He shook his head. "I don't know. You're the first."
She glanced up at him, a small frown creasing her brow. He could see the surprise register behind the blood-induced lust that filled her gaze. A quiet cry slipped past her lips and then she was moving toward him without any hesitation, her hands coming up to frame his face.
She kissed him, long and hard and deep.
"Touch me, Nikolai," she murmured against his mouth.
It was as much a demand as the urgent press of her lips on his, her tongue pushing past his teeth. Niko ran his hands all over her naked skin, meeting her kiss thrust for thrust, his body as hungry as hers was, and he couldn't blame his ferocious need on the natural response of a blood bond. His hunger for Renata was something else completely, although just as consuming.
Greedily, he reached back down to the haven of her sex. This time, he couldn't play at touching her, not when her scent was intoxicating him as much as the heated silk of her core was driving him mad. He stroked her wet folds, cleaving them with his fingers and spreading her open to him like a flower. She arched up to meet him as he penetrated her with first one finger, then another. He filled her, reveling in the tight clench of her body, the subtle ripples of her tight inner muscles as he stroked and teased her toward climax.
He was so engrossed in her pleasure that he hardly noticed her hands were moving until he felt her tugging at the drawstring of his pants. He hissed when she slipped underneath the waistband and found his stiff cock. She palmed the head of him, slicking her fingers with the drop of fluid that beaded there, then torturing him with a slow, steady stroke of her hand down the length of his shaft.
"You want me too," she said, not quite a question when the answer was overflowing her hand.
"Oh, yes," Niko answered anyway. "Hell yes...I want you, Renata."
She smiled hungrily and pushed him down onto his back on the bed. She inched his pants down off his hips, but they only made it as far as his knees. With his thick erection jutting up like a proud soldier, Nikolai watched enthralled as Renata climbed over and straddled him. He knew better than to expect any bit of coyness or hesitation. She was bold and unstoppable, and he'd never been more glad of anything in his life. Her eyes locked unflinchingly on his, Renata sank down onto his cock in a long, slow slide.
Good Christ, she felt incredible on him. So hot and tight, so damn wet.
He told himself it was only the aftershock of the blood bond making her this wanton, that she would be reacting this way to any Breed male who fed her. It was just a physical reaction, like tinder igniting when held too close to a flame. Her awareness of him right now was probably subconscious at best - she had an itch and he was the scratch she needed, plain and simple. Fine by him. It didn't need to be anything more complicated, and he wasn't idiot enough to want it to be. This sex between them right now wasn't personal, and Niko told himself he was good with that.>"I'm not going to let anything happen to Mira," he said, forcing her to hold his intense gaze. "You have my word on that. I'm not going to let anything happen to you either, which is why I'm going to get you medical care for your shoulder as soon as the sun sets tonight."
"What?" She tried to raise up and winced from the sharp stab of pain. "I'll be fine. I don't need a doctor - "
"You're not fine, Renata. You're getting worse by the hour." His expression was grave as he looked from the searing wound in her shoulder back to her eyes. "You can't continue like this."
"I'll survive," she insisted. "I'm not about to quit now, when Mira's life is on the line."
"Your life is on the line too. Do you understand?" He shook his head and muttered something dark and nasty under his breath. "You could die if this wound doesn't get treated. I won't let that happen, so that means you have a date with the nearest emergency room tonight."
"What about blood?" She watched as every muscle in Nikolai's body seemed to tense up the moment the words left her lips. "What about it?" he asked, his voice wooden, unreadable.
"You asked me earlier if I'd ever taken Sergei's blood. Would I be healed now if I had?"
He lifted his shoulder in a vague shrug, but the tension in his big body remained. When he lifted his gaze to hers, there were flashes of amber burning into the wintry blue of his irises. His pupils were thinning by fractions as he stared at her. "Would I be healed now if you gave me your blood, Nikolai?"
"Are you asking me for it?"
"If I were, would you give it to me?"
He exhaled sharply, and when his lips parted to draw another breath, Renata saw the sharp points of his fangs. "It's not as simple a question as you might think," he replied, a rough edge to his voice. "You will be bonded to me. The same way Yakut was linked to you through your blood, you will be linked to me. You'll feel me in your blood. You will be aware of me always, and it can't be undone, Renata - not even if you drink from another Breed male down the line. Our bond will trump any others. It can't be broken, not until one of us is dead."
This was no small thing; she understood that. Hell, she could hardly believe she was considering it at all. But deep down, crazy as it might be, she trusted Nikolai. And she truly didn't care about the cost to herself. "If we do this, will I be well enough to walk out of here tonight and search for Mira?"
His jaw was clamped tight enough to make a muscle jerk in his cheek. He stared at her, his features going more feral by the moment. Bit by bit, the blue of his eyes was engulfed by a fiery glow.
When it didn't seem like he would answer her, Renata reached out and laid her hand firmly on his arm. "Will your blood heal me, Nikolai?"
"Yes," he said, the word sounding strangled in his throat.
"Then I want to do this."
As he held her gaze in an intense silence, she thought about all the times Sergei Yakut had fed from her veins, how degraded and used she'd felt...how revolted she'd been by the idea that her blood was nourishing such a cruel, monstrous being. She would never have considered taking any part of him into herself, not even if it had been a matter of her own survival. It would have killed a piece of her soul to willingly put her mouth on Yakut's body. To drink from him? She wasn't even sure that her love for Mira could have overcome something as vile as that.
But Nikolai wasn't a monster. He was honorable and just. He was tender and protective, a male who was feeling more and more a partner to her the farther they traveled down this uncertain road. He was her best ally right now. Her brightest hope of retrieving Mira.
And deeper still, in a place that was all woman, with needs and wants she hardly dared to examine too closely, she craved a taste of Nikolai. She craved that more than she had a right to.