“Let me fuck you,” I hear myself say, breathless.

Stroking stray hair from my face, he lifts his mouth, heated breath ghosting my ear. “Submit to me, precious one.”

I groan again. I want to. I’m on fire with desperation for this exquisite man. I yearn to rip his clothes off and lick every inch of his pale skin, then push him down into the nearest hard surface and pound him mercilessly until we’re both senseless and spent. I’d let him do the same to me.

Thankfully, some whisper, some remnant of self-preservation deep in my mind flares.

“No,” I hiss.

Mikhail. The name strokes me like a lover’s caress, sending a shiver through me. “You want to. I feel it—your hunger to submit to me.”

I shake my head. It takes everything I have. “No.”

He sighs. “A stubborn one. We will have to change that when you come home.” He tips my face until our lips are a breath from each other—his with the same unusual heat as the rest of his skin, a scorching fire against my mouth. “You are mine, Michael. You know this.”

He speaks the truth. I feel it in my blood, in my bones. I don’t understand it. Is the vampire compelling this intense belonging? Or is it something else, something deeper? However strong the attraction, though, however wrecked my mind, I’ll never give in to it willingly. I belong to no one.

My forehead still pressed against his, I raise my eyes to those obsidian pools. “Never.” The word burns my throat.

Alexei takes a long breath. “Stubborn bloodline.” He runs a finger over my cheekbone. “No matter. Your heart is already mine. In time, you will accept this.”

I hope to God that’s not true. “You’re him, aren’t you?” I say. “The shadow. You’ve been following me.”

Alexei smiles, slow and sensuous. Something calculating glints from the black depths of his eyes. “I was guarding my precious treasure until he found you. There is something I need you to do for me. Gabriel will take you to Blackriver, and I have no doubt he will care for you himself. Draw him close, youngling. I promise I will come for you soon. For now, let me gift you—an awakening, a protection for my beauty while we are apart.”

There’s a faint click, and the vampire pulls back his upper lip, exposing two long fangs. I feel a surprising lack of shock at this stark evidence of the creature’s true nature. He strikes me as even more beautiful. Fierce and feral.

Alexei punctures his bottom lip, drawing a single pearl of deep red liquid, and with the fist in my hair holding me in place, he kisses me.

I’m enveloped in the scent and taste of figs and chocolate and groan with relief as he sweeps his tongue into my mouth. He pushes deeper, and I revel in it: the heat, the moisture, the vampire inside me. Seized by a furious need for more, I crush my lips to his. He receives my passion with sensual ease.