Ordinarily, the glyphs were just a shade darker than her own pale skin, but with the intensity of her desire for Zael now, hers were awash in variegated hues of deep indigo, wine, and burnished gold. He traced some of them with his fingers, then bent his head to follow the looping line of one pattern with his tongue.

She hissed at the sensation of it. The warm, wet trail felt like fire on her skin. His touch inflamed her too. Caressing and stroking her breasts, he lifted his mouth to hers again and captured her bottom lip between his teeth. Brynne moaned, pleasure arrowing through her when she felt his tongue teasing the lethal points of her fangs.

It was a brazen thing to do—not only because she was Breed, but because he had no idea how sharp her hunger truly was.

She hadn’t fed in nearly a week. That was skating a thin enough edge in her day to day life, but now, with sexual need coiling around her as well, she was treading dangerous ground.

Zael wasn’t Breed, but he wasn’t human either. Nathan and Jordana had already proven that a blood bond was possible between Breed and Atlantean. The last thing Brynne wanted was to shackle herself to anyone in a bond that could never be broken—and that went double for Zael.

Especially when seeing her feed would show him the hideous secret she kept.

She rocked back on a snarl, tearing her mouth away from his.

Zael must have seen the misery in her eyes. He saw her torment, but he must have mistaken it as doubt. Doubt for what she wanted. Doubt for what she felt about him.

Frowning, he gave a rough shake of his head and took a step back from her.

“If you’re going to say no, Brynne, do it now.” His deep voice rasped, as raw and on edge as she felt. “Because if you let me take this any further with you—”

She didn’t give him the chance to finish. Before he could think for another second that she wanted anything other than the pleasure he was giving her, Brynne closed the scant distance between them. Zael caught her in his arms, and their mouths crashed together in a kiss that obliterated all words and doubts and pretenses.

She wanted him so fiercely, she could hardly stand it. And she needed him inside her.

Her fingers speared into his silky hair, she backed toward the bed and brought him down onto the mattress with her. She was no seductress—far from it—but with Zael she felt powerful, sexy . . . more wanted than she ever had before in her life.

Wanted by an immortal male whose race had despised the forbears of hers for thousands of years.

She and Zael couldn’t have been more different. He was born of light, and she was bred from a terrible darkness. But none of that mattered when Zael was caressing her naked breasts and kissing her as if he wouldn’t ever get enough.

His desire for her didn’t blaze from his irises the way hers did. His smooth, bronzed skin didn’t churn with color-drenched dermaglyphs to betray the depth of his need for her. When his mouth suckled and licked at hers, she didn’t feel the sharp abrasion of fangs.

But Zael was formidable in his need. His large, muscled body pressed her to the mattress beneath him. His fingers slid inside her panties as if he already owned every inch of her. His strokes were possessive, merciless. His thick moan rumbled against her mouth as he delved into her drenched cleft to roll the rough pad of his thumb over her aching clit in a teasing tempo that drove her wild.

Brynne arched her spine and ground her hips shamelessly, helplessly, against the wicked pleasure of his touch on her sensitive flesh. She couldn’t bite back her strangled cry as heat began to coil and spiral through her core.

“You like that,” Zael said. Not a question, but a confident statement of fact. “Tell me you don’t want me to stop, Brynne.”

“Don’t stop.” The words leaked out of her on panted breaths between kisses. It had been so long since she’d known a man’s touch on her. And never with the same need for it that she felt for this man’s touch. “Please, Zael… Don’t stop.”

He gritted a curse against her mouth and yanked her panties off in his fist. Cool air skated across her wet folds, only to be replaced by Zael’s mouth a moment later when he slid down her body and buried his face between her parted thighs.

She had no words now. Only breathless gasps and raw, carnal sounds that should have embarrassed her but only amplified the intensity of her desire.

There was no more teasing in his touch, nor in his kiss.

With long strokes of his tongue and deftly moving fingers, he didn’t ask for her surrender—he demanded it. God help her, but she had to admit here and now that this wanton part of her had been his all along.

Writhing and bucking, she clutched at the coverlet as Zael sucked her clit deeper into his mouth. Pleasure swamped every cell in her body, sending her senses reeling, higher and higher still. She shuddered as the first shockwave of release broke over her.

Brilliant and jagged, her climax tore through her like lightning. She couldn’t stop it, couldn’t hold back her sharp cry of Zael’s name as she bowed up off the mattress with the intensity of her orgasm.

Her hands sought him out blindly, latching onto his hair when he refused to show her any mercy. His mouth and tongue moved over her quivering flesh with ruthless purpose, while his fingers invaded the molten and aching core of her body.

“You’re beautiful,” he murmured, glancing up and catching her watching him between her spread thighs. “I’ve never seen anything as lovely as you, Brynne.”

His praise warmed her, even if she didn’t believe him.

She knew how she must look to him. Her eyes burning hot as coals, pupils as thin as a cat’s. Her glyphs were livid with color now, pulsing like living rivers of changeable, unearthly ink all over her skin. And with every breath that panted in and out of her, she knew there could be no hiding the long white points of her fangs. Fully extended now, they filled her mouth, sharp tips sinking into the flesh of her tongue.

“Beautiful,” he said again, as if he knew she doubted him.

And maybe to prove it—to her or to himself, she wasn’t sure—Zael rose from between her parted legs and slowly pulled off his clothing.

She had seen him half-dressed more than once, enough to be prepared for the naked splendor of his broad shoulders and the sculpted muscles of his chest and abdomen. But he still took her breath away as he stood before her next to the bed, his golden skin looking as smooth and soft as velvet over the sinewy ropes and lean planes of his body.