by Lexi C. Foss
The sound of clapping brings my attention to the man seated off to my left. I can feel his eyes on me. The power radiating off him has everyone cowering in fear. Have I impressed him enough? Does the Devil find me worthy? Have I done enough to live another day?
I stare at him with both awe, fear, and curiosity. I’ve imagined what he looks like for years. My vivid imagination conjured up horrors and delights of his fortress and the legions of the damned.
“Bring the child here.”
“Move.” The gruff voice of Julien tugs me from my thoughts.
Peeking a glance at his face, I see the pride radiating from his features. The fact I’ve done well makes me feel warm all over. Rising from the ash covered ground, I leave the stake where it’s laying and step toward him. I stand tall, unflinching under Lucifer’s gaze, although inside I want to hide away from this man’s attention.
“She’s one of the identical triplets who survived in the artificial womb,” Julien tells him. “We mixed feline DNA as well as demon and the other sample you requested in their creation.”
“Only two left. I guess that just makes them twins now,” Lucifer corrects him with a chuckle. “What did you call this one?” His gaze doesn’t leave me once.
“Yukie,” Julien says my name as if he’s uttering the sweetest prayer. Soft, reverent. Brimming with devotion.
For a heartbeat, the Devil stares at me long and hard, calculation and thoughts swirling in his green irises. It makes me wonder what he sees, the child or the woman I’ll eventually become if I can overcome every trial that’s sent my way. In my heart, I already know this is the first of many I have yet to conquer. It's all there written in Lucifer’s steady knowing gaze.
“Train this one harder than the other one. If she survives, I’ll have a use for her in the future.” Raising his hand, he caresses my cheek gently with the back of his knuckles. “Let the hate you feel make you stronger. Let it shape you, child. Use it as armor and don’t be afraid of dying. Be afraid of living with nothing to die for. I’ll give you all the purpose you need.”
1
Yukie
“We’ve got this,” my dance partner mutters in my ear, his arm tucked firmly around my waist as we drift around the floor to the slow floating music of a waltz.
Rome's sultry night heat is heavy against my skin, the little black dress I’m wearing giving little relief. I can feel eyes on us as we move. If I’d known Vincenzo had planned tonight like this, I’m not sure I would have come at all. Then again, he’s always been unpredictable. Our first meeting had been in a vampire club. I’d been after a target. A sick son of a bitch who tortured women for days before draining them. He’d picked the wrong victim, the daughter of a rich business man who’d made a deal with the Devil to get her back.
Vincenzo had been with my mark when things had gone down. Not really the best person to play cards with, but he still swears to this day he didn’t have a clue what the guy was up to. Instead of finishing him off with the serial killer and his goons, I’d left him wounded. I’m not sure why I’d done it. From birth, I’ve been taught to hate his kind. Mercy is something I never bestow. Something about him made me hesitate. He’d been the first vampire I’d ever left breathing.
After that, we kept running into each other. Just fleeting glances of each other at first. I’d assumed he’d been stalking me like prey with the intent to attack. The handsome, Italian, blue-eyed vampire with unruly black hair and a charming smile. Mysterious, illusive.
One evening, he’d found me severely injured from a vampire attack. I'd thought he was going to finish me off. To my surprise, Vincenzo had muttered words of vengeance to whoever had hurt me. Rushing over, he’d assessed the damage and told me this wasn’t a rescue. That he wasn’t supposed to fix me, but that I looked pale and bloody. I still remember his grumbles about me changing my occupation. Scooping me up, he’d taken me somewhere safe and patched me up. After that, things between us had changed. He kept popping up on my assignments. A guardian more than a threat, although it hadn’t stopped him from causing the occasional trouble.
My sister Kiko had not been amused when a vampire had tried to flirt with her. Identical in every way, Vincenzo hadn’t realized he’d been seducing a reaper hunter when he’d bumped into her in St. Petersburg. She’d shot him in the crotch and left him bleeding in the middle of a bar. He’d learned to be weary of her after that incident
“Don’t worry, I’m immune to male charm and good looks,” I reply dryly, aware of the other dancers around us and tense that every single fucking one is a vampire. “I still can’t believe you talked me into this. As a date goes, this is definitely not like the other ones we’ve been on.”
