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

by Kayleigh Sky

  Emek had stopped whatever he’d been about to say. Remembered who Zev was. Who he was.

  Zev smiled and reached for the soap, drawing his knee out of the water at the same time. Emek clenched his jaw again.

  “I threw myself a birthday party here a few weeks ago. The most entertaining all year.”

  “Your birthday?”

  Zev nodded.

  “How old are you?” Emek asked.

  His tone was too perfunctory for Zev not to guess he already knew.

  “Forty.”

  Emek snorted. “You look my age.”

  “Which is?”

  “Thirty-two.”

  “When’s your birthday?”

  The darkening returned to Emek’s eyes, and his nostrils flared. “It doesn’t really matter. I don’t celebrate it.”

  Zev stretched out an arm, soaping it in long, slow strokes. “Why not?”

  “No reason to. Where are we going?”

  A cool wave flowed over Zev’s body and brought goosebumps onto his skin. “You don’t need to know.”

  Emek’s next words snapped. “I’m the one going.”

  “We’re all going. Well, many of us anyway.”

  “I don’t have a right to know?”

  Zev stared into his eyes. “Consider it a surprise.”

  “I don’t like surprises.”

  “No birthdays,” Zev murmured. “No surprises.”

  “I don’t have time for indulgences.”

  “I’m hardly indulged.”

  Emek snorted. “Right.”

  Heat chased Zev’s cold away, and he smiled, letting the tips of his fangs emerge. “Careful.”

  “Or what? You’ll drain me?”

  “I wouldn’t bother,” said Zev. “Help me out. You need to rest. Stay close by in case our plans change.”

  He gripped both of Emek’s hands, taking in Emek’s straining neck muscles as he fought to hold Zev up. Zev gave a last smile before stepping out of the tub and… his leg crumbled like the damn wall.

  Shit.

  He’d been on it all day. Maybe that was why, but it folded, and he slipped on the cool marble and stumbled and crashed into Emek’s arms. The bend in his knee bought them face to face, mouth to mouth. He straightened, holding tight to Emek’s bunched biceps, and Emek followed him, his lips chasing Zev’s, breathing hot gusts into his mouth. A quivering weakness ran through Zev, and he tightened his grip.

  Emek broke free and grabbed Zev’s bun. He dragged him down again and smashed his lips as he invaded him. And Zev loved it. His head spun, and his pounding heart swept his strength away. He gave in and sagged against the weak human. Emek held him, teased his mouth with his tongue, and murmured, “Don’t bite,” against his lips.

  “No,” Zev whispered.

  He wrapped his arms around Emek’s back and shivered at the scrape of the rough palm running up and down his spine.

  This was… dangerous. Foolish.

  Emek peppered the corner of his mouth with kisses and ran his fingers through his hair, pulling and caressing it. The raw abrasion of Emek’s T-shirt against Zev’s skin lit him on fire. Heat pooled in his balls, and his sac tightened. He’d longed for this kiss, forbidden himself from taking it because Asa was—

  Emek.

  He jerked back, and Emek stared at him, the flush of his face cooling, eyes narrowing.

  Zev bent on shaky legs and grabbed his robe off the floor. “Go,” he said.

  Emek said nothing. He merely nodded and turned away.

  Leaving the crutch where it stood in the corner, Zev wrapped himself in his robe, then reached down and released the stopper on the tub. By the time he returned to the study, the last of the sun slid by the edge of the windows. He switched on a lamp beside the chessboard and gazed at the pieces. His mouth fell open. How—

  Checkmate.

  25

  Threats

  Fuck him.

  Asa was going into town. His heart bounced up and down like a rubber ball at the thought of not doing what a vampire had told him to. But fuck Solomon, and fuck Zev too…

  It didn’t matter that he was a vampire.

  It didn’t matter that his long, tattooed fangs glistened white as snow after a storm.

  Vampire or human, Asa was tired of being pushed around. Tired of that bastard who’d wrecked his life still pulling his strings.

  Pushing him away.

  Again.

  He swiped his lips, the vamp’s warm sugar flavor like caramel on his tongue.

