When she started to get up, he prevented her, holding her tight. “Thank you for stopping the fight. It would have been disastrous.”
She lifted up enough to meet his gaze. The despairing look in his eye had her nodding. “I know. But it’s okay. Were good.”
He released her and she jumped to her feet, tugging her sweater down and combing out her hair quickly with her fingers.
Zane moved to stand next to her, pulling her close with his arm around her waist. She could feel him shaking with adrenaline.
Ely stood a few feet away, his eyes wide. “Shit … shit …” He kept saying the word over and over, then, “Mastyr, forgive me.”
Zane nodded. “It’s okay. I apologize as well.”
Ely slid his gaze to Olivia. “You’re a blood rose. I didn’t know. How could I have known?”
“You couldn’t,” Zane said. “And this was my fault. I wasn’t thinking when I let you walk into the bar. It’s damn overwhelming.”
“Yes. It is.” Ely remained wide-eyed, staring at Olivia once more.
As with Zane, she felt his blood-needs like a constant pressure on her heart and once more she was laden with an extra supply, ready to serve. This part of her current condition she now understood extremely well; her job was to feed a mastyr vampire. From what she’d read online, until she was bonded to a mastyr, she would have this same experience no matter which man came at her; if he suffered from chronic blood starvation, she’d want to feed him. And feeding led to other things.
Zane, she pathed, You need to get me out of here. Now. I’m kind of worked up and I need to be alone with you. The scent of him, those beachy grasses she smelled, had her sex going wild.
He turned to her, meeting her gaze. You smell like cinnamon spice and I’m going to fuck you, Olivia.
She nodded. Unh-huh. How about now? And the truth was, if he threw her down on the floor, even in front of all these people, she’d let him have his way. She was that far gone.
I’m feeling it, too. Your scent has my blood pumping. Zane’s arm was a like a vise around her. He wasn’t letting her go anytime soon.
When he led her outside, she felt him grow tense and understood the cause; dawn wasn’t far away now.
His voice was rough as he called out to his Guardsmen to head home for the day. He thanked the troll in charge of clean up for his service, then, without another word, he took her into the night sky, flying at top speed.
Not willing to take any chances, she covered herself and Zane with her cloaking frequency.
Good idea. And I’m so sorry about the bar fight.
She leaned into him, nuzzling his throat right over the dagger and drops of blood, and at the same time tasting what had flowed from the already-sealed-up punctures. She had both arms around his neck, holding him tight. I’m not sorry. I should be, but I’m not, only because we’re here now, in flight, together. And I want you.
His grassy scent grew stronger, boiling inside her brain, making her mold her body to his as he flew.
She stroked his erection through the leather of his pants and his scent thickened even more.
Leaning into him, she licked his neck over and over, lapping at the blood on his skin. She’d pierced him in order to save his life. Now the flavor of his blood and the salty sweat of his skin caused her to clench deep inside her body.
Zane was a very physical man, much like the shifters she’d observed. Maybe that was part of the reason she wanted to be so close to him. In an essential way, she liked the way he rolled.
When he rose higher into the sky and the air grew chill, she realized he wasn’t heading back to his lighthouse home at all. Instead, he appeared to be taking her into the mountains.
“Where are we going?”
“I have a tree house complex.”
“You do?” She’d never read anything about it online.
“Ah, so you don’t know everything.”
“This is the first I’ve heard of it,” she confessed. “Which is way cool.”
“I’ve worked hard to keep it a secret.”