Taming the Vampire: Over 25 All New Paranormal Alpha Male Tales of Contemporary, Military, Shifters, Billionaires, Werewolves, Magic, Fae, Witches, Dragons, Demons & More

by Mandy M. Roth

  “Was that the beast’s name?” The man repeated. His eyes glinted gold as he studied Molly’s limp form. A grimace twisted his lips, revealing a mouth full of spiked teeth. “Isabelle, you’re eating the wrong one.”

  A feral snarl drew North’s attention to a figure crouched at the vampire’s feet, face buried in Jarvis’s meaty remains. It was a woman. She lifted her head from her meal and looked at the male vampire, who directed her attention to North with a flick of his wrist.

  “I believe he’s the one you’re after,” the male said.

  The woman stood slowly. The blood on her face rendered her unrecognizable but the rain soon washed it away, giving North a split second to realize she looked familiar, and then she leapt at him. As he jerked around to get Molly out of the female vampire’s path, she slammed into his back and dug her razor teeth into his shoulder. North shouted as the vampire pierced his flesh. He dropped to his knees and curved his body around Molly, shielding her while the vampire shredded him.

  Chapter 5

  North came to in a sterile chamber of marble and mirrors, shackled to a wall, face to face with the male vampire. He wore creased black dress pants and a crisp button-down shirt, with no evidence of the bloody scene that made up North’s last memories. The female who’d attacked him was almost unrecognizable, not because of her clothes but because she knelt at the male’s feet, bound as thoroughly as North. She was naked except for a swath of hair that fell to her thighs, concealing her torso. Whatever she was to the male vampire, she was no longer a threat to North.

  He looked at the male and rattled his chains. “Why am I here? Where is my woman?”

  The vampire smirked. “Your woman? Don’t be a fucking Neanderthal. I don’t know how werewolves conduct their personal business, but you’re a vampire, and a vampire’s mate is more than a possession.”

  “Niko—”

  “Shhh.” The dark vampire turned his impassive gaze on the woman kneeling at his feet. “You’re not invited to this conversation, slave.”

  The woman’s cheeks flared red. Mortification shone in her eyes, which met North’s briefly before she lowered them to stare at her knees.

  “You’re related to Molly,” he realized.

  Her eyelashes flickered but she didn’t look up. “Don’t tell her.”

  “Isabelle.” The vampire’s voice vibrated with a warning.

  She squeezed her hands together. “Forgive me, Master,” she said bitterly.

  “Later,” he promised. “Once you’ve earned it.”

  North rattled his chains, tired of the lovers’ talk. “Either kill me or set me free.”

  Niko laughed. “Kill you? Why would I do that? Isabelle is satisfied that you haven’t harmed her cousin and I find your situation particularly interesting. We’re all animals, North. Usually our wild shapes come on after many years but look how fortunate you are. Yours is already here.”

  While Niko spoke, North took inventory of himself. His gut clenched as he realized the wolf was still there. Somehow it had defied Jarvis’s death.

  As though reading North’s mind, Niko said, “Do you want to know how you got here? Not here,” he said, gesturing at the mirrored chamber. “Here, your state of being. Before Isabelle ate the mongrel that changed you, I asked a few questions.” He didn’t wait for North to respond before continuing. “The wolf’s vampire lover wanted to turn him but they didn’t know what would happen if she did. Evidently Jarvis was tired of being hunted so he decided you would make a good science experiment. What would you say, North? Was it a failure or a success?”

  “Failure,” North bit out.

  “I’m not so sure. Look at you here, now. You’re not the first werewolf who’s been turned but you may well be the first who’s survived the destruction of both creators. I’m going to take these chains off you, my slave and I are going to leave, and you’re going to release your beasts so they can work this out. We’re all animals, North. Usually our wild shapes come on after many years but look how fortunate you are. Yours is already here. I’m confident that everybody will be the best of friends once the contest for dominance is decided.”

  North didn’t have the strength to ask how Niko knew of his divided nature. He didn’t care. There was only one thing he cared about, only one person. “I want Molly. Bring her to me.”

