Kristen Painter - Forbidden Blood

Marissa laid a gentle hand on Catarina’s arm. “I’m sorry Marissa laid a gentle hand on Catarina’s arm. “I’m sorry things have been so hard for you, and I’m sorry you’ve been unable to properly say good-bye to Lord Itsak.” She gripped Catarina’s arm a little tighter. “You know, you could still go.

Take some time off as it were.”

“I don’t think I could. That would mean leaving Dominic—”

“Would he notice? He’s been locked up in that laboratory since we returned from Corvinestri, and now with this dictate from my patron, I can’t imagine that will change.”

Catarina nodded. “That’s how he spends every day.” She seemed lost in thought. “He rarely drinks from my wrist anyway.” She looked a little sheepish. “I’m afraid that’s my fault.

I haven’t been the most accommodating.”

Marissa sat back. “Drain some blood before you go. As long as you have some in cold storage, he’ll be fine.”

“There’s plenty there already.” The other comarré’s eyes brightened. “Do you think he’d really let me go?”

Marissa tipped her head to one side and made a show of thinking. “What if I told him that you and I had argued again and I sent you away? Then I can take the blame if he disapproves.”

“You would do that for me?”

To save her daughter, Marissa would do anything. “I would be happy to. After all, I owe you for being so inconsiderate when we first met.”

Catarina jumped up. “I’m going to pack immediately. Thank you. I feel better already.”

Marissa nodded. So did she.

For the third time in what had been a very long evening, Dominic lowered the lens of his microscope too far and cracked the glass slide protecting his sample. “Vacca Boia!”

His inability to concentrate was Marissa’s fault. No, that wasn’t right. He could concentrate, but only on the blue of Marissa’s eyes, the curve of her pale neck and the way her sweet aroma made his jaw ache.

She’d tried to get him to bite her and she’d almost gotten her way.

But he was stronger than that. Wasn’t he?

His body said no. And his body was right. He sat back on the stool, arching his back and feeling his hunger right down to his bones. He’d gone without feeding for too long. Also Marissa’s fault. Maybe he should bite her. Take the blood he’d been denied. She’d given him every indication that’s what she wanted.

No.

Arnaud already had reason enough to destroy him. Drinking from Marissa would be a very wrong step in a very bad direction. What he needed to do was get Catarina in here and feed, regardless of her mood or how she felt about it. As patrons went, he was beginning to realize he was much too permissive.

He yanked the belpul near the door. Several long minutes later, a servant entered. “You rang, my lord?”

“Send Catarina in to me.”

“Very well, my lord.” The servant left and Dominic returned to his work. The sun would be up in less than an hour and he was only now just finalizing the sunlight serum.

The door opened a second time, but he didn’t bother looking up from the microscope. The sweet scent of comarré rolled over him as he added a drop of heliotrope essence and watched the serum come together perfectly. “I don’t want any discussion.

Just give me your wrist and we’ll get this over with as quickly as possible; then we can both go back to tolerating each other.”

Warmth invaded his space and the air stirred as pale, gilded flesh filed his periphery. “I’d prefer you take your time.”

He jerked at the sound of Marissa’s voice, his body instantly primed, his fangs descending. “Where’s Catarina?”

“She’s taking a little time off, going back to the Secundis Domus for a couple of weeks. She needs to grieve for her first patron; then she’ll come back to you. And probably be better for it.” She held her hands up like she knew he’d protest. “It’s perfectly within her privileges as a comarré. If you’d obtained her through proper channels, you’d know that.”

She lifted her wrist a little higher. “Please, take what you need. There is no one who will know but us.”

Everything human in him said no, but the human side of him had died centuries ago. He stood and took her wrist in his grasp.

“We should not be doing this.”

Her other hand lifted and her fingers delicately followed the lines of his vampire face. “You treat me with such kindness. I wonder if you mean to turn my head, but then you refuse to take what I offer—”

“I am not trying to turn your head.” Or was he? He didn’t know what he was doing when she was around. He brought her wrist to his mouth and kissed the tender flesh. “My refusal is for your safety. Something you seem to care very little about. What makes you so bold, comarré?”

She leaned into him, closing her eyes slightly. She swallowed and the sound drew his eyes to her throat. “You make me bold,”

She confessed, regret shading her face as soon as the words left her tongue.

He dropped her wrist, slid his hands into her hair, and kissed her, hard. For a moment, she went utterly still, only to melt into him a second later, but her acquiescence was short-lived. She yelped in surprise as though she’d just realized what was happening. His mouth muffled the sound.

He let her go, threw his hands up, and walked away. “Mi fai impazzire!” He growled softly, and muttered admonitions to impazzire!” He growled softly, and muttered admonitions to himself. “Pazzo! This between us is wrong, crazy, and yet I do not care.” He spun on his heels and came back toward her. “In fact, I tell you, I do care—I care that Arnaud does not touch you again.” He beat his hand against his chest. “I should not feel that way, but I do.”

Her hands covered her mouth. “Because I am comarré and you are vampire.”

“Si. As foolish as the lion falling in love with the lamb.”

She went very still and he realized what he’d said too late.

Her hands dropped from her mouth. “You…love me?”

He hesitated, frozen by his own words. Then he threw one hand into the air as if none of it mattered. “I love many things.

Wine. A well-tailored suit. Art.”

Her expression darkened. “So I am just another thing to you.”

“That is not what I meant.” This was going poorly. Very poorly. “I only meant that…” He shook his head. “You make me crazy. I cannot think when you’re around.”

“Why?” She came closer. “What fills your head?”

He stared at her. “What do you think? You. Your sweet scent. Your gilded skin. Your damnable glow. You are like a sickness in my blood.” A sickness he no longer cared to be healed of.

“And Catarina never made you feel that way?”

“Catarina, pah. I am a plague Catarina has not yet found a cure for.” He shook his head. “Why do you not treat me the cure for.” He shook his head. “Why do you not treat me the same way? It would be so much easier.”

“Perhaps if you drank from me, being around me would not be so difficult?” She held her wrist out to him again.

But it wasn’t her wrist he wanted. The depths of his vampire soul cried out for the taut column of her neck. “Perhaps you are right.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her into his arms, cradling her head and bending over her before she could protest.

Swiftly, he sank his fangs into her throat and drank deeply.

She moaned softly, a sound he’d not heard since he’d last bedded a woman. It spurred him on. He held her tightly, his other hand pressed into the small of her back. The taste of her spun light through his veins and heat into his bones.

In a word, paradiso.