The Sun's Shadow

Chapter Twenty-Five

She saw past that. Past the decay and still went through all this hard work to restore them.

This girl was too pure for him, yet he thirsted for her now more than ever. His fangs lowered from their sheaths and he panted, staying on his knees until she came to him. After working on the last plant, she sighed with relief and looked around her renewed garden stemming with flowers and green ivy.

Gone were the dried out weeds that saddened her.

When she finally saw Roman, she remembered their game and tried apologizing but he couldn't make out the blur of her hands.

"Ele..." He huskily murmured her name, and that's when she saw his fangs.

Unafraid, she deliberately walked forward as not to excite him and cause a frenzy. Her time with Kaanan taught her to move cautiously. She was now at the mercy of a blood-thirsty animal, or so she thought. Truly, he felt to be at her mercy.

"Decide now. If you don't wish to feed me, you need to slowly turn and leave. Lock me in here until I can calm down. And if you do..." He swallowed hard, imagining how she'd taste just based on her scent.

Still cautious, she took her time getting on her knees to mimic his current position since he wasn't moving to stand. He closed his eyes, locking back the predatory instinct to take her immediately. No, he needed to savor this.

"No turning back now, Ele." He exclaimed, letting his canines fully drop and exposing his authentic self.

Unlike the dominating black veins like that of the King and Prince, Roman's were a grayish blue and far less menacing. They pulsed and crept up his neck, spanning all the way up his cheeks and to the base of his eyes.

His eyes.

Those were a deep grey, not quite dark enough to be called black. She reached out to touch the veins on his cheeks and he steadied her hand, bringing it up to his face so he could rub his scent on her. He kept eye contact with her to ensure she remained confident in her choice, even though he doubted his ability to let her walk away now.

They'd come too far. Both figuratively and literally. No one would hear her screams out here.

He shook away such thoughts, vowing it would never come to that.

When she cupped his cheek, he caught sight of her exposed wrist and the veins that throbbed just beneath such a fragile design. Why would the gods make them this way? The perfect prey.

He couldn't stop himself from sweeping her legs out from under her and easing her onto her back, pinning her there to do whatever he pleased. It'd been so long since the last time he fed, and over a year since his fangs struck his food source. Most royals didn't need to hunt or pine for their dinner.

Ever since meeting her, he knew he needed a taste and anything else didn't seem worthwhile, especially the bags of blood delivered to his room weekly. He placed a knee between her legs, straddling her so she had no way of escaping.

These were the thoughts of a predator.

Then he glanced around to ensure none could interfere and saw nothing. Heard nothing.

They were utterly secluded. He leaned down to tenderly kissed her lips, nicking her lower lip with his fangs in the process. He groaned into the kiss and deepened it by parting her lips with his tongue to better taste her. When her breathless whimper rang in his ears... He nearly lost it.

"Moan like that when I bite you and I might not be able to stop myself."

After minutes of getting lost in her kiss, he realized he was delaying the feeding for far too long. Any longer and he'd go into a full blood-craze. So he worked his lips over her cheek, then licked up the column of her neck before placing more adoring kisses on her collarbone.

She tried not to compare the vast differences of this experience to her feedings of Kaanan. Both males were caring in their own ways but Roman took all his actions straight out of a gentleman's playbook.

Even the way he spoke to her made her feel swept up by infatuation.

His tongue narrowed in on the area where he wished to bite her. He circled it meticulously, preparing the spot by allowing his cool saliva to numb it. Faint, but there as a reminder, he felt the imprints of his cousin's fangs and he wished to erase them from her flesh. Now she was his to claim.

That intent never emerged until he felt those fang marks on his female.

He growled into the delicate nape of her neck, then struck. Placed precisely atop the painful reminder of the time she spent with another male, he sunk his fangs deep into her until he felt they went deeper than the other male's ever did. Instead of sucking down the mouthful of her blood that rushed into his mouth, he held his claiming bite on her neck and shook his head slightly, loving the feel of her succumbing to it.

Blood oozed from the corners of his mouth and, once he felt satisfied with his binding claim, he began sucking down her sweet nectar that renewed his soul just as she gave life to the eden around them.

Even though he knew he drained her, he found himself unable to pull away. He craved more and more of her delicious blood that tasted of sunshine...