Her lips were stained by the time he took his hand from her. There was a green tint to her face, but she’d ingested his blood. All it took was a little bit. Licking the wound closed took him only a second.
Very good. Now came the hard part.
“Trust me, Alice,” he said. “I love you.” With deliberate slowness, he placed the same hand over her mouth and nose. Eyes meeting hers, he applied pressure until he felt her body stiffen. And then he squeezed a little tighter.
She was so brave, his Alice, as realization sunk in. He knew the moment she understood his intent to control her breathing from the way the fear crept into her face. She tried to hide it and might have from any other person. From him she could hide nothing.
For the first thirty seconds or so—an eternity by whatever measurement he used—Alice remained still. Another ten seconds, and he could feel her begin to pull away. Each time, she brought herself back under forced control, but Bast imagined her lungs were beginning to question why they weren’t receiving a new exchange of air. By the minute mark, he could see her fingers clenching the bedsheets. She lasted another twenty seconds or so before her legs began to thrash.
“I love you... hold on...” His reassurances didn’t calm the frantic clawing that followed, grappling at his forearms, nails scraping his skin. Her hands wrapped around his wrists, pulling with a force he didn’t think she possessed, certain to leave bruises. He understood her body’s desperate attempt to breathe. The will to live overrode any other natural instinct.
Full body weight pressing down on her, he did his best to keep her from hurting him or herself. God, he wanted to look away, to not witness the moment her life ceased to be. Instead, he kept his gaze trained on hers. “Don’t fight it, baby... Almost over.”
She didn’t listen to his words. He didn’t know if she could even hear him. Alice’s body twisted and writhed, her legs kicking at his. She repeatedly threw her head back, trying to dislodge his grip, but Bast held on, knowing that if he stopped, they’d only have to go through it all over again.
His heart lurched when a final flash of pain-confusion-relief flooded Alice’s features. Her eyes looked at his, understanding and accusation mingling within them, before her gaze shifted beyond him. They glazed over, seeing everything and nothing. He kept that mutinous hand in place another heart-rending minute more before lifting it.
Head lowered to her chest, he waited for a beat to announce she hadn’t left him. When none came, no matter how hard he strained, Bast pushed aside the despair and lay next to her. He fought every internal demon and some he didn’t know that existed—every self-doubt and recrimination, every bit of worry about himself as a man, a vampire and now a dragon—and prepared to wait.
It was done.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“But an inheritance from whom?” Sebastian cried. “I don’t understand the secrecy and whispering. Why won’t you tell me about him? How did he acquire all of this? I am a bastard and you are a whore, and those words are truer because you hide him from all of us.”
Aurora Kent kept her gaze on the table, her long, elegant fingers sifting through the gemstones. Her hand remained steady as it drifted through the diamonds, rubies, emeralds and other various stones, some as large as her palm. Others the size of her fingernail.
She separated two brilliant blue stones from the piles. With a slight tremor beneath her words, she said, “Now tell me, of these two, which should be sold and why?”
Her clipped British accent used to soothe him as a child, but now with so many unanswered questions lying between them, Sebastian viewed it as another way to classify their differences. Other than their hair color and an existence based on blood, he was nothing like his mother.
Sebastian stalked toward her and leaned into her space, using his presence to demand she look up and acknowledge him. For God’s sake, just once, he wanted her to treat him like the man he’d become and allow him to face the whisperings of the vampire community with pride, instead of resigned shame. To his frustration, she made him learn about finance, gemstones and a multitude of other tasks and things that couldn’t possibly help him. Not when all of this belonged to him.