  Holy fuck.

  All that power in his arms. His heart still bounced against his sternum.

  So he was going into town and talking to Solomon’s guy himself. He didn’t trust Jere. The guy was out for himself. That was no surprise, but Asa hadn’t much cared about it before, because he’d never had anything to report. No necklaces, no successful seduction. Nothing. Nothing except chess and the broken feeling in his chest whenever he thought of never playing Zev again. Never seeing that boyish smile or the growly scowl Zev got when he was losing.

  He wiped his lips again, trying to push down the sick feeling inside him.

  It wasn’t a betrayal if he didn’t actually report anything. But he had to make them believe he’d drunk their damn Kool-Aid, was trustworthy, and didn’t need a keeper like Jere, because yeah, he was going to run. But not yet. Not until he figured things out. And it didn’t matter that Zev obsessed him. That he couldn’t get the guy out of his head. That he dreamed about him. That he got off in the shower every day imagining the things he wanted to do to him. That Zev was… Mine.

  Or that he regretted every second of his life that had led him to Solomon.

  So he hurried to the garage as the rose color in the sky turned pink.

  Five SUVs and three pickups parked in a row outside. Humans and two vamps continued to pack the vehicles. As he approached, Jere climbed into one of the pickups. Asa opened the door on the other side and slid beside him.

  “I can’t take you.”

  “Just drive.”

  “Jesus,” Jere muttered. “You’d better not skip out, or I’ll hunt you down myself.”

  Asa slanted a stare at him. “Any reason I’d skip?”

  “I’m guessing you’re not a volunteer.”

  “My pay comes at the end,” he said.

  If he had no chance of escape, at least he had that. No vamps ever bothering him again.

  “Whatever. Just as long as you don’t get me in trouble.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Drugstore and hardware. We’re stocking up on emergency supplies. I like the Americano, and don’t fucking forget it because that’s your excuse for coming with me.”

  “I meant, where the hell are we going?”

  “They don’t tell me that.”

  “Liar.”

  “Like I said, whatever.”

  Asa glanced at the clock on the dash. 5:36. An hour and a half until the coffee shop closed. The trip into New Seaside took only fifteen minutes. In the other direction, they’d hit Pacific Grove and Monterey. He’d been to the Monterey Aquarium with his mother twice. There was no reason behind the names of places the vampires kept and the ones they changed. Puppet masters. They did whatever they wanted. Teased and used. But Zev…

  His kiss was as sweet as caramel or maple candy, warm as the bourbon he drank. His tongue slippery and frantic in Asa’s mouth. The scent of flowers poured off his skin. His moans spilled soft and spontaneous, drawn out by Asa’s touch.

  Zev’s body didn’t lie.

  Only his heart had sworn off the truth.

  After Jere parked in front of the drugstore, he glanced at Asa. “Keep me out of it.”

  Asa sneered and threw Jere’s, “Whatever,” back at him.

  “You’ve got fifteen.”

  The pickup rocked as Jere got out and strode onto the sidewalk. Down the street, Jaan’s windows glowered with a sullen, orange light. Candles? On the opposite corner, the Starbucks was bright
and busy.

  Asa opened his door with a loud creak, shut it, and strode toward the corner. When he got there, he stopped and stood beside the lamppost. In ten more paces he’d be at Jaan’s front door, losing the scent of Zev in the humid, coffee-scented interior.

  A strange, unsettled feeling came over him in time to a tremor that rumbled underfoot, but he barely noticed the smaller quakes anymore.

  The street lamp beside him threw a pool of light on the ground. The next one in line was dark. All wrong things, though expected nowadays.

  But Zev…

  Zev was unexpected. And lying to Asa, though Asa didn’t know what about. Only the kiss had been real. Frantic and starved and—

  Scared.

  A vampire stepped out of Jaan’s and circled to the back of the building.

  What was Asa going to say? I want out. I can’t do this. I can’t kill a vampire king and get away. I think he’s onto me. I know he is. And he’s… Playing. Waiting. Waiting for what?

  For Asa to make his move.

  After a few minutes, he backed away.

