Ellowyn Found: An MM Vampire Trilogy Omnibus Edition Books 1 - 3

by Kayleigh Sky

  Asa wanted him to be. He didn’t care about the necklaces, only fucking this wild creature on the floor until he bled the truth. Admitted that the one thing Asa should never have given him had made him king.

  There’d been no need… no need to take everything. To destroy all Asa had.

  “Nalith was a bully,” Zeveriah said. “I didn’t know that. The owner of the coffee shop lodged a complaint. I’m supposed to take a vampire’s word, and maybe I would have, but Nalith didn’t even deny it. I hate violence. I hate bigotry. I won’t tolerate it. I wanted to thank you and apologize.”

  “I don’t want your apology. You weren’t there.”

  “I take responsibility for all the people here. Even you.”

  “What do you do all day?” Asa said abruptly.

  A startled look crossed Zeveriah’s face, and he laughed as he picked up the other half of his sandwich. “I don’t play chess all day,” he said before he took a bite.

  “I was a blood whore.”

  The motion of the vampire’s jaw slowed. After a moment, he swallowed and said, “There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s not illegal.”

  “I wasn’t with a center.”

  Pain spread across the vampire’s face like the shadow washing across the floor as the sun reached for the horizon.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I helped Isaac out because I’m used to fighting, and I have no love for you people.”

  Zeveriah’s eyes narrowed in concentration, a frown splitting his forehead. The tips of his fangs showed when he spoke, and Asa’s pulse kicked up. “We didn’t ask to be homeless.”

  Forcing a smile, Asa glanced around. “You aren’t homeless now.”

  “I don’t want to be your enemy.”

  “You’re my employer.”

  Zeveriah nodded. “Yes. I understand.” But pain flickered in his eyes.

  Pursue me, beast. Be your own damn destruction.

  But Asa’s words echoed in a hollow place. He wasn’t sitting across from a beast, no matter what he wanted to pretend. It wasn’t going to be that easy. He was sitting across from a lonely man. A lonely man who wanted him.

  A man he might have to kill.

  15

  Asa’s Kryptonite

  I oughta cut the kid loose.

  Trouble and Isaac were a pair. Though Solomon’s fury wasn’t Isaac’s fault. It had been Asa who’d gone off on that asshole vampire Nalith and gotten him fired. But now flinty-eyed Solomon was flashing his fangs at him in a back room of the New Seaside Hardware. For nothing.

  “Nalith was one of mine,” he snarled.

  Was the vampire pissed enough to kill him? God, make it quick. A snapped neck like Louise. Here and gone in a second. But Asa’s stare stuck on Solomon’s fangs. He fought to make his voice work.

  It cracked. “You didn’t tell me that.”

  He caught glimpses of the incongruously homey room he stood in but didn’t dare look away from Solomon’s pissed-off face. Bone meal. They’d come into town for bone meal. Just him and Jere. He’d never even seen the vampire that had yanked him through the hardware store’s back door. And now he was here, struggling to keep his knees locked—don’t drain me, don’t drain me—in a room in what looked like somebody’s house.

  A human sat on the couch, dull-eyed and washed of color, not much out of his teens. What had happened to Solomon’s other human? For all of his menace, he liked easy pickings. But that made him more dangerous in Asa’s mind. People who caused Solomon problems died.

  “I didn’t report him,” he added.

  “No. That was your tag along.”

  Isaac wasn’t that kind of mouth. He’d lived too long on the streets for that. Survived. Survived for years. Living with vampires. Feeding a prince.

  “He wouldn’t have.”

  Jesus, are you an idiot?

  He took a breath as Solomon leaned in, face darkening. “I said… your human… reported him.”

  Asa ground his teeth, hoping to wedge them together and keep his mouth shut. But his jaw flexed while his fists tightened, drawing Solomon’s stare and bringing a slow smile to his face.

  “You like him.”

  Asa opened his mouth. “I like whatever improves my chances of surviving.”

  Solomon laughed. “And you think that little blood whore can do that?”

  Fuck, how did he know what Isaac was? And why did Asa think sticking with Isaac was a good idea? He had no reason for thinking so. “I think your vampire stood in my way. I got to the king, didn’t I?”

