‘How long have you been awake?’ Concentrating on her food, she pierced the steak with her fork then cut a piece. The meat was so tender the knife was hardly required. She bit down, juice oozing over her tongue. The muscles in her cheek tightened in savory pleasure. Was this what Mal had felt the first time he’d tasted her?

‘Long enough.’

She swallowed and used her fork to trench a valley in her mashed potatoes. Being watched greatly diminished her appetite. For food. ‘If I woke you, I apologize. I shouldn’t have said anything to Ronan—’

‘Don’t apologize for that. Listening to Ronan get his back teeth handed to him by a woman he considers a gourmet meal made my year.’

Her fork stilled. So he had heard that much. ‘Do you think of me that way as well?’

He didn’t answer for a long moment. Finally, she looked at him. The bright light of hunger flared in his eyes like a platinum beacon. She turned back to her plate. Disappointment she had no right to feel clogged her throat. ‘Evidently, you do.’

‘Don’t.’ Need thickened his voice.

‘Don’t what? Don’t state the obvious?’

‘Don’t judge me for what I cannot control.’

At the edge of her peripheral vision, she caught his movement as he sat up. Warmth spread in her veins. She almost laughed at her traitorous body.

He bent his head into his hands. It looked like he was squeezing his temples. ‘I don’t think of you as food, but … ’

She put her fork down to watch him. ‘But if you lost control—’

‘I’d kill you. The voices are begging me to do it now.’ He lifted his head, still cradled in his hands. ‘You’re wrong, you know. I’m not superior to Ronan.’

‘Of course you are. You’re nobility.’ Perhaps reminding him of that would—

‘You think that means jack to me?’ He scowled and slid off the bed to pace to the far side of the suite. ‘I’m a monster. The sooner you get that, the better.’

So much for the reminder. The thrumming of her pulse once again filled her ears. ‘You don’t have to be a monster.’

He spun and stalked back toward her. ‘My curse says otherwise.’

‘You’re hungry.’ It was like another part of her had spoken those words. Almost cooed them. And laced them with the clear intent of where his sustenance should come from. Holy mother, she was doomed.

He stopped. Took a step toward the door. ‘Dominic has resources.’

Need pushed her to her feet. ‘And let it be known that we are not patron and comarré in truth? You said yourself I was safer if the others believed—’

‘I know what I said.’ But he stayed the same distance from the door.

She rolled her sleeve up, revealing a few inches of gold vines and star-shaped flowers. ‘I need to drain this blood anyway. And you need the strength.’

‘No.’ He shook his head but his gaze was fixed on her wrist and the shadowy blue lines beneath the gold.

Her thumb skipped over the tiny switch on her ring with a nervous tremor. Opening a vein in front of a hungry, erratic vampire wasn’t the wisest thing, no matter what her body felt like doing. ‘Then I’ll just go into the bathroom and drain off the excess into the sink.’

Her foot hadn’t touched the floor after her first step when he responded. ‘Don’t.’ He glanced away, swallowing hard, jaw working like he already had her between his teeth. ‘I’ll drink it.’ He shot her a hard, silvered look. ‘From the glass.’

Nodding, she reached for the goblet, wrapping her fingers around the chilled glass. She rolled it in her palms to warm it. ‘I’ll be right back.’

She strode past him and into the marble and porcelain bath, then shut the door behind her. The glossy-painted wood cooled her fevered skin as she leaned back. This was what she wanted, wasn’t it? Without her blood, Mal wouldn’t be strong enough to do the job she needed him for. And if things went well these next few days, she’d never have to see him again. If she could ignore the fact that he technically owned her blood rights.

Setting the goblet onto the counter, she then positioned her wrist over it. Just a few more days. She flipped open the hidden blade in her ring. Two, maybe three more drainings at best.

The blade pricked her skin like a tiny fang. Except it wasn’t a fang. And no fangs meant she’d have to endure another kiss or grow weaker, something she couldn’t risk until her aunt was safe and her life was her own again.

Another kiss. His mouth on hers.

The tremor returned to her hand.

Chapter Twenty-five

Drainherkillherdrainherkill—

Mal grabbed the sheathed blade of Chrysabelle’s sword. Searing heat snarled through the leather and bit his palm, snuffing the voices out like wet fingers on a wick. He released the blade, flexing his stinging hand. Since he’d woken, the voices had pounded his skull. The hunger whipped them into a frenzy. But so did being near Chrysabelle.

And lately, he’d been very near her. Filled with her scent, wary of every shift of her body, every flash of golden light that glinted off her skin and the glow that surrounded her like sunlight. He closed his eyes and rolled his head from side to side, trying to listen to the subtle movement of his bones instead of her heartbeat, but it was still there. Always there. Even now he could hear the ethereal softening of her pulse as she bled herself into the goblet.