Chapter 3

The scream tore out of Malakor until his breath failed, leaving him gasping on the flagstones in suffocating silence.

I stood over him, rubbing my forearm that was still stinging from where his fangs had punctured my flesh.

For a terrifying moment, his body went still. His eyes rolled back, and the violent violet glow in his veins faded into a dull, unnatural heat that radiated off him.

Silence descended once again, heavier than the one from earlier while he was drinking my blood. Even the wind that accompanied the rain had stopped howling. And the rainfall had reduced to a drizzle. It was almost as if the forces of nature had cooperated to watch the scene with me.

"Malakor?" I called out, taking a cautious step forward.

No response came. No even a grunt or a groan.

I knelt beside him, hesitating before pressing two fingers to his throat. His skin was scalding. Way hotter than any cold-blooded creature should ever be.

And then I felt it. A pulse. A pulse that hammered beneath my touch with a frantic speed.

"He's alive," I whispered, half in disbelief and relief. "Would you look at that."

My gaze stayed keenly on the shadow-rot as it receded. The pitch-black veins around his chest faded as my venom dissolved the dark magic.

A frown appeared on my face. The poison hadn't fully left his system. It had settled deep into his core, setting off an unholy fever.

"Damn you," I muttered, hauling his arm over my shoulder. "Now you're going to give me so much work."

I spared a glance sideways at his unconscious face, his cheeks rubbing slightly against mine. The rays of the moonlight had seeped through bathing his face in a strange glow that almost made me forget my frustration.

"There goes my hopes of an entertainment dashed," I scoffed. "You didn't give me the pleasure of watching you die."

Gritting my teeth, I began the long strainous journey of dragging him down the long corridor and into my private chamber—the only room with a fire warm enough to keep his fluctuating temperature from killing him outright.

I dumped him unceremoniously onto the massive velvet four-poster bed and took the time to stretch backwards with my hands on my hips. The sound of cracking bones echoed in the room and a sigh of relief departed my lips from the heavy, sentient baggage my body was released from.

"Just how much do you even weigh?" I glared at his form.

His head suddenly thrashed against the pillows as the delirium took hold. A loud groan of pain escaped his lips, making me jump a bit.

"Fire!" His eyes flew open. They weren't the usual gold anymore. They were liquid amber, hazy with pain and an intense, unnatural hunger. "It's... burning me from the inside..."

"That's the venom doing its job," I retorted in an icy tone.

I stripped away his blood-soaked leather coat and ruined shirt. As the fabric fell away, my breathing ceased for what seemed like eternity.

"By Lilith's grace," I whispered softly, my cheeks stinging a bit with a rush of strange heat.

His chest was sculpted, scarred, and broad, covered in a light sheen of sweat that glistened under the dim candlelight. Where the blackened shadow-rot had been, smooth skin was slowly regenerating. But the air around him had a thick and heavy scent. It was saturated with the aphrodisiacal scent of my own blood leaking from his pores.

At that moment, a dose of reality hit me. The venom didn't just burn. In high doses that failed to kill, it stripped away restraint. It unlocked every primal, unspeakable desire a vampire possessed.

I swiftly fetched a basin of cold well water and a linen cloth, sitting on the edge of the mattress.

"Stay still," I commanded, wringing out the cloth and pressing it against his forehead.

Malakor flinched and squirmed a sharp intake of air echoed in his throat. But as the cool linen moved down his neck, over the sharp line of his collarbone, and down his chest, his thrashing stopped.

'Thank goodness,' I thought.

But then his hand shot out from under the furs and wrapped around my wrist tightly.

I froze. "Release me, Malakor."

Rather than oblige, he dragged my hand down until my palm rested flat against the center of his bare chest, right over his thunderous, racing heart. His eyes locked onto mine with a dark intensity that made my throat go dry and my heartbeat intensify. Then for a split second that a human eye would miss, they drifted to my lips and back to my eyes.

'Lilith, give me strength,' I prayed internally.

"Your hands," he murmured, his voice vibrating directly against my palm. "They're so cold. Like ice."

"Well, what else were you expecting?" I scoffed. "I am a walking corpse. Just like you."

I tried to pull back but his grip was surprisingly and infuriatingly strong. Like iron.

"No, you aren't dead." His gaze dropped to my lips again, his thumb tracing a circle over the sensitive skin of my wrist. "You're fire. You put fire in my veins."

"And now," A sudden strange glint flickered in his eyes, "I'm starving."

A shiver crawled down my back. The air between us turned chilly, charged with a sudden tension that had once again had nothing to do with the weather outside.

He was out of his mind with fever. Yet the way he looked at me made a deep, treacherous ache coil in the pit of my stomach. It was like he wanted to tear me apart and worship the pieces.

"You're delirious," I whispered, forcing my voice to stay steady. "Sleep."

"I don't feel like it." A half pout formed on his lips.

"You better force the feeling." I glowered at him. "Or the next dose of poison I give you won't be consensual."

"Is that a promise?" A devious smirk tugged at the corner of his lips.

However, his heavy eyelids fluttered shut seconds later and his grip slowly loosened as exhaustion claimed him.

Pulling my hand back with a frown, I glanced down at the prince resting in my bed with a dose of reality hitting me at once;

When he truly woke, the fever wouldn't be the only thing we'd have to fight.