Chapter 26 Blood Sharing Temptation
The castle was quieter than usual.
Not silent—Lyrathia’s kingdom was never silent—but hushed. As though the stone itself held its breath. As though the shadows knew something was about to break.
Lyrathia felt it before she heard it.
A pull. A thrum. A whisper of warmth at the edge of her senses.
Kael.
She stood in her private sanctum, a dimly lit chamber lined with obsidian columns where moonlight hardly dared intrude. The scent of blood incense coiled lightly through the air. It should have soothed her. Instead, her pulse—her cursed, dormant pulse—fluttered like a creature waking after centuries of sleep.
“Bring him,” she commanded.
Her voice echoed sharper than she intended.
Moments later, the heavy doors groaned open and Kael stepped inside, escorted by two guards who seemed relieved to retreat the moment she waved them away. He wore simple dark linens, still scuffed at the edges from the previous night’s fight. There was dried blood on his brow from where a challenger had struck him.
It smelled wrong—mortal, but not.
It smelled… sacred.
His gaze met hers. Steady. Stubborn. Always unbowed.
“You summoned me,” he said, low and suspicious.
Her fingers tightened on the armrest of her throne. She did not trust herself to speak immediately—not with that scent filling the chamber, not with her curse aching like a cracked gemstone.
“Yes,” she finally said. “I needed to see the wound.”
Kael touched his brow. “It’s fine.”
“It is not fine.” Her voice knifed through the room, sharper than intended. “Your blood behaves unpredictably. I need to understand what happened.”
“And you couldn’t send a healer?”
“No,” she said, too quickly.
She swallowed.
“Only I can test your blood properly.”
His brows drew together. “Test it… how?”
The chamber felt suddenly too warm.
Lyrathia rose from her throne and stepped down the dais, her long gown trailing like smoke. Every step toward him was a mistake. Every breath dragged in more of that intoxicating mortal scent. By the time she stood before him, her self-control frayed dangerously thin.
He stood tall, refusing to shrink back even as her eyes darkened with hunger.
In three thousand years, no mortal had ever looked at her like that—
not with fear,
not with awe,
not with worship.
But with defiance.
And something she was afraid to name.
“Your blood resisted a vampire’s strike,” she murmured. “That has never happened. I need to know why.”
He swallowed, the movement drawing her gaze to the strong line of his throat. A pulse beat there. Steady. Bold. Tempting.
“You want to taste it.”
He didn’t phrase it as a question.
Her breath stuttered.
Kael’s jaw tightened. “Is that what you brought me for?”
Lyrathia turned away, pacing as though distance could cool her thoughts.
“Vampire blood-sharing is not some trivial test,” she snapped. “It is intimacy. It is power. A single drop fed directly from the source binds. It reveals. It awakens.” She looked over her shoulder at him. “It changes things.”
“Between us?” he asked softly.
Her eyes burned.
“It would destroy my restraint entirely.”
The air thickened, humming with unspoken want.
Kael took a step toward her. “Then why summon me alone?”
Because I can’t stop thinking of you.
Because touching you breaks my curse.
Because your blood calls to me like a song I’ve waited centuries to hear.
She said none of that.
Instead: “Because last night, when you bled, I—” Her throat tightened. “I felt something crack.”
He moved closer. “What did you feel?”
“Nothing,” she snapped. “I felt nothing.”
Lie.
The biggest lie she had spoken in centuries.
Kael’s eyes hardened. “Then why are you shaking?”
Her gaze darted to her own hands.
Damn him.
He had noticed.
She forced her fingers to still, curling them into fists. “Control is… difficult, when blood is involved.”
“Mine,” he said quietly. “Specifically mine.”
She did not answer.
That, apparently, was answer enough.
Kael exhaled slowly, then—recklessly, foolishly—he reached up and wiped the dried blood on his brow with his thumb. The dark, half-coagulated smear glistened under the candles.
Lyrathia’s fangs pressed against her gums.
“Don’t,” she growled.
He extended his hand.
“Isn’t this what you want to test?”
Her vision blurred.
She took a step toward him—hungry, furious, terrified. “You don’t understand what you’re offering.”
“You need my blood,” he said, voice steady despite the hammering of his heart. “Then take it.”
Her breath hitched.
“Kael…”
He stepped closer, closing the space between them until she could feel the heat radiating off him. Mortals always felt warm to her. But Kael felt… scorching. Like fire trapped in flesh.
“Show me what you’re afraid of,” he whispered.
Lyrathia’s control snapped like a frayed thread.
In a blur, she seized his wrist.
Kael inhaled sharply, but he didn’t pull back.
The smear of blood glowed dark and rich against his skin.
She brought his hand up, closer, closer—until she could scent only him.
Until her lips hovered just above the pulse in his wrist.
Until her fangs grazed the faint edge of skin.
Kael’s breath trembled.
So did hers.
A vampire’s first taste of a mortal in ritual proximity was akin to baring one’s soul. It was surrender. It was vulnerability. It was a promise of more.
Lyrathia hadn’t tasted blood like this—not from the living source—since before her curse had smothered her heart.
Her instincts screamed.
Her hunger howled.
Just one taste.
Just a drop.
Just—
She closed her eyes.
Her lips brushed his skin.
Kael exhaled shakily, the sound half a gasp, half a surrender.
Her fangs lengthened.
The point of no return approached like a blade at her throat.
And then—
“No.”
Lyrathia jerked back as though burned.
She stumbled away from him, one hand braced against the column, the other clutching her chest as though she could physically restrain the wild thundering inside.
Kael stood frozen, breathing hard.
“What—? Why—?”
“I almost lost myself,” she whispered. “Your blood… your presence… it’s too much.”
He stepped toward her.
She recoiled.
“Stay back. Don’t come closer.”
“You’re afraid of hurting me?”
“Yes!”
The word tore out of her like a confession.
“Yes, Kael. You don’t understand what your blood does to me. What you do to me.”
His expression softened.
Not pity.
Something warmer.
Something dangerous.
“Then let me understand.”
“You can’t,” she whispered. “You’re mortal.”
He shook his head. “You know I’m not just that.”
She shut her eyes.
The air between them vibrated—something ancient, something forbidden, something she had denied for far too long.
After several long seconds, she forced her voice steady.
“Leave, Kael.”
“Lyrathia—”
“Now.”
The command cracked across the chamber like a whip.
For a moment, she thought he might refuse.
Challenge her.
Step back into her space and finish what she had begun.
But Kael slowly lowered his hand, the one she’d almost bitten, and turned toward the door.
Just before he stepped out, he paused in the doorway.
His voice was low, rough, threaded with something he was only beginning to admit:
“One day, you won’t stop yourself.”
Her breath stalled.
“And when that day comes,” he continued, glancing over his shoulder, “I won’t stop you either.”
The door closed behind him.
Lyrathia stood alone in the dark sanctum, trembling with hunger, with fear…
…and with desire so sharp it bordered on pain.
She stared at her own trembling hands and whispered the truth she could no longer deny:
“I almost tasted the one thing I can never have.”
But the hunger did not fade.
It only grew.
And somewhere in the castle halls, Kael’s heartbeat echoed in her mind—
a rhythm calling her name.