Once more, the voice of his wife eluded him. He gave a sharp, concise exhale as his mirth pulled the corner of his lip at the very audacity.

  He placed her hand back on her lap, as precise as a stroke of a painter’s brush. He slowly, deliberately retraced his way back up her arm, ensuring she could feel every inch of his touch. He always hated these petty games that the women of his kind were known for.

  Vampires were a tawdry, hedonistic sort. The Virelai, Mortasheen, and Khaga were excellent specimens to the fact. The Princess should be no different.

  “I’ll let you know, that just because I’m ancient,” he continued with his darker, richer tone, the timbre of it pricking her skin before settling in her chest, “Doesn’t mean I’m patient.”

  He tenderly held her throat in the palm of his right hand, the curl of his fingers settling nicely at the back of her pale, thin neck. His thumb lightly, almost lovingly caressing the pulse beneath her skin—so delicate, so fleeting.

  Delectable.

  The shiver that crawled its way down Aleiya’s spine was more than just fear. It was an unknowable, tainted feeling. It sank deep into her gut, but bloomed a tingling, impure warmth that left her flushed and confused.

  Moonlit eyes flicked toward abyssal black, before returning to his lips. She didn’t want to miss a word, already dreading what he might do to her once his patience did finally run out.

  It made the mixture she felt thicken. Unwelcome. Uncomfortable.

  Turning away, she unintentionally leaned into the hand that held her very life within it. Although his heat was searing, she refused to move, even as his grip ever so lightly twitched into a tighter, more deliberate hold. She simply let him.

  The ache in Sullivan’s fangs returned, sharp and insistent, a gnawing hunger that demanded reckless indulgence. He was desperate to hold that fluttering pulse between his teeth and drink deep of her heart.

  How long had it been since something—someone—made him anguish so?

  When did temptation decide to slip on another pretty face, be named by the forest fey, and deny him even a whisper of her breath?

  For a brief, foolish moment, words nearly escaped him—something indulgent, something dangerous. A thought so intoxicating, so consuming, he demanded the rest of the world stay far, far away. He swallowed them down, sharp and bitter.

  His left arm, still shielding them from prying eyes, shifted—bending at the elbow. His touch settled, deliberate, at her back—claiming, possessing. A dark triumph stirred in his chest as, like a switch, her doll-like stillness reappeared.

  It wasn’t until her pulse pounded against his thumb that she realized—she had let him too close. She brought her hands close to her chest, but never dared to touch him in case the latch of her cage invited him in. She hoped to vanish, but that hope was futile.

  Her meek surrender sent a pulse of heady satisfaction to an already starving animal. A delicate sweet that dissolved beneath famine-rich eyes.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  This unforeseen, possessive need brought a darkness that spread a smile to Sullivan’s lips—the mirth and irritation now gone. Her clasped hands, that last, meager barrier between them, desperate to hold her facade of composure together.

  And Sullivan wanted nothing more than to tear it down.

  It was the name of the game—push and pull, cat and mouse—the kind every vampire worth their salt knew by heart.

  Still it was, for all its predictability, an entertaining game. One that allowed for time to pass just a touch more quickly. Especially delightful was the moment his target pretended to be so demure, waiting to be undone.

  Wanting to be undone.

  The ones who wore innocence like perfume were always the most delicious—and the most dangerous. It was fun for a while, but they always showed their claws at some point. Then the game was over, and he could move on.

  This would be no different.

  His thumb smoothed over the pulse beneath her skin, savoring how it quickened under his touch, how it soothed his blackened hand.

  Now this was the unmistakable taste of fear he so craved.

  “Is it really so hard to answer such a simple question, my little wife?” he teased, drinking in every flicker of her expression, eager and hungry for her response.

  He hoped it would be as enticing as the last.

  He wanted a palpable reaction—a tiny creature that scurried from him, a little thing he could run down and catch and hold between his teeth. That was always the fun part. The inevitable surrender? His favorite part.

  But what he got wasn’t fear or docile acceptance.

  It was nothing scintillating or saccharine.

  The pain he saw struck a buried nerve—a wound long forgotten, never healed. It festered in his chest, dulled by centuries, now risen—bitter and sharp. Her moonstone eyes—white to pearl to grey—shimmered with a pain too innocent, too raw, too heartbreakingly familiar.

  The unmistakable hurt of a reprimanded child.

  What was he supposed to do?

  How was he supposed to react to this?

  It left Sullivan hollow. Laid bare. And from the ashes of some long-dead instinct rose the aching urge—to reach for her. To soothe what he had shattered. To hold what he had broken.

  This was not supposed to be part of the game.

  This was never supposed to hurt.

  The game of power and seduction was as old as the vampiric race itself, and played until first blood was drawn. Everyone of them played the game. Everyone knew the rules.

  Pretend. Pursue. Devour. Move on.

  Because true emotional sentiment sold you out as easy prey. And with so little blood to go around, you couldn’t afford to be seen as prey.

  He had only meant to toy with her for just a little while. Keep this farce of a relationship at least cordial by the standards of their kind. And if she was willing, he’d drink his fill of her, and she of him.

  Then they’d reset. Move on. Return to their separate lives as her perfume clung to his skin like a goodbye kiss.

  Instead, the Princess left him breathless in her wake.

  Sullivan opened his mouth to say something, but stopped.

  He felt it—before it arrived, before it curdled the air. His scars flared first, a bone-deep warning of something fouler than the levin charged rain.

  The roaring thunder stopped mid strike.

  A shift, slow and coiling—a shadow of blight and disease curling around the ribs of the world. It suffocated the air before it could be breathed, laced with Death’s putrid kiss. A rot that was greedy, all-consuming, and insatiable.

  Sullivan didn’t need to see. He already knew. He recognized it—knew it from centuries of surviving monsters, even those among his own kind. And there was no one on Earth who bled as green as he.

  When he walked, the world itself held its breath.

  The damp air, already thick and succulent with laughter and thunder, crackled with a surge of electrifying energy. An aura—vast, unyielding—caught the lashing rain mid-fall, holding it suspended in the air, frozen in reverent stillness for a single breath.

  All at once, the world ceased its reverie.

  The Great Hall fell into breathless silence. His steps echoed, deliberate and unhurried. Not a single drop of rain dared touch his path. The low hanging mists parted. His pace was light, yet unshakably assured. Even the lights dimmed in passing, as though his radiance demanded their sacrifice.

  He parted the revelers like water—no touch, no word, only presence. They stepped aside of their own accord, unbidden and eager, as though a prophet—no—as though divinity itself had entered the room.

  “My friends, my friends!” The jovial, downright neighborly tone was enough to command their attention. “I heard you were throwing a party!”