“We are married. It’s official, except for the crowning, but there is another tradition.”

My throat dried. “The Joining?”

He blinked once and then twice. “I’m trying very hard not to laugh.”

“What? That is a tradition, right? I asked Vonetta about it—”

“Oh, my gods.” He dragged his hand down his face.

“And she said—”

“It’s not about that,” he cut in. “It’s about us. Just you and me, and the tradition of sharing ourselves with one another.”

“Oh,” I whispered, and now my mind was happily playing around in a very inappropriate place. “Like…sex?”

He stared at me. “I really enjoy the way your mind works, but that’s not exactly what I was talking about.”

“Well.” My face heated. “This is awkward.”

Casteel laughed as he cupped my cheek. “Don’t feel awkward. I meant it when I said I love the way your mind works. But it’s a tradition for a couple to share blood after a wedding. It’s not required. Like I said, it’s merely tradition, one meant to strengthen the bonds of marriage. Not doing it doesn’t change anything—”

“But doing it changes what?”

“It…it’s an act of trust.” His hand slid from my face. “It’s a pledge to share everything. It’s mostly symbolic.”

My heart was pounding again, and the bodice of the dress suddenly felt too tight. It was clear that this was something he wanted, even if it was only symbolic. Possibly even something he’d once envisioned himself doing with Shea before…well, before. I felt a surge of anger and pity for a woman who’d been dead for more years than I’d been alive, but it still took a lot for me to push those feelings aside.

“And I know the idea of drinking blood isn’t exactly appetizing to you. So, I understand if you don’t—”

“I do.”

He leaned back, his eyes turning bright. “Is it because you want to or because I’m asking.”

“How often have I done things you’ve wanted, but I haven’t?”

He laughed. “Good point.” The humor faded from his eyes, replaced by a devouring sort of intensity. “If you’re sure. One hundred percent sure?”

“I am.”

“Thank fuck.” He started to reach for me but drew up short. “We need to take off that dress. Netta will have my ass if I return it to her wrinkled.” His gaze lifted to mine. “And I have a feeling it’s going to get very wrinkled.”

So did I.

Pulse thrumming, I stood and reached for one strap. Casteel followed, taking hold of the other. “Are there buttons?”

I shook my head.

“Thank the gods again,” he murmured as he dragged the strap free of my arm. “Because I would likely just give up and tear the thing.”

“You usually have better patience than that.” The dress gathered at my hips.

“Sometimes.” Eyeing the slip, he helped me step out of the gown. “But not when it comes to you.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” I said as he started to toss the gown. I stopped him. “I’ll take that.”

His lips pursed as I laid the gown on the chaise. He waited for me at the corner of the bed. “I really have a thing for you and little ridiculous straps.” He reached out, placing his hands on my ribs. He pulled the material taut against me. “And your breasts, but they are not ridiculous or little. Regardless, I have a thing for them, too.”

“Thank you?” I said as he walked around me, sliding his hand across my stomach. He laughed, and the sound was part relief and part need. I didn’t need my abilities to know that. I started to reach for the clasp on the necklace.

“Leave it.” He glanced down. “And the dagger.”

My brows raised. “Seriously?”

“When will you realize I speak the truth?” The tilt of his lips was wicked. “It turns me on when you’re armed with something sharp.”

“There’s something so entirely wrong with you.”

He came around to my front. “But you like what’s wrong with me.”

“There is something wrong with me, too.” I looked up at him. “Because I do.”

“I know.” He touched my cheek. “I’ve always known you like that I enjoy when you make me bleed.”

Casteel kissed me and it felt like the first time our lips had ever touched. In a way, it was a first kiss, and Casteel and I had more than one first. With each truth, each change, it was like starting all over again but with all the experience and memories. And kissing Casteel was like daring to kiss the sun. I placed my hands against his chest, feeling the warmth of his skin through his shirt and this—all of this—was another first, because I kissed without once worrying if I should, without wondering if I would regret it. I kissed with abandon, and there was a freedom in that I had never known before.

He pulled me against him, one arm around my waist as his mouth trailed over the curve of my jaw and then down my throat. I tensed with wicked anticipation.

“There are other places, you know? Where I can drink from you.”