  “I’m afraid we don’t always get what we want.” Niko smiled at the kneeling woman. “Not at first, anyway. Earn your freedom and I’ll stand aside so you can pursue your prize.”

  The woman’s head snapped up. “No.”

  Ignoring her protest, Niko snapped his fingers and pointed to his feet as though directing a dog. “Come. The man has work to do and you have forgiveness to earn.”

  Slowly, the woman stood. As she did, North narrowed his eyes. Not only had Niko bound her wrists, he’d also attached shackles to her ankles—except instead of a chain, a short bar stretched between the metal cuffs.

  “Iron,” Niko said. “Faerie-forged. Because she’s a witch, of course. You can never be sure with them.”

  North grunted. “Unlock these.”

  He held out his arms. His shackles weren’t iron but they were still damn strong.

  Without a word, Niko withdrew a key from his pocket and tossed it at North’s feet.

  Unlike the trip up to the cabin, Molly was fully alert for the journey to Niko’s waterfront Victorian, a structure too extravagant to actually be called a house. She’d guessed correctly that North took her upriver, she just didn’t realize how close they really were—close enough that Niko and Isabelle had traveled by boat, so it was by boat that Molly returned to town. When Niko docked, he sent Molly ahead with a servant while he and Isabelle stayed behind with North, who was unmoving but, Isabelle promised, still alive.

  It wasn’t easy to leave him but she was still groggy, weakened by blood loss. Putting her trust in Isabelle, she accompanied Niko’s servant without causing a scene. By the time the young man had led her through the house, she still felt weak but she’d begun to recover her senses—and she was pissed.

  “Can I bring you anything?” The guy asked from the doorway of an elegant bedroom done in black and white.

  Molly inhaled deeply and squared her shoulders. “You can bring me North. Or take me to him.”

  He grimaced. “That isn’t something I’m authorized to do.”

  “Then I want to see my cousin.”

  “Miss—”

  “Let me guess. You’re not authorized. Do you have to ask Niko for permission to use the bathroom? Does he set your bedtime?”

  The servant couldn’t have been any younger than her but he seemed to shrink with every sharp word until she felt like a miserable bully. She couldn’t bring herself to apologize, though. He’d made whatever choices had led him here, just as she had.

  “You’re in quarantine, not prison,” the servant finally replied. “The master believes your safety, as well as the safety of everyone in his charge, will be best guaranteed this way.”

  “Quarantine?” She hugged herself and rubbed her arms.

  “Yes.” His gaze touched upon her neck before skittering away. “You’ve been bitten. You’re safer under watch until it’s determined whether you’ll change.”

  “And what I’ll change into, if I do?” She’d gotten enough out of Niko to know that North’s creator was dead, and that the man’s death hadn’t rendered North human again.

  “Yes,” the servant replied.

  “Fine.” She rubbed her hands over her face. “Food, juice, clothes. I don’t need anything else.”

  “I’ll bring what I can.” He backed from the room and closed the door. The lock clicked.

  Alone, she looked around the cold, impersonal room. The furniture was beautiful, the upholstery showroom-clean, but that was all the room had going for it. From the stark white walls to the frigid floor beneath her feet, Niko’s lack of humanity stood on display. As heartsick and afraid as she was for North, she couldn’t help but worr
y about Isabelle as well.

  Niko could get away with calling his detainment of her a quarantine but he didn’t have the same justification for holding Isabelle. She had to find a way to talk with her cousin. Together they would surely come up with a strategy to wrest control of the situation away from Niko and free not only themselves but North, too.

  The first obstacle was the lock on the door. The windows were a way out but what she wanted wasn’t on the outside. The bedside tables each held a lamp but they were the type of nightstand without drawers, so no tools there.

  “It’s a freaking prison cell.” Sighing, she sat on the bed and watched the door, waiting for the servant’s return.

  To her surprise, it wasn’t the servant who opened the door some time later. As Niko’s imposing form filled the door frame, she jumped to her feet. She’d never encountered the powerful vampire before tonight but she knew enough about him that she preferred to face him from the strongest position she could manage.

