Free Blood Wild: Paranormal MMF Menage Romance (Wolves on the Prowl Book 3) by Michele Bardsley Page B

why. Cav’s psychic abilities were strong enough to protect him.
    “I’ve been off my game,” he said suddenly.
    Once again, Adrianna found herself off-balance. She’d expected him to interrogate her, but instead his tone was confessional.
    “Tired, unfocused, weak. But I still managed to follow you home. It was easy to sneak into your nest. Your wolf is a mental pushover.”
    “You entranced Rolf?” Her guardian was huge, vicious and fiercely loyal. And yet, Cav had managed to control him. Adrianna’s stomach squeezed in dread. “You could’ve staked me.”
    “I stood over you with that spike hovering about your heart and… I couldn’t do it. You were lying there -- naked and perfect and vulnerable. I wanted to kiss you, not kill you.” He curled up a fist and slammed it into the sand. “I’m a hunter! Growing a conscience about slaying the undead is the last thing I needed.”
    She heard the defeat in his tone and guessed at its cause. “Something is wrong with you?”
    “Yeah. I went to a doctor and he did a bunch of tests. Cancer .” The word fell bitterly from his lips.
    “Ah. You believe that a vampire hunter murdered by his own prey offers you a noble end. That’s why you tracked me here.”
    “No,” he said, his eyes blazing with pure lust. “I want to fuck you. If that means my death… well, I’m already dying.”
    Shocked, Adrianna stared him. She certainly wasn’t opposed to having hot, sweaty sex with him, but she wasn’t in the habit of murdering her lovers. God! Had it never occurred to the darling idiot that she could save him? “Two bites and you could be mine forever.”
    “Just yours?”
    She smiled and let her fangs descend. “The first bite is on the neck. I drink from you and a chemical is released into your system that makes you… happy. Humane vampires stop there when they feed. The wound heals, the victim feels like they’ve had a couple of margaritas, and that’s it.”
    “When you feed, you also leave your mark.”
    She inclined her head. “That is true. A marked human is not supposed to be harmed or to be fed on by another vampire. We are very territorial.”
    “I know.” He watched her, his eyes snapping with heat, with need. “And the second bite?”
    Her body tingled with anticipation as she dipped her hand between his legs. “The second bite is on the inner thigh. I drain you to the point of death, and then release another chemical that essentially poisons you.”
    “Then I’m changed?”
    “I know it’s so Anne Rice, but you have to drink directly from me to complete the process. In your death throes, I’ll open the vein on my wrist and you suck as much blood into your system as possible. Then you’ll pass out. I’ll take you to my nest and watch over you. The transition takes two days, sometimes three, and if you wake up, you’ll be a vampire.”
    “If?”
    “Not everyone is strong enough,” she admitted. “And with cancer ravaging that fine, fine form… I can’t make any guarantees.” She climbed onto his lap and pushed him onto his back. “What do you care? You are going to die no matter what.”
    He slid his hands up her thighs, under the silky hem of the dress, and cupped her hips. His thumbs hooked under the thin lace of her thong. He looked so resentful, and yet intrigued. Did he really want her so much that he was willing to forego his own principles to have her?
    She had conquered him without even trying.
    It was so odd.
    Ah. Adrianna was not in the habit of denying herself. Hunter or not, there was something primal about Cav that made her crave him almost as much as she sometimes craved the hunt. Vampires were not humans. They weren’t as concerned with morality. When you lived forever, the lines of conscience were blurred. And that was why she’d worked so hard to create her own boundaries, her own rules.
    Cav had the choice never given to her.
    Her sire, Pierre, wanted her, body and soul, forever. So he killed her family and