by E A Price
Ryder slammed his glass down unable to wait any longer.
“I need to find Juliet.”
“She’s safe,” said Calder, the large male vampire. “One of our people followed her. She has arrived at the queen’s estate, and our man has it under surveillance.”
“She’s been fucking kidnapped!” exploded Ryder.
“Language,” murmured Kate.
Frank scowled at her and told her to go to bed. She ignored him completely and stepped forward.
“He’s right,” she said. “They have his mate. Who knows what they’re doing to her?”
Ryder snarled, and Frank rubbed his forehead. “You’re not helping, darling.”
Kate clutched her stomach. “They kill people like us, how long do you think they’ll let her live?”
“Kate!”
Ryder started moving to the door and Ingrid the blonde vampire stepped in his way.
His beast yowled. “Get out of my way!”
“You don’t even know where you’re going,” she said, half in amusement.
Kate scowled at all of them. “How much longer do we have to wait and hide? Those royal vampire ass…” she swallowed, “pee-pee heads, have been lying and killing shifters and vampires for years just because they happened to be mates. We need to stop them. I don’t want my kids to be too scared to leave the house because they’re half-vampire, half-shifter.”
“Juliet might be pregnant,” rumbled Ryder, edgily.
Frank inhaled, and Ryder noticed he was sporadically breathing in the same way Juliet had been.
“We may not get this chance again,” added Calder. “This is the first time we have heard of the queen visiting the country in over three decades. We would not want to wait another three decades. Surely, this is fate.”
“He’s right,” agreed Ingrid. “I am tired of waiting, as is my mate. We need to put an end to this now.”
Frank clutched Kate’s arms. “The queen travels with dozens of guards, all of them old, powerful vampires.”
“The same vampires who would happily kill our children just for being alive.” Tears appeared in Kate’s eyes. “How much longer can we hide here? We’ve had too many close calls. One day, they’ll come for us. We need to stop them before that happens.”
Frank brushed away the tears that started trickling down her cheeks.
“You are right, my darling.” He chuckled without much humor. “You are always right.”
Kate gave him a watery smile, and they pressed their foreheads together.
“So what is the plan?” demanded Ryder, tiring of watching the tender moment. He had plenty of tender moments he needed to make with his own mate. He also needed to stake the vampires who dared touch her and abduct her. So much to do, so little time…
“We storm the estate, killing anyone who gets in our way and beat the royal vampires over and over until they admit the truth about vampires and shifters. That’s pretty much all we’ve got.”
Vague, full of violence and plenty of opportunity for his beast to rip people apart. Rawr. His kind of plan.
Ryder shrugged. “Sounds good.”
*
Juliet batted at her face. Was it a fly?
She blinked awake to find Master leaning over her, his fingers tracing her face. Oh hell, this took her back to a time she had desperately been trying to forget.
He smiled. “Mary, my love, together again at last.”
Juliet wriggled away from him. She found herself in an enormous bed, in a lavish bedroom. She slipped out from under the covers and put as much space, and incidental furniture, between her and him as possible. Her newly awakened heart was trying to beat itself out of her chest.
“How are you alive?” she whispered.
He smiled lazily, but he couldn’t hide the cruel glint in his eyes. “You mean after you left me for dead?”
“You attacked Rodrigo. What was I supposed to do?”
“You think I didn’t see you knock over the lamp?” He carefully slipped off the bed, unfolding his long legs. “If I hadn’t seen you do it, I wouldn’t have believed it of my little Mary. But then, it’s Juliet now, isn’t it?”
He hadn’t changed much. His hair still flowed long, past his shoulders, his icy eyes still sneered, and he was still handsome. Though, his dress sense seemed to have stalled somewhere in the nineteenth century. He was wearing a voluminous white shirt, open to the waist to display a perfect chest, tight black trousers, and knee-high boots. He looked like he belonged on the cover of a trashy romance novel.
No, he belongs in hell she thought bitterly.
