by T. S. Ryder
“I am not in love with him.”
Finley only smirked.
Seconds later, Carlos entered the room. Belinda’s heart jumped into her throat. The tendrils of jealousy that had been wrapping around her heart dissipated in an instant. A worry overtook her. Had he heard what she said? She peered at him anxiously before she remembered that it didn’t matter. Yeah, they had fun, and maybe her feelings were more intense than they should be, but when it came down to it, Carlos was a vampire who was thousands of years old. He’d had lovers and it was doubtful that he’d be satisfied with one person for any length of time.
Still, she twisted her hands together and hoped that he hadn’t heard her comments.
Carlos smiled at her warmly, helping to ease the skittering of her heart before glancing at Finley. “Thank you for helping us out. I greatly appreciate it.”
“It’s no problem. That demon is a pain for all of us. It’s been a while since we’ve had a fae baby born – and to a human, no less.” Finley glanced up and down at Belinda. “She must have some fae blood in her. Usually, it would take years of specialized treatments for a human to be pregnant with a fae child.”
Belinda shrugged, unwilling to be drawn into the conversation.
Finley smiled at her again and turned back to Carlos. “I’m having an orgy at eight if you want to join.”
Belinda’s jaw dropped. It took everything in her power to stop from yelling out that he wasn’t interested. It wasn’t her place . . . As much as she’d like to scratch out the fae queen’s eyes at the moment, it wasn’t her place.
“Thank you for the invitation.” Carlos sounded annoyed. “But, as I told you before, I’m into monogamy.”
Belinda had to work hard to keep the triumphant smile on her face.
“Oh, well. What a waste.” Finley sighed. “I’ll leave you two alone, then. Toodles.”
She sashayed away. Belinda glared at her for a moment before turning to Carlos. “So . . . What now?”
“Finley is one of the most powerful faes in existence.” Carlos’ voice was low and firm. “Daye won’t stand a chance against her. It'd be like a mouse attacking a lion. I know she doesn’t look dangerous, but you know the stories about Sekhmet and Hathor? Egyptian goddesses, two sides of the same being? Sekhmet is the warrior goddess, the blood-thirsty lioness. Hathor is the goddess of love, a life-giving cow. Finley’s both of them. She’s Freya, Norse goddess of love, beauty and war. And I don’t mean that she’s like them. She was worshiped as a goddess by human and fae alike. You’ll be safe here.”
He put a gentle hand on her stomach, and for a moment, the jealousy rose again. Was Carlos more worried about her or the baby? She tried to push the feelings aside. Why should she be jealous of her own child?
“What about after you defeat Daye? What will be between you and I then?”
His hand dropped. “We’ll figure it out.”
“I don’t want to be a kept woman.”
Carlos’ head dropped for a moment. Then, he looked up at her with a smile that made her heart stutter. “Don’t worry about that right now. We’ll figure it out when the time comes. Right now, we just need to make sure that you’re safe while I go after the demon. Okay?”
It wasn’t a good answer, but Belinda nodded. “Okay. Let’s do that, then.”
Chapter Seven
This used to be Carlos’ room. Belinda stared up at the ceiling, swamped with pillows all around her. It used to be Carlos’ room, but she was sleeping it in all by herself now. Where was Carlos? Had he changed his mind about that orgy he had been invited to? Or had Finley changed her mind and decided to have a one-on-one session with him?
Monogamy. What was a fae’s definition of monogamy? Especially a vampire. They were notorious for being incredibly sexual beings.
Her nostrils flared as she imagined Finley twined all around Carlos, his face red as he held back his arousal, her head thrown back in pleasure. Belinda’s hands tightened on the pillows and her ground her teeth together.
Just stop it.
All the reasons why she shouldn’t be feeling this way floated through her mind. And finally, in the end, Belinda settled on the perfect reason. It was because she and Carlos were just friends with benefits. They’d happened to fall into bed together and she happened to get pregnant, but she had only known him for a handful of days. It was, quite frankly, insane to start thinking that there was anything else.
