Paranormal Magic (Shades of Prey Book 1)

by Margo Bond Collins

  There was a pause as she considered her answer. “Something like that,” she said chewing her lip.

  Securing his hand in the sweet spot of her back, he marched her forward with unnecessary force. “If you’d like me to kill you sooner rather later, that can be arranged.”

  His feet came to a standstill by the glossy metal doors of the lift and he nearly punched the call button out of its socket before standing back to await its arrival. She didn’t say another word until they were airborne—three hours later.

  Paris

  Turning left when they entered the aircraft, an extremely pretty flight attendant led them to a pair of very cosy-looking armchairs upholstered in blue leather. Mercer directed her to the seat by the window and she sat down heavily upon it. It had been a rough day. Everything tingled. The lack of underwear, the proximity of the vamp, and the feeling of being almost naked even when she was actually fully clothed had done strange things to her libido. Every step she took through the airport had her blouse sliding across the delicate tips of her nipples, and the sensation made her pussy clench. By the end of the forty-five minute walk through the terminal, she’d been breathing so heavily she could have started up her own sex chat business. All she could think about was sex. But sex with a goddamned vampire—no way! Traveling down that route would be one the most hideous mistakes ever made. She could only liken the idea to the Austrian army managing to kill ten thousand of its own men in 1788 or perhaps the Persians, who had sent Genghis Khan’s ambassador back to him without a head. Safe to say, if she slept with him things were going to bomb with hydrogen proportions.

  There was nothing for it though. She was going to have to be good until her slight problem disappeared. It would be difficult but if she set her mind to it, it could be done. She supposed she could put her loathing of vampires on hold for a few days. He was trying to help her after all. Albeit unaware of what he was actually trying to save, but that was his problem.

  Fumbling for her seatbelt, Lainey jumped when strong fingers reached down to complete the task for her. Her body quickened further at the contact and she bit her lip to keep her choked gasp of desire firmly inside her.

  “I think I enjoy seeing you all breathless and flustered,” he murmured as his fingers moved to stroke her cheek, but she jerked backwards.

  “Then you’re a sick, perverted kind of creature,” she said upon a forced smile, her fingers tightening around the arms of her chair as she heard the jet engines fire up.

  He ignored her slight, and tilted his head enquiringly. “Don’t tell me you’re frightened of flying, Lainey? And here I thought you were fearless?”

  As the plane began to hurtle down the runway, she felt anything but. Her heart was in her mouth and all thoughts of desire disappeared. Closing her eyes, she began a soothing chant inside her head, which she hoped would help her get past her initial fear of not being in control. She would be fine, she told herself again, and again. She knew that flying in an aeroplane was a lot safer than travelling by car, bus, or boat but the thought of being catapulted into the air by a thin husk of metal was not a particularly pleasant one. Although their cruising altitude today would only be around twenty thousand feet, it was still a very long way from the ground.

  Interrupting her thoughts of doom and gloom, she felt a giant push for entry inside her head. She wasn’t ready for that kind of attack and her natural defences took over before she could stop them.

  “What the fuck!” The vamp slammed into the seatback and both his hands immediately clutched his temples. His expression was one of intense pain and it took a few seconds before the dark clouds cleared, and his eyes refocused. His hands twitched by his side, and she knew it was taking all of his so-called control not to wrap them around her neck. “Do you want to tell me what just happened here?”

  Her face crumpled and her body shrank into the seat, trying to make herself as small as possible before she decided that she really wasn’t the one at fault here. She wasn’t going about trying to pick thoughts from people’s heads. It was high time he had a taste of his own medicine.

  “At a guess, I’d say you got a shock. In the future, you might want to ask before you go prying in places where you’re not welcome.” Lainey turned towards the window not wanting to witness his ferocious expression but a strong hand flew out, gripped her cheek, and turned her back around to face him. Resting his hand on her right knee, which peeked outside of her woollen skirt, he began sliding it upwards until it rested upon her stocking tops. Her breath hitched and his amber eyes burned a path of molten fire upon the back of her retinas. She gulped.