  Fuck this. He’d run the first chance he got. He wasn’t going to betray Zev and do what Zev had done to him. He was getting out with a clean slate, getting his life back, and never feeding another vampire again.

  He returned the way he’d come and stepped into the drugstore. A few people he didn’t know went on with their shopping. He continued down the street, opened the hardware door, and scrambled out of Jere’s way. Jere pulled up and looked Asa over. “Where’s my coffee?”

  “They were out.”

  “I swear to God…”

  “Are we done?”

  Jere shook his head. “You might be.”

  Ten minutes later, they were headed out of town. The flat black expanse of ocean, broken only by the glitter of star trails, rolled out under the sky. When the hills obscured his view, Asa looked away.

  “How long have you worked for Dinallah?” he asked.

  Jere stayed silent for a moment, as though debating whether to answer. “Two years. Or close to it.”

  “Do you know where we’re going?”

  Jere grumbled. “I told you no. Packing everybody up is a first for me. And the timing’s strange too. They make like they aren’t sure when we’re coming back, but the coven meeting’s in less than a week.”

  “Coven meeting?”

  “It’s an annual thing. No big deal. More like a party, though I figure they do vampire business things too.”

  The guy’s sneer drew Asa’s gaze. That didn’t sound like any love lost, but he worked for them. So do you.

  Against his will.

  “You got any family?”

  “What is this?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We aren’t on the same side. We aren’t alike. We aren’t gonna be buddies. Yeah, we all got taken down a couple pegs, but you? You got rich boy written all over you. I’m on the side where the money is. An’ not that I care, but if you keep asking questions, you ain’t gonna be on anybody’s side. You’re just gonna be dead.”

  “You’ve seen that before?”

  “You keep going like this, I’m gonna see it again.”

  Asa turned and stared back out the window. At least the guy had talked to him, more than he had to anybody else. But maybe he didn’t talk for a good reason… Dead men tell no tales.

  He snickered.

  “What?” Jere asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “You’re laughing for no reason?”

  “I’m thinking. You told me not to talk to you.”

  Jere grunted, “I didn’t say that,” but didn’t add anything else.

  Somebody had turned on a light in the garage, but most of the manor was dark. Asa slipped inside through the back entrance and made his way to the kitchen. Marcus glanced up from a binder open on a bare metal table.

  “Where is everybody?” Asa asked. “It’s not late.”

  “Four thirty comes fast. You hungry?”

  “No. I’m okay. Guess I’ll go to my room.”

  The muffled sound of voices came from behind closed doors. His own room was vacant, but Isaac’s packed bag perched on the end of the bed. A glass with a film of milk sat on his bedside table. Milk, for Christ’s sake. The tableaux stabbed him like a knife in his chest. The dumb kid. Maybe he’d gone to the library.

  When he reached for the door to close it behind him, the light went out, and a hand clapped over his mouth. His heart jumped, racing so fast it stole his breath. He shot his gaze around the moonlit room, looking for escape, and fell on a shadow in the mirror. Whoever had him crushed to their chest was big. Too big to get away from, but he thrashed anyway. A shriek filled his head like the whistle from a teapot about to explode. Was it his heart? He was going to die. He’d escaped death too many times. A scream built in his throat, then the hand over his mouth tightened, smashing his lips against his teeth, and the pain was bright and real. A breath ghosted hot and damp across his neck. He stiffened and shut his eyes tight. The bastard didn’t give a fuck about Asa as long as he got to drink.

  “Hear me,” the creature whispered.

  The words filled his head like Ellowyn. It took him a moment to understand. He nodded into the hand. It shifted and covered his nose too now. His chest heaved, and he bucked until a sharp pain shot through his ear.

  “Stop.”

  He froze. Teeth—fangs?—glided down his neck. “That’s better,” came the voice again. “Stay quiet.”

  The hand slipped down to his jaw. Still holding him.

  “Who-o-o?”

  “Quiet.” The fingers tightened, and pain screamed through Asa’s bones. So strong. A vampire, of course. With fangs. Their image—gleaming and glistening in the dark of the night—floated in front of his eyes. The guttural voice faded into a whisper.

