Fire flowed through her veins and the deafening rush of blood cascaded over her ears. It seeped out of crescent-shaped marks left by her fingernails. It surged to her core, engulfing every nerve with need.

I will take what is mine, she thought. With fire and blood.

Never had those words been meant in such a way yet the current state of her body forced her to consider that perhaps what had once existed as an exclamation of war was more aptly intended for love. She swallowed the Lysene girl’s gasps with a groan of her own. They were all sighs and caresses and the wet sound of fervid, heedless kisses.

With fire and blood… She is mine. [x]