Excerpt

          The crashing of bootsteps quickly ascending a stair and growing closer sends thunder into my chest and leaves me sprawling awake, limbs kicking and fingers clinging to the bedsheets as fear shows me an image of Ashair’s enraged, furious face. 
          I have only a moment to take in the open doorway and dark stairs beyond before Kour’s shape emerges. Somehow, the sight of him does nothing to settle my nerves. The only times I’d ever glimpse his visage, those lean clothes and braided hair and gleaming leather gloves, was when…
          The gloves make a crisp sound as she snaps his fingers, not slowing when he enters the little room and coming straight to my bedside. I’m stumbling out the start of a few questions as he reaches for my wrists and gives them instructional tugs upward. “I do hate to rouse you in such a disgraceful way, but I’ve got a summons burning at the back of my brain.” 
          Kour helps me swiftly find my feet, then glides his leather grip across my jawline and I hear the distinct whistle of a dagger being unsheathed. He gives me a moment to inhale and blink myself a little more awake, speaking softly now, “The reaper comes calling, little mouse. Time to collect the harvest. Stay still for me now, love--” 
          The metal kisses and bites across the meat of my shoulder without any further deliberation, leaving my throat to crackle in surprised pain. My hands dance and search for a way to wiggle out from underneath him, my chest angling away, but the press of his knife cares not for my weak struggles. 
          Cold dagger is replaced with warm lips, a breath of a moan, and the pass of a tongue across my sore wound. I feel it prod against the small opening, lancing little jabs of pain into my neck and back. My throat ekes out little complaints at every subtle movement of his mouth across me, opening the cut and drinking down the slow-spilling blood. I notice my hand has gripped his when the leather of his thumb bumps into my palm, retreating then returning again as he calmly strokes my cheek. 
          The vile sounds of urgent suckling break away as he breathes out, panting across my neck for the space of a few seconds and almost nuzzling against the turn of my jaw. Another breath, his free hand setting itself across the back of my shoulder and delicately tugging the little wound open despite my soft wince of discomfort, and his warmth lavishes against my skin once again. 
          Blood rushes through my chest as my body works to try and plug up the injury. All the rushing pulses through my brain and down into my fingertips too, my grip on his hand tightening and free hand coming away from my own chest to hold onto the turn of his strong shoulder. What charms he’s possessing me with, I haven’t the clarity to discern. But the pain and pleasure is overwhelming to my senses, muting everything beyond the contact of our skin. The doting attention of his tongue, the spread of warm and wet across my neck, even the pressure own bated breaths turns the winces of pain into heated sighs of something else, something quite carnal, my body no longer retreating from the injury and the man who caused it but instead starting to writhe with a very different sort of vigor and--
          Cold bites at my neck again as his presence backs away a pair of steps, a mess of crimson across his tongue as he licks at his lips and paints them red. Then, a twitch of a smirk. “Good little mouse. Adren kho vans mel dior.”
          A veil of ash and smoke winds around him as though caught in a breeze, shrouding his form and then disappearing within the space of a few short moments. 
          I watch the last specs of smoke flit through the air and fade, glancing around the empty room as though I needed to confirm he’s really gone. Even if he’d just used invisibility, I wouldn’t be able to notice the difference anyway. 
          A hand on my shoulder, I take a breath with my eyes closed and blindly walk to the basin in the corner. Fingers spread, I trace the tips across the bottom of the wide bowl and feel a slight brush of lightheadedness as I pull water into existence. I only have the focus to make a shallow puddle, but it’s enough to dip a flat palm into and start washing my torn, sore, warm neck.