  “You’re still not telling me what I want to know, Miss Hargreaves. As each second ticks by, I’m beginning to wonder who’s more stupid, you for playing with the only person who has a chance at saving you or me, for letting you. I may not be able to read your mind, Lainey, but I’m capable of manipulating you in many other ways. You won’t like them much and unfortunately, they’ll take longer but I’ll go down that route if I have to. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  Lainey shook her head. It wasn’t that she didn’t understand but more of a horrified way of saying no. Unfortunately, he didn’t take her response well. The next thing she knew, her entire body from the waist upwards was immobilised. She wanted to scream, but that wasn’t an option. If she was breathing, she was unaware of it. All she knew was that his hand was moving inwards towards the dip of her thighs, and whilst she might not be able to move a muscle, the inner mechanisms of her body were working just fine. Everything began to self-combust and there was a good possibility that her clothes were about to melt away.

  “Then let me spell it out,” he purred, as his hand slid slowly downward. Her legs kicked outward in protest, the only option that was left to her but his frame was so large he blocked anyone else’s view, and even if they had seen, what were they likely to do? She wasn’t making a sound, so they’d assume she was enjoying herself. Oh God.

  “It’s a shame this skirt is so tight,” he whispered leaning into her ear, “but I think we can still have some fun.” His fingers slowly began unbuttoning the large white buttons of her jacket.

  Shit. She wanted to rear back in panic knowing that if he removed it, her breasts would be almost completely on display through the transparent blouse beneath but of course, she could do nothing but stare helplessly as each button disappeared in his fingertips. As his fingers crept higher, and higher, electricity began to crackle up her body and for a moment, she didn’t know whether she wanted to slap him or crush her lips to his.

  When the last button fell open, he raised his darkened eyes upwards to hers and grinned. Then his hand slid underneath her soft silky blouse and gently cupped her breast. “Whilst this method may take longer, it’s far more fun so I have no objections if you want to drag out revealing your secrets,” he whispered as the tip of his finger grazed her nipple sending internal fireworks off that ripped through her body, shedding flames and hot sparks everywhere.

  He kept his fingers there, the pad of his thumb gently massaging her nipple as the flight attendant approached them. Lainey’s cheeks could have stopped traffic when the woman asked if she would like a drink. It was embarrassing and infuriating. Not only was it impossible for her to answer the question but she couldn’t even turn her head to look at the woman. It wasn’t a problem because the attendant only had eyes for the vampire, and they were gawking with glee. There was an awkward silence.

  “I think we’ll have two glasses of champagne,” Mercer finally purred, unleashing a killer smile that caused the attendant to lose her grip on the trolley. With a shocked gasp at her mistake, she had to run down the aisle to retrieve it.

  “I’m so sorry,” she apologised upon returning, now all flustered. She delivered their champagne efficiently with a tiny white napkin and a packet of nuts before she hurried off to the next row of passengers.

  Mercer’s fingers had not stopped their slow caress throughout the entire process. Lainey w
as now hot, flustered and soaking wet. The bastard knew exactly what he was doing.

  “It’s rather hot in here, isn’t it?” he commented, and looked thoughtfully at her body. His eyes narrowed with mischievous intent and two hands began tracing a line around the lapels of her jacket. “Perhaps we should take this off?”

  Lainey watched with dismay as his hands reached inside her jacket and loosened the neckline at her shoulders. He was dragging the moment out to torment her, but she had no doubt he would carry through with his threat. As the material slowly slipped down her arms, the urge to cover her exposed body was great but her arms were not under her control. When the last wisp of material slid down her back, she wanted to close her eyes but he denied her even that small action.

