For the Power (For the Blood, #2)

by Debbie Cassidy

Glitter and disco balls and every inch of my body was charged with energy and need and want, and yes, I wanted his mouth back on mine—coppery and sweet and intoxicating. Our tongues wrestled in a match that neither of us wanted to win because it was about tasting and submitting.

“Is love finite? Are you saying your heart isn’t big enough to love and be loved by more than one man?”

“Relationships can work any way you want, if you want them enough. Besides, in a world where there are more males than females, us males are going to have to learn to share.”

Ash, who drew me, captivated me, and made me feel safe. There’d be no sleep tonight without him. Coming here was admitting something, it was building something, but there would be no words, only the beat of his heart against my back when he rolled onto his side and pulled me against his chest, only the sound of his steady breath as I slipped into slumber.

He was referring to my royal blood, to the fact that my lineage meant I was predestined for a single soul. He was referring to the fact that Malcolm had killed my bloodline and many of my people, sparing me only to prove that he could be merciful. In doing so, he’d forced the Vladul, who’d once bowed to my family, to follow him.

“Ash feels things differently from others. He feels more intensely. He will commit himself to you, and he will be there for you regardless of what you decide, because ogres mate for life, and I think … I think Ash’s ogre genes have him seeing you as a mate.”

“Leave them. They’ll just add unnecessary weight to the packs,” Logan said. “Just like your existence adds unnecessary weight to the world.”

Hope, the enticing whore, dropped me a wink, but fate, the treacherous cow, decided she’d do one better and blow me a kiss, because in the next moment howls rose up to the east.

“We didn’t synthesize the cure,” Dad’s clone said. “But we created the organism that would eventually do so.” He smiled at me. “We created you, Eva.”

You’re a chimera, Eva. The combinations of several zygotes from different supernatural species. Your foundation was human and the rest …”

I held up a hand. “Stop. What am I exactly?” “Oh, um, let me see. Djinn, a dash of Vladul, some Fang, and quite a bit of fey.

“You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to come into our lives, turn it inside out, and then just check out.”

I shoved him away, struggling to find the breath to speak. “Why are you doing this? Why now? Damn you, Logan. I’m dying. Do you get that? It’s over.” His mouth turned down in anger and his free hand pinched my chin, forcing me to look at him. “It’s only over if you give up. And I won’t let you. I won’t let you tear into my life and force my heart to beat again only to crush it. You don’t get to fucking check out. You have to live.”

He was powerful, he was otherworldly, and he was looking at me as if I was woven from magic and starlight.

“You ignited my heart and that means something. That’s a connection I won’t lose. Of all the djinn DNA in all the world, you were woven with the spark that was meant to burn alongside mine. There has to be a way to save you, and I vow to you now that I will find it. I’ll find it, or I will burn alongside you.”