by Ella Frank
Leo angled his head the best he could to look Alasdair in the eye. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. But I didn’t lie to you. Not once.”
Alasdair gave him a grim smile, and the laugh that came out of his mouth was anything but joyful. “No?”
“No,” he stressed, his lips close to Alasdair’s. So close he could— What? Fucking stop this already! He’s about to kill you, not kiss you.
“See, now, that is where you’re wrong.”
Before Leo knew what was happening, Alasdair pulled him in the final distance and took his lips in a ruthless kiss.
IT WAS NEVER smart to act in anger. Alasdair was more than aware of that. But as he stood in front of Leo with his fingers curled into his shirt, he wanted nothing more than to shake him until the truth fell out of him like loose change. Just as he’d suspected, the human was stubbornly holding on to his story that he knew nothing.
After learning what he had in Vasilios’s bedchambers, Alasdair had been on a mission. Somehow, he knew Leo was involved in the threats they’d received. It was far too much of a coincidence to think this man, this enigma, was enough to keep him twisted up inside without some kind of power. Then add in that his blood was practically a tranquilizer and something was happening when the two of them kissed and that brought him back to his plan.
As his mouth met Leo’s, a gasp left him and drifted between Alasdair’s lips. His fingers eased in their hold on Leo’s shirt, and when he pushed his tongue between his lips, it happened.
The pale eyes, which had been wide with alarm, started to swirl and the color completely engulfed the surface. Leo’s hands moved up to grip his, and Alasdair heard a growl rumble in his own throat. Even though there was a very obvious threat to Leo’s life right then, the man was responding as if they were naked and on a bed, which brought his own response to the surface.
But Alasdair would be damned if he acted on it. He was doing this to acquire knowledge, and he needed his cousins to witness it.
He kept their mouths aligned, angling his head for a deeper connection as he dove in to really taste Leo for the first time. They’d kissed before, but they had been hurried, quick matings of their mouths, which he’d pulled away from whenever the incident had occurred.
But not this time.
This time, Alasdair made certain to really savor the lips moving under his own, to lick and flick every corner and crevice he could, as he rubbed his cock against Leo’s bound hands. This would likely be his final chance to taste him, and with the safety net of Isadora and Thanos there in case anything should happen, Alasdair really let go.
He released Leo’s shirt and slid his hands into the short strands of his hair. Leo’s body vibrated against his, and the moan that emerged was blissful. No matter what was happening behind those filmed eyes, Leo was definitely feeling what he was.
Alasdair pushed his hips harder against Leo’s restrained hands, and he grunted when several fingers stroked over him. His cock was pounding between them, and the flavor of Leo on his tongue was flooding his heightened senses. He wanted nothing more than to strip him naked and fuck him right there on the couch, not caring one bit that his cousins were there. But then Thanos was inside his head, urging him to pull back.
We cannot hear anything, Alasdair. His thoughts, they are blank, and usually, we would at least hear him thinking about his cock… like you are thinking about yours.
Alasdair pulled his fingers free of Leo’s hair and lifted his head, grasping his bound arms as Leo swayed away from him. He couldn’t help himself from looking one final time at the glistening lips only inches from his, and when Leo ran his tongue along them as if savoring the lingering taste, Alasdair moved in, about to take more.
Don’t, cousin. We know nothing of what he is. Isadora’s voice was a sharp warning inside his head, and though she was right, he couldn’t stop himself from baring his teeth as he glared over his shoulder at her.
You want to fuck something? Thanos is here and salivating over your display. I daresay, in about two minutes, he’ll be more than willing. Until then, move aside. We are here to test your theory, remember?
Thanos sauntered towards him and Leo, and as he got closer, Leo’s mind came back into focus.
Why’d you stop?
Leo’s eyes had returned to their usual shade. Alasdair wanted to speak, to ask questions and demand answers of him, but that route had proved unsuccessful in the past, so testing his theory was the only other option.
