by Ella Frank
“What of Paris?”
“I believe he and I are due a little talk,” Vasilios announced.
“You will not hurt him,” Thanos said, causing Vasilios to laugh in a way that let him know the Ancient was done with any kind of lenience he had shown today.
“I’m sorry, but you don’t get a vote. Plus, it will give you an incentive to do the task that was set out to you and return in one piece. Go and do your duty, Thanos, and when you are done, perhaps you’ll have a long-locked male to return home to. If you’re lucky.”
“OH, PARIS…”
AS his name singsonged through the door like some wayward child’s, Paris drew his legs up to his chest where he sat huddled on the bench seat in the bathroom. He’d been in the same position since Thanos had left him, but as that smooth voice found him, a shiver skated up his spine.
He knew that voice. It belonged to Vasilios, and the last time he’d seen him, he’d been one pissed-off vampire.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are.”
The voice was tinged with sarcasm as it got closer to the room, and Paris pressed one of his cheeks to the top of his knees as he remained fixated on the door.
Please don’t come in here. Please don’t—but before that thought was finished, Vasilios appeared only inches in front of him and said, “Too late.”
Paris jerked his head back to look up at the vampire, and when Vasilios’s lip curled back and his fangs slowly slid free, Paris’s breath got caught in the back of his throat.
This vampire, he threw off all kinds of power. Power and sex.
“Huh, and I wasn’t even trying for the latter.”
Shit, Paris thought. Shut your mind. Shut your mind.
“Au contraire. Keep it wide open, Paris Antoniou,” Vasilios said, and then took a seat beside him on the bench. Paris scooted as far away as he could without his ass falling off the wood under it.
Vasilios chuckled and reached a hand out to clamp it around Paris’s wrist. “Going somewhere?”
Paris’s gaze flicked to the cool fingers on his arm and then back up to the handsome face watching him. Vasilios then raised an eyebrow, and Paris tried to swallow around the lump lodged in his throat.
“You know,” Vasilios said, and drew Paris back toward him so they were sitting hip to hip, “with your hair like this, free of its earlier binding, you really are quite a pretty young thing.”
Paris’s stomach flipped as he stared into hypnotic eyes the color of jade, and he swayed a little closer to the male currently tonguing one of his fangs and— Oh shit, that’s a goddamn fang.
Vasilios cocked his head and let free what sounded like a laugh. Or at least a distorted version of one.
“You remind me of my Leonidas, Mr. Antoniou.”
I do?
“Yes. Your thought process is very similar,” he replied, and Paris wondered if he would ever get used to someone answering his unasked questions.
“You won’t,” Vasilios said. “You just get used to not thinking any.”
“Good to know,” Paris managed, his breathing coming a little harder, and he wasn’t sure if that was due to the proximity of one who was so lethal…or so fucking attractive.
“Probably a little of both, if I were to take a guess. But I do not have time to really examine your psyche, agori. You see we have a more pressing matter at hand, Paris.” The French pronouncement and inflection of his name, Par-ee, as it rolled from Vasilios’s tongue, was a seductive lure. And Paris felt himself harden as he said, “We do?”
Vasilios trailed his fingers across Paris’s cheek and whispered, “Yes. We do.”
Paris licked his lips and tried to clear the fog from his mind. But his brain was fuzzy, his heart was flying a mile a minute, and his skin was overheating. He felt buzzed. High as a kite, and he had a strong feeling that the sinful face only inches from his had everything to do with that.
“You, pretty boy, you killed one of my guards.” The fingers on Paris’s cheek moved quickly then, and Vasilios had him pinned with his back against the wall and a grip as tight as a vise on his pharynx. The vampire had straddled Paris’s lap and was looming over him now, like some twisted version of a lap dance. “I want to know how.”
Paris’s mind raced right along with his heart. Vasilios was fearsome to see like this, but also kind of spectacular. He could see why Leo was attracted, however the slight issue of Vasilios wanting to kill Paris kind of dampened the desire.
