#mercy devil

If you had been somewhere brighter, somewhere happier, you might have risen more promptly. Surprisingly the threat of three supernatural beasts you imagine are currently either stalking the halls of the labyrinthine castle or dining on the blood of a naked virgin isn’t enough to goad you into leaving the sweet warmth of bed. You’ve never slept on a mattress so comfortable, and it’s been years since the last time you woke feeling heated and soft. 

But sweet things rarely last, and a bolt of lightening outside your window has your heart jumping in your chest. Surely it’s dangerous for one to strike so close—it had been right outside. Thunder rumbles in the distance, the sound of a stomach growling in the far North, a hunger so deep it can be heard throughout the land. You imagine the creature to who the stomach belongs to would have to be mighty, stronger than all three of the beasts in this castle combined—a dragon of some kind. After all, if they exist, why not anything else? 

Slippers warm your feet as you make your way to the door of your bedroom. The last time you had woken in here it had been one of them to find you; you’d much rather go to them than have them come to you, covered in the bedroom you’ve been put in. To your relief the wardrobe hadn’t been filled with useless scraps of lace, pale strings to sweep across your hips or decorative pearls to clasp over your front. You’d found actual dresses. Only in blacks and whites as far as you could see, with the exception of a few grey pieces but they had each seemed all too cold for a castle as frigid as this one. Ultimately the gown you’d settled on had been cream-coloured and almost shapeless with a high collar. Its sleeves cover the unbitten skin of your arms and faintly cinch around your wrists. The skirts of the dress rest just shy of your feet, long enough they will have to be clutched higher should you encounter any staircases, but once again, blessedly concealing. You tie the pale ribbons at your back to pull the dress to fit your waist, briefly sitting before the vanity to sort out your hair, before daring to venture out into the red-washed hallway. 

The statues of armour now seem far more puerile than they had the last time you’d seen them. Do the beasts keep them around as entertainment? Shells of former humans. 

A scent catches your attention and you pause at the height of the large staircase, palm resting against the cool, balmy wood of the banister. Fingers squeezing the width as you cast your eyes throughout the interior of the great entrance hall, the chandelier above still twinkling diamonds like crystallised teardrops. The tension of your stomach grumbles through your bones, hunger having your feet softly tipping over the first stair, then flowing in a decisive decent, lured down into the ground of the hall as that warm, fluffy scent beckons you further. Something sweet, like sugar and pastries with sliced fruits baked atop them, jams and clotted cream, the warm heat of freshly made tea held within a thin ceramic mug making your fingertips tingle. 

In the back of your mind you can recognise the pathway your feet are leading you on, continuing with your trail until you’re pausing to the side of a door, just the other side of the threshold. The crisp notes of music string along to soothe your pricked ears, violins gentle tumbling down through arpeggios as they’re wrung out across their strings. Lilting melodies harmonise with one another, three or four blending seamlessly into one beautiful tune, the tinkling of a few spare notes of a piano trilling. You hope it’s loud enough to muffle any of your own noises from their hearing. 

With your breath held firm, you lean yourself into the wall, front pressed flush to the patterned paper as you slowly peer round the corner into the spacious dining room. 

The table stretches straight down the middle, silver trays laden heavy with pastries and tarts and fresh bread and heated wine and hot tea and ripe fruit and delicacies that make your mouth water from the sight alone. Peering further down the table however reveals two of the three beasts, leaving one stray unaccounted for. 

Rhysand is sat at the head of the table where he belongs, looking as noble and aristocratic as he had when you’d first foolishly stumbled into his bewitched castle. The cravat at his throat is the colour of fresh blood, icy spider legs skittering up your spine now you can confidently assign a name to that shade of red. To his left, your right, sits Cassian, the sheer bulk of him taking up all of his chair, muscled forearms sat heavily over the chair arm, ankle crossed lazily over his knee as he leans back into his seat. His shirt is crisp and freshly pressed, yet half the buttons aren’t even done up. 

Compared to Rhysand, he looks more like a scoundrel than a nobleman. Just as threatening, though. Just as finely bladed as the other. 

You swallow, forcing yourself to straighten. To meet them at the frontlines instead of waiting to be surrounded. Nails dig into your palms but you make yourself breathe—albeit quietly—before taking that first trembling step out into open sight. 