  “So you say.”

  “I know what my job is.”

  “Me,” Solomon murmured, “I think you are a liar like all your kind. You have no concept of honor. And every day the memory of who we are bleeds out of the Ellowyn. But our honor will rise, and you will not stand in our way.”

  “I’ve done what you told me.”

  “You’ve been here a month already. Do I see a necklace?”

  “He doesn’t leave me alone in his room.”

  “Then fuck him. Do what you have to do to gain his trust. And access.” With a grim smile, Solomon reached up and pulled his fingers through Asa’s hair. When he reached the ends, he tightened his grip and hauled Asa’s face closer to his. The curl of Solomon’s smile displayed his fangs again, and Asa closed his eyes. Warm, dry lips brushed his cheek. “You were chosen for a reason. Your looks are no good to me if you can’t bind the king to you. Your friend is no good to me.”

  Asa’s eyes snapped open, and Solomon chuckled. “You have a heart. Weak creatures. I will kill him, and he will be grateful I let him die. I might even make you watch. Are you clear on what you need to do?”

  Kill you.

  “Very clear.”

  “Good.” Solomon let him go and stepped back. “Get out.”

  The door opened behind him. Another vampire he didn’t give a good goddamn about. Vicious monsters.

  Asa rushed past the stacks of fertilizer and bone meal, sucking in the damp scents of plants and soil as he hurried through the store. Coming to a stop on the sidewalk, he let go of the breath stuck in his lungs.

  Zeveriah…

  Asa couldn’t shake off the image of the lonely vampire he’d eaten lunch with. He wanted him to be easy to hate like Solomon. But he wasn’t, and Asa’s thoughts kept returning to his bare feet and the way he licked horseradish sauce from the corner of his mouth. The way his eyes lit on the chess set and dimmed on the picture of Abbatine. Broken. But more—at the end of his rope. And worst of all—entangled in Asa’s guts.

  On the days Asa worked outside, he waited for the king to emerge for his walks and followed him with his eyes all the way to the treeline. Did he know Asa was there? His belly fluttered like a teenager’s with their first crush. But his heart burned as though… as though they were meant to be.

  Fucking him would be no hardship. As long as Asa kept his heart out of it. Same with Isaac. The kid really wasn’t his concern.

  He pushed away from the parking meter he’d grabbed onto and ignored Jere’s truck. It was empty anyway. He didn’t know where Jere had gone, and he wasn’t waiting for him. Fuck him.

  He headed down Main Street, then took a side street to the beach, bought a fish sandwich, and sat on a bench outside. He squinted in a light bright enough to keep some of the vampires away.

  The roll of the waves and the glitter of the sun lulled him into a stupor while he ate. He chewed mechanically and forced his thoughts away. When he finished eating, he sat with his soda and let his predicament roll over him. But it wasn’t really a predicament. He had only one focus and one job. It wasn’t a king or a moppy-headed kid who’d attached himself to Asa for some reason. He wasn’t about to risk himself for Isaac. He hadn’t asked for the kid to glom onto him. He’d starved, slept in the rain, fought humans and vampires to survive. He’d sold his blood, his mouth, and his ass, come back from being half drained, and all he wanted was to go off alone. Nobody chasing him. Nobody wanting anyt
hing from him. Love was bullshit, even if… even if he wanted to take a chance on Zev stomping his heart to pulp again.

  Because it was him. It had to be. After all this time. The vampire he’d fallen in love with. Wrecked his life for.

  His mind skittered from the last night he’d seen him, the night Zev had promised—

  He pushed himself up, grabbing onto the back of the bench to steady himself for a moment.

  “Wait for me. I’ll come get you. I promise.”

  But there was nothing for Zev to come back for. Asa had run, and he still hadn’t stopped. Not really.

  He walked to the edge of town and caught a ride up the highway. Fuck Jere.

  At the manor, they let him pass at the gate, and he sauntered up the driveway and around back and let his gaze go to the south side of the house despite himself.

  Fucking the guy didn’t mean Asa had to fall in love with him again.

