The Born Vampire series: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Romance (The Complete Series, NSFW Edition)

by Elizabeth Dunlap

  “Ass,” I grumped, and cut a bite of my burrito after putting it back on my plate, swirled it in the beans, and popped it into my mouth. It tasted so good, almost as good as the burritos Knight used to make me.

  “You’d give up all your food for us, wouldn’t you?” Arthur observed with another grape in his mouth.

  I met his eyes and then Knight’s before looking back down at my plate. “Maybe.” Before I could blink, Knight had handed me his pie, Arthur his bowl of partially eaten grapes, and Balthazar his can of whipped cream, but not before putting some on his half of the pie. I got my fork and took a generous bite of Knight’s pie portion. “Better stop spoiling me, I might get the wrong idea,” I said around the savory fruit and crust.

  Or the right one.

  I heard the thought with my powers, but it was so faint I couldn’t tell which one of them had said it. They were all busy eating and weren’t looking at me.

  Maybe I’d imagined it.

  We got a hotel room with two big beds and we went to sleep with full bellies, Balthazar in my bed and Knight sharing the other with Arthur. I would’ve preferred being sandwiched between my husbands like I used to, but no, they were sleeping in the same bed so there was no telling how long it would be until they started making out without me. As long as I got to watch.

  I woke up with someone snuggled into my ass, his hand slowly sneaking up to my breast where he stopped, and I was too groggy to even care. I took the hand and put it right on my boob, then I realized it was Balthazar and almost jumped away from him.

  “Morning,” he whispered, his chin on my bare shoulder where my shirt had drooped. “Been awhile since I’ve touched a breast. It’s nicer than I remembered.” His fingers slowly squeezed and I gasped audibly, pulling his hand away before he could do more.

  I rolled over to face him just in case he got handsy again. His black hair was mussy and it curtained his pink face, falling over one eye. I pushed it out of the way so I could see both blue globes clearly, and he kissed my wrist when it was close enough to his lips. This was nice, being this close to him. I was able to notice all the dips and curves of his face, the way they looked chiseled by stone. He really was a beautiful man.

  “You think I’m beautiful?” he asked, smiling in his teasing way.

  I’d spoken aloud, as I did sometimes when I was distracted, and I blushed under his smile. “Duh. You’re a sex god.”

  His deft fingers danced up my arm. “Did I use my powers on you?”

  I gulped and stared at the skin of his neck that was uncovered by the top button of his shirt being undone. “Ye… yes.” I cleared my throat.

  His blue eyes studied me, making flames burn across my skin where they landed. “I can see exactly how you want to be taken.”

  Oh, Jesus. I was going to dissolve into a puddle of need again if he didn’t stop talking.

  I moved like a blur, taking his neck in my hand and pressing his lips to mine, and god, it was just as good as the first time, except I wasn’t desperate to feel wanted now, desperate to feel loved. I just wanted him, like I wanted Knight and Arthur. Every twist of his mouth was like a pulse through me, a wave of pleasure as powerful as if he was inside me.

  He rolled us over until he was on top of me, kissing along the seam of my lips and thrusting his tongue into my mouth. I felt something between my legs with each push of his tongue against mine, a phantom sensation like he was fucking me with his cock, even though our clothes were still on. It felt so good, I had to moan loudly against his mouth and he smothered it with another thrust of his tongue.

  The more we kissed, the deeper the sensation went, making my pleasure rise until I was sure I would climax without him touching me. When I was certain I couldn’t take it anymore, his hand slipped beneath my shorts and he flicked my clitoris one time making me cry out, starting an orgasm that ripped through me like lightning. He kept our lips together to muffle my moans as much as possible as I came down, gasping in air like a dying man when he let me up to breathe.

  “Balthazar powers sample deux,” he whispered against my swollen lips. With the last dredges of my climax running through me, I claimed his mouth again, savoring the lilac taste of him that was hitting me anew, but it was somehow different now.

  Turning my head to the side, I was pleased to see our companions were still asleep, and I knew they weren’t faking with a quick check inside their heads. Balthazar kissed at the exposed skin on my neck and I moaned, so ready for round two, but we had to get up and keep moving.