Eyes so blue they’re violet lazily find their way to your own set, the rougher hazel eyes of the man at his left, your right, cutting to you without the grace Rhysand had afforded, and you’re offered the distinct feeling of the tip of a blade zipping up the ridges of your spine. You stand straighter, forcing yourself to take a decadent few extra seconds to sweep the table, as if you’re seeing it for the first time. “I didn’t think your kind would like human food.” 

Rhysand’s violet eyes twinkle and Cassian shifts in his chair, jaw propped upon one hand that you’re certain is large enough to cover your face entirely. “You’d be correct,” Rhysand muses, those cruelly soft lips curving themselves into an invitation as he nods to the empty chair at his right—your left. “It’s for you.” 

That startles the fear out of you. 

“For-…me?” You can’t keep the surprise out of your tone, nor hide the way your muscles spin loose ounces of their tension. Your stomach at least seems to be delighted with the opportunity, reminding you of its needs and hunger. But your sense remains intact and you incline your chin by a singular degree, “Why?”

Rhysand smiles a closed-lipped smile. “You’re my guest, and you shall be treated as one.” 

“If that’s what you want,” Cassian adds, with a sharp flash of teeth that has pain flickering in pin-pricks in your neck. You clear your throat, ignoring Cassian’s comment, though your skin isn’t immune, heating in response to his sonorous drawl that was dripping with lewd suggestion. You make your clarification, “What benefit does it serve you?” 

Both their smiles stretch at that, the silence answering for them. Come sit, and you’ll find out. 

They’ve locked onto you now—you no longer have the choice of running, or attempting to escape. Steeling your spine, you cross the threshold, knowingly putting yourself into their territory and you send a silent prayer than your knees won’t buckle as they walk you over to the chair that sits, open, at Rhysand’s side. Opposite Cassian. Hazel eyes catch on your own from across the table, his smirk widening into something indolent and you flinch away as his leg brushes your calf beneath the tablecloth. Fangs glint beneath the light with pleasure. 

You consider repeating your question, but if Rhysand had refused to do so, it would be a submission of sorts to afford him the respect you’d been denied. 

His lips quirk, the unsettling feel of his approval shivering across your skin. But with an incline of your chin the words come across easily enough. Tell me. 

“We have an offer to make you,” Rhysand declares, forearms gracefully bracing themselves atop the table, long, silver-hooped fingers interleaving with one another. Your head tilts at the seemingly diplomatic approach, glancing from Rhysand to Cassian, before cautiously asking, “‘We’?” 

“All three of us,” a rasping voice clarifies from the shadows, the third man appearing in the doorway you’d emerged from. Had he been following you? To make sure you hadn’t tried to escape? You hadn’t even felt a pair of eyes on you. 

You swallow, trying to keep your shifting to a minimum as the third man silently steps into the room, pulling out the chair to your right, and seating himself with no more noise than the soft stretch of fabric. Azriel. Utterly soundless, without even the beat of a heart to detect. “…Your offer…?” You ask Rhysand, though your attention lingers on the man to your right. Cassian’s leg again brushes your calf, and a frown slips between your brows, sitting yourself straighter, tighter, in your seat. 

“You should eat first,” Rhysand muses, his violet eyes flicking over the feast. “We wouldn’t want you feeling faint.” You make to protest, but movement catches your attention and you turn to see Azriel taking your plate, lifting a thick, flaky pastry with a silver serving knife, along with a few narrow, fresh slices of dripping nectarine. He sets the plate down before you, cutting hazel eyes feeling like a stab wound as they pierce the sheer veil of your soul. “Eat,” he tells you in a voice that’s shadowy and fallen, soft enough to register as intimate. “It will help you recover strength, to have food in your system again.” 

“So you can feed off of me again?” You whisper. 

The smile he gives you is cold and deadly, but non-threatening. Like he means well but cannot or will not muster up the warmth of the living. 

He reaches out, his thumb like ice wrapped in leather as it pushes gently across your cheekbone. Once, then twice. His hand falls away, the lifeless smile remaining. “Eat.” 

It’s not confirmation that you’re correct, but it’s not denial either. That they’ll pounce as soon as you’re ready. Rip you to shreds in the blink of an eye, if it will satisfy their wicked desires. 

“Hear our offer out before you assume the worst of us,” Rhysand drawls, eyes openly displaying his amusement, resting his face on his thumb and index finger, thumb pressed beneath his jaw while his second finger rests against the strong bone of his brow. A beasts’ entertainment. 