“Rodrigo didn’t make it,” he added. “He expired after I ripped his head from his body, but I wasn’t able to completely escape the fire.”
He circled the bed.
“Thankfully, Marguerite saved my life. I was little more than a crisp as she pulled me from the ashes. She gave me her blood, took me to my family, and they slowly nursed me back to health. Took me nearly a hundred years to fully heal, but here I am, as good as new.”
He smiled coldly as he navigated the furniture.
“I searched for you for a while, but by then I could find no trace. I assumed you had died without me to take care of you. You always were such a delicate flower. Imagine my surprise then when I spotted your pretty little face in a newspaper.”
Juliet frowned.
“A year ago,” he explained, “we decided to move to Canada. We took in newspapers from all over this country out of interest, and there was this obscure article in the Los Lobos Herald about some kind of art theft. I wouldn’t normally pay attention – I could care less about modern art. I abhor anyone who buys it in the first place – they deserve to have it stolen. But the article caught my attention as the victim was a vampire, and lo and behold there you were in the background of the photo.”
She remembered. It was a friend of Arturo’s. It caught the media’s attention because of his philanthropic efforts. One of his maids had stolen a few of his pieces. They recovered the pieces, and the woman had a suspended sentence. She really did it to get his attention, since her faked self-kidnapping failed, she decided it was the best way to get him to notice her. It worked; the two of them were now enjoying a very warped honeymoon in Europe.
“The picture was small and grainy, but I would know my Mary anywhere.”
Juliet clutched the back of a chair, using it as some kind of shield between the two of them. “What took you so long to come find me?”
“A year? That’s nothing. I wanted to see what my Mary was doing. Wanted to know where she’d been all this time. All these years while I’d been pining for her, I wanted to know what she’d been up to.
“I tried a few different investigators. They didn’t find much on you, thankfully one of my favorite donors was more than happy to provide assistance.”
As if on cue, Emily made her way into the room, her eyes alight with adoration as they found him.
“It was my pleasure, Master. My only regret is that while living in Los Lobos, I was unable to provide you with sustenance.”
Juliet rolled her eyes. “Oh, brother.”
He burst into laughter as he placed his hand on Emily’s neck, his fingers stroking her skin.
“Don’t mind her, Emily. My Mary has always been immune to my considerable charms.”
“Yet you seem intent to inflict them on me.”
“People who succumb easily are so boring. I never found you boring, my love.”
Juliet narrowed her eyes at Emily, who was virtually simpering under his attentions.
“So she was your spy all this time?”
“Emily is very loyal.”
Juliet looked away in disgust as he pressed his fangs into Emily’s neck, wishing she didn’t have to listen to Emily’s delighted little mewls. After a few moments, he let out a groan and smacked his lips together.
“Delicious,” he purred, “though no one compares to you, my love.”
Juliet snorted, and
he laughed.
“You have not changed one iota. Though consorting with a shifter – that’s new.”
Ryder. Juliet snapped her attention back to him as his tone became infinitely chilly. The vague smile was now completely gone, replaced by fury. Idly, he tossed Emily aside. She landed on a chair, though Juliet doubted whether that was intentional.
“What I do and who I…”
“Spare me,” he hissed. “Everything about you is my business. You are mine; you belong to me. Everything about who you are, what you are, is entirely mine.”
In the blink of an eye, he was in front of her tossing the chair aside as if it were nothing more than a rag. His eyes were red, and his hand clutched her throat. She tried her best to control her fear, but she failed miserably. It had been over four hundred years, but things really hadn’t changed.
“It was nothing, just a fling. He meant nothing to me!” She tried to keep her voice steady, to not voice the horror curling inside her.
He started stroking her neck, and she felt revulsion as she realized Emily’s blood lingered on his lips. Could she be any more disgusted by him?
“You’re still a terrible liar, my love.”
He pressed his face to hers and inhaled. His erection pressed against her. Okay, yep, now she was even more disgusted.