  “I want to see him,” she announced. “Isabelle too. You can’t keep them from me.”

  Niko stepped into the room and closed the door with a flick of his wrist. “Your neck, there on the back. That’s the only place you were bitten?”

  Heat flooded her cheeks at his implication. She set her jaw and silently stared at him.

  Amusement glinted in his eyes. “What a stupid question, hm? Oh, don’t look at me like that, Molly. I’m not going to strip you down and violate you. All I ask is that you monitor the entry wounds. If you heal normally, we’re finished here. If you notice anything abnormal, I expect to be notified.”

  “You expect,” she repeated. “That’s great. I expect you to let me out of this black tie jail cell and take me to North. After I’ve seen him, I want to see Isabelle. How is that for expectations?”

  “Not possible. North needs some alone time and your cousin is occupied with fulfilling her end of a bargain.”

  Her stomach lurched. “She made some kind of deal with you to get you to help her find me.”

  “That upsets you. It shouldn’t. Isabelle and I have been heading to this point. If not you, something else would have eventually brought her to me. Or I would have…” He looked down at the floor, and then back to her. “Your job now is to worry about yourself. It’s unusual for a human to become vampire with a first bite but we’re an unusual kind. Your man even more than most. Because a were bite changed him first, you should be more alert to the marks of a werewolf’s transformation.”

  “Good. I’ll take a werewolf’s form. You’re afraid of that, aren’t you? Weaker than a moon-touched monster. You won’t stand a chance when I’m the strong one here and you won’t have either of them,” she spat, clenching and unclenching her fists. “I can already feel the fire building in me. It won’t be long.”

  His expression didn’t change at her angry bluff. If anything, he seemed even cooler. “Good. Send my servant when the matter is decided.”

  With that, he walked out and she heard the lock click for the second time.

  He took some of the chill with him when he left but she shivered anyway. The talk of fire had been a bluff but it gave her an idea. Hurrying to beat the servant, she ran to the bathroom and tore it apart, gathering anything she could find that would catch and hold a flame.

  In the end, she was surprised by how much she found. Someone, likely a former lover, had left a small assortment of toiletries. As she unspooled the roll of toilet paper she’d found beneath the sink so she could harvest the inner cardboard, she catalogued the collection. Cotton balls, astringent, mouthwash. Perfume. She’d hoped for a can of aerosol hair spray but that was practically a unicorn these days.

  “I can work with this,” she muttered, dumping the ribbon of toilet paper onto a hand towel. Egyptian cotton of course. Only the best Niko could buy because, with so many years behind him, he had money to burn.

  She dug out the baggie of matches she’d crammed into her pocket back at the cabin. Her clothes were ruined by grass stains and soggy from the soaking she’d gotten, but the baggie had held up despite its age. Very carefully, she shook out the matches and arranged them on the towel. She didn’t have anything to strike them against but that was okay because she did have her talents, even if she’d chosen to reject them.

  Niko might believe himself strong enough to hold a witch and harness her power, but he was wrong. So wrong.

  Caught up in a lovely fantasy of dancing flames, she didn’t hear the servant return until he knocked on the bathroom door.

  “Miss?”

  Her heart leapt. Jumping up, she flushed the toilet and yelled, “I’ll be out in a minute.”

  After washing her hands, she shoved her weapons behind the door where the servant wouldn’t see them if he glanced into the room. Her knees shook as she walked back into the bedroom.

  A room service style cart stood near the bed. Covered dishes, utensils, a teapot and a bottle of wine covered the top while glasses, tea cups and small plates occupied the shelf below.

  “Niko trusts me with actual glass?”

  “Master would hardly serve guests in paper cups,” the young man retorted.

  “I suppose he’s too dignified to take safety precautions.”

  “I imagine he just thinks you’re unlikely to harm yourself and a bit of broken glass would be a laughable weapon to use against him.”

  “Too undignified, of course. He’d only fall at the point of an ancient sword or something.”

  “Perhaps not even that,” the servant replied proudly.

