She squeezed her eyes shut and the image of North’s beast form appeared in her mind. Her first impression of him, the sexual, masculine aggressiveness of hunger manifesting as lust. The muscles in her inner thighs quivered as her body responded all over again, heating and softening. Had she somehow known it was North? Was it him her body had reacted to? Or was it a case of like mother, like daughter, a genetic weakness for the appetites of dark servants?
The hinges creaked and her eyes flew open. As North heaved the door back, dim light spilled down the ladder. He leaned over the rough square hole and reached for her. “Give me your hand.”
For a moment, she was too stunned to move. He was naked—of course he was naked. He’d come to her as an animal, and had shifted at the bottom of an earthen hole. It shouldn’t have surprised her, and maybe it wasn’t really surprise, but it was awareness. Taut muscles filled out his biceps and chest, which was smooth and hairless. Tight, dark nipples drew her gaze. She licked her lips, wondering how he would feel beneath her tongue, whether he was sensitive there. Below his pecs, shadows hid his lower body, but between the memory of the beast’s proportions and the scent of his maleness, she had no trouble imagining.
“You look as hungry as I am,” he said roughly.
Flushing, she jerked her eyes to his. Guilt swept in as she took in the lines of exhaustion that framed his mouth and his dark, heavy-lidded eyes. Behind him, the sky had lightened to the purplish gray that only existed in the few minutes between night and day.
She let out her breath. “Where did you go?”
“I took a walk around to make sure we weren’t followed. Give me your hand, Molly. The sun will be up soon.”
She placed her hand in his. As soon as their palms touched, North caught her securely and pulled her up to the surface. While he closed the cellar and covered the door with brush and leaves, she took stock of their surroundings.
They stood on a patch of land that someone had cleared in order to build a sturdy, windowless cabin. Behind them, a tree-covered hill sloped toward the sky. In front, they looked down over smaller hills, all of them thickly wooded. There was no trail that she could see, not even a footpath.
“What is this place? It looks like a hunter’s shelter.”
North finished his task and straightened. “It is. I don’t know who owns the property but the cabin hasn’t been used in a while.”
She glanced down at the hatch and then back at the rustic house. “So you stuck me into a hole in the ground when there was a perfectly good building above ground three feet away.”
“I put you in a safe space while I secured the area. The cabin’s been empty but it still belongs to somebody.” He put his hand on the small of her back and urged her forward. “Go. I’ll follow shortly.”
“What do you mean, you’ll follow shortly? The sun’s coming up now.” She angled to face him and her argument died on a gasp. His face had transformed from exhausted to starved and his eyes were glassy, feverish. The tendons in his neck stood out starkly. “North?”
“Go.” He gave her a harder push. “Quickly. You don’t want to be locked up with me the way I am right now.”
Wise enough not to question him, she nodded and headed into the house. It took everything she had not to run because she could feel the hot, heavy weight of his hungry gaze tracking her every step.
Chapter 3
Inside, exhaustion fell over her. Bone-tired and more afraid than she wanted to admit, Molly leaned against the cabin door and examined the dim space. The pre-dawn light peeped through fingernail thin spaces between the logs that made up the walls and roof. Not an ideal shelter for a vampire but there weren’t any windows so it was better than nothing. Certainly better than a damp cellar, at least for her.
A narrow bed dominated a platform raised a few inches off the floor. In one corner, a woodstove crouched fat and black, with a pipe-style chimney jutting up through a space in the roof. A little light came in there, too.
It was summer, hot and humid enough that her hair felt coarse and fuzzy to touch, so she dismissed the stove. Nobody would be using that any time soon.
A trunk stood at the foot of the bed. Lips pursed, she pushed wearily away from the door and set to work sun-proofing the shelter North had chosen. She tried not to think about what he was doing but she’d never been very good at controlling her imagination. What she knew of his situation, combined with Isabelle’s description of the way he’d fed on the Jeffers’ cow, led her in gruesome directions. She was both thankful and sad that he’d exiled himself to the forest to feed. Thankful because she was much more fragile than a cow, sad because he wasn’t meant for that kind of savagery.
