No more denial.
He wanted her - all of her - and the beast was too far gone to be merciful now.
He opened his mouth... and sank his fangs into the yielding flesh of her throat.
She gasped at the sudden penetration of his bite, but she didn't release her hold on him, not even when he gulped in the first greedy pull from her open vein.
Blood rushed into his mouth, hot and earthy-sweet, exquisite. Beyond anything he could ever have imagined.
After nine hundred years of living, he was finally tasting heaven.
He drank urgently, deeply, need overwhelming him as Gabrielle's quenching blood surged down his throat, into flesh and bone and cell. His pulse hammered with renewal, pumping blood into fatigued limbs and healing his recent wounds.
His sex had come alive with the first taste; now it throbbed heavy and hard between his legs. Demanding even more possession.
Gabrielle was stroking his hair, holding him close as he drank from her. She moaned with each hard tug of his mouth, her body melting, her scent going dark and humid with desire.
"Lucan," she gasped, shuddering around him. "Oh, God..."
With a wordless snarl, he pressed her down beneath him on the floor. He drank deeper, losing himself to the erotic heat of the moment and to a frantic desperation that terrified him.
Mine, he thought, selfish and utterly savage with the idea.
It was too late to stop now.
This kiss had damned them both.
While the initial bite had been a shock, the sharp nick of pain had quickly dissipated into something lush and intoxicating. Pleasure bloomed all over her body from the inside out, as if each long pull of Lucan's mouth at her neck sent a shaft of warm light back into her, reaching down through her core to stroke her soul.
He covered her with his na**d weight, their robes askew as he took her to the floor with him. His hands were rough as they sank into her hair, holding her head to the side as he drank from her. Heedless of any pain his injuries might be causing him, he pressed his bare chest against her br**sts. His lips never broke contact with her neck even for a second. She could feel the intensity of his need in every hard draw.
But she felt his strength, too. It was coming back, bit by bit, renewing because of her.
"Don't stop," she murmured, speech slowed for the mounting ecstasy that was building in her with each pulsating movement of his mouth. "You won't hurt me, Lucan. I trust you."
The wet, succulent sounds of his hunger was the most erotic thing she'd ever heard. She loved the heat of his lips on her skin. The ungentle graze of his fangs as he drew her blood into his mouth was a sensation that was both dangerous and exciting.
She was already soaring toward a splintering orgasm when she felt the thick head of Lucan's erection nudging against her sex. She was wet, aching for him. He drove in deep with one thrust, filling her completely with rigid, volcanic heat. Detonating her in an instant. Gabrielle cried out as he plunged hard and fast, his arms like a cage around her, clutching her tightly. He was mindless in his rhythm, a force of raw, magnificent desire.
And still he remained fastened at her neck, pulling her into a blissful, creamy darkness.
She closed her eyes and let herself float away, toward a beautiful obsidian fog.
From someplace distant, she felt Lucan buck and pound above her, his strokes urgent, his large body vibrating with the power of his own release. He shouted something harsh and went completely still.
The delicious pressure at her neck abruptly eased, then vanished, leaving coldness in its wake.
Still drifting, still awash in the heady feel of Lucan sheathed inside her, Gabrielle lifted her heavy lids. Lucan was poised over her on his knees, staring down at her as though frozen. His lips were bright red, his hair wild around his head. His feral eyes were throwing off amber sparks, they were so bright. His skin color was healthier, the network of markings on his shoulders and torso glowing a deep crimson-black.
"What is it?" she asked him, worried. "Are you okay?"
He didn't speak for a long moment.
"Jesus Christ." The rough growl of his voice was tremulous, a pitch she'd never heard in him before. His chest was heaving. "I thought you were... I thought I had - "
"No," she said, giving a lazy, sated shake of her head. "No, Lucan. I'm fine."
She couldn't read his intense expression, but then he didn't give her a chance. He recoiled, sliding out of her. There was a stricken look in his transformed eyes.
Her body felt cold and empty without his warmth. She sat up, rubbing off her sudden chill. "It's okay," she assured him. "Everything's okay."
"No." He shook his head and vaulted to his feet. "No. This was a mistake."
"Lucan..."
"I never should have let this happen!" he bellowed.
With a furious roar, he stalked to the foot of the bed to retrieve his clothes. He yanked the black camo pants and nylon shirt on, then grabbed his weapons and boots, and left the room in a tempest of seething rage.
Lucan could hardly catch his breath for the way his heart was banging in his chest.
When he'd felt Gabrielle go slack beneath him as he drank from her, a stark fear had torn through him, shredding him from the inside out.
She trusted him, she had said while he had been drinking feverishly at her neck. He'd felt the spurs of Bloodlust jabbing into him as Gabrielle's blood flowed into him. Her voice had eased some of the pain. She was tender and caring, her touch, her na**d emotion - her presence itself - grounding him when the animal part of him might have slipped its reins.
She trusted him not to harm her, and that trust gave him strength.
But then he'd felt her drifting away from him and he feared... God, in that instant, how he'd feared.