Besides which, when he had a woman that looked like Finley wanting him, why would he give a dumpling like her a second look? She was aware that she wasn’t beautiful. Pretty enough, sure. But she had a flat body, and men liked the giant knockers that Finley sported. Not the Easter-egg hunt that they had to do with her.
Sleep wasn’t going to come, especially when she was in this state.
Belinda got out of bed and walked around the large room for a little bit. She considered going to get something to eat, but what if she chose the wrong door and entered Finley’s room?
She kicked the wall. What a fine mess she had gotten herself into this time.
***
Carlos could hear Belinda moving around in her room. She kept muttering, but the walls were too thick for him to understand what she was going on about. When there came a thump on the wall, he got out of bed and pulled a shirt over his head. Something was clearly wrong. He padded into the hallway and knocked on her door.
Dark circles were smudged under her eyes, which widened when she saw him. “What are you doing here?”
“I heard you moving around and wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“You heard me?” her voice was laced with doubt.
Carlos nodded. “I have the bedroom next to yours.”
“You do?” she asked, her voice low and shy. She ducked her head. “I didn’t realize that. Sorry, I didn’t mean to keep you up . . . ”
“You didn’t. It’s hard to turn off my brain at times.”
He leaned against her doorway, determined that his gaze wasn’t going to trail down the white, floaty nightdress she was wearing. It went so well with her skin and the dim lights in the corridor made her eyes sparkle so much that it took his breath away just to look at her. Perhaps she wasn’t the classic beauty of epic poetry but that didn’t make her any less beautiful.
Belinda twitched, her nose wrinkling, then she nodded and opened the door further. “Come in.”
He couldn’t stop his grin as he stepped into her room. “Thanks.”
“So, what can I do for you?” Belinda shut the door after him. “I thought you’d be off with your goddess having fun. Can’t turn off your brain? What’s going on?”
When she turned toward him, she wouldn’t meet his gaze. Carlos studied her for a moment, though his smile only widened. He hadn’t been certain before, but now, as he looked at her, he saw it. She was jealous. Normally, that wouldn’t be appreciated by his lovers, but in this case it made his heart soar. It meant that Belinda had feelings for him. Even if she was trying to hide them.
“Worried about Daye,” he said. “What’s your excuse?”
“Same,” she said, too quickly. She knew it, too, because she winced.
Carlos had to work not to laugh. “Ah, good. Because when I heard you pacing around and muttering, I thought that you might be jealous.”
“Jealous? Ha.” Belinda folded her arms and shot him a glare. “Why would I be jealous? You said you weren’t going to join her. She doesn’t seem like the kind of person to change her mind because of one person. Bet she’s real persuasive, though. How many orgies have you had?”
Ah, yes. They did need to talk about this. Despite the exact nature of their relationship being up in the air, it was necessary for her to know about his past. The smile slipped from his face. “Many,” he answered truthfully. “So many that I don’t remember them all. The same with lovers. I have a very extensive history, Belinda. Dozens of them are still alive. Some I committed to for a time, most I did not. I know it can be difficult for h
umans . . . but I decided long ago that I didn’t want that bed-to-bed, lover-to-lover life. I want one person that I can love and cherish forever.”
Her arms crossed tightly over her chest, then she relaxed with a sigh. Her arms fell to either side of her body and she looked up at him with an uncertain expression. “And anybody who takes you takes all that, don’t they? It’s not a matter of forgetting it and moving on. It’s your past. They way we all have pasts.”
Carlos nodded.
“I . . . I had a boyfriend once. I thought I was going to marry him.” Belinda swallowed hard. “He was part of the guild. They pushed us together and I didn’t see any reason why I shouldn’t be with him . . . But we were on an assignment together this one time, and he took a bribe from the bounty. He tried to kill me. So I killed him. And he was the only person I ever actually loved.”