“Like where?”

“Places that are far more sensitive than the neck.” He dragged his hand down my shoulder, cupping my breast through the slip. His thumb found the aching peak. “Like here for example. Would you like that? Don’t answer yet. There are other places even more sensitive. More interesting.” He moved again, over the curve of my hip and lower still. He gathered up the silk. “Lift your arms.”

I stretched my arms above my head, shivering as his clothing brushed my newly bared skin.

The slip landed on the floor, and then his hand was at my hip again. My thigh. I closed my eyes as I felt his lips at my neck.

His fingers trailed along my thigh, the ring around his finger cool against my skin. “There’s a vein there, right along your leg, with all these little veins branching off. I’m thinking you’d really like that.”

I shuddered. “Will you do that now?”

“I would, except I’m feeling incredibly archaic right now, and I want the world to see my fresh mark on your throat,” he said. “And if the whole world saw that mark between your pretty thighs, I’d have to then kill the whole world.”

“That’s excessive.”

“I feel excessive, Princess. There’s another place, one that won’t supply that much blood, but I think it will be your favorite.” His hand cupped me then, between the legs, and his thumb pressed against the bundle of nerves, driving me to the tips of my toes. “Right there. I could taste you and feed from you at the same time.”

A sharp curl of pleasure twisted through me. “Sounds indecent.”

“Extremely indecent,” he agreed. “You don’t have to choose. Later, because there will be a later,” he promised, and my chest squeezed, “we’ll try every single one of those places, and you can tell me which is your favorite. What do you think about that?”

“I think…” A breathy moan escaped as his finger slid inside me. “I’m going to enjoy being very indecent.”

“I can tell.” He chuckled against my skin as he moved me backward, his finger moving slowly, shallowly. He guided me onto my back and then withdrew from me. “Both of us will.”

As he moved from the bed, he slowed to kiss the scars along my stomach and then those on my legs. Then he stepped back, standing above me. I was completely on display, wearing nothing but the necklace and the dagger. Shyness crept into me, but I didn’t move to hide anything from him. I let him look his fill.

“Beautiful. I want you to know that. You’re beautiful. Every inch of you.”

Like before, I couldn’t help but feel that way when he looked at me like that.

His hands dropped to the flap of buttons on his pants. “Watch me.”

I watched him undress as I’d done in the cavern. If he thought every inch of me was beautiful, then he hadn’t looked in a mirror. All that sun-kissed skin and lean muscle. His scars weren’t flaws. Not even the brand. They were a map of his strength, of what he’d overcome and a reminder that he’d found pieces of himself.

It struck me then how he could find my skin so flawless. He saw what I saw when I looked at him.

And he had since he first saw me without the veil.

Emotion clogged my throat, and I was half-afraid I’d start crying, but then he moved to me. The hard length of his body came over mine. My senses were nearly overwhelmed by the coarse hair of his legs against my skin, the weight and warmth of his body as he settled between my thighs, the feel of his chest brushing mine, and the hardness pressing at the softest part of me.

He curled his hand in my hair, tipping my head back. “You have no idea how long I’ve waited to do this. To be inside you as I take a part of you inside me. To feel you come around my cock while I taste your blood on my tongue. It feels like forever.”

A shudder wracked my body as I drew my legs up over his. He gasped as the motion brought him closer. I wrapped my legs around his hips and lifted mine. We both made a sound then as he entered me just enough to send a wave of shivers up my spine. Casteel’s head dropped to my throat as his fingers tightened in my hair.

“Then why wait any longer?” I asked.

He didn’t.

His fangs pierced my skin at the same moment he thrust forward. I cried out, caught between acute pain and keen pleasure. I couldn’t breathe or move, even as his mouth closed over the punctures, and he drew deeply, his hips rolling against mine.

And then there was no more pain. Just pounding, relentless pleasure that erupted from deep inside me, and he got what he’d wanted at the start. Release powered through me as I gripped his shoulders, breathed his name as he drank from me and moved inside me, and then—

His hand was at my thigh. He lifted his mouth from my neck, his lips glossy and red. He held the dagger, and in a daze, I watched him drag the blade over his chest. Just an inch or two. Blood welled.