He’d wooed me in Paris with champagne and oysters at the top of the Eiffel tower in moonlight after I’d killed a vampire hitman. Enticed me with black caviar in a famous restaurant in St. Petersburg in Russia after rescuing the daughter of a politician from some vampire turned Bratva. Surprised me with a midnight picnic on a beach in Tel Aviv after I’d cleared out a nest with fire. Charmed me with a tour around a medieval castle in Lithuania after we’d dispatched the ancient blood sucker who had been using it as a hide out. Those are only a few fond memories of our time together. My view on what he is had shifted my perception of his kind. I’d started to see him as a man not prey.
I feel Vincenzo smile against my cheek. “Bella, you love to live dangerously. You live for the thrill. Having all these predators surrounding you is a turn on and don’t tell me it’s not.”
It brings images of where his mouth had been only a short while ago. My dress bunched up around my hips out on the shadow draped balcony. One leg over his shoulder while he’d knelt before me in carnal homage. His tongue had lapped at my pussy. A clever finger crooked inside me, thrusting. My fingers tangled in his hair, he’d sucked on my clit until I orgasmed. We’ve never been shy at finding places to play and fuck. The more imaginative the better. It’s one of the reasons I love him.
“This is a bad idea,” I murmur quietly.
“An awful idea.”
Moving to pull free of his arms, my hands slide from his broad shoulders. “We should go.”
“No.” His hold tightens around me in an attempt to prevent my escape. “Not until we’ve been seen together. A few hours at most and then we can sneak away. It’s my party, after all. I can’t just leave my guests.”
“They’ve seen us,” I hiss in reply. “I can feel the contemptuous looks burning through my skin like laser beams. Whatever game you're playing, Vinnie, I want out of it.”
Even though I’m keeping my voice low, I know every blood sucker in the room can hear us. The whispers had started the moment we’d entered the ballroom in the fancy hotel.
“Is this the whore you’ve been seeing?”
A rude, haughty voice interrupts us.
The woman is wearing a blood red silk dress. Platinum blonde hair cut short, her perfectly shaped cheek-bones give her that cool super model look. The thick, black lashes framing her eyes enhance her pale glacier-blue irises. She has the ice princess vibe down to a tee. No one can mistake her for anything less than a megabitch. The blonde arches an eyebrow, giving me the once over with her gaze.
Vincenzo grins like a Cheshire cat. “Jealous, Vanna?”
“Of you?” She snorts in disbelief. “You're flaunting her in front of us all like you're actually proud she’s hanging from your arm. I was naturally curious to see if this was some kind of practical joke.”
One arm slipping from my waist, he keeps me tucked into his side affirming our status as a couple. “There’s nothing natural about wanting to pry into my private life just for the sake of small talk, and besides you were never invited to my party. If you're here to get my brother to notice you, think again. Dante isn’t here, so I suggest you leave.”
The bitch’s grin is laced with venom. “Want to bet on that?”
Vincenzo’s attention snaps to someone across the room, his eyes widening in panic. “Fuck.�
�
Excitement sweeps the crowd around us, hungry for the promise of a scandal. I scan the myriad of faces looking for the source of my lover’s change in mood. The vampires part like a curtain for a man prowling toward us with deadly intent. He bears a similar resemblance to Vincenzo, but there’s a cruelness to his features. A cold aloofness that pierces right through you. His eyes tense, brilliant, and fierce. He oozes dark, intense broodiness.
My eyes meet his. Cobalt blue. I can’t stop myself from staring. Something passes between us. In the space of five seconds, everything around me is forgotten. A strange weightlessness spreads through my limbs, stealing my breath, making me light headed. He seems just as caught up in mine or so I think until he speaks.
His lips curl cynically. “I come home to find you holding a party for your whore?”
The harsh words snap me from my mesmerized state, flinging me smack back into awareness of where I am. This must be Dante. I’ve heard plenty about him but never met the Vampire King of Rome in person.