  “It’s not nice being controlled, is it?” Those burning amber eyes saw straight through her and even though he couldn’t read her mind, he knew exactly what she was thinking. “You can’t outwit me, Lainey Hargreaves, because you’ll learn the hard way that I don’t play fair. Folding her jacket up neatly, Mercer then sat on it before releasing her from his hold.

  She managed to rein in her initial action of wanting to run down the aircraft aisle screaming because she was half-naked and it wasn’t going to be a good look. As long as the vamp sat alongside her, she could sink into her seat and be mostly shielded from view.

  “I hate you,” she bit out, and the fury and loathing contained in that short sentence was so intense she hardly recognised her own voice.

  Mercer lifted his glass of champagne to his lips and impossible as it might seem considering her humiliation, Lainey felt her insides clench with need. This situation was fast becoming intolerable.

  “I know, but we don’t have to like each other to work together,” he said, licking his lips before dabbing at them with his napkin.

  Lainey growled turning her head back towards the window and focused on the grey mist of clouds surrounding them. Her champagne remained untouched on the tray table in front of her and after a few minutes of silence, she heard the scrape of glass against plastic and knew he had drained it in one gulp. For some reason, that action annoyed her more than the disrobing had.

  Turning around to face him, she ventured. “Shouldn’t you be trying to stay sober, oh almighty protector?”

  His infuriating grin didn’t falter.

  “Two tiny glasses of champagne aren’t going to do too much damage to my faculties. I need two or three bottles of liquor before things start getting interesting. Any other pressing questions you feel the need to ask before we disembark?”

  As soon as he’d asked the question, the captain’s voice came over the speakers and announced that they were coming into land. If she didn’t want to walk off the plane in her current state of undress, it looked like she was going to have to do some begging. “Yes. Could I please have my jacket back?” Oh, if only it were that easy.

  “You have to give me something in return, Lainey. I need a little something to work with, even a scrap. If you refuse, then my earlier promise of keeping that delightful body of yours untouched will be worthless. I will know those secrets, princess. If I can’t go inside your head for them, I bet I can find them inside your pants.”

  He placed his hand back on her thigh in order to drive the message home, and it felt as if he’d branded her. She had to stop the instinctive pull to shuffle away knowing he would take that as a sign of weakness, and she couldn’t afford to show any hint of vulnerability in front of this vampire.

  Taking a deep breath, and trying desperately hard to calm her erratic heartbeat, she knew she had lost this fight. She couldn’t tell him anything. If she had to walk naked through a stadium full of rabid men then that was the option she would take. People had seen breasts before and she’d get through this brief interlude of unpleasantness with her skin intact, if not her pride.

  “You won’t find anything in my pants so I wouldn’t bother looking there. I believe you confiscated them.” She arched an eyebrow at him to let him know that she was far from defeated, and damn him to hell, the vampire laughed out loud.

  “If that’s the way you want to play it, Lainey, so be it but you should know that your body is my property now, and I always get want I want. There are no exceptions.”

  She then had to endure his hand on her thigh for the longest twenty minutes of her life, and when she saw the seatbelt sign finally extinguished, she shot up like a jack-in-a-box in order to escape it. He knew exactly what he was doing, and the look in his eye as he slowly stood to retrieve his holdall, told her that his every move was calculated. She’d just entered the lion’s den and its claws were fully extended.

  Marching with her eyes downcast for the majority of the journey through the airport, she found the combination of moving walkways and tiles made her horribly dizzy. Completing the entire length of Paris’s Charles De Gaulle airport with her hands crossed tightly over her chest, she did not lower them even to stumble onto escalators. Standing at the immigration desk, although Lainey smiled politely, her arms stayed firmly where they were. Thankfully, whatever passport Mercer had obtained for her was acceptable and the officials waved them straight through.

