Découvrir (verb) to discover

An unexpected gust of cold wind howled through the tent.

I closed my book and rose to my elbow, causing one of the heavy furs I was cuddled beneath to slip off my shoulder. I hadn't anticipated Bastien back this late from his council meeting.

"Bastien?" I called, anticipation tightening in my belly.

All week, I'd been doing my best to get closer to the vampire prince. Modeling my efforts after my sister, and how she would speak to potential suitors. Laughing and sharing stories.

So every night, after camp was made and he'd finished his council meetings, I'd engage him in conversation, and we'd stay up late talking about the types of plants he grew in the greenhouses at Chateau Rose.

My love of flowers and working in the dirt and his love of science intersected, and I found I could talk to him for hours about how he managed to grow anything that far north.

Last night, he'd sat beside me and sketched out his glass greenhouse, telling me how difficult it was to lay each massive pane of glass. I hung on each word, impressed with his dedication to growing food and herbs for the surrounding villages and his human staff, even though he ate none.

"It sounds like a lot of work," I'd said, meeting his ice blue eyes, which held a measure of warmth I hadn't seen before. Like the sky over an ocean on a clear summer day.

"It was," he replied. Canting his head to one side and ever so carefully pushing a stray strand of hair away from my face. My cheeks heated at his touch. "But," he said softly, "I'm not afraid of hard work. Especially when the result is something that could last forever."

His words opened a chasm in my chest, and I swore he wasn't talking about a greenhouse anymore, but about something else. Something that I didn't quite understand but that I felt in my bones.

The ghost of a kiss we only shared in my dreams warmed my lips, causing my breath to stutter.

"You want to say something," Bastien said. Leaning in an inch.

I ached to close the distance between his lips and mine. Was desperate to curl his long hair around my fingers and pull him closer against my body. To devour him. To let him devour me. Bite by bite until my eyes rolled back and my body shuddered, and he finally showed me what it meant to be wanted. To feel feminine in his arms—powerful and delicate at the same time.

Even though I'd decided to woo him into trusting me, I couldn't make the words come out of my mouth, or force my body to close that small distance between us. It was hard to reconcile what I'd grown up understanding about his kind with the things he said and did.

Bastien was forcing me to see him for who he was, day after day, and it was all confusing. Especially with the heady way his presence affected me. Maybe I could try again tomorrow, even though waiting felt impossible.

"I think I'm ready for bed," I said, the words nothing more than a whisper.

The vampire prince pressed his lips together, nodding once, then set aside his sketchpad and graphite and scooped me up in his arms like he had the first night we'd met.

Surprised, I gasped, wrapping my arms around his neck to steady myself.

Our eyes connected, and my mouth softened for him. I knew if he took charge and kissed me now, I wouldn't stop him. I'd fold like a house of cards. Desire and anticipation had my skin tingling with need.

But I knew he wouldn't.

It wasn't my kiss that he wanted, after all. It was my body he needed. My blood. That's why I was here. Not to be his concubine, but his vassal.

Gently, he laid me on the pile of furs that served as my camp bed. My hands reluctantly left his neck, gliding down his shoulders and grazing his chest before tucking them back at my sides.

He stared at me for a long moment as I laid there.

His hungry gaze trailed over the swell of my breasts, continuing down to my navel. Down, further still. Lingering around the place where my sleeping shift had ridden up, and my thighs were bare.

I guessed what he wanted. And if truth be told, I wanted it too. Without looking away, I spread my legs apart, watching him as he watched me, then dragged the hem up further, revealing more of myself to him, including the soft cotton undergarments covering my damp sex.

I was so needy for him. So vulnerable. Spread open wide and exposed. Ready to be licked and kissed and nipped at in the only way I'd ever been.

"Eat, my lord," I said in a thick voice I almost didn't recognize. Spreading my legs wider, ready for him to crawl between them and drink from me as we'd done every other night in this twisted, dark exchange I'd come to thirst for as much as he. "I don't want you to go hungry."

Bastien grabbed my wrist, stopping me from pulling my shift up around my hips. My eyes grew wide with surprise.