“And that is where you and my agori differ,” Vasilios said, and lowered his lips by Paris’s ear. “He likes the edge of danger. In fact, it makes him fuck all the harder.”
Shit. Okay, yeah, Leo had lost his damn mind.
“Now,” Vasilios said, and moved back so he was looking down at Paris again. “Tell me how you killed my guard.”
“I…I don’t know.” The vampire studied him closely, and Paris rushed on. “I mean, I was frightened when it happened. And then this cloud burst out of my hands or something.”
“Are you not frightened now?”
Good point, Paris thought, but then Vasilios shifted atop him, and his cock kicked at the movement. Yeah, he might’ve been frightened, but he was also weirdly aroused. So maybe…maybe that—
“Is tempering your ability to suck my soul from my body?” Vasilios’s canines retracted and he released his hold to settle back on Paris’s thighs. “How fortunate that you find me so appealing, then.”
Okay, this mind-reading shit was humiliating. Having someone hear everything might just be a fate worse than death.
“Trust me. It is not. Especially not the way I would deliver you to it. For now, though—Leonidas!”
Paris’s eyes flew to the door just as Leo opened it and stepped through, with Alasdair not far behind.
“You and Alasdair, head to your place and get what you need and bring it here.”
“But we talked about this—” Leo started, and then stopped when Vasilios strode over to him and took his face between his hands.
“And now we are done talking. You will go with Alasdair, pack your belongings, and get back here within the hour. Do you understand, agori?”
Paris watched his usually outspoken friend nod, and then Leo brought his hands up to take Vasilios’s wrists, drawing them down in front of him.
“You’re worried about me. About us,” Leo said, and Paris’s eyes widened. Leo hadn’t been lying. He really was with these two vampires. As in with them. He could see the emotion in his friend’s eyes as he looked at Vasilios.
“Do not be foolish, Leonidas. It is merely time for you to be here. With everything that has happened, I would think you would understand that.”
“Oh, I understand,” Leo said, and then smirked as he moved up onto his toes to place a kiss on the vampire’s cheek. “I’ll be careful. I promise.”
Paris saw Alasdair’s lips twitch as he placed a hand on Leo’s lower back, and couldn’t believe that guy actually knew how to smile. Then he inclined his head in Vasilios’s direction. “We shall return.”
Vasilios nodded. “Make sure that you do.”
As Vasilios turned back in Paris’s direction, Leo said, “Don’t hurt him, Vasilios.”
Paris gulped at his friend’s request and audacity when Vasilios froze. Then the vampire’s eyes found his, and Paris saw the calculation there. “Calm yourself, agori. That is not my intention.”
And as though Leo had thought over his words, he added, “And don’t let anyone else hurt him either.”
Vasilios grinned in almost manic delight at that, and gave a small shrug. “Your friend knows me very well, Paris. That’s fortunate for you.”
“I mean it, Vasilios. He’s my friend,” Leo said, and his voice was firm as it echoed around the room.
“I promise he will be in one piece when you return.”
Okay, Paris thought. That didn’t sound so promising. One piece doesn’t necessarily mean alive, or unharmed, or—
“Calm yourself, Mr. Antoniou
,” Vasilios interrupted. “I plan to leave you in very capable hands. Now come.”
With Vasilios staring him down, Paris got to his feet and followed the three of them out into the bedchambers.
“Isadora,” Vasilios said, and when a gorgeous, raven-haired woman dressed in black leather pants and a corseted blouse stepped forward, Paris’s mouth fell open and he whispered, “It’s you…”
Every single person in the room turned on him then, and Paris became acutely aware of who was in there and who was not—Thanos. Thanos was gone.
Leo and Alasdair stood side by side, and off to the woman’s left was a tower of a man with long silver hair. His face was as white as snow and his eyes were an eerie silver, just like…shit, Elias’s. But Paris didn’t care to think on that for the moment. He didn’t even care who that scary-looking guy was. What he focused on was the woman. He knew this woman.
