Blood War (Book 1, the Halfblood Chronicles)

23.1 | An Intimate Craft

Then his words settled. Skin-to-skin contact. Of course. Drinking from the vein was an intimate craft full of intimate deeds. It wasn't something Daemonstri often admitted to participating in, though most everyone did it.

She glanced at her own shirt. "Should I . . . "

"No," he blurted. "I mean, only if you want to."

Her face heated, and it was for that very reason that she said, "I think I'll keep it on."

The next thing she knew, Ren tucked an arm beneath her knees, the other supporting her back and—

"What are you—"

Before she could spit out the rest of the question, he hauled her into his lap.

Pain lashed up and down and everywhere. Black streaks ran through her vision. Then she turned as still as a glacier in space when the heat of Ren's body coiled around her own.

I must be dreaming, she thought.

"Sorry," he muttered. "You okay?"

She nodded. If only because she couldn't remember how to speak.

He nudged her closer. Out of pure instinct, Nika slipped an arm around him, her fingers tracing unbelievably warm skin, and leaned into him.

Something that sounded too much like a purr rumbled through her bones. Her heart raced when she realized it had come from Ren.

It could have been seconds, or minutes, or years later as Ren whispered, "You convinced the medic that I didn't hurt you, but she seems to think that we're"—he cleared his throat—"lovers. So she asked me to do this."

"Oh," Nika breathed.

She was surprised by her disappointment. Had she been hoping he'd volunteered?

"I can find someone else if—"

"No." It came more urgently than she'd intended. "I want it to be you."

The arm beneath her knees tightened, and Nika's mouth went dry.

Her heart pounded so hard that she almost didn't hear his next words: "The healing process will be even more effective if your whole body takes part in the feed. That means you need to submit to your Daemonstri nature. The fangs, the bloodlust. All of it." His voice rolled like thunder over stormy seas. "If you were more experienced, you'd be able to conjure fangs with half a thought. But since you've never done this before, you'll need some motivation."

She couldn't meet his gaze, fearing what she would find there, and what Ren would find in her own.

Slowly, his hand slid over bare skin, stopping on her thigh. The touch was warm. Electric. He pulled her closer.

"Shut your eyes." 

Nika obeyed.

There was a beat of silence and stillness, then callused fingers wrapped around the hand she'd laid across her stomach. He guided it upward, pressing her fingers into warm skin.

"Can you feel my pulse?"

Nika nodded, catching the steady—yet quick—jumps of the artery in his neck. Strong strokes thumped against her side in a simultaneous beat.

"Now listen to it," Ren whispered.

At first, there was only static, but then—tha-dump, tha-dump, tha-dump, tha-dump.

"The flowing of my blood."

Swish, trickle, swish.

Nika followed the noises like a song, the rhythm and motion drawing her closer and deeper, until she was living in his veins.

His touch moved up her back and cradled her neck. She instinctively tilted her head to accept it.

The last time his hands had been this close to her throat was when he'd almost choked her to death. Knowing he recalled the same, Nika rested her forehead on his shoulder and held him a little tighter.

"Concentrate on your fangs," he said, voice guttural. "Visualize what they look like in your mouth; imagine what it would feel like to use them."

She felt his chin lifting—an invitation. There was a nudge on her shoulder, as if a ghost was saying, Closer.

So Nika leaned in, and a steaming breath pushed past her lips. Ren went taut. His pulse quickened against her fingers.

But the fangs were lost to her. She willed herself to connect with them, to feel them buried in her gums, so far from reach.

Agonizing moments went by, and her efforts yielded no results. It was like groping in the dark to find what didn't exist.

"Focus. You can feel my blood, you can hear it, and you can smell it, too."

She inhaled through her nose, and his scent nearly exploded her skull. Though she'd noticed that blend of sandalwood and vanilla before, there was something hidden beneath Ren's cologne that was markedly . . . wild. And fierce, too. As if ripped from the womb of Mother Earth. And tangled within it was the metallic tang of blood.

Nika flinched as four fangs penetrated through her gums, rising like warriors from a butchering field. Her eyes darted open, and she met Ren's obsidian stare. Inches—they were mere inches apart.

"Good," he said through the murmur of a smile.

His arms constricted. Every brush of skin-on-skin was both a whisper and a roar, clashing inside Nika's bones.

Ren tilted his head further, and her focus immediately narrowed on his fluttering artery. His spine locked up in anticipation.

Hunger clawed through Nika's stomach. An insatiable, savage ache to which every instinct yearned to surrender.

Submit, said the monster within.

Half a heartbeat later, she tore through her last restraints and yielded to the ravenous beast.