  Well. Maybe after more kisses.

  We made it to James’ town in one piece, which was hard to do when Balthazar kept turning his powers on me so I constantly felt like he was resting his hands on my breasts, and every so often would flick the nipples. Christ, this was the best and the worst at the same time. If I hadn’t been driving, I’d have been perfectly fine with it, especially if those hands went south, but I was the only one who knew where we were going.

  I eventually pulled up to Sara’s B&B as coiled as a spring and jumped out of the car to try and cool off before we went inside, but the front door opened and Sara waltzed out with her pink tipped braids, holding a bowl of chickpea batter against her generous body.

  “Lisbeth!” she called, waving her spoon and dropping batter onto the sidewalk. “Oh, your lovers are much cuter in person. And with their clothes on.”

  “What?” Knight stammered.

  “Just go with it,” I whispered to him, and followed Sara into her inn, dodging drops of batter on the way. We entered the same hippie red lobby I remembered with her artwork strewn about and hung on the wall. Someone came out of the kitchen licking his fingers and smiling at us, waving happily.

  Fuck.

  I flinched back at the sight of James, the vampire that had held me captive here with his bite, controlling my every movement. Even though none of them knew about it, my reaction had Arthur stepping in front of me to keep me safe from the guy who was dipping his fingers into Sara’s bowl and licking them again.

  Grossssss.

  “He won’t hurt you, Lisbeth. He’s sobered up now, I promise,” Sara assured me, trying to bend so she could see me from behind Arthur’s imposing frame.

  “What’d he do to you in your time?” Knight asked, also standing close to me.

  I made sure I had contact with all three of my men as I showed them a clip of my time as James’ slave, making sure to note how Knight had taken care of me during it. I shut the image off and stepped back.

  “That.”

  Knight thrust his chin in a challenge at James. “You touch her and you’re dead.”

  Be still, my heart.

  Sara handed James the rest of the batter that he started devouring with his fingers. “Calm down, I said he’s harmless. He’s never going to do that to her in this time.”

  I stepped out of my man curtain and approached the batter eating James, standing as close to him as I could without wanting to vomit. “You touch me again and you won’t have to worry about the gigantic walls of muscle behind me. I’ll end you myself.”

  He barely reacted, seeming as if whatever Sara did to him had turned him into a docile puppy. “You’re scary.” He leaned into me and I bent back, grimacing. “I like it.”

  Sara pat his shoulder lovingly and they shared a gross look. “James, love, could you entertain the men in the sitting room while Lisbeth and I talk?” He nodded and walked away with the bowl in his arms, my men dutifully following him behind some red curtains to the sitting room on the other side of the lobby. “Ahh, that’s better. Hard to think with all that delicious in front of me. I don’t know how you can focus on anything.”

  “It’s definitely an effort,” I noted, grinning at my old friend. “I’ve missed you. It’s been a long time.”

  She motioned for me to follow her into the kitchen where she’d laid out several plates of chickpea pancakes layered with salsa, avocado slices, and some hummus. “Imagine my surprise waking up one day somehow knowi
ng you were here, not even knowing who you were, and through all the little tidbits my head was sending me, one of them was I’d died at some point and you never saw James or my son again.”

  “You got really sick and you refused to let him or me turn you,” I explained, sitting at the table as she sat across from me. “It was before the apocalypse happened. We were there when you died, and then James and Drake disappeared.” I reached out for her hand, the sadness of the memory overwhelming me. “I’m glad you’re fine again.”

  She gave me a consoling pat on my hand and served me a plate of pancakes. “You’ve lost more than just me along the way. I don’t expect you to mourn me as long as you can throw me, not compared to losing the man you called brother, losing your freedom, losing the man you love.”

  While that was all true, I’d still missed her.

  “Well, since everything is out in the open, there’s another thing I should tell you about me.” I waited and she held out her hand until a crack of lightning went from her pinkie to her thumb. I should’ve been surprised, honestly, but I wasn’t, especially when she continued. “I’m a witch. I went to Highborn when I was a teenager. You sensed the power inside me because I’m not human. You’ve become a total badass with your abilities too, by the way. You didn’t have these powers at all when we met before.”

