Chapter 8

There is a raging inferno burning within me, a yawning, gaping, ravenous chasm. It consumes me. There is no me, there is only the need. The hunger. The furious emptiness in my core, in my gut, in my soul. The ocean of vitality, once depthless and unfathomable, is now a sere rock bed, dry, parched.

My higher functions and control, now that I"m awake, are locked away behind the primal, primitive, animal desperation.

And there"s the prey: Caspian. Willing. Offering himself.

My hands—my claws—rip at his clothes. His T-shirt shreds in my hands, leaving only his hard warm bare flesh and sinewy muscle. His mouth delves against mine and I feel movement from him—he"s stripped naked.

Yes, yes. Yes. Bared for me, naked for me, all mine. Mine.

Heat billows through me, need, hunger, insatiable and sun-hot. I fumble at my clothes—my animal brain sees them not as clothes but as barriers to what I need. Must remove.

I hear his laugh, a rough dark rumble of amusement, and then his clever quick hands yank jeans and underwear away, shirt and bra. I snarl in relief, a purely vampiric ripping sound.

There"s a seed of me hidden away deep inside somewhere, and she recognizes that I"m out of control, but this isn"t bloodlust.

It"s something else. Something…not worse, exactly, but simply infinitely more powerful, infinitely unstoppable.

My body is in control, and I"m a powerless passenger.

The world, through my eyes, is washed out. Hazed in white. Caspian is haloed in a nimbus of hazy white light, and all else is…there is nothing else. Only him.

The throbbing point of his pulse at his throat beckons me. A golden glowing aura centered on his chest, however…that golden glow makes my mouth water. The desperate need explodes exponentially, and I'm on fire with it, my skin, my body, my organs, my cells, my very atoms are on fire with the insatiable need to fill the void, sate the hunger.

I feel my body twitch, and then I pounce upon Caspian, surging upward and twisting into him, slamming him onto his back on the bed. The seed of awareness registers the shock on his face.

I straddle him, seeking skin-to-skin contact. All of him against all of me. My nose buries in the side of his throat, and I smell his blood, my blood, our blood, the commingled essence of us in his veins. I feel his heart slamming in his chest.

I taste a hint of fear and a deluge of arousal. He fears I won"t stop, but the fear is drowned in love for me, desire for me, eagerness to give me what I want and need.

My fangs sink into his throat and I hear myself groan as I taste him. My mouth floods with the sweet honey nectar of his blood, soaring through me.

But the blood isn"t enough.

I withdraw my fangs and lick the wound to close it. Hunger ripples in me. I lick his chest, taste the salt of his flesh, but that"s not enough, either.

Fuck, I need.

I reach between my thighs and find his manhood, straining erect and throbbing.

God, yes.

This.

Him.

I snarl, a guttural growl ripping out of me. Nuzzle his cock against my slit, hesitate for the briefest instant, and then crash my hips down on his, and I roar like a lioness as he drives deep into me.

Caspian snarls with me and his fingers claw into the soft curves of my ass and he pulls me down onto him, lifts me up and away and pulls me down again, hard, grinding his cock upward to meet my downward thrusts.

Not enough.

So, so, so good. So beautiful. He fills me, surrounds me. I feel his soul, taste it in the blood still lingering in my mouth, soak it up through our connection, physical, mental, and emotional. He"s everywhere within me, he"s all of me and I"m all of him.

It"s not enough.

It doesn"t sate the need.

Pull, Maeve. PULL. Take my vitality. Take it, my love.

I find a muscle somewhere in my mind, somewhere within. The same muscle that instinctively draws on magic to cast glamours.

I flex it. Squeeze.

Taste something…liquid and syrupy and golden. It floods my mouth—I discover I"m kissing him, all lips and tongues and teeth—and it soaks my mind, envelops my soul, drowns my spirit.

And that was just a taste.

I groan in delight, and focus for a moment on the delicious union of our bodies—I need both.

I pull and taste the golden nectar, like the purest ambrosia, but without the whiskey base; I sink my ass down to slap against his thighs and feel his beautiful thick massive hard silky cock filling my sex again and again and again;

I pull

and I thrust

—Blood fills my mouth, a slow sweet oozing of dense rich crimson life, and my tongue finds flesh; I've nipped his pectoral muscle and I"m kissing, sucking, pulling blood—

and I pull and I thrust—

and Caspian, my Caspain, he meets me at every turn. When I drive my sex down around his throbbing shaft, he thrusts up to meet me. When I nip him to draw blood, he does the same, creating a symbiotic cycle of his blood and my blood circling circling circling. When I pull his vitality into me, he somehow offers more, and more, selflessly.

The chasm is filling.

But I can"t stop. It"s too good. Too perfect. This is the distillation of satiation, a pure raw potent concentrate of pleasure and ecstasy and fullness.

Ravaging bliss tears through me as I fuck my bloodmate. The golden honeyed nectar of vitality sears through me, filling my veins and my soul and the once-dry ocean bed within.

Caspian shudders beneath me, cries out, shouts my name, and I feel him come. I feel his seed pour into me, and it triggers my climax, sending an earthquake through me, tearing a scream out of my throat.