This was the same lady he’d seen in Elias’s office. Weak and defenseless, tied to a chair and telling him that Elias had kidnapped her. Paris hadn’t seen her since he’d been brought here, and as he stared across the room at her, he felt an overwhelming sense of relief that Elias hadn’t killed her, like Paris had begun to suspect he had.
“Curious,” Vasilios murmured, and then looked back to the one he’d called Isadora. “This will work out even better than I anticipated. Come, Isadora. I need you to watch over our little friend here.”
“Are you mad?” the silver-haired one said. “There is no way I am leaving her with him. Not after what we just saw.”
“Do not trouble yourself, Diomêdês. He likes her. Feels protective towards her,” Vasilios announced. “I have no cause to believe he will harm her. Plus, he was sent to kill Thanos. Your precious first-sired will be quite all right. Just don’t frighten the young man, Isadora. Apparently that sets him off.”
At that, Isadora’s eyes bugged wide.
“You cannot be certain of any of that,” said the vampire Vasilios had addressed as Diomêdês.
“True, but if he wanted us dead, do you not think he would have killed us by now? Do you really believe I would put your life in danger, brother?”
Diomêdês stayed silent as he continued to stare down Vasilios.
Brother? So this is one of the other Ancients? No wonder he’s so damn scary. At that wayward thought Diomêdês’s head turned in Paris’s direction, and those silver eyes of his glowed.
“Now, Isadora,” Vasilios said, breaking through the sudden tension now thrumming in the confined space. “Take him to the Adjudication room. That’s the safest place for him right now. Alasdair, go with Leonidas to his apartment, now. And Diomêdês, you and I will head to the Chamber. We need to call the council members to assembly. They have a right to know their broods should be taking cover. That they need to protect themselves.”
“You plan to tell them of both threats, then?” Diomêdês asked.
“I plan to tell them they need to be wary of their surroundings. And that Eton is not himself. No need to cause mass chaos. It is also time they met the newest member of this family of ours, and be made aware that should anyone touch him, I will be their biggest threat.”
If Paris thought all attention had been on him a second ago, that didn’t come close to the intense scrutiny Leo now found himself under. Every single person in the room, Paris included, was now looking at Leo as though he’d sprouted wings…because really, that would be the only thing that could likely shock this crowd.
“You really did it,” Diomêdês said, as he walked over to Leo and inspected him like a bug under a microscope. “If he is bonded with you, can he also communicate as we do? And be summoned by you?”
“He can, yes,” Vasilios said, and though Paris had no clue what that meant, it must have been shocking, because Isadora gasped and brought a hand up over her mouth. “By myself or Alasdair. That makes him—”
“An anomaly,” Diomêdês said.
“I was thinking more ours. But yes. He is most certainly the first of his kind. He is linked to us, and since he has shown every desire to live, I do not find this bond worrisome. In fact, I find it rather…satisfying.”
“How can you be so flippant?” Diomêdês asked in a tone that left little doubt that he did not find Vasilios amusing in the slightest.
“I am being truthful. Not flippant. I am more than aware of what we face in the coming hours, perhaps days, brother. I find it comforting to keep the one who was tasked to kill me close by. Plus, sleeping with thy enemy seems to be part of the grand plan if we are to go by those you and I have had in our beds in recent days. And it seems Thanos was well on his way to the same conclusion before his past intruded.”
Wait. What? He and Thanos didn’t…hadn’t…
“I do not believe news of your decision will be taken well, Vasilios.”
“And I do not care. The choice has been made. Leonidas is mine. No one shall touch him. The others need to know that. Now go, everyone, do what you have been tasked to do. We must set this meeting and be done. The sooner everyone is aware of what is going on, the more chance we have at keeping ourselves off the extinct species list. Be back and at the Chamber within the hour.”
Diomêdês sighed as though the entire ordeal was giving him a migraine. “And what of Thanos and Eton?”
“And Elias,” Isadora added.
“That is no longer in our hands,” Vasilios said, and the room fell deathly silent. “The only person who can change the outcome of that is going to him now.”
Thanos, Paris thought. He has to mean Thanos.
