Iniquitous (The Marked #3)(27)

“It was the only thing I could find thin enough to be concealed under your dress,” he answered with a smile.

I could tell he was more than amused by this, which was irritating as hell. How he managed to find humor in any of this was beyond me. I could barely stop my hands from trembling like I was going through withdrawals and he was over here teasing and flirting with me like we were on our way to prom.

“Did you lock the door?” I asked as I slipped on the shorts under my towel.

“Of course.” He hung my dress on the door hook and then waited for me to put on the tank top.

I turned away from him and dropped my towel. “You’re going to feed, right?” I asked as I pulled the top over my head. “You know, in case something goes wrong.” The last thing I needed was Dominic checking out on me in the middle of the biggest fight of our lives.

“Worried about me again, love?”

I gave him a warning look over my shoulder, but didn’t bother denying it. He had that irritating ability to tell when I was lying. I wasn’t sure if it was a Revenant thing, a bloodbond thing, or a Dominic thing.

Once dressed, I threw a glance at myself in the mirror to make sure everything was covered up. To my dismay, barely anything was covered at all. I bet he picked this little number out on purpose, you now, just for shits and giggles.

“Dress, please.”

He slipped the dress off the hanger and then passed it back to me without turning. Guess he finally learned some decency after all. I unzipped the side zipper and then stepped into it. Without bothering to look at myself, I zipped myself in and then ran my palms over the satiny fabric.

“Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be,” I muttered, still fidgeting with the stupid dress.

Turning, he met my eyes and faltered. His mouth opened and then quickly closed.

“What?” I quirked an eyebrow at him. “What’s wrong?”

He shook his head softly. “Nothing, angel. Nothing at all. You look stunning.”

“Give me a break. I’m a mess.”

He was still shaking his head, and that strange, dreamy look in his eyes was back with a vengeance. “I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything quite as exquisite.”

My heart did a weird flip into my stomach. Unsure of what to say to that, I glanced back at the mirror behind me to see if I could see what he was seeing.

Nope. Still hated what I saw.

The truth was, I didn’t recognize my own reflection anymore and it pained me just to look at it.

So, I didn’t.

I took a seat on the edge of the tub and extended my wrist to him. “Don’t take too much, unless you plan on carrying me out of here tonight.”

“As you wish, angel.” He walked over to me and then bent down on one knee. Picking up my hand, he brushed his cool fingers along my wrist and surveyed the spot with faraway eyes. All of his previous markings had long-since healed, but he stroked my skin as though he could still see them.

His fangs clicked out, sending a wave of familiar anticipation rushing through me. It was the only thing that could quell my nerves these days, and I was at peace with that.

Without another word uttered between us, he brought my wrist to his mouth and pierced through the skin. Though, this time, his eyes never left mine as he drank from me. Something about it made the moment intimate, personal, like we were connecting in a way we never had before. The venom quickly over took me, and I wanted so bad to close my eyes and fall into it, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from him. I couldn’t even blink.

He pulled back suddenly, stopping himself with ease.

Cleaning the corner of his mouth, he continued gazing into my eyes as though he were having as hard of a time looking away as I was. “Was that too much?” he asked.

I shook my head.

“How do you feel?”

“Wonderful,” I answered mindlessly. Okay, I was so not wonderful. I mean, sure, I was content and subdued, but that was hardly the kind of temperament needed to kick some Rev ass.

“I did my best, angel.”

“And I thank you for it,” I said dreamily.

A soft chuckle bubbled out of him.

Still holding my hand, he waited a few minutes for my wits to come back together.

When they finally did, I felt overcome by curiosity and had to ask him, “How are you able to stop so easily now?”

This wasn’t the first time he managed to stop himself from draining me. From what I’d heard, it was nearly impossible for a Revenant to stop feeding from a Slayer once they’d started. We had this sort of special, unicorn-type-blood vampires couldn’t resist. And yet he did.

His gaze cut away from me, looking everywhere else but my eyes. “I don’t like the feeling I get when you start to slip away, so I stop. It’s as simple as that.”

“The feeling you get?” I asked, leaning towards him. “What feeling is that?”

His head titled to the side as though he were thinking about it. “Like the light is being pulled away from me.”

That sobered me right up.

I couldn’t remember Dominic ever talking that way with me. And definitely never about me. I looked down at him again, taking in all of his features as if to burn his face into memory.

“Do you really mean that?”

He shifted uncomfortably. “Don’t make a mountain out of this, angel.”