You swallow, trying to sit straighter as you pick the silver cutlery from the table, slicing off an edge of the pastry, “You’ve mentioned this offer a few times now, but I’m yet to hear a single detail.” You bite the pastry from your fork, chew, and swallow. Set the cutlery back down. One of Rhysand’s brows raise but he makes no comment, instead lifting himself from the lazy sprawl he had previously settled on, shifting into a position of severity. “Very well,” he drawls. “Should you at any point feel the need to flee from our presence and run screaming through my halls to relieve your agitation, you are welcome to do so.” 

Discomfort slithers through your gut, unease wrapping itself around your bones. But you wait for him to progress. 

His cruel mouth quirks, forearms returning to their brace over the table top, fingers interleaving. 

“Your offer is this: you will remain in my castle, keep the bed you now occupy, never hunger beneath my roof, and never again fear a chill or fever in your flesh.” Rhysand’s smile stretches into something alluring. Goading you to answer before he’s even finished spilling the terms of the agreement. “In return for all your needs being met, for living a life of absolute luxury, and protection, we ask that you allow us to take our fill, also.” 

Your eyes widen in your skull, staring at him. “You-… All three of you?” You gasp. “At once?” Your hand subconsciously lifts from the table, palm cupping the faint trace of pin-pricking pain that’s echoing through your skin.

“We’d spread ourselves out,” Cassian drawls, grabbing you attention as he leans forward in his seat, foot brushing yours but this time you’re too startled to even register the teasing caress. “Unless, you wanted to take us all at once?” He asks. Where Azriel’s voice had been rasping shadow, Cassian’s is rough and gravel-like. Heavy and husky, drenched in whisky and then jaggedly hewn from the mahogany wood that should have caged his long dead body. “That way you could get it all out of the way, without being bothered for a while?” 

His suggestion is lewd in a way you don’t understand, heat spreading up through your chest despite the confusion. Your instincts know well enough to recognise a wolf when it’s watching you. Something far more threatening than anything vulpine. 

“You’d kill me,” you force out in a panicked exhale. “You’ve almost killed me twice already. Why would I agree to your proposal?” 

“You would be taken care of,” Rhysand promises easily, ice cold fingers slipping beneath your own, sliding his thumb over your knuckles. Luring you deeper into his web of desire. “We’d make sure you wouldn’t be hurt,” Azriel murmurs from your other side, icy breath zipping up the length of your throat. You turn, drawn by his voice only to find those cutting hazel eyes mere inches from your own and your lungs lock. 

Your heart is pounding. Beating hard enough for all three of them to hear. 

“I don’t…” What were you going to say? 

You don’t even notice that his arm has found its way behind your back, fingers smoothly tracing up the final notches of your spine, using the lightest pressure to encourage you forward, your body curving to fit his pleasure as his digits span the back of your neck. A presence without constraint. “If you stay with us, we can make sure you’re taken care of,” Azriel murmurs, practically able to feel his mouth shape the words, so close together. Where did the space disappear to? 

In the back of your mind you hear a chair scrape across the floor, followed by an absence of presence along your calf, then a broad, calloused palm is cupping your throat. Cassian looms behind your chair, pulling your gaze away from Azriel and obscuring Rhysand from view. “It can feel good, too,” he drawls, fingers flexing their grip. “It wouldn’t be like last time. We were too rough with you then.” 

Cassian leans down and your thoughts float away, a pulsing suction latching onto your attention and feeding, his hazel eyes filling your world with new colours and excitement. Waves of emotion beginning to hazily dance through your vision as you keep staring up at him. His lips part in a smile, but this time the flash of razor sharp fangs hardly registers as anything other in your mind. His smile is promising pleasure, and your bones are aching. Lethargy so tightly wrapped around your muscles, squeezing them tight and tense. 

“So? What do you say?” 

You blink, head swaying on your shoulders as you land back in reality, a heavy breath gushing from your lungs and fear flutters through your stomach, hastily dipping your head to free yourself from Cassian’s hold, Azriel’s touch disappearing along with it. You could swear Cassian shoots a glare Rhysand’s way. 

“How-…,” you fumble, shifting in your seat, all too aware of their presences surrounding you. “How is this any better than the last deal you offered me?” 

Something shifts through the room, noticeable enough to have you tensing as an unnatural silence passes over the table. 