“That’s not good enough,” Isadora shouted. “Eton will kill Elias.” She lunged forward, but Diomêdês was right there taking hold of her.
“Be of care, Isadora,” Vasilios said. “Direct your anger where it is deserved. Perhaps wherever it is, Eton is. Until then, take Paris and go, unless you have something else to add.”
Isadora’s jaw clenched and she wrenched her arm free of Diomêdês to walk over to Paris. He watched, dazzled by her beauty and fierce independence as she stopped in front of him and greeted him in French, just as she had that time back in Elias’s office.
“Hé, mon beau, tu te souviens de moi?”
Paris could barely think to translate when she added a smile, but then his brain kicked in. What had she said again? Oh yeah: Hey, handsome, remember me? When all he could do was nod, she said, “Are you ready to get out of here as much as I am?”
She held her hand out to him, and Paris quickly looked to Leo for some kind of reassurance.
When his friend mouthed, See you soon, he figured that was as good as he was going to get, and before he thought better of it, Paris placed his hand in hers and the room spun as she faded them from view.
ELIAS CAME TO with a gasp, sucking in as much air as he could get into his lungs before coughing and sputtering from the effort. His body heaved against the energy it had just expended as he scanned the room and it began to relay what had happened to him.
He was on his toes with his arms raised high above his head, and when he craned his neck so he could see the thick chain restraining them, he saw the sturdy wooden beam running the length of the roof and knew exactly where he’d been taken.
Leo’s office—or as it was known at the museum, the dungeon. The same place he himself had attacked Thanos.
“You have awoken.”
The voice that slithered out of the inky shadows was ice cold and despondent as it floated across every nerve ending of his body, alerting it to danger.
Elias looked left and then right, trying to locate the vampire who’d taken him. But his vision still wasn’t functioning at full capacity, so he blinked, trying to bring everything into sharper focus.
“How poetic this moment is,” the vampire said, as Elias flexed his fingers, testing any leeway he may have with the chains. Unfortunately, there was none. “Though it is a shame the two whom you tortured are not here to take part in your suffering.”
Elias’s heart pounded an
insistent thump, thump, thump at those words, as he told himself over and over again: Stay calm, concentrate. They like to play with their prey before they kill, so you still have time. Think of how you can get out of this, Fontana.
Just as the thought entered his mind, a breeze caressed the back of his neck and he felt the presence of another directly behind him, close enough that the entire back side of him brushed against something, or someone.
“Are you finally frightened, Elias Fontana?” His name was whispered directly over his ear, and he felt—oh shit—a nose run up the side of his cheek, scenting him. “I think perhaps you are.”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Elias willed himself to keep the lock on his mind. Now was not the time to let down his defenses. He’d honed them for moments just like these, so he could stay one step ahead. But right now he didn’t feel it—right now he felt screwed.
This was the Ancient who’d given him to Isadora at his trial—Thanos’s Ancient. Elias had seen him twice now. That first night when Alasdair and Leo had brought him to the lair, and the night of his trial. But on both those occasions the male had looked ragged and weak, nothing like the savage who’d taken him from Isadora’s room, and for a moment he wondered if Diomêdês had set this up. No. No matter how much he hates me, he’d never risk Isa. And this vampire had also gone after her before seeming to recognize who she was.
Elias had always wondered how this path he’d gone down would play out in the end, but never could he have imagined this. He’d been told tales of gods and monsters, studied them his entire life, and he’d signed up for what he believed was his fate. His destiny in life.
But the end—if this is indeed to be my end—was just a little harder to swallow after witnessing what he’d thought was impossible. Not once, in all of the lessons and studies his goddess had provided, had he been told of the love that came with the bond these beings shared. But Isadora—she and her Ancient had showed him something powerful the night before. She’d showed him their truth. And from everything he’d seen of that asshole Vasilios and Alasdair, their devotion to one another was just as strong. Which only meant one thing. He’d tried to murder this vampire’s family. His version of a loved one, as it were. And Elias could only imagine what he was feeling as he sized him up.
