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would be
his.

    Every Varkan would know
it.

    With a snarl, he sunk his
fangs deep into her thigh and sucked hard, pulling a mouthful of
her blood and then swallowing down the sweet nectar. She shrieked
and her hands grasped his shoulders, shaking with the pleasure he
could sense in her. He drank deeper, lost in the haze and his need.
One thought pounded his skull as he clung to her legs and held onto
her.

    She was his.

    A loud banging disturbed
his solitude, his moment, and he raised his head. Seven signatures
on the other side of the door. All meat. All dead. He roared at
them, a warning for them to leave before they met their deaths.
They banged again and ordered him to open the door.

    Sophia muttered something,
her eyes closed and face flushed with desire. The scent of it
filled the room, suffused his senses along with that of her blood.
He growled at the thought of their moment being disturbed, at the
thought of those men daring to intrude and interrupt her
pleasure.

    Kneeling on the bed, he
narrowed his eyes on the door.

    He roared.

    “ In the name of
Iskara and the King of Lyra, open up!” several men demanded at
once.

    Addled by the blood, Regis
grinned. He would open up. He grabbed his sword and unsheathed it.
He would open up and then he would open them up.

    He ignored Sophia’s feeble
protest as he left the bed and stalked towards the door, intent on
protecting what was his.

    ****

    Chapter
5

    The weird dizziness and
warmth evaporated in a heartbeat when Sophia realised that Regis
had opened the door. Tall burly armoured guards poured in and she
screamed as she raced to cover her legs and sit up. Regis roared
and she reached out to him. Kneeling on his bed, she could only
watch as he fought the guards, his eyes blazing red and his mouth
bloodied. Her blood. She flinched when he blocked one of the
guards’ blades with his bare arm and it sliced into it. She had
done this to him. She had made him lose control.

    She reached out again,
desperate to speak but unable to find her voice. He ran one guard
through, gutting the man, and roared as he attacked the next. What
had she done? She hadn’t meant for it to turn into this, for it to
go this far.

    Her heart ached when the
guards finally disarmed Regis and piled onto him, pinning him down.
She couldn’t watch as they carried him away, didn’t want to hear
his shouts of protest. Even though he was speaking the old Varkan
language and she couldn’t understand the words, she knew that he
was angry. She could feel his outrage and his hunger.

    Sophia didn’t understand
why he felt those feelings though. Was it because of her? Was he
angry at the disturbance? She had been, at least at first. She sat
in silence in the empty room and lifted her skirt. Her fingers
traced the neat set of red marks on her flesh. They didn’t hurt.
The whole area felt numb. In fact, she felt numb. Her initial anger
at the guards’ arrival and Regis stopping biting her had faded to
guilt and misery.

    She had driven Regis into
biting her and now the guards had probably taken him to the palace
cells. Her father would probably have him killed.

    It was all her fault. She
touched the mark on her thigh again. It had felt so good though.
She had tried to keep quiet but it had been impossible. The wave of
pleasure and sense of connection to Regis had been overwhelming,
sending her out of her mind.

    The door opened and she
covered her leg, smoothing her dress down over it. She frowned when
she saw it was her mother and turned away to stare at the window.
Night was falling. How long had she been sitting here thinking
about what she had done?

    Her mother sat beside her
and placed her hand over hers. It was comforting, warm, and made
tears fill her eyes as she felt she no longer had to be strong. Her
mother would understand. Her mother would never be angry with her,
not about anything, and certainly not about something concerning
love.

    Sophia sighed. She had
been such a fool and