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One of the guards shoved Christian. "Get it over with, or get back to your chair."<br />
Still wearing that dark smile, Christian shrugged. "Sorry, Rose. You're going to die anyway.<br />
Why not do it for a good cause?" He brought his face down to my neck. "This is probably going<br />
to hurt," he added.<br />
I actually doubted it would … if he was really going to do it. Because he wasn't…right? I<br />
shifted uneasily. By all accounts, if you got all your blood sucked out of you, you also got<br />
enough endorphins pumped in during the process to dull most of the pain. It was like going to<br />
sleep. Of course, that was all speculation. People who died from vampire bites didn't really<br />
come back to report on the experience.<br />
Christian nuzzled my neck, moving his face under my hair so that it partially obscured him. His<br />
lips brushed my skin, every bit as soft as I recalled from when he and Lissa kissed. A moment<br />
later, the points of his fangs touched my skin.<br />
And then I felt pain. Real pain.<br />
But it wasn't coming from the bite. His teeth only pressed against my skin; they didn't break it.<br />
His tongue moved against my neck in a lapping motion, but there was no blood to suck. If<br />
anything, it was more like some kind of weird, twisted kiss.<br />
No, the pain came from my wrists. A burning pain. Christian was using his magic to channel<br />
heat into my flex-cuffs, just as I had wanted him to. He'd understood my message. The plastic<br />
grew hotter and hotter as he continued his barely there drinking. Anyone who'd been looking<br />
closely would have been able to tell he was half-faking it, but too much of my hair was<br />
blocking the guards' view.<br />
I knew plastic was hard to melt, but only now did I really, really understand what that meant.<br />
The temperatures required to do any damage were off the charts. It was like plunging my hands<br />
into lava. The flex-cuffs seared my skin, hot and terrible. I squirmed, hoping I could relieve the<br />
pain. I couldn't. What I did notice, however, was that the cuffs gave a little when I moved. They<br />
were getting softer. Okay. That was something. I just had to hold out a little longer.<br />
Desperately, I tried to focus on Christian's bite and distract myself. It worked for about five
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