“But, it doesn’t matter. I already sent some of my men to deal with him. You’re all mine again, Mary, and this time, I’ll never let you go.”
He was expecting her to cower, to bow before him and cry like she had all those years ago. Nuts to that!
Juliet lifted her chin, as much as his death grip on her throat would allow. “It’s Juliet now,” she rasped.
“You’ll always be Mary to me.”
He leaned down to kiss her, and she jerked in his grasp. His lips found purchase on her nose. He grunted, but at least he didn’t try to hit her to vent his frustration.
“Never mind,” he whispered. “We’ll have plenty of time for that later. Now hurry up and get dressed, Mother is waiting.”
He let her go and strode across the bedroom. Emily who had started recovering scrambled out of his way. Probably a good thing she did, otherwise he would have plowed right into her.
“Your mother is here?” asked Juliet, horror prickling her skin.
He flung open the closet and pulled out several dresses, presumably for her to wear. “My whole family is here. I hope you like the clothes. Emily picked out some items for you. They’re very keen to meet you – my family, that is. They want to meet the creature that tried to kill me and yet inspires such enduring passion in me. I want you looking your best; I would hate to disappoint them.”
Emily picked herself up off the floor and scuttled over to Juliet, grasping her hand. “Have you never met his mother before?”
“No.”
No, the dubious pleasure of meeting the queen of all vampires was one she had always hoped to avoid.
Chapter Thirty-Two
“You want to ask me something, cat?” growled Frank.
They were on their way to Juliet. Soon he would have her back. She would be safe. His beast was still irate, unable to settle, but knowing he would have her again soon and that he might be able to take a bite out of the fuckers who took her was enough to keep him going.
“Yeah, do you actually like wearing turtlenecks?”
Frank flicked a look at him before refocusing on the road and chuckling. He relaxed slightly. “I wear them to hide the bonding scar. Doesn’t hurt that my Kate tells me I look like James Bond when I wear them.”
Ryder tried to hold back the snort on that one. “How’d you meet Kate?”
His sabre-tooth dropped his jaw in surprise. Yeah, gossiping about relationships really wasn’t his thing, but maybe this would be even more of a distraction.
Frank’s face softened into a dreamy grin. “In a bar. She was being harassed by a couple of bull shifters. So, naturally, I broke their arms and threw them out.”
Ryder nodded. Yep, that would have been his reaction too. Perfectly reasonable in his opinion.
“So you were her hero?”
The vampire snorted. “Hardly. She got in my face, told me to butt out and that she could take care of herself. Tossed me out on my ass. But I kept coming back, wore her down.”
“You knew she was your mate?”
“I didn’t think so at first. Knew I was attracted to her, more than any other female I met, but I didn’t think it meant anything else than that. Didn’t believe it was possible. But after a couple of months, I was changing. My heart started beating again among other things, and the way I felt about Kate…” Frank cleared his throat and let out a manly growl. He all but scratched his balls to remind Ryder he was male. “Yeah, that’s when I knew. Or rather she knew and told me over and over until I agreed. Then when Kate got pregnant, there was no way I could deny that we were meant for each other.”
“You were sure she didn’t just cheat on you?” asked Ryder, never one to shy away from delicate questions.
“Yes!” Frank ground his teeth. “She wouldn’t do that. I always knew that somehow Susie was mine. So, we bonded, and the world didn’t end – the vampire race lived on. Back then we were living in Canada. I started trying to figure out the truth, whether it was all just a mistake or whether all the vampires were just being lied to. I must have talked to the wrong person, because the next thing I knew, vampires in black were coming after me. I took care of them, but I knew my family wasn’t safe.
“We moved around a lot until we finally landed here, and I met Ingrid’s mate by accident. I read his mind, found out he thought his mate was a vampire. I realized we weren’t the only ones. I followed him home, tried to introduce myself and when Ingrid stopped pummeling me, they listened and understood.”
