“Take me.” It was an offer she’d make only Dmitri. “You haven’t fed today.”
But instead of sinking his fangs into her willing flesh, he lifted his head, frowned. “I don’t want to weaken you. I can have some blood packs delivered—”
“No. You feed from me.” He was hers to care for, hers to adore.
“Honor.”
“I’m on a high-calorie, high-iron, high-fluid, high-everything diet for a reason.” She’d had a long conversation with a Guild physician before they left for Italy. The elderly and somewhat cantankerous man was used to dealing with vampiric-human pairings and had given her guidelines to follow if she intended to be one of those “possessive females.” “If you tell me you prefer a bag of old blood to my neck,” she muttered, “I’ll bite you myself.”
He didn’t soften at the joke, continuing to lean dark and dangerous and a bit pissed off above her. “I’ll get the packs delivered.”
“Dmitri—”
“I’ll let you have your way in every other thing you want, but I won’t compromise your health.” His voice was steel. “I’ll allow myself to feed from you once a week.”
Honor narrowed her eyes. “Every second day.”
“This is not a negotiation.”
“Yes, it is. It’s a marriage. So negotiate.”
His arm muscles turned rigid where he held on to the chair. “Twice a week,” he gritted out, “and you’ll take an iron test every five days.”
Tapping her finger on his wrist, she saw the implacable resolve in his expression, knew the negotiation was at an end. It had gone better than she’d hoped—after all, Dmitri was near to a thousand years old and arrogant with it. “Fine,” she said with a pretend scowl, “but if you ever stop giving me the little bites when we make love, I’m filing for divorce.” The erotic blood kisses were all about sex, not feeding.
This time, his smile was of the very bad man she had in her bed three times a day at the very least. “Oh, I’ll never stop doing that. If you ask nicely, I might even bite you on that spot on the inside of your thigh that you like so much.”
Honor shivered. Once, the idea of a bite on her thigh would’ve made her throw up, and even Dmitri could only do it if she was in a certain position, where she could kick him away if need be . . . but when it went right, when the horrible memories of what had been done to her didn’t overwhelm her . . . oh wow. “You are a menace.”
His eyes gleamed. “Let’s go inside so I can corrupt you some more.”
Impossible, but he gets sexier with every passing minute.
Tugging him down, she kissed those sensual lips, received a loving that made her br**sts swell, her ni**les tighten. “Come sit with me,” she said before she forgot her intent, “so we can talk about my decision.”
Sprawling into the chair on the other side of the table, he reached for a slice of sweet white peach with a desultory hand. “Don’t ask me to talk you out of vampirism. I’m only being this good because I don’t want you to hate me.”
She nibbled on a piece of apricot. “Noted.” Twisting around, she put her feet on his lap, her toes—currently painted a vivid blue green—shimmering in the sunlight.
His hand stroked over her in an absent caress. “You won’t ever be like the monsters,” he said quietly, speaking to her deepest fear. “Never, Honor. That’s not in you.”
It choked her with blind terror that she might become like the soulless creatures who’d caused her such heartbreaking harm not in one lifetime, but in two. But then she looked across at the man who had loved her both those lifetimes, and she saw not simply the darkness he wore so close to his skin, but also the truth that he’d maintained a claw hold on honor even as he sank into sin and depravity. Dmitri had never brutalized a woman, and he’d never hurt a child . . . not after he’d had to break their son’s neck to save Misha from unimaginable horror.
Unlike Dmitri, she wouldn’t be going into this new life through an ugly act of coercion, broken and twisted and tortured. She’d be ushered into it by a man who adored her, would spend eternity discovering every changing facet of him. Never would they become jaded with one another—never. It was a quiet truth deep within her, born of a love that had survived death and time itself.
“Dmitri,” she said into the sunlit silence. “Where is your heart?”
Her question could’ve been taken many ways, but her husband knew what she meant. “In your hands, where it’s always been.”
Luminous joy in her every breath, a sense of peace in her soul. “And you hold mine. So you see, I only have to worry about your heart, not my own.” As his heart was her most precious treasure, hers was his. He would love and care for that heart with every bit of his dangerous strength, would never permit her to lose the compassion and humanity he cherished in her. “Let’s go home,” she said, “begin the process.”
Dmitri’s hands tightened on her legs. “This is it, Honor. No more chances.”
“No, Dmitri. Now we’ll have an eternity of chances.”
24
Mahiya felt bruised in places she hadn’t known it was possible to have bruises, muscles sore in a way they’d never before been sore. Jason was . . . a storm.
Slow.
Relentless.
Inexorable.
She’d thought he’d be satisfied after that shockingly carnal union against the door, but he’d brought her back to her bed, allowed her only a small respite before he took her again.