  Molly rolled her eyes. “Sure, you believe that. Nobody is truly above destruction.”

  He shifted his weight from foot to foot and cleared his throat. “Clothes for you. Master believes you’ll find what you need.”

  “I’m sure he does,” she said sourly, crossing to finger the garments laid out on the bed. There were two dresses and two sets of underthings, expensive but, thankfully, not sexy to the point of impractical. The dresses were maxi length, not at all her style, but they were dry. Dry completely beat out her stiff, clammy shorts.

  “Everything looks great.” She turned back to the servant. “I’m sure I’ll be comfortable with a little food and dry clothes.”

  Neither of them believed the lie, of course, but he accepted it. “There’s an intercom behind the nightstand on the left. Use it if you need anything.”

  She’d discovered that earlier. “Sure, I will. Thanks.”

  He bowed and retreated the same way he had the first time, backing out rather than presenting her with his rear view.

  Interesting. Niko hadn’t completely underestimated her. Smart man.

  Just not smart enough. As soon as the servant closed the door, she tossed the clothes aside, hurried back to the bathroom and got to work building a fire.

  North was losing his damn mind. The longer he was apart from Molly, the more his control frayed. He couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t figure out why nothing had changed with Jarvis’s death. Was he still a werewolf because he hadn’t killed the bastard himself? Or was Niko right? Had the vampire sealed his fate by binding the two monsters together?

  He should have demanded Niko take his head. Neither the werewolf or the vampire would survive such a brutal wound.

  As his grasp on the werewolf weakened, only the thought of Molly kept him whole. She needed him. Knowing that, he stared at his image, all twelve versions of it reflected back at him from the sadistic walls of mirrors. Some of the eyes watching from the glass were his own but the wolf and the vampire were there, too. The vampire’s gaze glittered like cold, hard sapphires while the wolf’s burned with the heat of a blue flame.

  Molly and Niko thought they were two halves of a whole but North knew better. They were two mongrels fighting over one bone, not realizing that their bone was wasn’t some flimsy chicken leg that would splinter between greedy jaws. The fight wouldn’t end until one or the other surrendered…or until one destroyed the other.

  North laughed.
When Niko took a prisoner, he did the job right. A man locked in this comfortable dungeon wouldn’t be able to escape himself, let alone his captor.

  “I’m not as breakable as you think, asshole,” he shouted. “You want two monsters to fight it out? Are you ready for the show?”

  Nobody answered but North had expected that. Niko didn’t seem the voyeuristic type. That was too fucking bad for him. This was going to be spectacular.

  His shackles rattled as he worked the key into the locks and freed his arms. He weighed the heavy chain between his hands, considering each of his reflections, searching for the perfect…there. Most of the mirrors shot his face back at him in sets of three, wolf-man-vampire, wolf-man-vampire. But there were two panels where the pattern didn’t complete. Wolf and vampire stood side by side.

  Right there.

  Roaring, he swung the shackles like a chain whip and charged the mirrors. Just before he struck the glass, the wolf’s gaze flared with a killing rage. He had just enough warning to duck and spin as he swung the shackles into the other mirror.

  Glass rained down from the wolf’s fur as it leapt from the mirror. North felt the massive paws skim his back, the rush of air disrupted by the wolf’s powerful momentum, but then the shower of glass struck his face and jerked him back to reality. The hell he’d felt the wolf. It didn’t have physical form without his body as a backbone.

  In stark contrast to the wolf’s wild flight, the vampire stepped out of the mirror and calmly shook glass from its clothes. Blood dotted its face. As North reached up to brush at the glass stinging his own jaw, the vampire did the same.

  North froze. So did the vampire. The wolf was pacing and snarling nearby but it seemed stuck on the other side of some invisible barrier. By the sound of its low, vicious growls, it didn’t appreciate the separation one bit.

  “You think you don’t have a choice,” the vampire said. It jerked its thumb toward the wolf. “That’s why this thing is still here, right? Because you had no choice.”

  North squared his jaw. “I didn’t.”