Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 104842 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 349(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104842 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 349(@300wpm)
“I can’t get pneumonia,” he reminded me, “but a towel for the pillow is a good idea. It takes eons for anything to fully dry here.”
“Eons? Really?”
“Fine. Hours, then, but I’ll get it. You’re only newly risen.”
I was smiling as he got out of bed, and admired the view of his beautiful ass and then closed my eyes a moment letting the happiness sink into my bones before he returned.
“You look strong,” he told me as I took the towel from him so I could dry his hair some more before he lay down again. “You’re as beautiful as you’ve always been.”
“Beautiful?”
“Yes,” he rumbled. “You know you’re the most beguiling of creatures.”
I chuckled into his shoulder when he pulled me close.
“Tell me how everything is going here,” I asked him.
He grunted, and I pressed closer, feeling his cock thickening between us. “No matter how alluring you are, you are not strong enough or healed enough to have carnal relations with me.”
“Carnal relations?” I baited him.
“This is simply a normal reaction to being close to my mate. I know your chest and back still pain you, and you can’t laugh without hurting yet either, so—”
“I don’t need to laugh, only take you inside my body.”
He growled. “Just be still and tell me your plans.”
“My plans? I want to hear about yours.”
“Mine are simple. I will remake Ophir as it should be now, had it followed all the steps of progress that should have been taken to this point. I will turn it into a place of learning, where vampyrs from all over the world may come and be educated and then study. It will be a place of scholarship for everyone equally. Chryos and his peers have begun, and many of my half sisters and brothers have already come to help. Also, many nobles are interested in coming to help family members they’ve been cut off from, and blood is being collected and shared.”
“That is amazing news.”
“My hope is that they will all be fully restored quickly, no more than six months at the most. I need everyone healthy to implement all the changes I want to make.”
“That’s very smart.”
“I am very smart,” he said, nuzzling into the side of my neck. “You smell absolutely decadent.”
“Drink, then. I would love it.”
He kissed his favorite spot between my neck and the hollow of my shoulder instead.
“I think it would be good for my body,” I told him. “A reminder to renew my blood, as it is for your consumption. A font without the person who drinks from them… I don’t think that’s healthy.”
“I’m terrified to take anything you might need.”
“I think I need to feed my prince and feel him moving inside me.”
“You pose too great a temptation. I should change and sit on the chair.”
“Don’t you dare,” I warned him, feeling the familiar ache flushing my skin with heat, loving that nothing in my reaction had dimmed or altered, his breath on my neck covering me with goose bumps, making me shiver.
“What if I take too much blood, or I’m not gentle enough with your—”
“None of those things could ever happen,” I promised him, reaching between us to take hold of the long, hard, thick length of him. There was already precum leaking from the head. “Now come here,” I murmured, stretching my neck in offering.
“Jason…” He sounded pained.
“I would never force you, and if you don’t want my—”
“Of course I want you and your blood, but I have never in my life been that…desolate. I was not myself, and I’ve always been able to find and hold on to what makes me, me. There is always honor and duty to the crown and to the citizens of the realm. I am infinitely aware of my place in the world and that above all else, I am the draugr.”
I gently raked my fingers through his hair, marveling at the feel of it, how thick and silky it was, running like water through my fingers.
“But then you died, and all I was, was a man.”
I stroked him slowly, and I knew he was confessing his soul, but I also knew it was imperative that he see me as his and healed and the man he needed. I couldn’t ever be less than his mate, or he would limit me to what he felt was safe. That wouldn’t work.
“Are you listening to me?” he nearly yelled, trying to pull away but powerless under my tender assault.
“I heard every word,” I assured him. “Is there lube on your side in the nightstand?”
“Yes, of course there’s—”
“Because you were sure I would get better and want you. So get it and show me.”
“Show you what?”
“That you believe I’m better and that you will always want me.”
He rolled away from me, nearly broke the drawer opening it—I heard the rest of it hit the floor—and then returned to my arms.