And still, I cannot stop.

I pull.

Grind on my mate"s body, writhing, crying, screaming, shrieking. Caspian sinks his fangs into my breast and sucks hard, and I feel his cock pulse inside me, crystallizing into full arousal all over again.

Vitality floods me, fills me. Blood pours into my mouth—he has a grip on my hair at the base of my skull, and I"ve twisted to drink from his forearm.

How long do we fuck? How long do we mate and drink?

I"m burgeoning with blood, but the sea hasn"t refilled. I pull. Pull.

"Maeve…" his voice is a harsh rasp in my ear.

Maeve…my love…no more. I can"t give you any more.

He trembles beneath me, shakes, shivers. Groans. Roars, and comes into me again, and again, pouring himself into me, flooding me.

I can"t stop.

I feel him weakening.

No.

No, no, no.

The seed of my self rages, slams against the walls, the barriers of hunger and need and primal urge.

No. I won"t drain him. I can"t.

I need him. I love him.

My whole being judders as I fight myself for control. I feel him still hard within me, feel his fangs in my breast again, his fingers clawed into my ass, feel his flow of golden syrupy vitality slowing.

The seed of awareness germinates into a seedling. I draw on the gold-white pool within me and pour magic into the seedling.

It becomes more. Strengthens.

More.

Maeve…? Please…stop.

I pour myself into the seed of awareness, spread its roots through my body, to my fingers, my toes, my sex, my teeth.

All at once, the barriers snap, shatter, and I"m myself once more.

I'm slammed back into my body.

Screaming as I come a third time, a throat-shredding shriek that increases in volume and shudders in the air, I hear glass shatter and I taste magic in the air—maple syrup and pennies—and I force an image of a mammoth sluice gate slamming down on the flow of magic.

At first, the magic resists. Refuses. The sluice gate sticks partway down, and I feel vitality flowing, flowing, flowing, and I feel Caspian weakening, weakening.

I reinforce the mental image, slam the gate down harder, picture the earth shaking with the force of the impact, picture the flow of vitality splashing up against the immovable, impenetrable slab of steel.

It"s like holding a live wire—your muscles spasm closed around it and you can"t let go, and then suddenly the current is halted and you go limp all at once.

I hear Caspian gasping and gagging for breath. My vision is distorted, blurry, double, hazed with white. I"m falling, spinning, tumbling downward into myself—or, it"s like waking up, but slowly, piecemeal; my toes, my fingers, my eyes, my knees, my heartbeat, my breath.

Caspian is still impaled inside me, ramrod stiff, throbbing, pulsing.

My vision clears: he"s pale, but not vampire-pale… sick mortal-pale. Trembling. Gasping for breath. His skin is too tight on his bones.

I feel him hardening beneath me, inside me—going cold. Turning to vampiric marble and ice.

"Cas—-Caspian?" I breathe, shaky, terrified.

His eyes are swallowed by the black. They fix on me—as always, I can feel his attention.

He"s perfectly still—no longer breathing. A statue of himself.

I"m airborne, clutched in the cold stone of his embrace as he soars off the bed and across the room in a single lurch. Cheap drywall splinters, shatters, crumples. I feel no pain.

His cock is an icicle penetrating my sex, burning inside me. Frozen, bloodless. His eyes spark with hunger.

"MINE." His voice is a thick, dark snarl, full of fangs and undead ferocity.

I tip my head backward, twist my chin up and away, baring my jugular to him. "Yours, my bloodmate." I reach for his face, clutch his icy jaw and guide his mouth to my vein. "Take what you need."

"YOU."

His teeth tear into my flesh, and there"s a brief moment of agony, instantly eradicated as his venom enters my bloodstream, and the agony becomes bliss as I feel him pull upon my blood. My entire being responds, his pheromones bursting through me and setting me alight, and even though I"ve just had three of the most intense orgasms of my life, I"m on the cusp of another, immediate and volatile.

He pulls, and pulls, drinking my blood, and my body tingles and burns as it fights overtime to create more, and I feel him warming within me, around me.

His hand tangles into my hair at my scalp and grips hard, tugging my head back to keep my throat angled just so, and his other hand cradles my ass, effortlessly holding me aloft, pinning me to the wall with his weight and his immortal strength.

"Caspian…" I breathe. "Please. Please…"

I don"t have to explain.

Touch yourself, he commands, mind to mind. Come with me. Now.

I press two fingers to my clit and find the perfect rhythm—in time to the thrust of his hips, pushing himself into me, driving me against the wall, fucking me with delicious, relentless power. The ice of his skin warms as my blood fills him, and now, oh god, I feel him pulsing so deep inside me, and I"m shaking, shuddering, and he"s drinking from my vein greedily, growls and groans muffled by his mouthful of my flesh. I clasp my legs around his waist, hook my feet together, cling to his neck with one arm and lift myself in time with his relentless, powerful thrusts, my two fingers still working at my clit.

I feel him reach the brink of release—feel it with my mind and body and soul, and all at once; I reach that same precipice in sync with Caspian.

