The Warrior Vampire by Kate Baxter Page B

as the sound of it rushed in his ears. Make it stop . The cold was unbearable. Fire and ice at once. Gods, make it stop!
    â€œNaya.” His voice sounded foreign in his ears, far away and weak.
    â€œI said, stop, Ronan, or I’ll stop you.”
    Ronan fell to his knees as he lost all sensation in his limbs. A violent tremor shook him, the cold freezing him from the inside out.
    â€œI’m sorry.” Naya loomed above him, and the female who had tethered his soul raised her dagger high. “But you’ve given me no choice.” His final thought as she swung her arm forcefully down was that he would never know the way it felt to hold her in his arms.

 
    CHAPTER
    8
    Naya collapsed beside Ronan as she attempted to quell the tremors that rippled through her body. She was held tight in the grip of a fear she’d never known. Terror that tore at the fabric of her soul. Now that he was unconscious, the music had ceased its chaotic song. She should have killed him. Should have run the blade through his heart and let the dagger take the magic that infected his body.
    The thought of taking his life had filled her with a sorrow so deep and so intense that she’d felt it in the very marrow of her bones. He was a stranger and yet, since the night he’d tackled her in that parking lot, she couldn’t conceive of being parted from him.
    She’d sworn she could feel his pain as the magic took its hold. Even now, her arms were slow to move and her legs ached with a bone-deep chill. How could the magic contained in his body sing to her with such pitch-perfect clarity one moment and become so corrupt the next?
    She cradled his head in her lap as she combed her fingers through the locks of his tawny hair. The song quieted to a gentle melody and Naya hummed along to a tune she’d never heard but instinctually knew every note of. In the span of twenty-four hours, she’d begun to unravel. And it wasn’t Paul or his stupid mandate or the corrupt magic running rampant through town that was the cause. No, it was the male in her arms who’d proclaimed with such unerring confidence that she belonged to him.
    And that he, in turn, belonged to her.
    Ronan let out a low moan and Naya quieted. “Don’t stop.”
    A smile curved her lips and she let out a soft breath. “Don’t stop what?”
    â€œTouching me. Humming.” His voice rolled over her in a wave that relaxed every muscle in Naya’s body. “You’re warm,” he said on a breath. A tremor shook him and his shoulders tightened where he rested against her inner thighs. “I’m so fucking cold, I feel like I’ll never get warm again.”
    â€œWhat can I do to help?” Truth be told, Naya hadn’t felt so relaxed in a long damned time. Just sitting there, cradling his head, filled her with a sense of calm. But duty called and she wasn’t going to find the source of the magical corruption infecting the town camped out on the floor with a vampire lounging in her lap.
    His eyes came slowly open and the dark green irises were rimmed with silver. A lazy half smile tugged at his full lips, revealing the tips of his fangs. “You could give me your vein.”
    Opportunistic vampire.
    His eyes drifted shut as though he’d expended too much effort to open them in the first place. A rush of adrenaline seeped into Naya’s bloodstream and her heart renewed its anxious pace in her chest. “Will it really help, or are you working an angle?”
    His lips twitched, but his eyes remained shut. “Both.”
    Twilight gave way to full dark, the only illumination in her tiny apartment coming from a single lamp in the far corner of the living room. His presence unnerved her, and not because she felt any sense of danger or malice from him. No, it was the ease at which he put her that shook Naya to her foundation. And the fact that she was about to give him the one thing she’d