sorry for that.”
“It doesn’t matter now,” he said, but she could tell that she’d hurt him. “When I was in jail—”
“Jail?”
“That’s why I wasn’t here sooner—Kristoff imprisoned us at Mount Oblak for harboring Conrad. It’s all worked out now, but we spent weeks inside. And while I was there, I determined that I would do anything to be with you. Desert my order. Live here in the cold in twenty-four hours of daylight.”
“Murdoch, that’s not the point. You’re talking about biting me again, about more pain. And not just mine. I’m colder than I’ve ever been. It would hurt you too,” she said, then added, “If this did work, you might be vulnerable to thermal shock, like me.”
“I don’t give a damn about that!” He crossed to her until they were toe to toe. “Please, Danii, I know I’m asking for a lot more than I deserve, but if you can endure this one last time… Just give me your trust.”
Hadn’t she said she’d give anything to know his taste? To touch her lips to his?
Before, even amidst the agony of his bite, she’d felt a connection to him.
I will trust him. Fantasy finally made reality. And reality sometimes took sacrifice.
Daniela bowed her head, then gazed up at him from under her lashes. And again, he was undone.
“I do trust you.” She pulled her hair to the side, baring the pale column of her neck to him, inviting him.
“You won’t regret this.” But even as his fangs sharpened for her flesh, he hesitated. “I dread hurting you. When I think about how I took you last time…”
“I’m afraid I’ll try to break away,” she admitted. “Or that you will—from the cold.”
Each would want to recoil. They’d have to force each other to hold on. “Hang on to me, kallim, because I’ll be holding you tight. We do this now, and then we have forever.”
She inhaled a steadying breath. “I’m ready.”
What would you do for her…? The scent of the supple skin he was about to taste proved too much temptation. He couldn’t resist. He laid his bandaged palms on her hips and drew her closer.
Her hands rose to clasp his shoulders. “Do it,” she whispered.
In a flash, he sank his fangs into her. This time he groaned—in pain. She was even icier than before.
Stabbing cold shot through him. The urge to release her screamed in him, but he held on, squeezing her hips. He felt her little blue claws digging into him as well.
Yet with each of his draws, the pain lessened. At the remembered sense of connection, his eyes slid closed in bliss.
Mine. Forever. Thoughts were a jumbled knot. Slow… slow… Don’t take too much this time. This is a gift…
CHAPTER 40
By the time Murdoch released her, they were both out of breath. And Danii was crying.
“Christ, I tried not to take too much—”
“Y-you didn’t.” But it had still been excruciating.
He winced at her neck. “You’re burned.”
“It’ll regenerate quickly with the cold. Did you even drink enough?” she asked, struggling to disguise how much pain she’d felt. “Do you think this will work?”
“The effect takes time.”
“You’re already better.” With her blood accelerating his regeneration, he began healing almost at once, his battered lips and face soon returning to normal. He unwrapped the bandages from his hands as they mended and flexed his fingers.
But his breaths still fogged.
Minutes passed, then half an hour. She sank onto the bed, and he paced. Another hour had trudged by in anxious silence before he said, “Daniela, why didn’t you tell me about the Roman?”
“You saw that?” At Murdoch’s nod, she said, “He’s in my past.”
“You think of me as you do him.”
She shook her head. “No, Murdoch. I was angry when I said that. Bewildered.”
“But it’s true that I took what didn’t belong to me.”
“We both felt the pull. I could have stopped you. And I’ve wondered again and again why I didn’t. Now I think it was instinct telling both of us the way to be together. If…”
“If this works? It will.” He ran his hand over his forehead. “Damn it, if you were brave and strong enough to withstand this—twice— it’s got to work.”