The Blood Gospel (Page 118)

If I do not try, then the Belial will have already won.

She tilted her head, lowered her throat to his mouth.

Her blood pattered onto his lips.

He groaned deep in his throat, but this time he did not turn away.

Erin’s heart raced. She was still animal enough to want to run away—but in the end she wasn’t an animal. She remained steadfast, her mind flashing to Daniel entering the lion’s den.

I can do this.

Shifting her gaze, she forced herself to look at Rhun. His eyes grew alert, as if those few drops of blood had revived him.

He ran his tongue over his lips and swallowed. He took her by the shoulders and gently pulled her down.

She tensed, knowing she could still stop him in his weakened state. Her body continued to scream for her to flee. Instead, she took a deep breath and gave in to her faith.

Rhun shifted, laying her down on the stone floor beside him while he raised up on one elbow, a question glowing in his dark eyes.

She trembled from her bones outward.

“Erin.” He lingered on the n at the end of her name. “No. Not even for this price.”

She pleaded, “I can’t catch Bathory and the grimwolf. Only you can save the Gospel.”

She read defeat in his eyes, knew he could not fault her logic.

“But—”

“I know the consequences,” she said, repeating the same words she’d spoken before climbing down into the fissure in Masada. These were the consequences. “You must do it.”

His lips slowly lowered toward her, his face softened by tenderness. She marveled at his expression.

Still, he stopped. “No … not you …”

“It serves your vows.” She clenched her hands into fists. She thought of all those lives that would be destroyed if either of them balked from this act of duty. “The book is more important than the rules.”

“I understand … were you someone else, perhaps. But.” He tightened his hand on her shoulder. “I can’t feed on you.”

She stared into his face, seeing what was hidden behind that collar, behind those hidden fangs—a man.

He stroked strands of hair off her face, his fingers cold but very gentle, his hand cupping her cheek.

She had no words to convince him to break his vows as a priest.

She had no actions that would stir his bloodlust as a Sanguinist.

She had only one recourse.

To treat him as a man.

And she a woman.

She lifted her head from the stone, her eyes fixed on Rhun’s dark ones. She read the sudden flash of fear in their depths. He was as frightened as she was, perhaps even more. She ran her fingers through his thick hair, drew his mouth to hers. Rhun closed his eyes, and she kissed him. His cold lips brought the taste of blood into her mouth.

As she drew him to her, she felt the last of his resistance give way—the hardness in his lips softening and letting her come closer. His mouth parted, as did hers, as natural as a flower opening at dawn.

He shifted farther over her, his weight settling on top of her.

He should have been cold, but the heat in her was enough to warm both of them.

Her tongue found his, encouraging him. He moaned between their lips—or maybe the sound came from her. She felt the slow push of sharpness within his mouth, like a gate closing against her, but she held fast. Her tongue reached, punctured so sweetly on a point as sharp as a thorn.

Her blood welled, filling both their mouths.

But rather than tasting iron and fear, her senses burst with the essence of her life, a sweetness and burning heat that swept aside all fear. She could almost taste her own divinity—and she wanted more.

She pulled him tighter.

He clung to her, with the promise of cold iron and ecstasy.

The intensity of the sensation stunned her. Her body could not hold it, arching under him, with the rapture of life coursing between them, quick and rhythmic as her heartbeat.

He lifted his lips from hers, exquisitely close but not touching. Even such a slight distance left her feeling an aching emptiness. He moaned as if he felt it, too. His breath whispered across her lips.

He stared down, his eyes larger and darker than she’d ever seen them, offering glimmers of what lay beyond the grave.

Rather than feeling fear, she glowed against that darkness with the blaze of her own light, with the heat of her body.

She arched her neck, offered him her throat, daring him to drink from that blazing font—desiring it with every fiber of her being.

He took it.

A prick of fangs, testing—then plunging deep.

Heat flowed out of her, warming those cold lips at her throat.

She writhed beneath him, opening herself to the pleasure. Darkness closed around the edges of her vision. With each pulse, he swallowed her into his body.

Ecstasy filled those empty spaces between her heartbeats. Shatteringly fast at first as her body gave itself over to pure sensation. Then time slowed, and the pleasure expanded and grew even more intense. She waited for her heart to stop so that she could dwell in that feeling forever. Nothing else mattered.

Only bliss.

Then slowly, a soft light surrounded her, enveloped her—along with a love unlike any she had ever known. Here was the love she had wanted from her mother, from her father, from a baby sister who never had a chance to grow.

Somewhere far back, Erin knew she was dying—and she was so grateful for it.

She breathed in that light, as if taking her first breath.

Then she saw them.

Her mother stood in the tunnel of light. A little girl stood next to her. Emma. She had her baby quilt slung over her arm, the missing corner facing Erin. Her father stood behind them wearing his old red flannel shirt and jeans, as if he had just come back from the stable. He raised his arm and beckoned to her to join them. For the first time in many years, she felt no anger when she saw him, only love.

She reached her arms toward them all. Her father smiled, and she smiled back. She forgave him—and herself.

He had been bound by his faith, she by her logic.

At this moment they were beyond both.

Then that innocent light fractured.

And cold darkness rushed in.

She opened her eyelids. Rhun had pulled away from her. He rolled off of her and leaned against the wall, shaking. With the back of his hand, he wiped his mouth. Wiping away blood.

Her blood.

Her eyelids drifted closed, feeling a sting of rejection.

“Erin?” His chill fingertips brushed her cheek.

She trembled from cold and loneliness, consumed by the ache of all that she had lost.

“Erin.” Rhun lifted her into his lap and rocked her, his hands stroking through her hair, running along her back.