Shadow Rising by Cassi Carver Read Free Book Online Page B

unbelievably strong. She could feel his energy swallowing up the smaller forces around them. The drying blood on her nose from his “force-field” proved he could do things that her Julian could never have done. And yet, she didn’t want to resist him. Asking herself to step away from the likeness of the man she’d loved and lost was a wasted effort.
    He met her gaze and smiled for the first time. He had the same dimples in his cheeks. “Don’t struggle. You can’t win.”
    He ducked his head to the small wound and lapped up the blood. Kara could feel his body trembling with dark energy. It was hard to expand her lungs with the weight of his need pressing in on her.
    She might have missed the hell out of him, but there was no way she’d let him get away with manners like this. “Don’t try to scare me, Julian. Is that how you treat the woman you love after all this time?”
    He laughed, and it was the same seductive sound she remembered, only hollow somehow. “I think I like this game. I love you?”
    He wrapped his long fingers around her chin and pinned her head back, then cupped his lips around the cut and drew deeply. When he brought his head up, his lips were crimson with her blood. A shudder ran down his spine like he’d taken a hit of a potent drug. “Yes. I love you. The taste of you. Do you taste that good everywhere?”
    Kara knew she should be scared out of her mind. She’d never heard of her people drinking blood. She knew for a fact their fangs were built for tearing and rending, not for plunging into someone’s veins like pointy little straws. Why was he doing this?
    He wasn’t a thing like her bondmate. And yet, he looked like Julian. Under her fingertips, he felt like Julian. Her nipples peaked, reaching for his attention. Her body was warm and pliant, the apex of her thighs flooding with moisture. He might not know her, but her damn body knew him, and it had been denied him far too long.
    “Taste me, then.” She leaned toward him, and he allowed it. The fingers holding her chin slipped behind her head and captured her nape. She kissed him harder this time, thrusting her tongue into his mouth, trying to block out the metallic flavor of her own blood.
    He growled and cupped her ass, lifting her against him with one hand. Demiáre were strong, but he didn’t even seem to notice Kara’s weight as she wrapped her legs around his waist. She wondered if he could hold her there with his will alone.
    He brought both hands to her rump and pressed her against his long, thick shaft. Now that was something that hadn’t changed at all. He was still as massively built, and all that perfection was just two layers away from her throbbing core.
    She pressed her lips harder against his and invaded his mouth with her tongue. She couldn’t prevent her throaty sigh or her desperate grind against him.
    “They said you were gone.” She tangled her fingers in his thick hair and kissed his cheeks with damp lips. “You don’t know what that did to me…thinking you weren’t coming back. It felt like a piece of me was buried alongside you.”
    He lifted his head and flared his nostrils as if sampling the wind. “You should fear for your life, and yet you toy with me instead. I could have made your death quick, but now…” He ran his hands over Kara’s sides, and she shivered. “Now I think I will take my time with you.”
    “Don’t say that. You’re not going to hurt me.” She felt a stab in her heart that he could be a part of her and not remember what they’d shared, but she couldn’t bring herself to move from his arms. “I don’t know what’s going on with you, but I will help you figure this out. I promise.”
    “Help me?”
    “Yes, Julian. We can get through this. I love you.” She should have told him before the accident, but now she’d been given another chance, and she couldn’t say it enough. Her hand molded to his cheek in a tender caress. “I love you.”
    His wings expanded in a