Carlos knew there was nothing to say to that. He wrapped his arms around her and gently guided her back to the bed. They laid down among the pillows. Belinda actually trembled in his arms. For a moment, he was tempted to kiss away her fears, but knew after a moment that would be a bad idea. If there was something that would happen, she needed to be the one to initiate when things were like this between them.
Belinda laid her head on his chest. “Did you have parents?”
“Yes.”
“So, you’re not a first generation fae?”
Carlos shook his head. Even among the fae, it was uncertain where they had come from. The first generation – such as Finley – claimed that they were born from human imagination and that one day they simply came into existence. Others, like Carlos, who had been born and grew up, simply had to accept them at their word.
“I don’t know when I was born in terms of time,” he told her. “Things get pretty muddled when you don’t have a written or oral history to keep track of things. But I grew up in a castle, was taught how to fight, and then was sent out to find my own way in the world. I found Pan and Finley found us. She made us her lovers. Then, one day I woke up and realized I hated it. So I left.”
She sighed. “Can you really be satisfied with only one person?”
“Can you?”
“ . . . Yes.”
Carlos touched her cheek. “Not all vampires are lust-driven fiends. I have known for thousands of years that my love would only be satisfied by one person. I experimented, yes, but I want one queen to love me the way I love her.” He paused a moment. “Does that bother you?”
After a moment, Belinda shook her head. “Why would it?”
The jealousy that had been in her voice before had faded away, so he nodded, accepting that. Carlos continued to stroke her hair. “After some time, I decided that I wanted to protect humans. Demons were running all over the place then. A fae can only become a demon by choice, you know. They have to actively want to be that. It’s why you won’t find many who have any sort of regrets . . . It takes a certain psychopathic person to want to be a demon.”
Belinda shivered. “Like Daye.”
“Like Daye,” Carlos agreed. “She and her children were truly terrible. They’d wipe out whole villages just because they could. And it wasn’t just humans. They killed every living thing they could get their hands on. So, I gathered an army and went against them. Slaughtered her children. But she was too powerful to kill, and all I could do was lock her away, stop her from receiving her human sacrifices, and hope one day she’d be weakened enough to end.”
“Was that when you decided to establish your kingdom?”
“Yeah.”
Belinda sighed and rolled away from him, so she wasn’t pressed against his body. Carlos shivered at the loss of her warmth. He put a hand on her arm and propped himself up, looking at her questioningly. Tears rolled down her cheeks and her lip trembled.
“I was sold to the guild when I was a baby.”
His jaw dropped.
“They raised me to be the best bounty hunter. And I was. I dedicated all my strength to it. I was the strongest, fastest, smartest. I was the one who obeyed all orders and hid my feelings. It was like I was trying to please an impossible-to-please parent. Nothing I did was good enough. And I knew that no matter how much I accomplished, all it would take was one slip-up and then I’d be thrown away. I saw it happen so many times.” Her face crumpled and she turned away from him. “They didn’t want me. Nobody ever really wanted me.”
“That’s not true.” He put a hand on her hip. “Belinda? It’s not true.”
***
Hope rose in her chest even though she tried to squash it down. Belinda slowly moved back and peeked through her lashes at the vampire king. His warm black eyes were cast in shadow, but from what she could see of his face, he was perfectly sincere. Even his voice, low and soothing, had an earnestness to it she hadn’t heard before.
She swallowed hard as she gazed into his face. He had done too much to protect her . . . or protect the baby. Which was it? Was it both? He said he had decided to protect humans long ago. Was this part of his protective nature or something else?
Carlos brushed a finger against her lips, making her skin tingle. Her eyes began to flutter shut as she leaned into his touch.
“I want you,” he whispered to her. “And I don’t mean just for tonight. I don’t mean just until the baby is born. I want to share my days and nights with you for the rest of your life.”
Something clicked inside of her. She couldn’t describe exactly what it was, but warmth flooded her chest. It tingled at the ends of her fingertips and filled her with the lightest feeling she had ever known. If she wasn’t weighted down by his arms as they wrapped around her, she would have simply drifted away.