“Yukie is not a whore. She’s my girlfriend,” Vincenzo defends fiercely.
It’s sweet but really not needed. I’m not a damsel in distress. I can fight my own battles and survive.
The way Dante looks me up and down, it's clear to see he disagrees. “She’s not even a vampire.”
Fingers curling into my palms, I savor the bite of my nails leaving crescent shaped marks in my skin. “Why, you arrogant asshole!”
A hand closes over one of mine, clutching it in warning. “Yukie, please don’t throat punch my brother, at least not while everyone is watching.”
“He deserves it! He’s nothing but an entitled, egotistical bastard who thinks he can say and do whatever he wants!” I bite back.
A collective gasp goes up around us, the vampire elite in the room outraged by my outburst. Not that I fucking care. They’re lucky I’m not staking my way through them right now.
“That’s cheap coming from some call girl my brother hires to provide him with sex,” Dante retorts with a growl. “He must be slumming it if he’s having to pay for bed partners.”
My eyes narrow on his arrogant face. “I’m sorry. I don’t speak assholan.”
His lips twitch with amusement, but his stare remains disturbingly brimming with hostility. “Bella, you're cute, but I’m going to need you to put those few remaining brain cells together and leave. I know what my brother was planning, and there’s no fucking way I’m letting it happen.”
Cute? I laugh at that because clearly he has no fucking clue who I am. People need to start appreciating the effort I’m putting in not to kill them all. This icy reception we’ve been treated to would be nothing but bloodshed if they figured out my profession.
“Thank goodness you got my text.” Vanna gushes breathlessly from beside him.
Attention snapping in the blonde’s direction, I sneer. “Shutting the fuck up is gluten free, add that to your diet.”
“Vanna, keep out of this. It’s none of your business so stop trying to get on my brother’s good side. It’s not going to get him to date you or get you in his bed.” Vincenzo steps between us, shielding me with his body. “Look, Dante, this is my decision.”
The Vampire King of Rome’s laugh is scornful. “You really think I was going to allow you to tie yourself to this?”
He stalks around Vincenzo and gestures at me like I’m a piece of unwanted trash. Something not even worthy to be in his royal presence. Killing this bastard is a bad idea, and I’m barely hanging on not carrying the urge through.
“He was going to what?” I question, focusing on his words.
Vincenzo tenses, his frame taut, but he doesn’t turn to look at me. “I was going to ask you to…”
“You hadn’t even asked her?” Dante cuts in. Lifting a hand to my face, he cups my cheek to trace a finger provocatively over my lips. “Little brother, that’s just priceless.”
I should pull away, instead I suck in a breath at how his touch leaves tingles over my skin. There’s anger in his gaze, but also something else barely hidden; desire.
“Forget this madness, Vincenzo, or I’ll take your toy away from you,” Dante continues. “Make her scream my name as I fuck her against the wall while your guests watch. I’ll have her on her knees before me, serving my cock. I bet her panties are already soaked at the thought.”
Jerking my face away, my glare burns with hatred. “If you're dick comes anywhere near me, I’ll slice it off and give it to your wannabe girlfriend over there.”
2
Dante
The woman’s jade green eyes spit fire and the promise of wrath. It makes me want to fan the flames and see how far I can push her. My brother’s scent is all over her. I can see the way he looks at her. The adoration. She’d been watching him with a similar look. Saying I’d fuck her here and now hadn’t been an idle threat. Sinking between those silken thighs of hers would be a pleasure more than a duty. I’m suddenly heady from the idea. I want her eyes glazed with passion and her so fucking lost in arousal she won’t even think to deny me. What would she taste like on my tongue if I pressed my mouth to her sex right now? Would my brother’s taste still linger? I want nothing more than to wipe it away and mark her with my own. Would she moan my name or his on a broken cry of ecstasy?
“Dante?” Vanna snaps in irritation beside me, “You should have her thrown out of the building for threatening you like that.”
Turning, I survey her coldly. Daughter of one of the oldest vampire houses in Rome, her bloodline gives her certain privileges. She seems to think that gives her the right to stick her nose into my business.
