The parasite couldn’t help but play along, to sidle up with Nox’s misunderstanding and wait for its inevitable conclusion.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said, reveling in the way Blaise’s voice could sound so intrigued and careless at the same time. She cut her eyes up to the corner of the ceiling as if she were pondering. “I suppose I could think of something.” She traced a finger along the edge of his jaw and didn’t miss the way his breath caught as Blaise’s blood lingered close to his face.

Even half-asleep, he possessed more self-control now than he had the day the foolish Blaise had sliced her finger in front of him. The parasite had known then they were in trouble—she’d noticed the sallowness in his cheeks, the way his fingers had jittered against the worktable.

Nox had gone too long without feeding that day, but the boy was clearly intent on not making the same mistake twice. He’d been nursing his canteen of blood like a drunk to brandy. The lust for Blaise’s blood was written all over his face tonight, but the signs of an oncoming frenzy were absent.

The parasite decided it had been quite a long while since she had let herself have fun.

There were no windows in the dungeon, leaving the parasite with no way to gauge when the moon would apex the sky, when she’d lose her grip on the reins and this body would return control over to Blaise.

So while the parasite longed to toy with the boy, to indulge in the physical pleasures so unique to humans, she decided she would have to postpone the fulfillment of such fantasies.

“Oh, I have an idea,” she said, allowing her wrist to linger ever so close to Nox’s lips.

His icy blue eyes darkened, nothing but pure mischief in his drunken expression. “I’d say I have more than one.”

The parasite’s heart skipped, but she tamped it down. “How about a sip for a sip?”

Nox’s grin faltered and for a moment, the parasite feared she’d lost him, burst the illusion and alerted him to reality. But when she looked again, it was not suspicion that hampered the revelry in his expression, but longing.

Something like genuine sorrow and acceptance flooded the boy’s face, and the parasite knew she had spoken well, played the perfect cards.

Nox pried the scalpel from the parasite’s hand with such tenderness she couldn’t help the wave of goosebumps that went racing across her flesh like wildfire.

He went to slice his wrist, but the parasite put out a hand to stop him. “Only a drop,” she said. Then, with the most doe-eyed smile she could muster, “We wouldn’t want to mortally wound you.”

Nox let out a startled huff, but he grinned all the same. “If you say so,” he said, lightly poking a hole in his flesh until a single orb of onyx blood protruded from his wrist.

The parasite’s heart raced, threatening to burst from her chest. Only once in all her wanderings had she met a creature like Nox, but he’d told her a secret of his kind. One he’d made her swear never to tell a soul.

Well, the parasite had kept that promise—not because she was one for keeping meaningless oaths, but because it seemed like the type of information that remained more valuable the fewer people knew of it.

As Nox’s blood glittered in the lantern light and as he brushed his wrist against Blaise’s welcoming lips and shuddered, the parasite thought she understood why.

Nox’s blood tasted of starlight and eternity, of authority and influence, sweet and somewhat overpowering, and the parasite soon found that she could not get enough.

Intoxicating power washed over her as his silky blood touched her lips and trickled down her throat. Before she knew what she was doing, she found herself plunging her teeth into his skin as one might devour a fleshy grape.

“Whoa there,” Nox teased as he pulled his wrist from her lips. The parasite launched for it, desperate for another taste, but he dangled his wrist over her head, and as much as she groped for it, this body was not strong enough to wrestle control from him. “My turn,” he said, somewhat sleepily, and the parasite watched as Nox’s wrist knitted itself back together, wiping away the set of bite marks as though they never existed.

The parasite felt a bit dizzy. She hadn’t foreseen that Blaise’s body would have the reaction it did to Nox’s blood, and she certainly hadn’t expected that she herself would become swept away by wanton impulse.

She steadied herself against the edge of the dais, commanding Blaise’s body to bend to her will.

It soon did, though the buzz of Nox’s blood lingered.

The parasite forced a drunken grin upon Blaise’s face and did her best to imitate the girl’s diction. “Fine, but I’m not letting you out of here without another sip. You can’t tease a girl like that.”

The boy’s eyes sparkled. “You liked it?”

The parasite didn’t think like began to describe it, and she let as much slip through onto Blaise’s face.

Then she pressed her wrist to Nox’s lips.

The change that came over him was striking, the way his pale eyes blazed with desire, the drunken stupor that overcame his pretty features.

A sharp sting had the parasite gasping for air, but it was short-lived, and a gentle wave of numbness swept through her limbs, causing her legs to shake and her body to slump.

He caught her with his arm before she collapsed on the floor, and it was then the parasite realized her companion from so long ago had withheld a secret from her: his bite must have released a toxin that served to paralyze his victims as he fed.

The parasite’s eyes fluttered, heavy with a trance, but the parasite was nothing if not prepared to battle against a body that was not cooperating, and she determined she would succeed.

“Nox, stop,” she said, and was pleased to find that her companion’s secret held true. Nox did as she said, though as he removed his fangs from her flesh, she couldn’t help but wallow in a bit of disappointment.

It really hadn’t been the most unpleasant of sensations, him feeding upon her.

They’d have to try it again sometime, except with Cinderella’s body.

He still held her there, his hand upon the small of her back to keep her from slipping down the edge of the dais.

“You’re beautiful,” he breathed.

Tingles snaked up the parasite’s spine.

“Put me on the dais,” the parasite commanded, and he did as she said, laying her gently upon the cold stone surface.

“Now, Nox,” she said, having to fight sleep to lift her hand and caress his cheek. He shuddered at her touch, and once again, hunger flared in those startling eyes as her blood lingered close to his face, but he made no attempt to bite her again. “Do you know what happens when your kind shares their blood?”

Nox went perfectly still.

Understanding flashed across his pale blue eyes, and in a moment, the realization must have come all at once; this wasn’t at all a dream. He started, launching himself away from her.

“You’re not Blaise,” he said, horror draining the little color left in his pallid face.

“Fates be praised for that,” the parasite said, allowing a sly grin to slice across Blaise’s plain features.

Nox swallowed, and the parasite couldn’t help but feel a twinge of jealousy as disgust wrinkled his nose. He retched, gagging on the blood still coating his tongue, as if it had somehow soured in his mouth with the realization of who had been in control of the body he’d just been feasting on.

Nox began to shake.

“I thought it was a dream,” he said, pacing now as he wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.

The parasite attempted to shift into Cinderella, sure Nox would become less appalled with himself when he realized the girl whose blood he’d shared was breathtaking, far out of his league. But Nox’s venom still coursed through the parasite’s blood, and when she attempted to shift, it was as if she hit a wall of adamant laced with sludge too slippery to climb.

Nox stopped, his lanky form stiff as he turned toward her. “What were you going to let me do?”

His voice was shaking with rage, and the parasite could not say that she understood. He enjoyed the blood sharing as much as she had. And if she’d let him have his way with Blaise’s body, he would have enjoyed that, too.