CHAPTER 22
Snow leaned against the wall of the theatre, lurking in the shadows, watching the finale of the first show of the season and keeping an eye on the audience as they enjoyed the acts playing out on the stage. He barely paid attention to the performance, just enough to know what had happened and that everything was running like clockwork. The shows were mundane to him, designed to titillate.
They didn’t thrill him as being with Aurora did.
Just the thought of the beautiful female awaiting him in their quarters had him growing hard in his jeans and aching to return to her. He tamped that feeling down and scanned the audience again, folding his arms across his chest and stretching the material of his black shirt across his muscles. A few females glanced his way and he paid them no heed.
He was spoken for.
He smiled at that.
A beautiful angel had not only fallen in love with him, but she had remained with him, and had even helped him through an attack whenever one happened. He felt blessed to have her in his life, a woman strong enough to deal with him even when he was in a black mood and lost his mind to bloodlust.
He dragged his attention back to the show and shook his head when the audience gasped in unison, not understanding what they found so appealing about the acts on the stage. He didn’t need to understand it though. He just needed them to behave and enjoy it.
Life at Vampirerotique had been quiet over the past few months, blissfully uneventful. Payne and Andreu had remained, working with Callum and Javier on new shows and helping them run the theatre. Everyone had welcomed Aurora into the family, and even Antoine had admitted that he liked her.
It hadn’t surprised Snow. Antoine liked anyone who could help Snow through a bout of bloodlust or even keep one at bay. Aurora was exceptionally skilled at both of those things.
His mind drifted back to her until his senses sparked. A ripple of discord went through the theatre.
Snow smiled and shook his head when his hearing caught a muffled curse and then the audience settled, becoming unaware of their non-vampire member again. Snow could still sense her, even with her best veil in place.
He was tempted to call Chica on it but decided to let her have her way and leave her to watch the remains of the show in peace, thinking she was deceiving everyone in the theatre.
He tried to focus on the show again, knowing Antoine would expect a full report when he returned.
Snow still couldn’t believe that he was covering for his brother. He had never thought he would live to see the day that his brother missed a show or the day when he was an active member of management at Vampirerotique.
It still felt strange and it was definitely going to take more than a few weeks to get used to it and having to do mundane things like attend meetings and talks about what to add to the shows to make them new and exciting for the audience.
Part of him was actually hoping for a relapse. A break from work would be nice. Or at least easing him into a daily work schedule. Antoine and Aurora both thought that throwing him into full-time work was good for him though, and all attempts he had made to make them change their minds had failed.
He couldn’t even tempt Aurora with the promise of more time spent in bed.
She did look torn whenever he mentioned it, but then she got that steely look in her beautiful eyes and stuck to her guns.
Snow cocked his head and smiled.
Antoine had returned, and his brother’s feelings were all over the place.
Snow slipped out the double doors and into the high-ceilinged black room beyond to wait for Antoine.
He leaned his back against the wall, folded his arms across his chest and crossed his legs at the ankle. He tracked his brother’s swift approach. Snow looked across to his right as he appeared along the black corridor. He looked more than on edge, far worse than Snow had anticipated, and he pushed away from the wall, concerned now.
He frowned at Antoine. “Well?”
Antoine looked agitated, swallowed a few times, and began to pace, shoving his fingers through his dark brown hair. It set Snow on edge too.
Sera came up behind Antoine, looped her arm around his and smiled, and Snow had never felt so relieved. It couldn’t be bad news if she was smiling so brightly, buzzing with joy.
“He’s going to be a daddy.” She grinned, her dark green eyes overflowing with the happiness he could feel in her.
Antoine looked ready to pass out.
“I hope you have a firm hold on him, because he might go at any second.” Snow moved closer, afraid that his brother was going to faint. He was getting paler.
Sera laughed, the sound musical and full of excitement. She flicked her long fair hair over her shoulder with one hand and squeezed Antoine’s arm with the other.
“He did go. He hit the desk and the floor in the doctor’s office pretty hard too.” She reached up and brushed Antoine’s dark hair back from his forehead, revealing a nasty gash near his hairline.
Snow laughed, earning a growl from his brother. He couldn’t help it, not when he could easily picture Antoine’s reaction to the news they were going to become parents.
Light footsteps sounded on the stairs behind him and then Aurora was rushing up to him, her short cream dress fluttering with each long stride. Her green-to-blue eyes shone brightly and he could feel her excitement flowing through her, and her nerves too.
“Good news I take it?” She halted beside him, her gaze darting between Antoine and Sera, and him.
“What gave it away?” Snow looked down at her and she scolded him with a frown.
“You never laugh unless something good has happened… or Alistair is throwing toys at Callum’s head.” Her frown deepened. “I think his parents are wrong about you and you’re a bad influence on him. You’re teaching him to be mischievous like you were as a child.”
Snow couldn’t deny that. She was right, but she was also hardly one to talk. She took immense joy from Alistair’s well-aimed attacks on his father too, but mostly because they made Snow laugh. It seemed to make her happy whenever she saw him smiling.
