And she didn’t want to hear him say that. No more than she wanted to acknowledge the regret she saw in his dark gaze, or the grim determination that emanated from the stormy color of his aura. “How fortunate for you and your martyred honor that I’ll be out of your life tomorrow.”

She pivoted away from him on a burst of hot anger and bitter pride.

She didn’t even make it two steps.

Lazaro was suddenly in front of her. And he was fuming. He seized her shoulders, blocking her path with the muscled wall of his body and the power of his sudden fury.

Amber sparks crackled in the midnight-blue pools of his eyes as his gaze clashed and locked with hers. “The fact that you’ll soon be out of my life is fortunate for you too, Melena.” He drew in a breath and more fire leapt into his irises, reducing his pupils to thinning, inhuman slits. “You should be thanking me for my restraint thus far, not stomping off to pout like a petulant child.”

“Let go of me.” He didn’t. If anything, his grip only went firmer. His face was so close to hers now, the bones of his high, angled cheeks sharpening with the emergence of his fangs. She refused to shrink under the full blast of his Gen One fury. “You call it restraint, the fact that you deny yourself the things you really want? Do you honestly think your guilt is ever going to release you if you only keep feeding it with your self-imposed isolation and pointless, hollow honor?”

A snarl curled up from his throat. It escaped through bared teeth and fangs. “You’re far too young to lecture me on life and death or guilt and honor. You don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t I?” she challenged hotly. And maybe a bit recklessly too, but she was so pissed off at him now, she couldn’t stop. “Twenty years of licking your wounds, hiding from life? Pretending you don’t need anything or anybody? One of us is acting like a sulking child, but it sure as hell isn’t me.”

A low, thunderous growl. That was all the warning she had. Then Lazaro’s mouth came down hard on hers. His kiss was ruthless, punishing. Spiked with raw fury and violent need.

Melena felt his fangs press against her lips, against her tongue when she opened her mouth to his invading kiss. He was holding nothing back now. She felt that hard intent roll through him with the fierce drumming of his heart against her br**sts. She felt it in the steely demand of his c**k when he brought his arm around her back and hauled her into a brutal embrace, crushing her abdomen into the immense ridge of his arousal.

She felt the wall come up against her spine and realized dazedly that he had moved her there using the power of his Breed genetics to propel them both across the floor in an instant. Lazaro f**ked her mouth with his tongue, grazed her lips with the deadly points of his fangs. His big body caged her, allowing her no room to escape, even if she tried.

“Now tell me what you know about my restraint, Melena.” His voice had dropped to a timbre so low, so dangerously dark, everything reasonable and sane in her trembled with a dreadful anticipation. His merciless gaze bore into her, daring her to flinch as he bent his head toward her vulnerable throat. “Tell me about my hollow honor.”

She couldn’t speak. All of her senses were drawn taut, coiled to the point of breaking. His breath rushed hot and fevered across her neck, into the sensitive shell of her ear. Her pulse was racing, electricity coursing through her veins everywhere Lazaro touched her. He reached up, ran his fingertips over the scarlet teardrop-and-crescent-moon mark at the base of her throat.

“Tell me you’re not afraid that I’ll take your sweet, frantic carotid in my teeth right now and do exactly what I’ve been dying to do since I first saw you on that boat last night.”

She was afraid. And for all her desire for him—despite her sense that she had been waiting all her life for him and had never realized it until now—Lazaro’s fangs nestled so dangerously near her throat put an arrow of true panic in her blood.

If he pierced her vein, just one sip of her Breedmate blood would create an exclusive, unbreakable bond. He would be tied to her for the rest of his days—or until her death, should that come sooner.

One sip and he would crave no one else.

He would always feel Melena in his blood, even if they were apart. Even if miles or entire countries separated them.

One sip and there would be no other Breedmate for him, even if he drank from another woman with the mark after his connection was formed with Melena.

And if she drank from him in exchange, their bond would be a complete circle. Sustaining. Eternal. Unbreakable, except by death.

Melena held her breath, suddenly understanding the full impact of what she was inviting. Lazaro Archer, one of the eldest, most formidable Gen One Breed males in existence, his body pressed against her from breast to ankle, his enormous fangs bared and poised over her carotid.

And he wanted her.

Every muscled inch of him was coiled with power, all of it at the razor’s edge of breaking. Desire burned in his eyes—desire for her body and for the vein that throbbed so madly near his mouth. Heat and rigid strength pulsed where his pelvis ground so demandingly into her abdomen.

He was feral and wild and nearly unhinged...and she had never known anything hotter in her life.

“Damn you for making me want you,” he muttered thickly. His searing breath skated across her electrified skin like a lick of flame. “Damn you for making me want this...”

She heard his brief inhalation. Felt his head descend, his lips and tongue sealing over her skin. Then she felt Lazaro’s bite.