  He could resist that. He’d gotten good at pretending he liked the bastards that paid for him. He wasn’t going to like Zev. He was going to hurt him. The way he’d been hurt before he’d learned it was best not to have a heart at all.

  In his room, he lay down and fell asleep.

  He woke when the door opened, and Isaac entered, plopping onto his own bed with a book. When they’d found the library—a cozy room with a fireplace and Zev’s portrait over the mantle—Isaac had grabbed Asa’s arm and shaken him back and forth, bouncing on his toes the entire time.

  “Whadda you reading?” Asa murmured.

  “Stranger in a Strange Land.”

  Well, that was appropriate.

  He rolled onto his side and stared. Isaac brushed at his face as though he’d walked through a tunnel of cobwebs to get here. Twitchy. Asa was pretty sure he hadn’t been that way before. Was it because of the vampire attacking them? But that was so much a part of their everyday lives as to be nothing.

  Now, the kid bobbed his toes and pulled his upper lip between his teeth, biting it and releasing it.

  “Work go okay today?”

  Isaac looked over, dropped his book, and sat up. “Marcus is teaching me to cook. I’m working on my knife skills. Marcus says everything has to be the same size so it can all cook in the same amount of time.”

  “Knife skills are good.”

  Isaac reddened and bit his bottom lip again. He wasn’t dumb enough not to hear the sarcasm, but he didn’t jump at the bait. “I like learnin’ how to do something useful.”

  “Yeah. Cooking for vampires.”

  Isaac stared at him, then shot a glance out their window. He bit his lip, took a quick breath, then dropped his gaze and picked at his bedspread. “I kinda like it,” he said.

  He liked it? That was all?

  Asa’s hackles tickled the back of his neck.

  “Why are you so nervous?”

  Isaac looked back up. “I’m not.”

  “And anyway, I thought you were looking for somebody.”

  “I was.”

  “And now you’re not?” Asa asked.

  “I don’t have to right now.”

  “Fuck does that mean? You’re worrying me.”

  Isaac’s eyebrows lowered over his eyes, forehead scrunched. He plucked at his bedspread again, then wiped his hands on his jeans, and said, “Tell me something. Do you believe in fated love?”

  Asa laughed through a spurt of panic and rolled his head away to stare at the ceiling instead of Isaac’s fallen face. He patted his chest, his laughter dying. “Are you kidding? After everything you’ve been through?”

  “You don’t know what the fuck I’ve been through.”

  So the kid had a spine after all. Asa looked over again. “I can guess. Why would you believe in that?”

  “I have a friend who does.”

  “What friend?”

  “It doesn’t matter. And anyway, the things that happen to you don’t make you believe or not believe.”

  “Sure they do.”

  “You believe because it’s true. You don’t believe because it’s not true. It’s pretty simple.”

  “And you believe in fated love?”

  Isaac gazed out the window and nodded. “Yes.”

  “Are they here or something? Whoever you’re in fated love with.”

  “Yeah.” A smile bloomed on Isaac’s face. “He’s an artist. I can ask Marcus to let you cook too.”

  Asa blinked at the weird shift in topic and stared back at the ceiling. “No. I’m good.”

  Most of his life had taught him to be practical. Things had a reason. People had an agenda. Solomon’s agenda had nothing to do with Asa’s, and maybe Isaac had a fated love—who had a good reason for not coming to get him—but Asa had only fate. Perfect fate.

  He was exactly where he was supposed to be.

  16

  The White Queen

  Asa named the long hall that ran through the east wing of Dinallah Manor the portrait gallery. The hall in the south wing had a few landscapes in the mix, but the framed paintings that lined the walls here were only portraits. Vampires gazed out of every one, a few wearing necklaces like the one Solomon had shown him.

  “Who are the vampires in these paintings?” Asa asked.

  Justin canted a look over his shoulder, not slowing as he walked. “The king’s family members primarily. A few—”

  “Wow. Is that the king?”

  Justin stopped and returned a step, glancing at the portrait. “Not done at the time, of course. The painting is relatively recent. It’s a reimagining, I suppose, of the king when he was sixteen or seventeen. It’s quite accurate actually.”