“Bastard,” Cassian grits through a feral smile, glaring at Rhysand. “You were going to keep her to yourself weren’t you. Leaving us out of it.” A muscle tics in Rhysand’s jaw, calculation passing through his cool, violet eyes. “I would have invited you for a glass,” he relents, gaze turning reluctant as he yields the information. A huff of icy breath ghosts along your neck, caressing the shell of your ear. “A glass,” you hear Azriel murmur under his breath, a whisper of amusement in his tone. 

Your brows narrow, focusing again on Rhysand, “So this time, I’m being offered the same as before, while you all get more from it than I do.” 

“You’re forgetting your place,” Rhysand hisses, and you’re frozen to your seat from the unearthly darkness in his eyes. You’re reminded of the glittering eruption of shadow just before you’d lost consciousness. That rumbling strength that had thrummed through the castle like thunder. 

The other two men don’t seem the slightest bit perturbed. If anything, you feel them lean closer. 

“Wound a bit tight, Rhys?” Cassian drawls, resting his elbow on the back of your chair as he leans in, watching eagerly. “I think I’d like to hear her out here,” he says, making you stiffen when their attention falls back to you, “what else do you want? We’ll throw something extra in, if we can give it. Just for you.” 

You swallow, mind swimming. Something else to ask for? You need to take this seriously, figure out what to ask for to give yourself as big an advantage as you can. Something to level against them. 

You sit straighter in your chair, “I want three favours.” It can’t be blatant enough though, that they would realise it might put them at a disadvantage. Make it seem like a game. A beasts’ entertainment—not to be taken seriously. 

“A favour from each of us,” Azriel murmurs from your side, and you think you can hear the amusement in his voice as he grins at Rhysand. “That’s a good request to make.” 

But, “No.” You clarify. 

“Three from each of us?” Rhysand inquires, his brows narrowing. “You overestimate my generosity.” 

“No,” you repeat, hurriedly. Swallow, sitting straighter still. “I want two favours from you, for your two offers. One from Cassian, for his offer on having three of you at once. None from Azriel. For being the most welcoming.” It’s a shot in the dark, but if you can find a way to exploit even the slightest of fracture in whatever strange bond they have with one another… “That’s what I want. In return for agreeing to stay here, and letting you feed from me.” 

Are you really doing this? 

It’s your best chance. 

Now the attention has shifted back to Rhysand. His cool, violet eyes glitter, brows narrowed as he calculates. Then the faintest edges of his mouth curve. “Two favours from me, one from Cassian,  one from Azriel, sealed with a blood promise.” 

The ghost of Azriel’s laugh skitters up your neck, and Cassian whistles. 

“What’s a…blood promise?” You don’t like the sound of it. Especially not if it’s bad enough to have him adding a favour from Azriel. Rhysand smiles, a dead smile. “Something to ensure that even if you request all three of us to release you, you won’t be able to escape.” 

“Without our will,” Cassian clarifies. “If we choose for you to leave, then you’re permitted. But you will not be able to ask for us to release you as one of our favours.” 

“And since the conditions are four favours in return for your blood, neither will you be able to ask us to starve ourselves,” Azriel murmurs, cold shadow caressing the shell of your ear. You experience the exact feeling of some elegantly fluttering creature writhing around in a three-dimensional web, only binding yourself tighter and tighter with every circle of your small, lithe body, each flicker of web drawing the eight-legged beasts closer, venom dripping from their hungry fangs. 

“So- But-…then what can I ask for?” You ask, hopelessness bleeding into your voice, torso deflating into the seat. You’d thought… 

It doesn’t matter what you’d thought, though. 

Cassian’s hand drops to your shoulder, in a gesture that would have been comforting perhaps if you didn’t know he wanted to eat you. His fingers trail a stitch in the plain gown, tracing the seam of the shoulder. “Touch,” he drawls, surprisingly close to your ear. “Physical comforts.” 

“Don’t encourage her, Cass,” Azriel murmurs from your other side, both of them far too close for your liking. They seem to be finding this entertaining. “She can think for herself.” 

“Azriel.” Rhysand’s voice cuts through their amusement, hissing like steel through air. The two men pause, attention returning to the man at the head of the table, who seems to have more power than they do. The leader, of sorts? But violet eyes remain soullessly attached to you, pinning you into the padded, wooden seat. “You seal with her first. I will seal with her last, as our bond will require more due to its nature.”