  Enormously conscious of her lack of her underwear, every step taken in the restrictive suit was murder on her libido, made worse by Mercer’s constant presence at her side. When they stepped outside to the taxi rank, she should have frozen to death in the cold December air but her whole body was in meltdown, and her thermostat had rocketed up to the max. Staring at the drab curve of concrete that formed the circular airport terminal, her eyes tried to cut through the darkness and into the road beyond but for the first minute or so, she couldn’t see a thing as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. The vampire, however, suffered from no such problems.

  Waving down the first taxi available, Mercer had a conversation in seemingly fluent French with the driver, none of which she understood. She didn’t care. As soon as the door was open, she nearly dived inside in her hurry to get away from the vamp but he followed quickly settling himself down beside her.

  He patted her leg once again and she had to bite down on the scream that was forming in her chest. She was beginning to wonder if death might actually be preferable to a couple more days in the company of one extremely arrogant ass.

  “I see you are delightfully eager to get to our hotel room, darling. Don’t worry…I’ll have you splayed out on a nice big double bed before you know it.” He gave her a wink, which their driver found most amusing. Lainey closed her eyes and prayed that the drive would be a short one.

  It wasn’t. An hour later after weaving in and out of some of the most hideous traffic she had ever seen, they finally hit the centre of Paris where everything got considerably worse. There appeared to be a, who-can-honk-their-car-horn-the-loudest, competition going on and if that wasn’t distracting enough, the French seemed to be having lots of fun making three lanes of traffic into six. Every car they passed had a dent in it somewhere and some were missing important parts of their anatomy. It got to the stage where she couldn’t watch and she found she was much happier with her eyes closed.

  “You’re missing the Arc de Triomphe, sweetheart. It’s one of the most beautiful sights in France and stands in honour of the soldiers of the Napoleonic war—brings back memories, although that was not a particularly pretty time in history. Muskets were not very accurate and bayonets were very messy.”

  Lainey’s eyes snapped open at that comment and though he divulged no further details, the implications were clear. He had fought in that war. He might well have fought in hundreds for all she knew.

  “How old are you?” she whispered, although she was almost afraid of his answer. The older a vampire was, the more powerful he was purported to be.

  “Old enough.”

  The hard look in his eye told her she would get no further through that line of questioning so she transferred her attention to the road. The traffic was even worse than before but he was right, the Arc de Triomphe was bea
utiful. A massive stone arch standing around fifty metres tall and rising majestically into the soft dawn skyline. It was housed on a giant roundabout and spinning her head around, she saw roads leading off in all directions. She gasped. It must have been one of the biggest road junctions in the world.

  “The foundations took two years to lay and France went through four architects in the course of its construction. Twelve avenues lead off from the triumphal arch, and the thing is so large someone managed to fly a biplane through it.”

  When she looked at him in disbelief, he smiled. “It’s true. They captured it on a newsreel.”

  She had no time to ponder on that crazy thought because their driver had turned off onto one of the lovely tree-lined little avenues that surrounded it, and she could do little but marvel at the cinemas, designer shops, and cafés that decorated the length and breadth of it.

  “It’s supposedly one of the most beautiful avenues in the world and translated, the name is Elysian Fields. It’s two kilometres long so if you’re a girl who likes shopping, I guess it is a bit like heaven.”

  Lainey could well believe it. The glittering lights of Christmas could be seen everywhere, strung from the trees and the beautiful regal buildings. The architecture was breathtakingly exquisite. Stone balustrades and arches decorated the long street with beautiful glass-fronted stores and old-fashioned lampposts dotted along at regular intervals. Even in the heart of winter, Paris had a charm that could not be suppressed.

  “Am I going to be doing any shopping whilst I’m here?” she enquired, with an almost imperceptible dose of sarcasm.

  “You know exactly what we’re going to be doing, darling, until I have my answers but the good news is you’ll probably enjoy it.”

  When Mercer’s gaze captured hers, her cheeks fired up with heat so she swung her head towards the window hoping he wouldn’t notice. His soft laughter confirmed otherwise.

  “Tell me what I want to know, Lainey, and I’ll leave you alone.”