She was still wrestling with herself when North returned. He burst into the cabin on a rippling wave of energy, his breathing harsh and manner agitated. Molly froze where she stood in the middle of the bed, arms stretched over her head as far as she could reach.
North stared at her with wild eyes, the eyes she’d expected to see in the beast that had snatched her from her kitchen. Dark smears rimmed his mouth and striped his naked chest. She swallowed hard and jerked her gaze back to his before something unwise led her lower.
He didn’t bother with the same restraint. His gaze was all over her, probing with such intensity, each pause felt like a touch.
He paused a lot.
Molly sucked in a shaky breath and slowly lowered her arms to her sides. “North?”
He wiped his mouth with the back of his wrist. “Get off the bed.”
“I was trying to block up the cracks to keep the sun out.” An untucked strip of linen sagged from the ceiling to tickle her ear.
“Get off the fucking bed now, Molly, or you won’t be leaving it at all.”
“Everything seemed to slow—her pulse, the passage of time. Throat tight, she locked her unsteady legs and carefully got down. Except for a moment where she was on her hands and knees and North uttered a tortured groan, neither of them made a sound. She kept him in her sights as she backed away from the bed and crept across the untreated wood floor to press her back against the wall beside the stove.
“Animal blood.” He wiped his mouth again, lips twisted with disgust. “Wolf was always happy with a rabbit even if he preferred deer, but it’s getting harder to push him back. With the vampire craving human, that’s what the wolf wants now. He wants you. The vampire does, too. I can fight them both if they’re distracted by different needs, but with their desires aligning…” He shook his head and pointed at her. “Keep yourself over there. Don’t take your eyes off me. Don’t turn your back.”
“North.” She started to close her eyes but his growl stopped her.
“Don’t give me an opening, Molly.”
“What if I can’t stay awake?” She’d been fighting weariness from the moment she’d seen the bed.
“Try.”
She nodded. What else could she do but agree?
North moved from the door to the bed. He paused at the trunk she’d left open. It was packed with blankets, some canned food. At the very bottom, she’d found matches in a sealed plastic sandwich bag and a wicked hunting knife wrapped in leather. She’d left the matches but tucked the knife under the far edge of the mattress on the assumption North would want to keep her close.
He grabbed a heavy wool blanket from the trunk. Despite the heat, he whipped it around his shoulders like a cape and pulled it up over his head.
“Wherever you put the knife, get it. Keep it on you.” Covered, he climbed onto the bed to huddle under the expanse of ceiling she’d sun proofed before his return.
“I hid it in case I needed to use it on you,” she confessed.
“It won’t stop me, Molly. Not if the wolf loses and the vampire takes over. Better get right with the idea of using it on yourself if you don’t figure out how to buy me time before I lose control and take you with me. You don’t want to become this.”
No, she didn’t want to join him in the hell that claimed him now. For t
he first time since recognizing him inside the monster, she knew real fear.
She grabbed the knife before settling on the rough floor between the wood stove and the wall.
“You’re a good person,” North said suddenly. “You don’t have to be good to me anymore. Not if I come after you.”
Molly rubbed her eyes. “Go to sleep. I need to think and you’re not doing yourself any favors by trying to fight the wolf, the vampire and the sun.”
She half expected him to growl a refusal but he only gave her a final hard look before turning his back on her.
As soon as she was certain he was out, she crept from her corner and left the cabin. North didn’t stir during her slow, inch by inch escape. Outside, she stood in the sun and gulped fresh air.
Her legs felt like lead weights as she trudged to the back of the cabin. By the light of day, she found an access path that had once been well-used but was now mostly overgrown. Watching her step, she pushed tall grasses aside and ventured into the forest. The bird song and whispering leaves cleared her head, leaving space to make a list of plants she needed in order to work up a cloaking spell. Except for very specific, rare plants like the corpse flower whose essence could animate the dead, most of her ingredients could be substituted with something from the same plant family.
Walking slowly, she studied low growth in hopes something would strike her as useful or spark an idea because the honest truth was, she wasn’t sure North was asking for the kind of help he really needed.