Aurora looked back at Antoine and Sera, her expression expectant.
Antoine mumbled, “Baby.”
Aurora clapped her hands and was pulling Sera into a hug, tugging her away from Antoine, before Snow could warn her that his brother needed the support. Snow caught Antoine before he could make a fool of himself, tightly clutching his left arm through his shirt.
“Easy, Brother,” Snow whispered, unable to keep the amusement out of his voice.
Antoine scowled at him. “Wait until it is your turn.”
Snow began walking with him towards the stairs, feeling his brother needed the assistance all the way to his apartment and a good lie down to recover from the shock of discovering he was about to become a father.
A father.
Snow couldn’t imagine what that must feel like. He didn’t think it was possible to get a fallen angel pregnant, but he didn’t mention it. Antoine looked as though he needed to feel that Snow might have to go through this with Aurora one day so he could be there to laugh when Snow had a heart attack, and then watch him suffer as he spent months panicking about babies.
What Antoine didn’t know was that he didn’t have to wait.
Snow felt as weak-kneed and out of sorts as Antoine, and he was already sharing his brother’s panic that something might happen to the baby before it was born or the birth might end up happening in daylight, with no doctor around to assist with it, and a million other terrifying scenarios.
He shuddered at the thought of any of them coming to pass.
“You are not alone in this, Brother,” Snow said with feeling and Antoine gave him a grateful and relieved look. “You may have to think about opening a crèche at the theatre though.”
“What a fantastic idea,” Sera piped up from behind them.
Antoine’s expression turned dour, showing Snow how little that amused him.
“We alrea
dy have one,” Antoine said sullenly and glanced over his shoulder at his mate. “Don’t you spend every performance and most days with Kristina and Elissa, and the children?”
“I suppose so. We’ll just formalise it then and maybe take one of the spare rooms and turn it into a playroom.” Sera smiled at him.
Antoine sighed. At least he was beginning to regain his colour and was walking more steadily as they neared the floor where their quarters were located. In time, his brother would grow comfortable with the idea of having a baby of his own, and then it would be born and Snow would teach the child to throw toys at their father’s head.
Aurora parted ways with them at Antoine and Sera’s door, hugging and congratulating Sera one more time. Snow helped Antoine into their dark green apartment and settled him on the four-poster double bed. Once his brother was comfortable and looking more at ease and himself again, Snow couldn’t hold his tongue any longer.
“I should have taken that bet you made about Lilah and Javier being the next ones to bring a baby into the world.” He grinned at Antoine, who groaned and flopped back onto the bed. Sera laughed and Snow looked across at her. “I swear, he will find this something to be excited about once the initial shock wears off.”
Sera smiled at him, sat down beside Antoine, and patted his black-clad thigh. “I know my mate is excited about this somewhere beneath his terrified exterior.”
Snow could understand some of that fear. Antoine had bloodlust too, and bloodlust was genetic. But Sera was elite, and a turned human herself. There was a high chance that their baby wouldn’t be born with the same affliction he and Antoine had gained from their pureblood lineage.
He would have to remember to keep reassuring Antoine about that over the coming months and even after the baby had been born. He would be there for him, taking care of him and helping him raise his child, just as he had helped his father raise Antoine. Snow sighed, his heart filled with warmth and light, glad that he would be there to witness a new generation of their family, one hopefully free of bloodlust.
He pulled Antoine up into a sitting position, clutched him by his nape and pressed a kiss to his brow.
“Congratulations, Brother.”
Antoine drew back and looked up at him, and the look that normally would have been in his eyes in this sort of situation, the need to reassure him that he was still loved and needed in this world, and that he couldn’t live without him, wasn’t there. Snow wouldn’t miss that pained look and the knowledge he was hurting his brother.
Only love and happiness filled his brother’s eyes now, and Snow was glad, although he still felt he had a long way to go before he made things up to Antoine. If he ever could.
He would keep doing his best though, fighting his bloodlust and working to master it. For Antoine’s sake. For Aurora’s sake. And for his own sake. He had wanted just one thing to live for in the million reasons to die and now he had many.
He bent down and pressed a kiss to Sera’s cheek. “Congratulations.”
She kissed his cheek and smiled when he pulled away from her.
Snow let himself out of their room, crossed the hall to his, and pushed the panelled mahogany door open.
He froze on the threshold.
Aurora had lit every candle in the room and they cast a warm glow over his ebony furniture and the black walls. He stepped into the apartment and closed the door behind him, curious as to why. He was even more curious when his fallen angel came out of the bathroom to his right dressed in a sexy little white number.
“What is this all about?” He couldn’t take his eyes off her as she twirled her raven hair up and pinned it at the back of her head, the action of raising her arms squashing her breasts together to form enticing cleavage in her white satin and lace bodice.
His mouth turned dry and he swallowed, unable to stop his gaze from raking over her dangerous curves to the matching white knickers and then her sheer stockings.
His body put in that it knew what this was all about, growing hard at the sight of her, hungry to peel away the layers of her beautiful underwear and reveal her inch-by-inch to his eyes.