“Wait! You haven’t told me how it works,” you exclaim when Azriel wraps his hand around your wrist, dragging it from your lap so his icy lips can have the pleasure of grazing your pulse. Rhysand cocks a brow, “you’ll figure it out shortly. Remember to keep your one favour in mind though, or you’ll end up with a seal and no benefit.” 

“My favour in-” You cut yourself off as you inhale sharply, Azriel’s needle-point fangs gently splitting your skin, hot tingles singing up your forearm and spreading through your fingertips. His venom is acting swiftly, though not enough to paralyse your entire body. Just enough to slow you—numb the part he’s drinking from. 

Your favour. You need to keep your favour in mind. Or you’ll come away with nothing. 

He owes you a favour. 

“Enough.” Again, Rhys’ voice slices through the room, quiet but honed, breaking Azriel from his hunger and you gasp as his fangs slide out from your wrist, his tongue swiping slowly across the narrow puncture marks, savouring the small beads of rouge. Before you’ve even managed to separate yourself from the sweet numbness that Azriel had put into you, Cassian’s taking your other arm, lifting it up above your head, calloused finger pads dragging your sleeve all the way up to your elbow. Cassian doesn’t look at you once, all his attention zeroing in on your pulse point, taking a deep inhale of your skin before running his tongue once across the expanse, his fangs sinking in swiftly after. 

Your fingers tremble, weakness flooding your body as you slump back into the chair, Azriel’s cold fingers still carefully encasing your wrist, savouring the lasting seep of blood from the wound he’d given you while Cassian drinks and oh god you need to remember the favour the favour the favour he owes you… 

Your eyes stutter, lids stammering until they give way, sliding shut as you attempt to focus, to remember, to keep one thought in mind, that he owes you your favour. 

The world changes after he’s drank. Even once the wound is sealed, you’re finding it hard to think of anything other than the favour they each owe you. Your arms pulse at your sides, tingling numbness tickling your flesh, thrumming faintly at your fingertips. 

“Azriel,” Rhysand warns, a fondness in his tone. You turn, heart leaping to your throat when you find his teeth experimentally grazing the bite marks. As if he’s considering re-penetrating your skin. Cassian’s own fangs scrape, guiding his bitemark a little wider to allow more blood into his mouth before swiftly sealing you away, taking his last lick. There’s still so much hunger in his eyes, and you’re reminded of how swiftly everything else got out of control before, when they’d tasted you for the first time. 

There’s enough tension in their bodies that there’s a moment of hesitation when Rhysand orders them to leave. But it’s overruled by discipline, hands releasing your wrists that fall back to your lap, allowing you to catch your breath as they take their departure. 

“And now you understand a blood promise,” Rhysand muses from his chair. “You remembered to recall your favours, yes?” 

“I did what you told me to,” you manage, forcing yourself to sit straighter despite the minimal feeling in your arms and the dizziness that’s gently sucking at your eyes. “Aren’t you glad you didn’t request three favours from each of us?” Rhysand laughs softly, “Imagine how drained you would be.” 

“You still owe me two favours,” you say, refusing to allow your eyes to shut for another second until you take those favours from him. The small chances you need. 

Rhysand’s lips tug upwards at their edges, leaning back in his chair, eyes glinting. “Come and take them from me.” 

You grit your teeth, exhaling a heavy breath before shakily rising to your feet, taking a moment to ensure you’re going to be steady while rounding the corner to reach him. He seems to find your weakness entertaining, as he doesn’t once remove the weight of his crushing attention from you until you’re stood at his side, one of your hands needing to rest on the table for security. His chair slides across the floor as he comes to a graceful stand, making you lift your chin to meet him. 

Ice cold fingers graze the hollow of the underside of your jaw, tilting you just that little higher as he smirks down at you. Far too close for your liking, but you need those favours. “Just get it over with,” you murmur, fighting the lethargy weighing your eyes. His smirk widens, pushing hair away from your shoulder, making you tense. Hands tremble at your sides while those deft fingers slowly trail to the buttons that head downward over your front in a straight line, keeping the bodice of the dress together. The dress you’d chosen specifically because of its high neck.

