“Tell me and I’ll get it.” She tried to draw back and his hands shot up, fingers closing tightly around her upper arms.
“Oh, you already have it.”
He struck hard on the left side of her throat and her eyes widened. Shock stole her senses for a second before reality came crashing back. He was biting her. He was drinking her blood. Dark memories surged to the surface and she fought his hold on her, struggling like a wild thing. She wouldn’t let it happen to her again. She shoved at his chest, clawing with her short nails, and pounded her hands against it, striking as hard as she could.
He pulled her against his chest, caging her there, his arms steel bands across her back, pinning hers between their bodies. She wriggled, desperate to escape him, fear pounding down on her and making her heart stutter. He was going to drink her to death.
Tears streamed down her cheeks and her head spun, wooziness threatening to pull her down into the darkness.
“Please,” she whispered, breathless and weak, barely clinging to consciousness as her panic and fear overwhelmed her. “Release me... don’t kill me.”
He immediately pulled his fangs from her throat and she crumpled, only his arms around her keeping her on her feet. His heart beat wildly against her palms, strong when hers was weak, a timid thing that barely beat at all.
Olivia managed to find the strength to look up into his eyes.
They were different again, amethyst and dazzling. He wobbled and shimmered, said something she didn’t hear over the whoosh of blood in her ears. Ears. His were pointed now, more so than they had been before. All his markings were shining too, colourful and beautiful.
Olivia wrestled her right hand free and absently raised it, the action seeming to take forever. She touched his bloodied lips and they parted to reveal his fangs. Her blood. He had stolen her blood. Her head turned and twirled, the bright white room spinning with it. He spoke again, his beautiful mouth moving against her fingertip. She stared dazedly at it, captivated, lost, feeling not quite herself in the presence of this man.
He continued to hold her, cradling her against his body, keeping her on her feet, and stared down into her eyes. His shimmered with something she couldn’t decipher through the haze in her mind. The fog refused to lift and part, even now that her strength was slowly beginning to return.
Olivia grazed the point of one of his fangs with her fingertip. He remained very still and she had the strangest feeling that he was letting her see him like this.
“You’re not... like any vampire... I’ve seen.” Her words swam in her head, disjointed. Was she making sense to him?
His lips quirked.
“Not a vampire,” he whispered and drew her closer, and her gaze lingered on his mouth. Decadent. Profane. A mouth made for kissing. She wanted to kiss him. Olivia shook herself. It was just the blood loss talking. He frowned, a flicker of concern in his purple eyes, and then his expression turned guarded again. “Perhaps I am a forefather of that species.”
He leaned down and she didn’t resist him. His cheek brushed hers, cooler now, and he licked her throat. The gentle sweep of his tongue over her flesh sent a shudder through her and the achy heat returned, making her skin feel too tight.
She lost herself again in that caress, each stroke of his tongue cranking her temperature up another ten degrees, until she was burning inside.
His words swam around her cloudy mind.
“Forefather.” She frowned and the fog began to lift, bringing with it too many questions, all of them centred around the gorgeous male clutching her against his naked body, licking her throat. “How old are you?”
He lifted his head and stared down into her eyes.
Alarms shrieked and the room spun in a blur across her eyes, and suddenly she was behind him, her bottom against the empty inspection table, and he was in front of her. He reached behind himself and grabbed her arm, pulling her closer to his back. Bottom. Oh my. She stared at it, blaming the blood loss for her shamelessness. He had a fine backside. The markings swept above it, meeting on his spine and drifting up his back to his shoulders.
She dazedly reached out to touch them.
The doors burst open and the man jerked her closer, smashing her against his back. She peered past him, touching him forgotten. Two men were there and she didn’t recognise either of them.
The men she worked with didn’t wear black armour like these men. It was like a second skin on their bodies, covering them from jaw to toe. Their helmets were fashioned to cover all but a V across their eyes and rose back into two dragon-like horns. She gasped when the part that swept downwards to conceal their nose and mouth opened, each slat sliding beneath the next.
The man shielding her said something in his foreign tongue.