His tiger sneered thinking of the angry female vampire. Yeah, he’d met Ingrid’s mate – a huge Kodiak bear shifter, and a brave male. Ingrid was even more gung-ho than him. She’d secreted so many knives about her body that it was a wonder she didn’t clank as she walked.
“Ingrid’s on edge,” Frank said. “She would like to have children with her mate, but she won’t until the situation is resolved.”
Ryder raised his eyebrows. “Don’t read my mind.”
Frank rolled his shoulders. “Habit,” he said by way of apology. “After Ingrid, we found the house and sought out other people like us.”
Ryder had been briefly introduced to everyone. The house was more of a mansion and home to twelve couples, all male vampires apart from Ingrid and an array of different shifters, plus six children, soon to be seven. Kate was clearly about to drop any day, though Frank still had a hell of a time convincing her that she couldn’t come with them.
“Calder’s mate, she really is a…”
“A bunny, yeah.” Frank snickered. “Though I would not say anything in Calder’s presence unless you wish to eat your dinner through a straw.”
All the shifters were predators with the exception of Calder’s mate. The petite, bespectacled rabbit shifter was perhaps a little out of place, but Calder didn’t seem to notice as he lavished her with kisses and called her ‘snuggle bunny’. Thankfully, she was not coming with them. She was staying behind with Kate and the children. Besides, the bunny had her own newborn to take care of, barely four weeks old. The pride on Calder’s face as he looked at his mate and child was immense.
An image of Juliet flashed before Ryder. His beautiful vampire mate. His beast chuffed. Maybe one day she’d be holding his child, too. That thought had him almost hyperventilating, so he resumed just thinking of her – babies were too panic inducing at that moment so he focused on Juliet. On getting to her, holding her, kissing her, telling her he was right and she was wrong about them being mates. Yes, the ‘I told you so’ moment would be very satisfying.
She better be okay. Better not be harmed. Grrr.
He knew deep down that anything could be happening to her at that moment, yet, he was a lot calmer than he w
ould have expected. His tiger was furious – that went without saying – but he wasn’t trying to maim anyone to make himself feel better.
Perhaps he was growing as a person. The tiger snorted – long and hard. Yeah, probably not. More likely he’d know if she was truly hurt. He’d sense it, feel it in his gut.
For now, he was fairly confident she was okay, but for how long, he had no idea.
*
The vampire queen, Katherine, was not as impressive as Juliet was expecting. Katherine never allowed her picture to be taken and rarely met with anyone. She was reclusive in the extreme. Perhaps not so odd given she was nearing the two thousand mark, but if Juliet had to guess why, it was due to vanity.
In her mind, Juliet had built her up to be some kind of glorious Valkyrie of a creature - a tall, blonde, fearless ruler of men and women. In fact, she was short – even shorter than Juliet’s diminutive frame – exceedingly dumpy, and her face was wide and her features large and pudgy, while her hair was flecked with silver.
Well, no one said you had to be beautiful to have power. The members of the Council of Supernaturals were by no mean pretty.
Juliet realized her own expectations were foolish. The queen was not a young woman when she was turned.
Katherine was lounging on a sofa while two young human males fed her and massaged her feet.
“Mother,” trilled Master.
He led Juliet into a huge… what would anyone call it? A reception room? A ballroom? It was positively cavernous and opulent to the extreme. The ceiling was so beautifully decorated it made the Sistine Chapel look merely okay in comparison. It couldn’t be their living room – for one thing there was no TV. A living room without a TV was just pathetic. What would all the furniture be pointed at without the TV? Juliet may have struggled with technology over the years, but TVs were invented by angels.
There were half a dozen other humans in the room, a number of vampires dressed in black – who Juliet figured must be the royal family’s personal security guards, various exotic birds in cages, a couple of jaguars, chained and eyeing the various birds, and also two other male vampires. As well dressed and as handsome as her master, they had to be his brothers. The other two royals.