Belinda pressed her mouth to his. The warmth increased, pooling at the core of her. Her whole body seemed to draw her forward as she teased his mouth open, full of desire and need.
“I want you,” Carlos repeated, breathing into his mouth, then her neck as he moved to kiss her there. His fangs nipped at her skin and she shivered in anticipation, desperately hoping that he’d penetrate her with those beautiful fangs. “I want you like I’ve never wanted anybody before.”
“I want you, too,” she moaned back to him.
A thought stilled her for a moment. A bird may love a fish, but where would they live? She couldn’t remember where she had heard it before, but wasn’t it true here? They were so different . . . He was an ageless vampire, she nothing but a human. They could be together for the rest of her life, yes, but then what? She was going to die and then what would happen to Carlos?
Her king pulled back, frowning. “Is something wrong?”
Belinda smiled and pushed her morbid thoughts away. “No. It’s not. I want you, too. And for right now, that’s all I care about.”
***
Carlos captured her mouth again, enjoying the feeling of her body pressed against his. He rolled over to cage her beneath him, thrusting his tongue into her mouth. Belinda’s arms wrapped around him and her thighs separated, caging his hips. She squeezed him, making his loins tighten. Her kisses were expert, the way she moved her body against his making everything tight and hot inside of him. He growled into her mouth before tearing himself away and tracing kisses down her neck.
Just as he was about to rip open the nightgown and feast on her breasts, a crack of thunder made him jump. His head jerked upwards and Belinda let out a soft cry.
Another crack and this time he realized it didn't thunder at all. The palace quivered and he jumped to his feet. Howls filled the air outside and he rushed to the window, his heart in his throat. Behind him, Belinda made a strangled noise. Carlos threw open the window and gazed out.
The night was on fire.
Hundreds of fire-fae crawled out of giant cracks in the ground. They moved as one, like the flickering of flames, and rushed at the castle. Carlos could hardly believe what he was seeing. Were they all insane? Fire-fae were among the weakest fae to live, yet they thought that they could take on Finley and her people?
This was Daye. It had to be. He searched the ranks for a dark spot, but there was no sign of the demon herself.
With a curse, Carlos turned back. Belinda had gotten to her knees at this point. Her eyes were wide as she glanced around the room. The palace shivered again and Carlos rushed back to his human lover. She scooped her into his arms, causing her to yelp and rushed her from the room and down two sets of stairs. He came to a hallway where Finley’s lovers were streaming out of a large room where she was, no doubt, having her orgy.
The queen herself strode from the room, already dressed in gold, glittering armor. She held a spatha in one hand and a scimitar in the other. Her eyes glowed with a dangerous light as her lips pulled back, snarling.
“If this is that demon, she will soon know true pain,” Finley spat. “Nobody attacks me. Nobody harms my people.”
She waved a hand and armor burst from the clothing of several of her companions. The thick metal covered their bodies in scales, which would protect them from the weapons of their enemies while also permitting their full range of motion. Finley pressed her thumb to Carlos’ forehead and a suit of armor rapidly grew around him, fitting him like a second skin.
“Ready for the old days?” she asked him, a grin on her lips and light in her eyes. “You and me, riding into battle against those who would do us harm?”
“We’re just missing Pan,” Carlos agreed.
He set Belinda on her feet and stroked her face. There was so much he wanted to tell her but it didn’t seem like the right time. The middle of a crisis wasn’t the right moment to tell someone how you felt. It only led to that person doubting the sincerity of your words. So, he settled on a searing kiss. Belinda’s hands wrapped around his biceps as though she was trying to make him stay.
Carlos reluctantly broke the kiss and rested his forehead against hers. “Stay safe. Finley’s people will protect you.”
“Then I should be the one telling you to stay safe,” she shot back, but worry shone from her eyes. “Come back to me.”