"No," he said sharply, even though the shadows under his eyes had appeared, and his transformation was imminent. He drew a measured breath and released his grip on me, then said, "I mean, not tonight. I've kept you up too late."

His denial stung more than I thought it would.

My body ached for him, for his touch. And it didn't like being told no. I didn't like being told no. Maybe I hadn't been doing a good job wooing him. Maybe I should've just kissed him.

A million thoughts tumbled inside my head, all of them screaming at me for being a failure.

He covered me in furs and sat beside the bed reading. Leaving me alone and frustrated. I turned away from him. When the anger and shame inside me finally let me sleep, I closed my eyes and curled beneath the thick furs like I was retreating into a cocoon.

My sleep was fitful. Marred by dreams that felt too real. Of kisses. Of hands pressed into the bedsheets. Of that hardness between his legs pressed against my soft middle.

I awoke the next morning feeling shameful and dedicating myself to not chickening out tonight. I needed more information, and I hadn't learned anything of value yet. It was time to take things to the next level.

Another gust of wind blew through the tent, bringing me back to the present, and I sat fully up, holding the furs against my chest.

"Bastien?" I called again, wondering what was taking him so long to come back here and see me.

I'd done something wicked tonight to plant the idea of greater intimacy in his head and was interested to see how he would take it. But no one answered my call.

I frowned. Had he gotten sick of me? Had he found another's tent to warm him? What if he was there right now?

The thought extinguished the desire twisting inside of me with cold water. It would make sense. I was just his sanguine partner, and it wasn't my job to see to any of his other needs.

Maybe my plan to woo him had been stupid.

Jealousy sprouted in my stomach, and suddenly I didn't want to be sitting here. I forced myself to leave the warmth of the bed, wrapping my arms around my middle as I strolled through the massive, multiroom tent, only to find the tie had come loose, which had caused the draft.

When I went to refasten it, I saw Bastien's nephew, Tyson, staring at me. He looked resplendent in a royal blue suit with gold stitching. His dark hair pulled back, and his bronze skin shone under the glow of the moon. Which was almost full.

He ran a thumb across his lower lip, then made his way over to where I stood.

I braced myself, unsure what to expect. The last few days Bastien had allowed him and Okeri to ride with the guard, and we hadn't said much to each other except to exchange pleasantries.

"Good evening," the vampire said, bowing at the neck.

I curtsied politely, giving him the honors he was due as a prince, but I felt uneasy speaking to him alone.

"I couldn't help but hear you calling for my uncle."

I closed the folds of my robe as tendrils of embarrassed heat raced up my neck.

Tyson offered me a charming smile then he tapped the side of his ear. "Us vampires have very good hearing, as I'm sure you know. A blessing and a curse, if truth be told," he said with a chuckle. "Especially in a camp this small." He pursed his lips and leaned conspiratorily in. "Be grateful for the limits of your mortal hearing, if you catch my drift."

"Oh," I said as the heat crept into my cheeks. I wondered just how good his hearing was. If it was good enough to overhear my moans when Bastien fed from me. Or of our whispered conversations in the dark.

I seriously hoped not.

"Is there something you wanted? From my uncle that is?" Tyson asked, and I couldn't tell if he was fishing for information or trying to be helpful.

Despite his bellyaching, Bastien hadn't allowed him to attend council meetings. He'd said his opinion wasn't needed until he'd stepped foot in the chateau.

I considered him with a wary eye, knowing that if his hearing was as good as he boasted, he'd know things I couldn't. Maybe forming an alliance with the young vampire wasn't a bad idea. Especially if he thought I could help him get into Bastien's good graces.

"That is very kind of you to ask, my lord." The winter chill had me shivering, and Tyson unfastened his royal blue cloak and offered it to me. I accepted it hesitantly, setting it over my shoulders and sighing into the warmth it provided. "I was just wondering if the council meeting let out yet."

Tyson raised a mischievous eyebrow, and a smirk settled on his face. "It has."

That jealous snake in my stomach started writhing once again, and I looked over Tyson's shoulder, hoping to see a hulking, stoic blond vampire stalking through the night, making his way toward me, but he wasn't.