When Thanos stepped up beside him, Leo’s gaze shifted to him. Alasdair could sense Leo’s unease, and when he looked over at Thanos, the expression in the vampire’s cerulean eyes was enough to have him issuing a warning.
Once. You get to do this once, and then you stop. Do you understand?
Thanos faced him, and when one of his eyebrows rose and his lips tipped up in a provocative smile, Alasdair recalled the couple hundred times they’d shared a bed with, and without, others. Thanos was an extremely greedy lover, renowned for being insatiable. His appetites were unequaled. That alone would have been enough to cause concern, but add in that he was performing for an audience and they were about to get an eye-opening display.
Why, I understand perfectly, cousin.
LEO SHOOK HIS head as Alasdair stepped aside and the taller vampire took his place. No! he screamed in his head as he glared at Alasdair. Why are you doing this?
He backed up, and when the backs of his knees hit the edge of the couch, he fell, only to find himself trapped under the male who was now straddling his lap.
“This is a much more comfortable position,” the vampire taunted and took his chin in a tight hold. Then he tilted Leo’s face up, and as he gazed down at him with blazing, blue eyes, he grinned, exposing his fangs. “Thank you for being so thoughtful.”
Leo tried to yank his head back, but when Alasdair’s voice entered his mind, he froze. Sit still and he won’t hurt you. You might actually enjoy it.
Too angry to keep his thoughts private, Leo fumed as he glowered at the one he’d foolishly started to trust and spat out, “What do you care?”
Before he could hope to get an answer, the male on top of him fused their mouths together.
WHEN HE’D FIRST thought up this plan, Alasdair had believed it to be a good one. He wanted to see if he was the only one causing a reaction in Leo or if it was all of their kind. But as he stood off to the side and watched Thanos kiss his yielding, any thought of discovery and revenge changed to possessive anger.
He moved forward to haul Thanos off Leo, but Isadora appeared at his side and clasped his wrist between her fingers.
Let him, Alasdair. You came to us for a reason. Now, see if you can hear anything.
Alasdair’s gut churned as a groan came from Thanos, and he wanted to hit something—hard.
I came to you to test a theory. Thanos doesn’t have to enjoy it so much.
Isadora’s husky chuckle sounded as her thought was relayed inside his head. He made no secret of wanting to taste your human. That should’ve clued you in. Perhaps it would’ve been better had I been the one to test the theory.
Alasdair shook his head. You are not his type, ómorfo korítsi. I need him to respond, not turn ice cold.
He returned his attention to Thanos and ground his teeth together as he watched the back of Thanos’s head. He tried to concentrate beyond the red blur of anger he felt at seeing him on top of Leo, but it was fucking difficult. He hadn’t thought this far ahead, and he hadn’t expected to want to kill anyone who touched the human. But that’s what he wanted: to fucking kill Thanos for touching what was his.
Isadora’s fingers tightened, and she warned under her breath, “Don’t make me hurt you, Alasdair.”
“I’d like to see you try.”
“We both know I can’t defeat you. But I would make you suffer. Look inside your human’s mind. See what you can see.”
Alasdair focused on the two over on the couch and then closed his eyes. If he couldn’
t actually see what was going on, his cousin had a better chance at survival. He shoved past Thanos’s depraved thoughts, not wanting more of a reason to strangle him, and then delved into the human mind beyond.
Not sure what to expect, Alasdair was stunned when, Why is Alasdair doing this? Was Leo’s primary thought.
He’d thought he would see lustful imaginings of Thanos naked and inside Leo. No one usually had the willpower to resist his cousin’s seductive tongue, and that he wasn’t in Leo’s thoughts at all pleased Alasdair more than he cared to admit.
He quickly pushed that emotion the fuck out of his way, though, when he recalled what he was supposed to be doing, and continued to listen to Leo’s thoughts.
Is it because of what happened between the three of us? Is he upset that I saw him and that Vasilios guy? It was his fault. He made me do it. Or maybe it’s because of what happened after—
Before Leo could finish that thought, Alasdair was behind Thanos and tearing him away.