“I’ve died. Lucifer has taken back my head and left me with nothing but fantasies.”
Isabelle sneered at the lean, lazy vampire reclining amidst a mound of crimson satin pillows. “Don’t be an ass, Niko. Lucifer wouldn’t get enough use out of your twisted mind to make the trip worth his time.”
Ignoring her, the powerful vampire beckoned his servant. Stroking her bite marks like they were a string of fine diamonds, the voluptuous woman left Isabelle’s side and went to perch on the bed beside Niko.
“Master?” She arched her neck invitingly.
Isabelle rolled her eyes. “For crying out loud.”
“Touch me, slave,” Niko purred. “Is my skull still attached to my spine?”
Carlotta—who Isabelle knew damn well was really a Charlene; they’d gone to school together—pursed her lips as she tickled her fingertips up Niko’s chest to his throat, where the dark shadow of a beard had grown during the day while he slept.
Isabelle had only ever seen him clean-shaven, a picture of hard alabaster perfection dressed in impeccably creased black slacks and shirt, an onyx stud adorning one earlobe, burnished gold cufflinks at his wrists. In their smallish riverside town with its seasonal tourists and working class locals, where even the finest dining downtown didn’t expect anything more formal than deck shoes and tank tops, Niko had a reputation for wealthy, reclusive, and as bad as bad could be.
She believed some of the rumors whispered by women in the local bar, but knew just as many were pure exaggeration.
Well, she’d thought she knew. Faced with the vampire himself, so obviously naked beneath the red sheet twisted between his muscular legs and over one hip, she had no doubts about the generosity of his creator.
As she pressed her chest against Niko’s face and slid her fingers through his hair, Carlotta certainly seemed happy with the prize she’d scored.
Wait. Prize?
More like a plague.
Isabelle swallowed a growl and tossed her pride at his feet. “Enough. I have a situation and I need your help.”
“This is a rare treat.” Niko snapped his fingers and Carlotta moved away, pouting. He folded one arm behind his head. The tuft of dark hair under his arm ruined the image of untouchable immortality.
Isabelle turned her face away from the suggestion that something of his humanity remained. Avoiding his penetrating gaze, she held up the bowl she carried. “I saw something. You have to see it, too, and then you have to do something about it.”
“There are very few things I have to do in this life, Isabelle. I have to feed. I have to avoid the sun. Beyond that…”
She saw him shrug out of the corner of her eye. “But by all means, try me. If nothing else, I have to know what you’ve brought me. It doesn’t smell like fruit salad.”
Isabelle shot him a hard look. “No, I imagine not. It’s blood, as you well know. Molly’s blood.”
He grimaced. “As lovely as your cousin is—”
“Shut up, you prick,” Isabelle snapped. “Use your eyes instead of your mouth for a minute.”
Forgetting her aversion to him, she rounded the bed and thumped the bowl on his nightstand. It was one of Molly’s salad bowls, wood rather than Isabelle’s preferred silver, but the magic lived in the witch, not the vessel. As she peeled the gingham dishtowel back to reveal the contents, her hands began to glow blue.
“Fascinating,” Niko murmured. He traced a calloused fingertip down her pinky.
Isabelle jerked back. Her magic flickered.
He withdrew. “My apologies. Please continue.”
She grunted softly but passed her palms over the bowl. The blue glow flowed from her to light the shards of bloody glass. “Look,” she commanded.
To his credit, Niko didn’t comment on her tone. He straightened and leaned forward to study the scene she’d conjured. She watched his face as the image of a fanged beast formed in the broken glass.
Niko’s firm lips compressed. The lazy, taunting expression that made up his usual visage fell away, replaced by a terrifying hardness. She fought the instinct screeching at her to flee. Molly needed her courage.
“When?” Niko barked the word from about a foot above her head.
Isabelle started, caught off guard by his supernatural speed. Her inner alarm was full-on screaming run, run.
She looked around wildly, swept up in the panic. Where would she run? This was his domain, his sanctum. No corner of the expansive chamber was beyond his influence.