“Are you scared?” Rhysand whispers, moving closer, making sure you feel every stroke and caress of his fingers as they trace your front, exposing skin to the air as he pushes the fabric away. He smiles, cold breath ghosting across your lips, close enough to consider intimate. “I know you are,” he smiles. “We can smell fear. I could hear the beat of your heart from the other side of my castle. Or seek you out on scent alone, through the forest.” 

A cold palm cups your waist, squeezing possessively. To think you had ever thought him trustworthy enough to spend the night with. Without knowing the kind of beast he was. 

“Tilt your head for me,” he instructs, a hint of arrogance in his violet eyes. Enjoying your submission as you flush, tipping your head to one side. Fangs scrape your neck, a teasing shiver skittering up your spine. “Have you thought what your first favour will be?” He asks, canines grazing your throat as he speaks. “Not yet,” you admit, panting and surprisingly hot despite the blood that’s been drained. “I look forward to hearing what you come up with,” Rhysand murmurs against your throat, his hold further tightening around your body, the hard lip of the table digging into the very tops of the backs of your thighs.

 “Don’t disappoint me,” he whispers like the devil.

You fight to give a reply, but his fingers have combed themselves into the roots of your hair, dragging it back and away from your throat, tilting your head completely to the side as his fangs slip into your flesh. A spike of excitement zips from head to toe before weakness sizzles throughout your body. 

An unpleasant curse floats through your mind for his swift-acting venom, legs like flour as it spills through your blood stream that’s warming his mouth. Your lips part, breath becoming laboured as his own lips seal around the puncture wound, sucking, drinking, thirsting. Before your hazy vision come puffs of condensation and you have to rest yourself in his hold, practically sitting atop the banquet table as your legs give out. 

Rhysand doesn’t release you. Instead his mouth becomes warm, palms heating around your waist almost enough to feel like a living man’s. A man with a pulse of his own, and blood to be beaten around his body instead of stealing it from yours. 

Two favours, you repeat over and over in your mind. Two favours. He owes me two favours.

Rhysand’s fingers curl at the nape of your neck, tucking your head back so you’re arching into his hold as he presses his body against you, curving you into the table. His fangs sink deeper, a tingling pleasure zinging from the puncture point as he widens the drinking incisions, hot tongue suctioning deeper, drinking more, and more, and more. 

Your hands push weakly at his chest, fumbling over the silver embroidered threads of his lapels, clutching desperately. “Let me go…” you breathe, breathing ragged and shallow. “I…stop…” 

You nearly slump when he pulls away, a final drag of his tongue sealing the wound. 

Rhysand’s lips are bloody, teeth and mouth filled with dark, rich red. 

“I…I need…” 

His smile looks like hell as he pulls away, your legs falling out from under you, leaving you in a crumpled heap on the floor, struggling for breath. Panting shallowly. Bastard. 

Rhysand swipes the blood from his lower lip away with the pad of his thumb, licking the remaining red up with a flick of his tongue. “Azriel will return you to your chambers,” he drawls, seating himself in his chair once more. “Rest well, little devil. And this time wait for one of us to seek you out before attempting to explore my grounds.” 

A pair of boots appears in your vision and you realise it must be Azriel. 

By a force you can’t hope to understand you’re listen from the ground to be resting in his arms, tipping into the solid wall of his chest. 

“How do I know…if my favours…?” You pant, forcing yourself to keep your eyes open just long enough to locate his own charming set. But his expression shows little besides mild amusement, and you don’t have the strength to protest as Azriel sweeps you from the room, carrying you to the top of the curved staircase and back down the stretching hallways. 

The bed is soft beneath you and warmer than you remember. 

Maybe you’re just colder. 

Azriel’s thumb grazes across Cassian’s bite marks, and your heart pounds as the man leans over your reclined body, breath hitching as he dips to your throat. 

“What are you doing?” You try to hiss, attempting to struggle beneath his dominating figure. “You’ve already taken enough-” Something cool, silky and dark wraps over the lower portion of your mouth, cutting your voice to silence. More of the darkness pushes your head to the side and you’re too exhausted to resist. 

Azriel lowers his hungry mouth to your throat but you’re surprised when he doesn’t bite. 

Instead his mouth parts over the patch of skin where Rhysand had been, his lips sealing almost tentatively around the wound. 

A shudder ghosts up your spine as he licks Rhysand’s bite mark, teasingly circling the edge of the punctures with his own needle-point canines, playing with their indentations. 

He seems to be doing it for a pleasure outside of drinking. 

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