Burn For Me

Ravenous Touches

Her gaze was arrested on his form.

Beautiful, majestic… Divine. He was truly a breathtaking sight. It wasn’t the worst of visions to have when dying, she thought. On the contrary, it was the most blessed.

But then the Guardian did the unthinkable.

He cut open his palm. Then offered it to her. He spoke, but she could barely register his words when his scent—dewy, ambrosial, and utterly maddening—hit her nostrils.

She inhaled a greedy amount. When his palm grazed her parched lips and his golden blood—a sacred ichor—dripped into her parched mouth, she thought Heaven itself had taken home between her lips.

After the third drip, Vesna regained enough strength to greedily grab at his hand and press it flat against her face, her fangs already emerging and piercing into his skin without a second's squander.

Her urges, she lost complete control of them.

She drank and drank, sighing and moaning, not letting go of his hand. Never going to let go. His blood was enlivening. The best she's had. The only she ever wanted to have. Forever.

Mine, she thought. My feast. My meal. All mine, mine, mine.

Her taste buds came alive, and Vesna moaned sensuously. Madly. Her pink tongue darted out to lick at the seams of his wound already healing, not daring to spill any of his sacred blood.

“More,” she sighed deeply, grazing her sharp fangs against the hot skin of his palm. Mourning his taste already. Shivers racked her delighted form, her wounds and injuries already healed. Gone. From a simple feeding of his hand. Amazing.

“Give me more. I will give you anything you want.” Heaven never tasted like tempting sin before. Until now. She would never be the same after this.

She tried to sound as seductive, as convincing as she could muster given her current condition and appearance.

“Will give you everything.”

***

Zacharel’s eyes darkened the moment her lips latched.

Unrepentant. Ravaging. Possessive.

She devoured his essence like a starving sinner at the altar of grace, and still it wasn’t enough. Her hands clung to him, trembling, and her tongue—hot, sinful, desperate—chased every drop as though it were the only salvation she'd ever know.

Her moans rolled over his skin like whispered prayers, but they did not soothe.

They scorched.

Her fangs pierced deeper before he could pull back, and something seared through his spine. Not pain. No. Worse.

Pleasure.

Not the mortal kind, oh no—this was ancient. Primeval. And absolutely forbidden.

He hissed, then gasped at another delicate suck.

He—Zacharel the Unforgiving, the Crown's coldest sword—gasped as her mouth suckled at his palm like a lover drinking from a sacred fountain.

His otherworldly glow flickered—just faintly—as if his control trembled under the weight of this act. This blasphemy.

This had to stop.

But it wasn’t just her thirst that stirred something dangerous within him.

It was her voice—low and sultry, full of venom.

“…Will give you everything.”

The air between them crackled. His wings twitched, shedding embers as their tips scraped the cracked cathedral ceiling.

He leaned close enough to bear his teeth at her.

His hand still pressed to her mouth.

“Do you even know what you ask of me?” he said lowly. “Do you understand what my blood costs?”

He took her chin between his fingers, tilting her gaze to his.

His eyes were endless light… but behind that glow now burned something darker. Something new.

Desire.

Not lust. No. Not Zacharel.

But something more dangerous than that. Even he refused to dwell on the mere sensation summoned in cause of thought.

“One more drop, Vesna Nightingale,” he warned. “And you are no longer just a soul I protect.”

He shouldn't disclose anything more to her. He shouldn't entertain her hunger and lust for his blood. But the words emerged all the same, a deep rumble that vibrated the very air between them.

“You become mine.”

Vesna merely batted her lashes at the him, seductive still despite his evident warning.

He could see the haze in her eyes, the pure euphoria still swimming in those dark pools. Sweet heaven, she was drunk on him. Fought a blissed stupor as she gradually smiled.

Zacharel's gaze briefly flickered to those reddened lips before finding her eyes again.

She placed a soft kiss to his healed palm.

“Yours?” she cooed with a lilting chuckle. A little unhinged. “You want me?” She traced her lips with her fingers and wiped at the corners of her mouth before licking the last of his blood clean from her lips. Not a drop wasted. She closed her eyes, relishing. “Mmm. And what’s the name of this handsome Guardian I am to sell my soul to for a single drop?”

Zacharel watched her.

Watched her.

The way her lips moved against the edge of his healed skin, the way her lashes framed those dark, haunted eyes—there was no innocence in her now. No softness. Just the shimmer of a woman unbound, still drenched in blood and fire, but wearing sin like perfume.

He hadn’t meant for this.

He hadn’t meant for her to become this.

He'd never given his blood to another. Never knelt before a creature to save its life. Had always been the one to pass the sentence, his fiery sword at their neck.

"Name, Guardian," she rasped.

“Zacharel,” he grated.

His name struck the air like a blade, soft but searing. Sacred syllables not meant to be spoken in the mouths of mortals. But he offered it to her. Willingly. Deliberately.

Then, his hand—the same hand she drank from—slowly rose again. But not to feed her.

To touch her cheek. Barely.

As if her skin might burn him back.

“I do not want you,” he murmured with a calm that made liars of saints. “I am forbidden to want."

Her brows furrowed in concentration. Her eyes remained arrested on him, as if she reached to the back of her mind to solve some puzzle. And then—

Vesna gasped.

First in surprise. And then in fear. Those dark eyes widened, and her body stiffened beneath his touch.

She slowly inched away from him until she was scrambling to her feet, putting much needed distance between them.

"Zacharel the Unforgiving." She sounded horrified. "The worst of the Guardians. The possessor of divine wrath like no other. And you...you are right here. In front of me. And I...I drank your blood?!" Then, “Oh, my God,” she whispered, clutching at her chest. “Are you going to kill me now? For drinking your blood? You gave it!”

Zacharel did not move.

Then slowly rose. His wings slightly unfurled, burning softly now, like the last embers of a dying fire still capable of razing a kingdom. His gaze—cold, unblinking—followed her.

Still, he said nothing.

He stepped forward. One step only. Measured. But it carried the weight of finality.

“For the last time, if I wished to kill you, Vesna Nightingale…” His voice came like thunder muffled in velvet.

“…you would not have tasted me. You would have never known I existed at all.”

Another step. Controlled. Intentional. This time, closer. Her complexion paled.

“Do not speak of justice and guilt to me, halfling. I have ended Archdemons with less defiance. You think drinking from me would merit death?”

He stopped. Right before her now. Just close enough for her to feel the brush of divinity against her skin. It prickled—like goosebumps rising in reverse, like light curling against a darkness it didn’t yet understand.

Her lashes fluttered up at him, her chest rising and falling in rising panic.

“I let you drink, because I chose to let you live.” His head tilted slightly, a silver strand of hair falling over one eye. Then, his voice softened, despite the steel in his silver eyes.

"Was I wrong to spare you, Vesna?”