And how would she run? The man who looked so perfect, so lean and fine from afar, was so much bigger close-up. His shoulders blocked her view of the exit; his chest was a broad, muscular wall in front of her.
Hard fingers dug into her wrists, a splash of ice water in her face. That creature had put its paws on Molly just like this.
With a snarl, Isabelle wrenched her wrists from his grip and snatched up the bowl. She brandished it between them, weapon and accusation.
“Don’t touch me. I told you—never touch me. This is your kind, here, your monster. It took Molly. Get her back, Niko, and destroy the demon you raised.”
“So that’s it. There you’re wrong, my scared, angry witch. One—” He held up a finger— “You didn’t tell me not to touch you. You begged me, and I heard your plea. I’ve left you to live your life even though we’ve both known it ends and then truly begins here. With me.” She opened her mouth to deny his arrogant assurance. He laid his finger over her lips and shushed her.
“That was number one. Two, I created nothing. You’ll not put the blame at my feet. Whatever vampire decided to bite a werewolf will discover its error sooner than later. And three…didn’t we just go over the fact I don’t have to do anything for anyone but myself? But I’ll help you.. For a price.”
“No,” she whispered. But she’d known he wouldn’t give her anything for free, hadn’t she?
Niko trailed his finger along her bottom lip, her jaw, and down the sensitive slope of her neck. He didn’t stop until her pulse beat frantically at his fingertip. “Yes. Carlotta! Out. Your time here is finished.”
He delivered the dismissal without looking away from Isabelle’s eyes. Carlotta sucked in a sharp breath.
“Niko. Master. Please think about this. Quick decisions aren’t like you. The witch has done something to your mind.”
Isabelle tore her gaze from Niko to give Carlotta a hard look. “How dare you excuse him for being an asshole on the grounds that I’m using trickery. You have a problem
with him, not me.”
“I don’t know,” Niko drawled. “Her primary problem is that she’s never been you.”
“I knew it. I knew!” Carlotta flew across the room, rage wild in her dark eyes.
Isabelle threw up her hands instinctively but Niko turned and caught his furious lover by her upper arms.
“You knew what?” He gave her a shake. “Eyes on me. You knew what? That you were a temporary patch over the hole? But you stayed anyway. I’ve never forced you, Carlotta. Never put you under lock and key, never toyed with your mind by any means you couldn’t defend against. You’ve been here because you chose to turn the page to this chapter. You’ve decided not to move on to the next. Now it’s over, and thank fucking God, because it’s been the most boring—“
“Niko,” Isabelle whispered, horrified by his brutality.
He glanced at her. While he was distracted, Carlotta spat on his cheek. “Fuck you, Niko.”
He released her and gestured at the door. “I don’t believe Isabelle would much care for that.”
Isabelle closed her eyes. “You bastard.”
Something shattered nearby, followed by the sound of Carlotta’s blue feet slapping the marble floor. The door slammed, and then silence.
Niko broke it. “Yes, I am.”
“You hurt her. You insulted her.”
“I did what I had to do. Now she’ll take her shame and turn it into hatred. The entire town will blame you. It will become a social witch hunt, and we both know how high that fire can burn.”
Swallowing, she opened her eyes to find him looking at her again. His eyes, always striking, now gleamed gold with satisfaction.
“You trapped me. How much of this was your plan? Did you create that monster? Send it after Molly, banking on the notion that I would turn to you? All because you couldn’t have me willing?” She sneered the last and understood Carlotta’s urge to spit on him. “You’re not a man, Niko.”
“No, I’m not. I’m a vampire, I like it that way, and I need you to ensure my continued survival.” He cupped her cheek and smiled into her eyes. “I didn’t mastermind Molly’s misfortune, though. That was entirely a blessing sent from above. Now.” He stroked the corner of her mouth. “I think you know the price for my help. I require payment in advance.”
Taming the Vampire: Over 25 All New Paranormal Alpha Male Tales of Contemporary, Military, Shifters, Billionaires, Werewolves, Magic, Fae, Witches, Dragons, Demons & More Page 104