His fangs slip out of my vein with a there-and-gone sense of loss, and he licks the wound to close it and then his hands both clutch my ass and his mouth nips hot kisses to my chin, my jaw near my earlobe, and then he seizes my lip with his teeth and he"s kissing me like the first time, all feral hunger and frantic need, potent passion and frenzied fury.

I cry into his kiss and swallow his growls and fling myself over the edge into a dizzying orgasm so wild fraught I lose myself in it, my body clenching and releasing, spasming and writhing, clinging around his driving cock and pouring liquid heat through my veins.

My soul opens, and I feel Caspian thread through me, into me.

We don"t need words, or images, or thoughts. This is the bloodmating all over again, taking our connection deeper, drilling yet more power into our union.

He is me; I am him.

Together, we are.

Endlessly, we tumble through the universe as one.

Slowly, the coruscating ecstasy ebbs, the nova-white heat of light surrounding us dims, and we return to ourselves. Caspian is within me, seed soaking and flooding, dripping. His shoulders heave with ragged breaths.

He pulls his face from where he"s buried it in the hollow of my neck and shoulder. "Maeve…fuck. That was…" his voice is harsh, raspy, rough, raw. "I love you. I fucking love you, so goddamn much." Blooodtears slip down his cheeks.

I lick the blood away, tasting the tang of his soul, and remnants of myself. "Love you more, Caspian." His erection finally subsides, and he lets me down; I whimper at the loss of him, cling to him as my shaky legs refuse to take my weight. "I"m sorry, Caspian. I nearly killed you, I think."

He scoops me up and carries me to the bed, burrows us beneath the blankets and snuggles up behind me, enveloping me with his heat and strength and solidity. "Anything for you, my bloodmate. And you didn"t. You stopped."

"I almost couldn"t."

"But you did. I felt the effort it took, Maeve." He laughs, sound and breath huffing against my spine. "You blew out the windows."

"I wonder if I can fix it." I keep my eyes closed, mentally delving down inside myself to the welling ocean of magic.

It"s not the roiling, angry, overflowing ocean it was before. Now, it"s merely a calm sea after the tide has gone out, placid in appearance, but you know there are deep, powerful currents in those depthless fathoms. I can feel it stirring, too. It"s restless, already.

I mentally scoop a palmful of the golden-white liquid light and spin it into a crystalline thread. Send it out into the world beyond myself. I infuse the thread of magic with a repeating image, like a looped TikTok: broken glass on the ground lifting, twisting, orienting, reassembling—molecules adhering to each other, microscopic orbits realigning until fragments become sections become chunks become jagged sheets, becoming single united panes, which insert themselves into the openings and reseat themselves, sealing in and settling until there"s no hint of breakage.

I hear a tinkling, which becomes a crackling—the odd, brain-twisting sound of glass un-breaking.

Caspian lifts his head and peers at the window. "Huh. No shit. What else can you do?" His head flops back down to the pillow.

I huff a laugh. "I really don"t even know, Caspian. Apparently, I can do things I"m not supposed to be able to do yet, not without a lot of training and practice. But then, there are very simple things I"m clueless about."

We drowse then, holding each other and basking in the warmth of each other.

Finally, I work up the courage to ask the question weighing on my soul. "Caspian? Those fae…the Elites. Did I…are they dead?"

A long pause. "Yes."

"Sixteen of them."

"You didn"t have a choice."

"I didn"t intend to at all, Caspian. I just…I was only trying to push them away. I guess I pushed a little too hard."

Caspian coughs, and the cough turns into a poorly suppressed laugh. "Sorry. Sorry. But yes, I would say you did."

I lift on an elbow and glare down at him. "This isn"t funny."

"No, I know. But…you killed sixteen of the most elite, heavily armored, and deadly fae warriors in the world, in an instant, with a single blast of magic. And you say you pushed too hard. It"s a little funny."

I glare at him, but I can"t hold it. It turns into laughter, uncontrollable and more than a little hysterical.

And then the last memory I have smashes through my brain: a blast of white light slashing out of me, sixteen individual spears lancing through sixteen bodies.

Death.

The memory stinks of death.

The hysterical laughter morphs abruptly into sobbing, and Caspian is there, arms around me, letting me sob.

Alistair"s mind brushes against mine. Maeve, my darling, we are in the early days of a war. Make no mistake. It may not be a loud one, visible to the whole world, but it is a war nonetheless. A war for the future of our collective kind—immortal kind. Your freedom is paramount to the existence of our kind, Maeve. You did what you had to do.

You may be right, Alistair, but that doesn"t mean it"s any easier knowing I"ve murdered sixteen men.

They were trained warriors. They knew the risks. And they would not have treated you well, had they captured you. I cannot take away the guilt, but I can at least assuage it with the fact that you were defending yourself. And Caspian—they would have killed him.

I felt their intent. That"s what triggered me, I think.

He says nothing else, and neither do I, but I feel his presence as I float down into the depths of slumber, his mind curling and coiling around mine, soothing and powerful and calm.

I fall asleep like that—Caspian"s arms around me, Alistair"s mind around me. Comforted. Secure. Safe.

For now.