She could have chosen someone else, of course. A few humans had entered the common room even as she waited, and some had approached her. She had declined their offers with a polite smile and returned her gaze to the doorway, seeking Ian. Yet as time trickled away, she couldn’t help but wonder whether she had been wrong in thinking today was his turn to come to the lair. A youngster could have taken his place in the cycle, or an elder given up hers, disrupting the usual schedule. Or he could have simply been ill, and have traded his time with someone else.
The reasonable thing would have been for her to feed from the first human who passed the door and be done with waiting. Ian would be disappointed, certainly, if he finally arrived, but it might also teach him not to come so late. After all, why should she care if he didn’t get what he expected from his visit to the lair? She had no explanation to give to anyone, and certainly not to him. Whom she fed from or took to her bed was no one’s business but her own, and––
“My lady?”
Startled out of her internal ramblings, Eyrin looked up to find a snowy bundle in front of her. She had noticed other humans shivering as they had come in, others standing by the fireplace before they left again, but she hadn’t realized the weather was so bad. It was atypical, so late in the winter.
“You’re here later than usual,” she commented as she watched Ian brush the snow off his coat and unwrap the scarf woven around his neck and face. The wild curls framing his smooth face made him appear younger than he was, but his broad shoulders and the bold look in his dark eyes as he looked at the world around him belied that impression.
“The snow––” he started to explain, but she didn’t let him finish.
Standing abruptly, she gripped his hand and pulled him after her toward her bedchambers, muttering the whole while about him catching his death in the cold. Humans were so fragile, a gust of snowy wind had them toppling over.
The flames still danced high and bright in the fireplace, but she threw in some dry branches. Tiny showers of sparks rose, crackling.
“Get closer to the fire and undress,” she admonished Ian. “Get warm. How long did you walk in the snow?” She stepped back and leaned against her bedpost to watch him as he shed his clothes.
“Only a couple of hours,” he replied, drawing a chair closer to the fire for his clothing. “It was cold before that, but not bad. The wind––”
His words ended in a soft gasp when Eyrin ran a single finger up his spine. His skin wasn’t as cold as she had feared. In any case, she intended to warm him soon enough.
“Are you too tired to make your offering?” she asked, sotto voce. “I could find you something to eat while you rest if you wanted.” The tip of her finger was still her only contact with him. It traveled over his shoulder as she moved around him, and it was now lazily sliding over his collarbone.
“I’m fine,” he assured her, maybe a little too fast. “I am ready.”
Even though it was his wrist that he was offering her, his words took a whole different meaning when Eyrin glanced down. His cock was hardening, bobbing lightly under her gaze. With a grin, she took his wrist and gently led it to her mouth. She could feel his body tense in anticipation of the bite, but she was careful—always—and if he shuddered when her fangs pierced his skin, she was sure it was less from pain than from excitement.
She took slow, shallow pulls on his blood. Her hunger demanded more, faster, but it would end too soon if she obeyed her instincts. This way was more exciting, both for him, if his straining dick was any indication, and for her, as she watched the flush spread over his body. It was with regret that she stopped drinking and carefully ran her tongue over the puncture wounds to help them heal. She thanked Ian with two kisses, one on the inside of his wrist, right over the renewed scars, the other on his lips, brief but searing.
... continued in All Things Except Blood