  Grinning, I sliced into my pancakes with a fork and dipped them in the hummus before taking a bite. “I’ve had some time to practice.”

  She got up and rummaged in the teal cabinets, looking for something. “Where did I leave… Can never find the darned thing when I need it.” She bent to look under the sink and then slid open the lid on her metal bread keeper. “Ahh, there it is.”

  Reaching inside, she produced a glass orb with smoke swirling inside. “Full disclosure, I was kicked out of Highborn because my magic is too chaotic, too hard to control. But I can still use this.” She walked back to the table and set the orb down where it stayed still even though there was nothing underneath it to keep it in place. “What we’ll see might be a bit cryptic, but we’ll try to figure it out together. Hands on the orb, please.”

  The orb felt like touching a beating heart full of warmth and life, but also cold and unfeeling at the same time. She put her hands over mine and spoke some words that resembled the ones Headmaster Cauldron had used for his magic. The smoke in the orb shot up from the glass and swirled around us, enveloping us in its tumultuous cloud.

  We weren’t in the kitchen anymore, I felt more like I was in a movie theater, watching something play out in front of me. Sara’s powers only let us observe, whereas mine let me become part of the images.

  Playing in front of me was… basically an orgy. Me with all three of the men I loved, naked and having a good time, it seemed. If we weren’t mid-vision, I knew Sara would’ve given me a high five.

  We were finding my parents, and the journal I’d gotten from the future was in Anastasia’s hands.

  I was leading a march of Lycans and vampires to defeat Alistair, but the last image stopped me cold.

  Knight was lying on the ground, dead.

  Refusal no more

  No. No no no. This couldn’t happen. This wasn’t the future. I couldn’t have been brought back only to lose him.

  I pulled myself from the orb and backed away from the table, my chair falling onto the floor as a wave of nausea overcame me. “Tell me,” I said as calmly as I could muster, but it wasn’t calm at all. “Tell me how to prevent that. I don’t want him to die, please, Sara.”

  She stood, grimly holding the orb in her hands. “If you send him away, you won’t get your children back.”

  Hot, burning tears stung my eyes and I shook my head at her, denying that this was real. “If he stays, he dies. I’d rather die myself than let that happen, I don’t care about anything else.”

  “Lisbeth, you can’t change what I saw.”

  “I won’t let him die,” I shouted, my throat warbling, and I turned to run out of the room, across the lobby, right to the curtains that I thrust aside to reveal James standing with his gross batter, Knight and Arthur on the couch talking about something on their phones, and Balthazar sipping a glass of wine he somehow had. I went straight to Knight and wrenched him up from the couch, pushing him until he was near the doorway. “Get out. I don’t want you here.” The words were poison in my mouth, running through my body like cancer.

  He looked as much in turmoil as I was, confused by my sudden outburst. “What are you talking about?”

  “I said get out. We don’t want you here. You’re…” I had to force myself to swallow before the word would come out. “…repulsive.” It wasn’t working on him, I’d made such headway with him that he didn’t believe me, so I had to try harder. I had to say something that was the biggest lie I could think of. “I only stayed with you in my timeline because Arthur didn’t want me. You were a replacement. I never wanted to be with you.” I hoped my face didn’t betray how false every word I said was, but Knight’s confusion went away.

  “You don’t mean any of that,” he reasoned, a slight glisten of tears forming in the corners of his eyes.

  I sucked in a breath and tried to keep my chin from trembling. “I do. Now get out. I should’ve never brought you into this. We don’t need you. I don’t need you.”

  Lies. All lies.

  Arthur’s hand slid onto my arm and stayed when I tried to shake it off. “Lisbeth, stop it.”

  “Not until he leaves,” I insisted, weakly shaking my arm to get him to let me go. “He has to leave.”

  “Balthazar, take her upstairs,” Arthur ordered, only letting me free when Balthazar had his hands on my other wrist. I wrenched away and ran out, bumping Knight’s shoulder as I went, and I didn’t stop until I was inside the room I’d had before, curled up in the Steampunk bathroom.

