by Vivi Dumas
“Bachelor party stuff,” Laurent lied.
“Really? Aren’t you a little old for a bachelor party?” Marie countered.
“How often do we get to have one? How many of us you know run around getting married?”
“I guess.”
Angel’s laugh rang through the garden. Jacque turned in her direction. Her beauty stole the words from his mouth. She was breathtaking.
He took her in his arms. “What happened?”
“You like? Grand-mère and your mother found a spell to return me to my old self.”
Angel’s flawless beauty was restored. The deep scar jutting down her face no longer existed. Confidence radiated around her and she exuded happiness. “I like you in any form.” Her happiness melted him.
“Exactly why I said yes when you asked me to marry you.” She hugged him tight.
“It’s been a long night. I think it’s time for bed.”
She stretched her arms around his neck. “I’m not going to argue.”
Jacque bent down and swept her off her feet.
“Goodnight everyone,” he called over his shoulder as he carried her into the house, smiling at the sounds of laughter coming from the garden. “Do you know how much I love you?” he whispered against her ear.
She kissed the crook of his neck. “Not as much as I love you.”
Jacque held Angel tight as he carried her up the stairs. Silently, he promised to protect her. Danger still lurked in the shadows, but he would give his life to keep her safe.
~ABOUT THE AUTHOR~
Vivi Dumas submerges herself in the dark underworld of the supernatural. To balance the analytical and logical confines of her day job, she unleashes the fiery passions of her imagination in her writing. Although she grew up an Army brat, she calls Louisiana home, but has endured the hot summers and cold winters of Maryland for the last 16 years.
Vivi can be found online at:
www.vividumas.wordpress.com
Darius set out tonight to meet his end. Instead of meeting true death and seeing the sun for one last time, he stumbles upon a reason to live. After a millennia of being held a sex slave by the Vampire Queen, he finally finds his mate, but she lies dying on a park bench. Will Darius be able to sacrifice her soul to save himself? And will he risk going back to the one person he desperately wanted to escape, to help his mate through the change?
~Excerpt~
Darius considered himself a special kind of evil.
Salvation drew him to this spot. The silver body harness burned into his torso as he perched on St. Patrick’s steeple, contemplating his end. The harness was a part of him now—only a faint lapping of heat upon his chest. Like a moist blanket, the air warmed his icy blood. As one of the only two left of his kind, isolation, pain and misery absorbed his passion for life. After a millennia of bondage and slavery to the Queen, his mind refused to support his body’s limitless power. Dawn would break in three hours. The bright salvation of the sun’s rays beckoned him. So, he sat and waited for the sun, a sun that had been hidden from him for over a thousand years.
Only a few people occupied this part of town at this hour, not like Bourbon Street where the mobs swarmed all hours of the day and night. He watched the humans below, carrying on with their menial lives. Their limited existence gave them the ability to flourish. The constraints of human life provided an appreciation for living. After several hundred years, Darius’s appreciation for the beauty in the world wore thin, especially tapered with the death and destruction in dark existence. Humans conceded to an end, therefore embracing the possibilities of each new day.
As he followed the musings of a young couple, a sweet, metallic smell beckoned. Centuries since the call of blood sang in his throat, the scent commanded him to answer. Darius searched the area below, spotting the source in Lafayette Square. Following the heavenly bouquet, he dematerialized and reappeared at her side.
She lay on the bench, waiting for Death to take her.
The yellow glow of the street lamp lit her lovely face. The sleeve of her tattered blue dress draped off her shoulder, a strip of red vinyl material peering out from underneath. Savagely beaten, her body laid in a pool of blood on the stark white bench, a compilation of contrasts with her dark complexion.
He’d waited an eternity to find her, giving up when the Queen decided to eradicate their race and keep him for herself. Darius thought back to the day his Queen changed, her mind consumed by power and fear. At the beginning of each millennium, the Oracle delivered his prophecies for the next thousand years. The Queen lovingly caressed Darius’s hand as the Oracle shared his interpretations of his visions. The small, stout deity confirmed the strength and abundance of the Queen’s power, bringing a smile to her lips. As he read the next series of visions, the Queen’s sharp claws impaled Darius’s palm. A new power was to emerge within the vampire race, one who would gain control over the Queen, forcing her to relinquish her rein. This day was the beginning of Darius’s demise.
The Queen quickly changed, fearing losing dominion over her subjects. She suspected everyone. Destroyed anyone she viewed as a threat. At first, she’d had the decency to make excuses for the killings, accusing the victims of breaking the law. As time passed and her mind continued to falter, the deaths became more frequent and random, until only Darius and the Queen’s henchmen remained. Eventually, the Queen’s paranoia caused her to eliminate her guards, leaving Darius the sole survivor of her madness. Even he ended up chained in a crypt, serving to satisfy her warped sexual desires.
She ruined him to love, turning him into her sex slave, diminishing his strength as a male. When she came to him, he’d been honored to be chosen, but after an eternity chained to the wall in the damp, dark crypt, honor was no longer a word he understood. Shame and anguish were his brands. His lust for all things, including blood, left with his will to endure long ago.
But today, the day he planned to take his departure from this world, the thirst returned, calling to him from this exquisite creature waiting at Death’s door. Darius’s harsh laugh echoed among the trees. Fate was a tease. She played with his emotions and tempted him further into condemnation, searing his torture just as the straps of silver singed their pattern into his flesh.
The iron-tainted smell of blood permeated the air. Darius stared into the woman’s angelic face. With her eyes closed and lips slightly parted, the childlike innocence of her expression pleaded with him for mercy, but not the kind of mercy he struggled to administer. The death awaiting her was not the kind he was prepared to give. He reached out and fingered a lock of her golden brown hair, then caressed the side of her round face, wiping the dried blood from her mouth.
Table of Contents
Title page
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
~ABOUT THE AUTHOR~