Tyson leaned in closer and lifted a hand to his mouth, inviting me in for whatever secret he wanted to tell. Nervously, I did. Allowing him to whisper in my ear. "My uncle has secluded himself in a feeding tent. Just over there."

I didn't know what that was supposed to mean. Why would he be in a feeding tent? We had our own tent that we'd been making good use of the whole time. I didn't even know such a thing existed.

"Should I—"

"Join him?" Tyson offered, finishing my sentence.

I nodded.

He lifted a shoulder, feigning indifference. "If I were my uncle, I'd very much like to see you. But, alas," he said with a sigh, "I am not him, as he constantly reminds me, and therefore cannot give you very good advice."

I wasn't sure what that was supposed to mean, but the sudden urge to find Bastien overtook every other thought in my head. He hadn't fed from me last night, and I wondered why he hadn't come to me to satisfy himself tonight.

I reached for my gloves, which were just inside the tent, and slid my hands into the fur-lining, then laced up my boots. The younger vampire stepped out of my way as I left the warmth of the tent and shivered again.

Despite the chill, the heat generated by the jealousy twisting in my stomach was enough to keep me warm.

"Where is this feeding tent?" I asked Tyson.

He bit the edge of his lip before pointing to a small clustering of tents closer to the edge of camp.

Hugging my arms to my chest, I thanked him, then stormed off. Not caring if Bastien and his excellent hearing heard my approach as I crunched through the thin layer of snow. If he was feeding from another or...or doing other things, he could be just as embarrassed as I was.

Two of the tents had the curtains drawn, and with halting steps, I peered through the flaps of the closest one, but immediately backed away when I saw a vampire from Bastien's guard feeding from his sanguine partner—a man named Bo with pale skin and dark hair. Both of them shirtless.

My gaze landed on the line of crimson that dripped down Bo's neck, and dizziness had me unsteady on my feet. I knew the same thing happened to me, that I also bled for a vampire, but because of Bastien's technique, I hadn't been forced to see what it looked like.

I backed away, breathing shallow, and hesitated as my eyes narrowed on the other occupied tent. If he was feeding from someone else, I'd have to see the same thing, and chances were I'd pass out in the snow.

Did I want to risk it? Knowing what could happen?

I curled my hands into fists and made my way over to the tent, answering my own question with action. My breaths became shorter the closer I got, until I felt like I might pass out before I even looked inside the tent, and Bastien and his woman would have to step over me as they left.

Forcing myself to verify my worst suspicions, and satisfy the voice in my head that was telling me I was a complete and utter failure, I peered through the closed flap, and had to hold my breath at what I saw.

Bastien. Naked from the waist down. Sitting on a cushion. Fisting the hard length of flesh between his legs.

It was the most decadent thing I'd ever seen.

He wasn't with anyone, and he certainly wasn't feeding.

He was...well, I didn't know what he was doing. The act looked intimate, and he clearly didn't want to do it around me, but the sight of him doing whatever it was made my feminine muscles clench with desire.

The look on his face was tortured, with his jaw clenched and his brows furrowed, but I was struggling to look away from the action of his hand. Massaging himself up and down in a fevered way. Like he was chasing something.

Something I wanted to chase, too.

And then he said my name, and everything inside of me tightened. Every nerve in my body standing on edge. I gripped the tent flaps to steady myself, thankful that his eyes were closed and he was completely absorbed.

"Claire," he whispered, pumping himself harder. Spreading his legs wider. "I'm going to cum so deep inside you," he said through clenched teeth. "I'm going to give you all of me."

With those words ringing in my ears, Bastien moaned, and ropey lines of liquid shot from him.

I couldn't look away. Transfixed with what he'd said and what he was doing. Working himself up and down with his big hand, my name still on his lips, until his strokes slowed, and he was completely spent.

I told myself to leave, to go back to the tent, but I was frozen in place. Chest heaving. Body trembling. The ache between my thighs pulsing.

There was no where else I wanted to be.

Then he opened his eyes, and his gaze connected directly with mine.

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Who says Bastien says nothing and answers none of her questions?

Who says he doesn't?

Who says he's more concerned about why she's wearing Tyson's cloak?

🙃

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