Snow had the feeling his little angel was out to seduce him.
No complaints there.
She pointed to the bed. “Those.”
Snow dragged his eyes away from her long enough to see what she was pointing at, and his gaze darted back to her, his right eyebrow cocking at the same time.
“The restraints?”
Aurora nodded and his heart pumped harder, slamming against his chest, driving all his blood to his already hard and aching cock.
“It has been one month to the day since you had to shackle yourself.” She advanced on him, each measured step making her hips sway enticingly and making his heart beat faster.
She was right too. It had been a month since he had last suffered an attack of bloodlust.
A whole month.
It stunned him.
They’d had ups and downs. Sometimes he had been doing well until an attack had come out of nowhere, crippling him swiftly and taking him down. Other times, it had come on because he had felt Aurora was in danger, normally because he dreamed of the battle at Vampirerotique and saw her bleeding again. Just thinking about that night stirred darkness in his veins.
“I heard Sera that night.” Aurora’s soft voice filled his heart with light that chased the darkness back.
Snow frowned, not following her. She blushed. Hard.
“Oh.” Snow grinned as it hit him. “Scratch Sera… you’re the dark little thing. You want to tie me up.”
A beautiful look of panic crossed her face and then she recovered, tipping her chin up and meeting his eyes. “I do. I have been thinking about it since that night and… well, I have never been brave enough to do it because I know you don’t like being restrained.”
True. He hated it, but she wasn’t the only one who had been thinking about it since Sera had put it out there. It was always on his mind.
Snow took a step closer to her, his gaze drifting over her again, lingering on all the spots he had discovered made her crazed with desire. She knew all his spots too, knew precisely where to lick and nip, or swirl her tongue to drive him out of his head with the need to have her.
The thought of her doing that to him while he was tied up and at her mercy, while she was completely in control, set his blood on fire and had his cock harder than steel.
“I have a feeling I might come to like it,” he whispered, his voice thick with his desire, a bare growl that brought a beautiful flush of colour to her cheeks. He locked gazes with her, his mind already ten moves ahead, imagining her astride him, riding him while he was restrained, mastering his body and bringing him to a scorching climax.
He breathed hard, closed the distance between them, and grasped the nape of her neck in one hand.
He tilted her head back and stared down into her eyes, lost in their beauty and the desire that shone in them. Passion that ran in her blood too and coursed through his veins. “I will always gladly submit to you. You mastered my heart the first time you looked at me and I have been your willing slave ever since.”
She blushed again, pressed her hands against his chest and tiptoed, bringing her mouth to his. Snow growled and claimed her mouth with a feral kiss, bending her to his will, needing a moment in control before he passed it to her.
Aurora kept kissing him as she backed him towards the bed. She broke away when they reached it and slowly unbuttoned his dark shirt, her eyes gradually filling with hunger at the same time, passion that flowed in his veins too. He groaned when she stroked her fingers over his chest, teasing him, leaving streaks of colour on his skin.
She had been surprised when she had discovered she still had that trait about her, and others too. She could teleport as easily as she had been able to before falling from grace, and had taken him to the chateau near Lausanne several times over the few months they had been together, helping him deal with his past and lay it to rest.
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br /> She always rewarded him afterwards by taking him to the cabin in the far northern reaches of Norway and spending a few days with him there, erasing his pain with incredible pleasure.
She slipped her hands over his chest and up to his shoulders, and eased his black shirt down his arms.
Panic spiked his blood when she tossed the shirt onto the floor and stepped aside, clearing the way to the bed, but he held it together, breathing through it. Aurora would make it feel good and he wanted to see if he was strong enough to do this now. He was curious about this sort of sex.
Snow clambered onto the black covers of the double bed, coming to settle with his head on the pillows.
He studied her face as she locked his right wrist first. The cuff felt alien to him now, strange. He had worn them every day for as long as he could remember, but had been free of them for a whole month. The marks on his wrists had completely faded in that time and he hadn’t thought about the fact that he hadn’t needed to be restrained for over thirty days, not until Aurora had mentioned it.
And now she was rewarding him again, turning his experience of restraints into something positive, changing his perception of them and his expectation too. He no longer expected to feel weak and vulnerable, crazed by his bloodlust, a danger to everyone he loved, when the cuffs closed around his limbs.
He expected to feel pleasure, bliss, and his female worshipping his body, and making love with him.
She closed the cuff around his other wrist.
Snow exhaled slowly and was glad that Aurora gave him a moment to grow used to being shackled again. She moved to the foot of the bed and crawled onto it, drawing his attention away from the restraints and to her.
Her white lingerie pressed her breasts together, forming a tempting display as she slowly prowled up the bed towards him. He swallowed and frowned, his nostrils flaring as he caught the heavy scent of her arousal. He bucked his hips, hungry for her touch, for her to slake her desire on him and not stop until she was sated.
She halted with her knees between his spread thighs and grazed her fingertips across his stomach, the caress feather light and teasing.
Unleash (Vampire Erotic Theatre Romance Series Book 6) Page 30
