Page 20 of Crimson Shifter

I didn’t have to be told twice.

I upped my pace, sliding my fingers in and out of her while grinding the heel of my palm against her swollen, needy clit, and just when I felt her pussy start to flutter…

I sank my fangs into her neck.

“Talon!” Her cry of pleasure only fueled my male pride. I pushed her from one orgasm right into another, riding that crest with her as I tasted her pleasure in her blood as I drank.

A sharp bite hit my shoulder, and I nearly came in my fucking pants as she drank too.

Godsdamn, it was hot.

It was…too much and not enough.

Cassandra went limp beneath me as I worked her through her second orgasm, riding her through the waves of those aftershocks before sliding my fingers out of her and shifting myself off of her body so quickly she barely had time to reach for me before I was standing, lifting her and laying her in the bed.

“Aren’t you going to join me?” she asked, and fuck me, I wanted to.

But I shook my head.

“Shower.” It was the only word I could speak before I used vampire speed to lock myself in the bathroom.

I’d taken her edge off, but mine had only grown.

And something else I couldn’t understand. A need that ran deeper than hunger.

For someone I didn’t even trust.

I was so fucked.

CHAPTER 8

Cassandra

“You truly should have been there, Darlene,” Reginald, Archibald’s prick of a father, said from where he had so boldly claimed the head of the table in the formal dining room. “The king's band of assassins looked positively stretched thin, as if one strong hit would end them all. It was quite glorious,” he continued, gazing down at me where I absentmindedly stroked Talon’s fur from where he sat at my side at the opposite end of the table. “I was quite surprised not to see you at court,” he said, looking directly at me. “You’ve been such a staple there lately.”

I didn't miss the undertones of accusation that lilted in his words. I stopped petting Talon, and raised my hands, wrapping them around my glass and taking a long sip of the blood residing within it. I didn't want to dignify him with a response too quickly, and it was quite amusing to watch him get irritated the longer I took. I gave a slow, almost lazy shrug. “I needed a vacation,” I finally answered.

“A vacation from court?” Reginald huffed, casting a curious glance at my mother as if to saycan you believe the youth? “It seems to me that all you did while you were there was wear pretty gowns and waltz around between groups of nobles. Unlessthere was something else you were working on that we aren't privy to?”

It was all I could do not to bear my fangs at the prick. “No, there is nothing that you need to be privy to, trust me.”

My mother arched a thin eyebrow my direction, not exactly chiding me because the Wrights weren't her favorite vampire family, but they did have a certain level of power and prestige that we simply couldn’t ignore when it came down to picking allies.

“I did miss seeing you in court.” Archibald, Reginald’s son, finally took a break from gorging himself on the human blood in the decanter before him, and spoke from where he sat to my right. A strategic choice no doubt approved of by my mother, dangling me like a freshly opened vein in the hopes they would make an offer for me that she couldn't refuse.

“It's true,” Reginald said, smacking his hand against the table playfully before he pointed at his son. “The moment he found out you'd fled the king's residence, he told me we needed to make a trip out to this wonderful island.”

Archibald didn't even have the sense to look embarrassed by his father's eagerness to spill his secrets.

“Well, you certainly were busy at court,” Archibald continued. “Always flitting about. I could never catch you to steal a dance or a dinner. But now here we are, on an island that is nothing if not made for leisure. Certainly, I'll be able to spend some quality time with you now.”

Talon growled in his panther form, and my instincts had me stroking down his massive head as he sat up on his haunches, making himself visible over the table where he had previously been lying at my feet.

“What are you getting growly about?” I asked down the shifter bond.

“Nothing,” he said directly into my mind. “I'm just bored.”

“That would make two of us,” I said, leaning back in my chair and completely ignoring Archibald’s continued attempts to make small talk. My mother filled in the gaps easily enough, and even when I’d throw in a casual reference to one of my brothers, nobody seemed to have any other information that would be useful to us.