If it took becoming a vampire to have just this one perfect moment, would he suffer it again?

When he kissed her again, lightly at first, she moaned, "More," against his lips.

He clutched her tightly in his arms, then somehow remembered himself. No, fool... He eased his hold.

At once, her claws bit into the backs of his arms, making him shudder. "Don't hold back. I need more."

She needed more, needed him to give it to her. Because she was... his. When this finally sank in, his shyness burned away. In the course of a heartbeat, he now had a woman of his own. He wanted to roar with triumph. The feel of her claws sinking into him—as if she feared he would get away—was ecstasy. She needs me.

"Kiss me more, vampire. If you stop, I'll kill you."

He couldn't help but grin against her lips. A female threatening him if he should stop kissing her?

So he did, tasting her tongue, teasing it, then claiming her mouth hotly, wetly. He savored the slow undulation of her hips against him, in time with each thrust of his tongue.

He kissed her with all the passion long denied him, with all the hope that had been wrenched from him returning. Weariness of life had just been replaced by purpose—because of her. He let her know how thankful he was... by kissing her until she panted and sagged against him.

Yet he was losing control. Impulses came for him to do things to her body, wicked things, and he knew that soon he would obey them. "I'll always give you more, until I die."

And now, for the first time in three hundred hellish years, Sebastian desperately wanted to live.

3

A s if she'd been hurled down from a great height, all the emotions lost to Kaderin, denied to her for the last millennium, crashed into her. Fear, joy, longing, and an undeniable sexual hunger warred within her—until he stoked her lust hot enough to drown out all other feelings.