  “Why did you walk away?”

  “Walk… I—” The words made no sense to him.

  “Tonight. You walked away.”

  Christ, had they been expecting him? He hadn’t even been sure he’d make it into town. “I—I didn’t have anything to tell you.”

  “You didn’t think we’d want to know you were leaving?”

  His assailant wasn’t Solomon, but it didn’t matter. Asa didn’t doubt who’d sent him.

  “I don’t know where we’re going. They aren’t telling us, so I had nothing to tell you. Jere knows too.”

  A bone-splitting jerk pulled him to his toes, and a raspy whimper pushed past his clenched teeth. “Don’t lie to me, you little whore. You’d risk your life to get away from us. Was that your plan? Go with the king and run? We are an army no one sees. A silent river under the lake you swim in. A ghost behind a ghost. You will never get away from us. You can try, but you’ll die. And I promise you this—so will your little friend. You don’t care about your promise to the light bearer or your own life? Maybe not. But no maybes, I will carve him into a thousand pieces, and he will live through every cut until I burn him with the garbage. Cooking human is my favorite smell.”

  Only the hand around his face held Asa up. His legs shook. He clasped the vampire’s arm.

  “Are we clear?”

  He fought to nod. “Y-y-yes. Yes.”

  Fuck. He was going to throw up. It surged up his throat. The vampire released him, and he dropped to his knees and scrambled to the window. The door closed behind him just as he got the sash up, leaned over the frame, and heaved into the bushes below.

  26

  Settling In

  A set of stairs led from Zev’s deck down a rocky incline to a small blue lake. Snow covered the ground and dusted the pine trees. The green foliage was vivid under the crystal blue sky, the day, still and bright.

  A half an hour earlier, Emek had sauntered along the edge of the pines before disappearing into the forest. No reason for him not to. He wasn’t a prisoner. But Otto was probably right not to trust him.

  At the manor two days ago, Zev had given Hadda her instruction
s for their absence then turned to get into the vehicle he was taking with Moss and Uriah to the lodge. But when he’d spotted Emek over the SUV’s roof, he’d stopped and strode over to him. Emek had cringed at his approach, tossed his bags into the back of another SUV, and shoved his hands into his pockets.

  “Who did this?” Zev had demanded.

  Emek hadn’t asked what he’d meant—no sense denying the mask of red and purple bruises on his face—but he’d only shrugged and said, “Nobody. I fell.”

  Thinking about that stirred Zev’s anger again, and he scowled as he dragged his leg off the stool he’d been resting it on and got up. Short of calling Emek a liar, there wasn’t much he could do.

  He took his empty coffee cup to a small kitchen where he had a hot plate, kettle, and refrigerator for his Synelix, but no stove or oven. A bowl of fruit and a plate of muffins under a glass lid sat on the counter. In good weather, the trip to Opal Village took only forty minutes, but they were stocked with enough supplies to last months.

  Zev poured his coffee and returned to the worktable in the lounge he used as his office. He stared at the notes he’d made on a pad of paper.

  The royal families delivered annual and quarterly reports that Moss entered into accounting software. Each family paid tithes according to income. The correspondence Emek had organized for him was the usual litany of complaints and demands that would be addressed at the coven meeting. Emek had organized them according to the Revelatory Letter on each family’s stamp. Zev had shuffled through them, rearranging when appropriate, and now he had six piles and his notepad in front of him.

  He let his gaze fall to the shortest pile, and a smile built on his face. The pile wasn’t just short. It contained only one item, a half sheet of card stock with artfully frayed edges.

  Zev dropped his pen and picked the card up. An intricate watercolor of the garden and mountain range behind his house decorated one side. Up close, the painting blurred, but held at a distance, the shapes and shimmering colors of jewels hung in the forest.

  He flipped the card over and read the print again.

  I don’t want to come, but I will. My family has no complaints and only one need, but I won’t ask for it, because I know you can’t give it. I’m treating this as a vacation, because I’ve never been to Opal Lake. Yours in constant friendship, Jessamine.