“He told me that one day, I’d meet someone who would fill all that emptiness.” His mouth twisted. “As I said, I didn’t believe him, and so I threw all my efforts into solidifying myself and my people into a kingdom that could never be overrun by the greedy or the corrupt, as my country and my family had been. In fact, I had long forgotten about Mencheres’s delusional, well-intentioned lie . . . until I met you.”

Another rush of his feelings filled me, causing me to close my eyes. Yes, we’d still face struggles, grief, and even fights with each other in the future, but this unbreakable, unspeakably beautiful bond between us made everything worth it.

“I can’t say it was love at first sight,” Vlad went on, his mouth curling sardonically when I opened my eyes. “Especially since you were only a voice in my head on our initial encounter and you electrocuted me within five minutes of our first meeting in person.”

“Hey, a girl’s gotta play hard to get,” I said, my laughter shaky as my own emotions swelled inside me.

His teeth flashed in a grin that was both seductive and a touch feral. “If that was your intention, you failed because you were in my bed within a week.”

My arms tightened around him. “Yeah, well, that was my best effort. You were a crazy scary bastard with an ego even bigger than your medieval castle, but despite all that, I was drawn to you in a way I’d never felt before.”

“As was I,” he whispered. “That was why I called Mencheres, because after centuries of feeling nothing for any of my former lovers, suddenly I was consumed by thoughts of a woman that I barely knew. Nothing was enough when it came to you. Not being near you, having one of our infuriating conversations, reading your mind, having you drink my blood, and when I touched you”—his voice turned into a growl, and a hot swell of lust poured through our connection—“I didn’t only want to fuck you. I wanted to make you scream until my name was the only word you were capable of remembering.”

If he kept sending those waves of lust into me while his hot, hard body molded to mine and his stare promised endless nights of screaming ecstasy, I wouldn’t be able to finish my thought, let alone this conversation, before demanding that he make good on those promises.

“And then?” I managed, my voice breathy from barely restrained passion. “Mencheres told you that I was the one he’d predicted would end your emptiness?”

Vlad’s head lowered until his mouth hovered over mine. “No, he didn’t.”

At my stunned gasp, his laughter teased my lips.

“Like the mythical Yoda, Mencheres rarely gives a straight answer when it comes to the most important questions. Instead, he asked me why I would suddenly demand to know if the prediction he’d made so long ago was truly a glimpse of the future, or if it had been nothing more than a kind lie.”

Nothing Mencheres believed—or didn’t believe—about our relationship would change what Vlad and I meant to each other, yet I had to admit that I was curious. “And what did you say?”

Vlad closed his eyes as if remembering his exact words.

“I told him I felt drawn to you in a way that concerned me because I knew so little about you. I told him that I should want to kill you for experiencing my deepest sin through your abilities, yet somehow, I felt connected to you instead. I told him I wanted you with an irrational lust because I normally waited months before choosing someone as my lover, yet I could scarcely keep my hands off you. And I told him”—he smiled here—“that you irritated me almost as much as you intrigued me, so I knew that it would be a terrible decision to take you as a lover.”

I poked him in a teasing way even as my heart constricted from absorbing all this. He opened his eyes, green rolling over his gaze as he stared at me.

“Then I asked, ‘Does this mean that your prediction was real? Is she the one?’ and he said, ‘Do you know the words you just used over and over? You said, “I feel.”’”

His stare grew brighter, until I blinked from the overwhelming emotions that were filling me and from the blazing intensity of his gaze.

“I didn’t need to hear anything more,” he finished softly. “It didn’t matter to me if he had predicted you or not. I did feel again, for the first time in centuries, and in a way that I never had before.”

I kissed him with all of the love, passion, and fierce devotion I had in me. He returned it with everything I gave him and more, until my mind was spinning and it took me several moments to realize that during our kiss, he’d carried me up four flights of stairs and we were now in our bedroom instead of the castle’s great hall.

“I have a present for you tonight, too,” I whispered.

His smile promised a thousand different things, all of them decadently sensual and some of them downright wicked.

“Later.”