“Well this has been interesting,” my brother’s woman mutters, reaching for her shoulder bag when a chime comes from inside it. “But now I’m getting bored.”
Vincenzo groans, shoulders slumping in defeat. “Yukie, please don’t go.”
Looking quickly from the phone she’d fished from her bag, she stuffs it away again. A shutter drops down over her face, a remoteness shielding her emotions. “Trust me, Vinnie. It's for the best. If I stay, they'll only regret it, and I’m pretty sure you don’t want their death on your hands.”
A vampire hunter of the highest reputation, I have no doubt she’d massacre most of the throng around us before she was subdued. When I’d obtained the information, I had thought my little brother was mad. She’s the enemy. A killer. He flirts with danger, and now I see why. This woman is something to behold. No wonder she sank her claws into him. For whatever reason she’s been dating him, I will not allow it to continue. Having her here is insanity. If his guests knew what she was, this place would turn into a battlefield.
Head held high, she saunters past me, her heels clicking across the marble floor. There’s no rush as she leaves. No humiliation obvious in her movements. She retreats gracefully, surrounded by an air of dignity.
When Vincenzo takes a step to go after her, I stop him with a hand on his arm. “Leave it. You’ve wrecked what was left of your reputation, don't make it worse. If you want to marry, I’ll find you a more suitable bride. Someone who will provide you with pure blood heirs.”
His blue eyes find mine. Hard, brutal, no trace of the easy-going man I know him to be. “You’ll regret this, Dante. You may rule Rome, but you don’t dictate how I live my life and who I’m with.”
He leaves, pushing his way through the vampires still gathered, and heads toward the bar. No doubt he’ll get drunk. Wallow in self-pity and anger. He knows that I’m the one in charge. In a few weeks, this will all be forgotten, and he’ll find a new bed mate.
“This little scene is over,” I announce loudly to the vampire nobles still watching. “Go back to entertaining yourselves.”
I expect Vanna to flirt with me some more. Instead she follows my brother, her hips swaying sexily as she saunters. Maybe she’s decided to try her luck with him. Console him in his misery at my actions. Not that I care. He can have her.
I mingle for a while, but it doesn�
��t extinguish my growing disquiet. I’m unable to shake the picture of my brother’s whore from my mind. My cock swells in response. She’d been a green-eyed cat. Oriental features, flawless, beautiful, exotic. Her hair a long cascade of black and electric blue falling around her slender shoulders.
Filthy rich, master vampire of Rome, I can have anyone I want, so why do I hunger for a taste of what my brother has had. By the time I head upstairs to my penthouse, it's a few hours before dawn. Not even the wine I’ve consumed can rid my thoughts of the woman.
My skin prickles with the sensation of being watched when I enter. A shadowy form in the darkness, my keen sight is somehow unable to make out. Some kind of distortion of the light. An apparition? I’ve never been bothered by ghosts before.
“Who the hell are you, and how did you get in here?” I snarl, fangs bared in outrage.
It chuckles ominously in a masculine voice. “The deal has been struck, and the spell cast. It’s time to rewrite the evening with a new script.”
“Rewrite?”
“Hmmm let’s see what happens this time around, shall we? Shuffle it up and press play. See what happens when things are taken away. Not that you're going to remember this conversation,” it whispers. “It wouldn’t be half as much fun if you did.”
The darkness moves around me fluid as the ocean as if somehow the entity has control of it. Magic. It buzzes through the air encompassing me. A thousand electric invisible ants sting at my skin. My eyes blur. Everything becomes fuzzy, and then I see nothing.
3
Yukie
Stepping through the doors of one of the most luxurious hotels in all of Rome, my heels tap on the marble floor as I make my way toward the party. I shouldn’t be surprised to find my mark here. Not when the vampire owns it.
Dante Medici, Vampire King of Rome. Cruel. Sadistic. Heartless. The powerful and wealthy kingpin of Italy. A vampire who possesses no morals, no restraint, and no qualms in anything he does. Vampires don’t have feelings. They kill for pleasure, and I’ve never hesitated when putting them down. My instructions are a little different than usual, but I’m flexible enough to adapt to what needs to be done.