  This was all my fault. I was going to lose him again. He’d almost died before because of me, and now he was going to die again, and it was all my fault.

  Sobs racked my chest so hard I felt like all of my ribs were broken. Every wave of sadness sent me more into the corner until I was bent at an uncomfortable angle and my phlegm was getting all over the wall where I’d rubbed my face against it.

  If Knight left, I wouldn’t get my children back, but he would live. He had to live. I couldn’t lose him again, I wouldn’t have anything left. I’d rather die.

  The bathroom door opened but my eyes were useless and my senses were preoccupied with life altering sobs.

  “Tell me something,” the person said, and I knew it was Knight without seeing him.

  I turned my wet face to him, scowling. “I told you to go away.”

  He ignored me, walking closer to me until he was covering me with his shadow. “You’d rather give up getting our kids back than let me die?”

  “You’re everything to me. They wouldn’t want you to die for them. They never would’ve wanted that.”

  “That’s not what you said just now.”

  I glared at him even though I couldn’t make out his features. “I fucking lied, like that wasn’t fucking obvious. I almost lost you before and it destroyed me. I won’t go through that again.” Wiping my tears did nothing, so I settled for resting my chin on my knees. “Do you know what the last thing I said to you was?” He didn’t know, of course, so he waited for me to tell him. “I said, ‘I love you, but stick it up your ass.’ That’s such a perfect send-off for the love of my life.”

  He sighed and held a hand out to me. “Stand up.”

  I curled my hands around my knees tightly and looked down at the floor. “No. Why aren’t you gone yet?”

  Grunting, he bent and lifted me up like I weighed nothing, holding me out in front of him when I refused to put my feet on the ground. “Because I fucking love you, you moron.”

  He pushed me against the wall and crushed my lips in a heady kiss. I didn’t want to respond, but fuck, I couldn’t help myself. I whined, bringing my hands up to tunnel through his long hair, d
eepening the kiss and flooding my body with a warmth that settled between my thighs. He responded with a growl, smelling how much I wanted him, and roughly brought my hips against his, pressing me against his hard length. I pulled away from his mouth and kept our eyes locked as I reached one hand down to trail along the front of his pants, making him gasp deep in his throat.

  Regrettably, he stepped back, and I whined again until he took my hand and led me out of the bathroom where Arthur and Balthazar were waiting for us in the small bedroom. Knight stepped away from me until all three of them were in my slightly blurry sight.

  “We’ve all talked again,” he started, and squeezed my hand when I squinted in disbelief that they were doing this to me exactly like they had in my time, making choices without talking to me first. “The potion the witches gave you said we all three of us had to fall in love with you. But even so, you never tried to make us love you in order to get our children back. You just wanted us to love you again.”

  I scoffed and wiped at the drops on my chin. “I’m not quite that unselfish.”

  “You are,” Arthur insisted firmly. “And I fell in love with you the first moment I saw you on that sparring mat, when you walked up and weren’t afraid of me for one second. Even Olivier is afraid of me, but you aren’t. You’ve never been. And god, you’re the strongest woman I’ve ever met.” Even through my tears, that made me smile, because it was so close to what he’d said to me when we were together in my time. “It would be my honor to protect you with my life for as long as I live.”

  I managed a small laugh that puffed out a few tears from my mouth. “You’re so sappy, that’s gross.”

  “Don’t forget me,” Balthazar chimed in. He’d lost the cane, his jacket, cravat, and vest, and the top few buttons of his shirt were undone. I’d never seen him look so casual. So relaxed. “You were right with what you said before. I only loved you because of the Countess, because I promised to watch over you when she died. I confused my love for you with my love for her, but you’re not her. You’re different, you’re stronger than she ever was. She would’ve never sacrificed her happiness for me. I know we didn’t end up together in your future, but now the thought of not having you is maddening. I need to be by your side, if you’ll have me.” He stopped, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed hard. “I love you, Lisbeth. Not as family. As a woman. As you.”