Bitten Surrender Read Online Free PDF Page B

didn’t flinch.
    “Young lady.” Jerome nodded toward Hanzi’s bride. “I think my friend gave you instructions. Follow them. Immediately.”
    He heard Adrienne’s sharp intake of breath. Anyone with half a brain wouldn’t have missed the change in Jerome’s manner. Hanzi closed his eyes and let the warm, metallic lifeblood fill his mouth. He swallowed slowly, forcing his need to cool.
    Blood. It always came back to blood. How did he ever manage to fool himself into thinking he was civilized?
    The click of the door told him she had finally obeyed. He opened his eyes to meet his friend’s steady gaze.
    “The need happened fast. I don’t think the others are as invested as you yet.”
    Ambrus and Feri were also here. He’d felt their presence as a pounding in his head when he’d arrived. The two were also meeting their destined brides. Feri and he had once had a feud which lasted a hundred years. Hanzi had a hard time remembering what it was all about. Too many nights, too many battles....
    If he stopped feeding, and he needed to soon, since Jerome couldn’t produce forever, he would tell him it had been the bacon. What had possessed him to do such a thing? It was too visceral. He was a man, but for a brief second it was as if he had stepped back in time, to the days when he’d been truly alive. The dream of providing for a wife, filling her stomach, giving her whatever he managed to make her happy.
    So of course the blood need had risen.
    He pulled back. “Thank you.”
    Jerome nodded; the punctures in his wrist would close within seconds.
    “Better?”
    “Yes.” Sort of. Nothing would satisfy his blood need because he wanted Adrienne. His promise not forgotten, he grabbed his coat. Hanzi never felt the cold, but to blend in with humans he had to dress the part.
    His friend rolled his eyes. “Liar.”
    The door swung open, and Adrienne returned to his line of vision. What was she doing? Did she have no sense of self-preservation? She said she wanted not to be forced. Why did she have to torment his resolve?
    “Don’t leave.” She looked unsure, not holding his eye contact, studying the floor. What had changed?
    “You have proof of what I am, although I imagine with your upbringing you’ve always known. I cannot hold back the beast forever. Jerome here will not be able to stop my craving for you. The more I am with you, the stronger my need to feed will be. When I do, it will be pleasurable for you. The more we give in to the urge, the more of my own saliva will enter your system. Time and again, until you are consumed by it. As you said, it will kill you. It will make you want me.”
    He understood more about his compulsive force than he ever had before. Everything was so much clearer. They never fed from the same human—with the exception of Jerome—without giving the human two weeks rest in between, the time it took for the human’s body to fight back the vampire cells.
    He had to finish. “I haven’t changed a human in a century. I will not be able to stop myself with you.”
    “Hanzi.” She raised her wrist. “When your fangs erupted, it should have been frightening.”
    Yes, he imagined it would be. He’d not known monsters existed until he had become one. Lucky for him, he’d never seen anything more frightening than himself in the dark. He was the thing to scare all other fears away.
    She swallowed, drawing his gaze to her pulse. “Only it wasn’t. The mark on my wrist started to burn. I wanted you. I don’t think I can stand it if you go.”
    Jerome stepped back. “Never ceases to amaze me—the pull.”
    His fangs wanted to descend again. In a matter of seconds, Adrienne had become bathed in white light, the angel she was. And Jerome stood too close to her. It wouldn’t take much aggression to make him want to rip out his friend’s throat.
    “It’s not real.” Hanzi hated himself for saying what he did. “When I leave, it will pass.”
    His friend paused at the door. “Are