  But it was also surreal. Zev’s face made of gemstones and rock. Harsh lines and angles, yet soft and yearning. Asa leaned in closer. The black eyes glowed with specks of light, like diamonds or stars.

  “This is beautiful. Who did it?”

  There was no signature.

  “I have no idea,” said Justin. “We must go.”

  He followed reluctantly. So much of Zev was in that painting. It pricked at him with a strange jealousy. Somebody had looked into Zev and seen something wondrous. Somebody who wasn’t Asa. But he didn’t have the luxury of seeing things that weren’t there. The vampire who’d come to him in his bedroom years ago had been a monster. That’s what he needed to remember.

  They crossed the sunlit foyer into the hall in the south wing. Coming to a halt outside Zev’s study door, Justin gave it a rap, then pushed it open and stood aside.

  Asa stepped into the room and paused, watching as Zev came through a door at the end of the study. A smile split his face as he came near. He looked for a moment like a carefree boy. Like the boy in the portrait. “Will you play me?” he asked.

  “Chess?”

  “Yes.”

  Flummoxed by the invitation in the middle of a workday, Asa lost his voice for a moment. Then he cleared his throat. “Sure.”

  Whatever challenges he thought he still had in getting close to Zev were collapsing like the vampire cities. The guy was making it easy on him.

  “You put my piece back?”

  “Your move from lunch?” asked Zev as he strode to the buffet table against the wall. He slid open a door and glanced back. “No. I played the game. We’ll start new.”

  Asa nodded and approached the table. He took the seat in front of the white side of the board. A moment later, Zev handed him a drink. The tumbler was cut glass, the contents amber, swirling with pale gold currents around the chunks of ice.

  Asa took the glass but held it away from him.

  Zev rolled his eyes as he sat across from him. “It’s bourbon.”

  “Oh.” He brought the drink closer, the sharp, sweet aroma filling his nose, and took a sip. “Thank you.”

  “Hm.” Zev leaned back in his chair and tipped his head. “Exactly what did you think I was going to do to you?”

  His ears burned, and he gritted his teeth before answering. What was he supposed to think? “I don’t know what I’m doing he
re,” Asa admitted.

  “I wanted a game. Consider this your lunch break. Without the lunch,” Zev said with a grin.

  Happiness looked good on the vampire. His eyes crinkled, and color flushed his cheeks. Asa swallowed. “A liquid lunch,” he said.

  Zev laughed. “I’m hoping to get you drunk so I win.”

  Asa raised his eyebrows. “Competition scares you?”

  Zev’s mouth parted, lips curving. “Are you competition?”

  “Getting me drunk won’t help.”

  The vampire took a swallow of his drink, shuddering as it went down. His lips glistened, and Asa licked his own before he could stop himself.

  Zev sighed, then opened his arms. “You’re only talking so far.”

  He set his glass down. “Well, the clock’s ticking, so let’s get started.”

  He moved his pawn to e4. Zev moved his to c5 and leaned back in his chair again.

  “Are you happy here?” Zev asked.

  He looked up from his inspection of the board and caught Zev’s stare. The vampire clenched his jaw and color rose into his cheeks. Something warm tickled Asa deep in his belly. He gazed at him from under his brows and gave a wry smile. “Except for random strangulations.”

  Zev winced. “I apologize.”

  “You didn’t do it.”

  “I hate violence.”

  The words me too formed on Asa’s lips before he bit them back. It wasn’t the first time Zev had said that. Maybe there was a reason he’d repeated it, a reason he’d invited Asa to play him.

  He moved his knight to f3.

  Although, Asa was supposed to seduce him. He shifted in his seat and let the words come out. “Me too.”

  Zev chewed on his bottom lip, gaze roving the board. When he looked up, he froze on Asa’s stare before glancing back at the game. He moved another pawn. “I have not found our people to be all that unalike,” he murmured.

  He raised his eyes again.

  “You drink bourbon,” Asa said.

  Zev smiled. “A fabulous find, but…” He frowned, lips still curved in a smile, and shook his head. “It’s not fungali.”