“Calm down, cousin. Your possessive streak is completely unnecessary. He thought of you the entire time.”
Not the entire time. He reached for the rope around Leo’s wrists and yanked him to his feet. “What do you mean what happened after?”
LEO’S HEART WAS thumping. It was thumping so hard he thought it might pound clear out of his chest. Alasdair’s lips were so close Leo could taste his breath, and suddenly, he couldn’t remember the question.
“Wh…what?”
“Don’t play coy with me, file mou. Not now. What did you mean when you said what happened after?”
Leo glanced at the vampire who’d just been all over him, feeling nothing in the way of a response. He was surprised, because the guy was his usual type. But when he looked back at Alasdair, his erection seemed to have its own fucked-up idea about where it wanted to go.
“Tell me what you saw,” Alasdair demanded. “What’s happening when your eyes glaze over and my mouth is on yours? Because nothing happened when you touched Thanos.”
He should’ve been frightened. Terrified, actually. But he’d had enough of being played with like a mouse before the cat’s meal—so, instead, he smiled.
“I see you,” Leo finally admitted, letting his eyes trail down Alasdair’s frame. “I saw you before you were this. With long hair and flushed cheeks. I saw you the night he turned you into this.”
As the words left his mouth, Leo wondered when he’d developed a fucking death wish. He figured it was around the time he’d woken up and discovered that a vampire was the master of his fate. But Alasdair had asked for answers, and if telling him what he wanted to know might save his life, he wasn’t dumb enough to keep it a secret.
Alasdair’s eyes darkened, and then he hissed. “You’re lying.”
Leo tried to yank his hands away, but the action was no use. Alasdair had too tight of a grip on them.
“Why would I, omorfo mou agóri?” Leo asked, using the Greek words he’d heard Vasilios whisper to him in his visions.
“That proves nothing. You continue to try to fool me. Vasilios said that the night in the Adjudication Room. You were there. Your deceptions are sorely lacking, Leonidas. I am disappointed.”
Leo gave a slow nod and blinked once. Then he tilted his head up and whispered, “I’m sorry you find me lacking, Alasdair, son of Lapidos. You do not know how long I have waited for you.”
As those words registered with the vampire, Leo saw a flash of disbelief in his eyes. There was no way he could’ve known his full human name without it being the truth. But before anything more was said, Alasdair faded the two of them from the room.
“WHERE THE FUCK did they just go?” Thanos demanded.
Isadora’s blood boiled, and she clenched her fists by her sides.
“Isa?”
He hadn’t just done what she thought he had… Did he? But as she stared at the empty space Alasdair had vacated, she knew he had.
“I can’t believe he pulled this shit after what we discussed. He ordered me to—”
“Shut up,” she snapped, trying to reach out to Alasdair’s mind. But, of course, he fucking blanked it out. “He’s shut me out.”
“That fucking prick,” Thanos growled. “If he’s not already dead by the time we catch up to him, I’ll kill him myself.”
Isadora spun on her heel and reached for the door. “Not if I beat you to it.”
She twisted the handle, hell-bent on tracking down her wayward cousin, and as she flung it open to see where the hell Alasdair had taken them, she came face-to-face with—
“Elias…”
ELIAS’S NAME WHISPERED from the lips of the woman standing in front of him had his arm halting in midair. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing, but as he lowered his hand and looked into a face he’d never been able to forget, he managed only one word.
“Isadora?”
The wide eyes and slack-jawed expression on her flawless face revealed that she was as unnerved to see him as he was her.
“What are you doing here?” he got out, but when her mouth opened to answer, a man with a scary-as-fuck scowl on his face stepped out from behind the door.
As the man caught Elias’s apprehension, he schooled his features to a more neutral expression and then spoke. “Good evening, sir.”
Elias’s eyes shifted to the man’s blue ones, and when a slow, easy smile curved the stranger’s lips, pinpricks of unease bristled under his skin.
Unease obtained by only one thing—ingrained knowledge.
