“We have found your threshold, my love,” he said softly, hovering above me. A smile spread across his face. “Look at how powerful you are. I doubt anyone has ever bonded someone such as you. I am the luckiest man alive.” A crimson drop fell from his full bottom lip and onto my skin. For some reason, it calmed me.

I cut out the fire and gently lowered him back to my body. Back between my legs. “Oops, my bad.”

“I think, for you, that feeling will get worse.” He kissed me softly. “I had hoped to power through it, but I see now that that will be impossible. You’d throw me out the window without meaning to.”

“Why are you taking such joy in my crazy?”

“Because I know that you will allow me to do this based on your regard for me. No one else would be able to. You’d kill them long before they could complete the first draining.”

“Why you, Darius?” I asked. “Why us? You’ve said it a million times—this shouldn’t be possible. You shouldn’t be able to love anyone, let alone a prickly girl scared of loving you back. And, as said prickly girl, I should die alone with ten cats. I’ve tried everything not to feel this way about you.” I still stopped short of using the L-word. “To ignore the effect you have on me, which is more than just fantastic bed mambo and pretty awesome vampire serum. It’s you, the man at the root of the vampire. I shouldn’t even be able to find him.”

“I don’t know,” he said, staring into my eyes, “but I’m past asking for reasons. I am now allowing the feeling to seep into every part of my soul—and accepting it for the gift it truly is. So many vampires would kill to feel like I do. To reconnect with their humanity. I get that ability, and I will not shy away from it. Not anymore.”

I just sighed and hugged him close, because I wasn’t beyond asking for reasons. Everything in my person, in my past, said not to trust vampires, especially elder vampires. Yet here I was, doing just that. It had to be a recipe for disaster. Had to be. I wasn’t lucky enough to find love, let alone get to keep it. My life wouldn’t allow it.

“Go slow and I’ll run interference with my magic.” I slid my thighs up his hips.

“Here we go again.” He slowly thrust forward. My eyes fluttered closed.

The pull on my neck wasn’t as glorious as normal.

“Can you boost the effect of the serum?” I asked.

“It is as potent as I can make it.” He pulled again, greedy.

My fingers tightened on his shoulders and I struggled for clarity.

He wasn’t being greedy; he was actually being gentler than normal.

Another pull and I tore my hands away from his body and gripped the bed, clenching it to prevent from doing something crazy. It felt like he was killing me. Murdering me.

The suck felt sickly now, dangerous. “Pull out, Darius,” I commanded as I turned my face away and put my energy into lifting the bed off the ground. It wasn’t nearly as hard as it should be. “Pull out of me. This has taken a turn for the worse.”

He did so without hesitation, but kept sucking, draining my life away. The bed wobbled with each pull, my energy sapping.

I squeezed my eyes shut and flexed each muscle, feeling his hardness against me and wanting it in me—and also wanting to rip it off and beat him to death with it.

“Definitely taken a turn for the worse. How much longer?” I panted like a dog in the sun.

His answer was to keep sucking, unmoving while he did so. He must’ve known I was on the edge.

I hummed a little tune as more power flooded me, coming from who knew where. It filled each crevice, eating away the haze from blood loss. Eating away my worry and guilt. All the tense lines of my life smoothed. I was confident I wouldn’t die. Without blood, air, food, water—everything—I still wouldn’t die.

Superman complex, had to be.

I love you, mon ange, he thought.

The ice magic had kicked in enough that I was reading thoughts. This was usually where the uncontrollable rage roared to life, but I didn’t feel it. Instead, I felt a deeper emotion, pulsing way down, in a place I’d sealed up after my mom had died. A place no man had ever occupied before. A squishy, emotional place that filled my body with warmth and light.

Love.

Just like that, I turned a corner. I wasn’t a girl who did things by halves. Dying or not, I was going to run at this like I ran at danger. With a snarl turned smile and the refusal to be bested.

I pulled us off the bed and repositioned us so he was sitting in midair and I was straddling him. As soon as he was once again inside me, I threw my arms around him, laid my head on his shoulder, and went for it. He answered by squeezing me tightly and thrusting harder. Faster. Almost immediately, the orgasms resumed, smashing into and through me one after the other, not human and almost unbearable. I held on for dear life, not even having to focus on keeping us in the air. Power pumped into me, like I’d opened a floodgate. He shuddered as much as I did.

My fingers started to tingle. So did my toes. No haze overcame me, though. No lightheadedness or dizziness from blood loss. When Darius pulled his head away with a gasp of air and a flash of bloodstained fangs, I lifted my head to look him directly in the eyes.

A crease formed between his brows. He didn’t say anything. But then, he didn’t have to.

What is happening? he thought. Does she not need blood to survive?

“Remember that I can hear you. As far as what’s happening…I probably do need blood, but I think my demonic side is overriding my human side right now. I’d probably die before I admitted I was dying, because I’m pretty sure demons need blood, too.”

His eyes dipped to my lips. He kissed me passionately. “You are like a puzzle. What fun I will have figuring you out.”

“Right. I’ll just put us down now, and we can move on to what’s next.”

The bed bumped off the floor right before we bumped onto the bed. I was pretty impressed with my own soft landing.

Is your magic receding?

“Not yet. You can use words, though, so I don’t feel like I’m intruding.”

You are not intruding. If I don’t wish you to hear my thoughts, I simply won’t think them. How fortunate for me not to have to waste energy moving my lips.

That was one way of looking at things. I doubted Callie and Dizzy would agree. That was, if they ever forgave me and deigned to speak to me again.

Assuming I made it out of the underworld at all.

“I still need to send Callie and Dizzy a note,” I said, feeling the pang of guilt.

We will arrange it when we wake up.

“Talk normally, please. As a favor. Hearing you without actually hearing you is weird.”

“If you wish.” He ran his thumb along my chin. “Now you must take my blood. Normally, I would advise you to take as much as you wanted, but…I worry that might be foolish. So I must ask you to stop taking blood when I tap you. Or resist you. Or, in dire circumstances, attack you.”

“Fair enough. What’s good for the goose is good for the vampire.” I glanced at his neck, then his wrist, then his muscular body and erect manhood. “It amazes me that you never seem to get tired.”

“It is your blood. It acts like human crack. Or speed. Honestly, I’m not sure what the difference in effect is between those drugs. I haven’t bothered to research it.”

“Your pillow talk is sure something.” Part of me wanted to bend down to the distinctly male part of him, but I figured I should get some blood in me before I passed out. I was probably on fumes and didn’t know it. “I don’t want to rip into your neck like a wild animal, so can you make a cut with a claw or something?”

“Where?” A claw extended from his pointer finger. Just one.

“Impressive.”

“Your blood gives me greater control. It has since I first consumed it. I wonder what bonding will bring me. And which of my strengths will come to you.”

I tapped the wrist of his other hand and he made a small slice. Blood welled up out of the gash.

“Ew. I’m not really into this. Hang on while I try to push the magic away. If I’m on the verge of death, I’ll probably like doing this more.” I squeezed my eyes shut and focused, pushing at the power pumping through the shell of my body. It wouldn’t go anywhere. Both types of magic were pumped up and didn’t want to leave.