She wonders if his predatory senses can see how her blood pulses in her veins, fluttering in her throat like a caged bird – and its only form of escape was into his waiting mouth.
She is afraid, but not the way she should be. He could kill her if he wanted; she knows. He could sink his teeth into the softness of her flesh, he could tear her open with his claws and there is nothing she could do to stop him. It wouldn’t matter how prettily she begged, because it doesn’t work on men like him – she knows, because she has tried.
But, foolishly, she doesn’t think he will kill her. It’s not out of trust, because she doesn’t trust anyone, least of all him. She just doesn’t think that that is the game they are playing.
She’s been wrong before, though.
The sharpness of his teeth puncture the bruised skin near her wing and she bites back a cry, leading it to sound more like a strangled gasp in her throat. She can feel the warmth of the blood as it once more trickles down her side, the bright red of it a startling contrast against her porcelain-white skin. When he presses his mouth to her cheek, and her throat, and she feels the wetness of her own blood on his lips, it incites a shiver that races the ridge of her spine. She doesn’t understand why the wound on her side makes her blood tingle with a strange sort of electricity, a knowing sort of hum as though it was trying to lead her to an answer. She doesn’t realize she could knit the skin back together and all but erase the pain, but it’s unlikely it would even matter – nothing says she would actually do it, anyway.
“Atrox,” his name is spoken on a whisper, and for a moment her lips touch against his neck.
She always think she’s going to feel a pulse, always expects to find a steady rhythm beneath his rich, black skin, and when she is reminded there is nothing there her heart always drops, for him. “You play a dangerous game,” is all she says, with that tranquil smile still woven across her lips. He’s not the one playing the dangerous game, she already knows this. It’s the angelic-looking woman with red streaked across her body, standing far too close to the man with her own blood smeared across his lips that is in danger.
