Carpathian 21 - Dark Peril

her body to see what his lifemate looked like. She felt embarrassed all over again, praying he hadn’t read her wayward mind. It shocked her that he would take the time to see to her relatively minor wounds when his had been major. He even took the sting out of most of the bruises.
    She’d never really had a sensual experience, but the feeling of his fingers and mouth on her skin turned her body into a bundle of raw, throbbing nerve endings.

    “You need blood.”

    The voice startled her and she jerked away from Dominic, dragging down her shirt. Zacarias. How had she forgotten him? She’d almost—Well, okay, she had been thinking erotic thoughts, forgetting they weren’t alone. What was wrong with her? She’d never blushed before, but he’d witnessed her total humiliation and she could feel color turning her face an ugly red. She blinked rapidly. trying to break the spell Dominic had woven around her.

    It took her a moment to realize Dominic’s larger frame had blocked Zacarias’s view of her. For some idiotic reason the knowledge that Dominic had protected her in her moment of weakness from prying eyes made her feel warm and comforted.

    “As do you,” Dominic responded. He turned then, keeping Solange close to him, his hand on her arm.

    Both men looked at her. Her heart pounded frantically. She’d seen Juliette giving Riordan blood. Zacarias was torn to shreds and he was family. He was her family, whether extended or not, and therefore under her protection. But this . . . She’d never considered that she would ever have to give a man her very blood.

    “It is our way, kessake .” Dominic’s voice was pitched low, but the sound moved inside her, that soft, velvet caress, snaking its way seductively into her mind.

    She bit her lip hard, trembling, wanting to do this for him, such a small request, but enormous in her mind.
    Why did it matter whether she pleased him? She had never cared what anyone thought of her, yet she stood there like a mute imbecile, unable to say no when everything in her demanded that she run. She stood trembling, desperate to get away, yet she couldn’t move, at war with her own nature.

    Dominic was her chosen one. It mattered little if she’d thought he wasn’t real. He was there now, more of a man than any she knew, more respected and more powerful. She wanted to be that woman he needed, and he needed this from her.

    Hardly daring to breathe, she watched Zacarias approach, his body bleeding from a thousand tears from the vampire bats, their teeth and claws stripping his body of flesh at the command of Drago. Her stomach churned. Bile rose. He was going to sink his teeth into her skin and she was going to stand there, shuddering with distaste, caught in Dominic’s spell. She had to find the strength to resist the madness that had settled around her, turning her body to lead.

    She swallowed hard and looked up at Dominic. At once his blue eyes trapped her gaze and held her captive.
    His smile was tender, only for her, as if he were reading her mind and knew her abhorrence of this act, knew she was on the verge of fleeing and that it was only the sheer power of his personality that kept her there. He drew her body against his, her back to him, one arm just under her heaving breasts, his hold so gentle she didn’t realize at first that she was locked to him with his enormous strength, unable to break away if she wanted to. His other hand slowly but inexorably stretched her arm out toward Zacarias in invitation.

    “From her wrist, and be gentle,” he cautioned.

    She shuddered again as the Carpathian male drew near. Dominic bent his head and whispered softly to her in his own language. “ Solange. Emnim. Tõdak pitäsz wäke bekimet mekesz kaiket. Te magköszunam nä ŋamaŋ kać3 taka arvo . Solange. My woman. I knew you had courage to face anything. Thank you for this gift beyond price.”

    His breath was warm on her neck, and he pressed his lips over her frantic pulse. His teeth scraped back and forth, gentle, more than seductive, so that her heart beat fast and her breathing turned ragged. She was aware of him with every single cell in her body.

    She closed her eyes and absorbed the sound of his voice, the pleasure in it, the way he made her feel as if he knew she was feeding the other male just for him—only for him. She could never have done it without his seductive voice in her ear, or his hard body against hers. It felt as if she were giving herself to