Sorceress Awakening Read Online Free Page B

her
fingers. Before they reached her lips, he snatched her wrist. She hissed in frustration,
struggling weakly before falling back against the table, her energy spent.
    Trying and failing to understand her
bizarre behavior, he reared away from her and dropped to all fours and began to
pace with his wings mantled, tail whipping with agitation. He froze at what his
mind tried to tell him. She craved his blood, hungered for its power like a
mate would. Yet they were not mates.
    They could never be mates.
    Sacrilege.
    A soft sound, followed by a watery gasp
dragged his attention back to the table. She was paler than before, gray, and
her breath came in a death’s rattle. Gathering her into his arms, he carried
her over to a corner and sat with his back braced against a wall, her slight
form resting in his lap.
    She was so light, so fragile. What if he
could share blood without shattering his oath and forging mating ties? If there
was even the slightest chance, he had to try. He slid her hand closer to the
warm dampness he could feel making its sluggish way down his arm, but her
fingers didn’t tighten upon the wound as they had before. She was too weak even
for that.
    His talons rested cool against his
breastbone. Then, uncaring of the consequences or that he was breaking one of
the sacred laws binding them, he dragged the point of one talon down his chest
a finger’s length. With his other hand, he lifted her head to the wound.
    He could live as an oath breaker. He didn’t
think his sanity would survive her death again so soon.
    Eyes still closed, she shivered in his arms
and inhaled a deep breath. Then, following the coppery scent to the wound, she
sealed her lips over his blood-dampened flesh. At the first lap of her tongue,
his concentration shattered like mist before a strong wind. Magic surged and
flowed into her. She drank his magic along with his blood, growing stronger
with each heartbeat.
    His little dryad pressed against him,
becoming more demanding in her feeding. Ecstasy threatened to destroy his
discipline. The soft caress of her fingers feathered along his abdomen as she
stirred in his arms. Her gentle touch shocked him to his core, rousing
instincts better left to slumber. Fire settled in his groin. He groaned, then
cursed his response.
    His horns racked the wall behind, sending
white dust and bits of debris raining down upon them both. He tightened his
arms around her, wanting her closer while at the same time trying not to crush
the life from her. His tail coiled around her left leg as if it had a life of
its own.
    It seemed endless, the pleasure-pain of her
feeding on his power. Yet it was over too quickly. With one last lick along the
length of the wound, she tilted her head back and looked at him. A half-smile
graced her lips, and then she tucked her head against his shoulder. A few
moments later, her breathing evened out as she drifted into sleep.
    Rest was far from his thoughts with his
lungs working like a great billows and his pulse thundering in his ears. He
called on what remained of his discipline and fell into another trance to order
his body’s rhythms to calm—it would last moments, at best.
    Once he was calmer, he opened his eyes and
checked her wounds. They were healed. All that remained was a faint pink scar.
She may have been healed, but her dryad blood still called to him, its coppery
sap-sweet scent enticing him down a dark and forbidden path. He shook himself,
fighting deeply rooted instincts. Only after he’d won that internal battle was
he able to deposit her back on the table.
    Leaving her side was difficult, but he
needed to get clean of her blood, her intoxicating scent. Now.
    Sniffing the air, he scented water, but
couldn’t pinpoint the source at first. He paced around the room and continued
scenting. Then he heard the faint plop of water dripping onto an unyielding
surface somewhere above his present location.
    With a huff, he sought of the source of
that sound, tossing his arm