Authors: Lara Adrian

Shades of Midnight (32 page)

“It doesn’t matter to me,” she murmured. “All that matters is that we are together now. I want you forever, Kade. I want …” The words trailed off, not out of fear or uncertainty, but out of the depth of her longing. She turned her head to look at him. “All I want is you, to be bonded to you as your mate.”

“And all I want is to make you happy, and to know that you are safe and protected.”

“I am. There’s nowhere I could be happier—or more secure—than here in your arms.” She caressed his handsome face, seeing the torment that still lingered in his expression. The measure of self-doubt that hadn’t quite faded from his eyes, and might never fully disappear. “Together we are strong, Kade. Stronger than the wildness inside you. You heard what your father said: Love is the greatest strength. Nothing is more powerful than that.”

“You really believe that?”

“More than anything,” she replied. “But the question is, do you?”

He stared at her for a long moment, his silver eyes searching. “So long as I have you beside me, I can believe that anything is possible. I love you, Alexandra. You are everything to me.”

He brought her closer and kissed her—the most tender, reverent kiss she had ever known. Alex melted into him, her body responding in a fluid rush of warmth that pooled in her core. She tipped her head back as his mouth traveled down the line of her jaw, to the side of her throat.

Kade reared his head back on a growl. He stared at her, his eyes blazing with amber sparks, his fangs glowing white. Already he was panting with need, fierce with hunger for her.

He scowled, dark emotions tossing in the depths of his silver eyes. “Forever?”

“Forever, Kade.” She let her fingers drift over his sensual mouth, where the points of his fangs glinted behind his parted lips. “Bind me to you now. I want to taste you. I want to have forever with you.”

On a deep growl, his gaze locked on hers, he brought his wrist up to his mouth. He parted his lips, then sank his fangs into the flesh and muscle. Blood dripped from the punctures and down his chin. Tentative, he held his arm out to her.

Alex took him in her hands and brought his wrist to her lips.

The first taste of him was a shock. She didn’t know what she’d expected, but none of her imaginings had prepared her for the reality of drinking from Kade. His blood was a sweetness that rolled over her tongue, a stunning wildness that stole her breath. She drank in the scent of his skin and the earthy spice of his blood as she drew from his open vein.

Power surged through her like lightning.

Kade groaned with pleasure and she drank more, greedy now, desire pulsing through every nerve ending and making all of her senses come vividly to life. Heat roared deep inside her, and she whimpered as the first wave of orgasm rose up on her and swept her away.

Kade’s growl was purely male, purely triumphant.

Alex was still riding the crest of rapture as he licked the wound at his wrist, then spread her body, opening her thighs to the searing heat of his hungry gaze.

“You are mine now, Alex. God help you, you are mine forever now.”

“Then show me,” she whispered, her voice roughened from pleasure. She swept her tongue along her lips, savoring every last taste of him on her mouth. She tipped her head to the side, presenting her throat to him. “Show me that I will always belong to you, Kade.”

His lip curled away from his fangs, which shone as sharp and pristine as diamonds in the dim light of the aurora dancing in the distance outside the cabin. Alex took in the savage beauty of his face, feeling nothing close to fear when she looked at him now.

He was her heart, her lover, her mate.

Her everything.

“Love me, Kade,” she murmured.

“Forever,” he replied.

Then, with a groan of pleasure and surrender, he bent his head and sank his bite deep into her flesh and showed her just how pleasurable their forever was going to be.

Thirsty for more?

Don’t miss the next novel in Lara’s
hot and thrilling
Midnight Breed series

Taken by Midnight

Taken by
Midnight

BY
LARA ADRIAN

Coming from Dell in Fall 2010

Shades of Midnight
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

A Dell Mass Market Original

Published in the United States by Dell, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

Dell is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

eISBN: 978-0-440-33919-9

www.bantamdell.com

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