Taking a wary step back, Elias slipped his hand into his pocket and ran his fingers over the silver letter opener he always kept there. He’d had it especially made on his twenty-eighth birthday, and his heart started a rapid tattoo in his chest as a rush of adrenaline hit it like an electric shock.
This can’t be right, he thought as he studied the face of his past. And certainly not like this. She can’t be…
But as he studied her porcelain complexion and ruby-red lips, his brain disagreed. Isadora hadn’t aged at all. Her features were all achingly familiar, and as the hair on his arms stood on end, the pieces of this fucked up puzzle began to make sense.
“How strange to see you again, Elias,” she said, drawing his attention back to her.
But there was no need.
This was the moment. The moment he’d been told of all those years ago. The one he’d been preparing for, and it was all wrapped up in a woman from his past. One of life’s ironies, no doubt. Yeah, well, irony could fuck right off as far as he was concerned.
He’d dreamed many times over of a life with Isadora, and now, he’d come to find that it hadn’t been a dream at all. She’d been drawn back to him because of this, and she didn’t even realize it. His dream of one day being with her again—it was over before it had even begun.
She stared at him, waiting for an answer, and he knew he had to tread very carefully.
“Yes. It’s very strange. Do you want to tell me why a woman I haven’t seen in years is coming out of the private office of one of my employees?”
Her midnight-blue eyes flared as though she weren’t used to being questioned, and then the intimidating guy placed a hand on her shoulder.
A calming gesture? Elias wondered. Who is he? A boyfriend? A husband? A lover?
“Well…we were just—”
“Leaving,” the man stated, urging Isadora to take a step forward.
As she started to walk, Elias put his hand up and shook his head. “I don’t think so. You two are trespassing.”
“And now, we’re finished doing so,” the man said in a deceptively calm voice. “You’re going to want to move.”
The order was firm, and with the get the fuck out of the way or I will do it for you look aimed his way, Elias knew the wise thing to do was to move—but he had never claimed to be wise.
“You should let us go,” Isadora said, and then she swallowed back anything else she’d been about to say.
“And you should start talking,�
�� he said. “I’m not letting you two leave without some kind of explanation and possible police involvement.”
“Elias…”
His name sounded like a warning now, and his idiotic cock remembered a time when she’d issued that same warning but in a seductive let’s-fuck kind of way.
"Don't even try, Isadora. Your threats won't work here."
“Let us leave,” the guy said.
When Elias looked at him, he heard, Step aside, human. We need to leave, echo inside his head, and an arrogant smirk crossed his features. He was about to trump this asshole’s card in the best way imaginable.
He took a step forward and replied, “You’re not going anywhere.”
ISADORA’S MOUTH FELL open as Elias Fontana did the impossible—replied to a full compulsion.
She was about to turn to Thanos and see what the hell he made of it all when a thin, silver blade whizzed past her face and pierced through the side of her cousin’s neck. Thanos shouted out a pained curse and reached for the object as a firm hand wrapped around her wrist. Caught completely off guard, she gasped as she was pulled towards a man she’d once willingly gone to, and her feet froze when she spotted the shiny, silver film that had completely encompassed Elias’s eyes. They were much the same as Alasdair’s human’s. However, where his had been a dull grey, Elias’s shone like liquid silver.
This wasn’t the easygoing, sexy-as-hell teacher she’d met years ago. This man was something else entirely. He was confident, arrogant, and somehow managing to hang on to her as she tried in vain to pull her arm free.
She didn’t understand what was happening, or maybe, somewhere inside her, she did, because when she tried to fade out of Elias’s grip, he laughed and shook his head.
“Oh, no, Isadora, first sired to Diomêdês. I’ve been waiting for you.”
SOMETHING WAS DIFFERENT.
The second they appeared in his kitchen, Leo expected to fall to the floor and pass out. But instead, he remained alert and on his feet. The usual ache in his skull, which always followed one of Alasdair’s spectacular disappearing acts, was there, but it wasn’t as harsh as it usually was.
