by Marcy Jacks
Sorin opened his mouth to answer, and then he shut it again, taken aback.
“I…I guess that’s a possibility.”
“Is there any reason why a vampire wouldn’t be able to mate with a dragon? Humans can have natural matings with dragons and animal shifters. Even vampires have their own form of blood matches with humans. The few times that does happen,” he added.
Sorin blinked. “That…makes a lot of sense.”
He looked up at Lucian, and the swell of hope and happiness that came over him was enough to make him have to look away. He couldn’t let himself feel these things when the situation was still so grave and he didn’t know what was going to happen to Lucian.
Did Lucian even feel the same way he did?
Lucian provided his hand again, and Sorin couldn’t resist latching on to the offering. He drank, taking his fill while Lucian spoke with Seth.
“Are you saying you’ll let me mate with him?”
“I’m saying it almost looks like a natural mating.”
“It can’t be.” Lucian shook his head. “I would have known when I met him.”
“Well, now you’re being stupid,” Seth snapped. “It not always obvious on sight. Sometimes it takes a couple of days.”
Sorin pulled his mouth away from Lucian’s hand, looking up at the man. “If you want me, I’m not opposed to the idea.”
Lucian looked down at him, and the embarrassment was enough to make Sorin’s cheeks heat and look away.
Now that he was getting blood in his body, it was all going to his cheeks.
He’d spoken too soon. Seth was wrong. Lucian didn’t feel the same way for Sorin that Sorin felt for Lucian. Even if he did, to assume this was a natural mating…
He was too confused about absolutely everything, and he didn’t know what to believe anymore.
Except the sudden way Lucian spun him around, his strong, warm hands cupping Sorin’s face as if he was something precious and their mouths coming together, was enough to let him know Lucian really did want something from him.
He was still in shock when Lucian pulled his mouth back and smiled down at him, his eyes shining with kindness.
“I still shouldn’t have had sex with you, not under those circumstances, but at the very least, if you’ll have me, I’m yours.”
Sorin blinked wide. The heat increased in his face, and his body was suddenly very aware of every inch of Lucian’s body.
He could suddenly recall with vivid detail what it had felt like to have Lucian touch him, to have Lucian’s inside him, to feel his heat and strength, and to wish with all his might that the other man might want more than just a quick fuck.
Sorin’s heart was getting ready to explode. His eyes burned, and the only thing he could think about was how much he didn’t deserve this.
He was a selfish man. That sort of came with his upbringing. Even though he often questioned his father’s love for him, Sorin still received most of the things he’d wanted when he’d wanted them.
So for Lucian to offer him the one thing he wanted most…well, it seemed impossible to work up the willpower to deny himself this.
Lucian watched him carefully, as if he didn’t know what to expect. “Is this a yes or a no?”
Right. Sorin probably looked like a complete mess. He wasn’t composed.
For the first time in a long time, he didn’t care about composure. Sorin nodded. “Yes,” he said, needing to clear his throat of the rock that had lodged there. “I’ll have you if you’ll have me back. I…I need you.”
Lucian’s chocolate-brown eyes widened at Sorin’s words. For a split second, he worried he might have given too much of himself away with those words, but Lucian eventually seemed to come out of his shocked stupor, and when his arms curled around Sorin’s waist, pulling him closer, the bubbled laugh that worked its way through Sorin’s chest wouldn’t be contained.
He didn’t care if they had an audience. He held Lucian back, shed tears, and despite the unlucky circumstances that had brought him here, he had to wonder how it was that fortune had managed to smile upon someone as undeserving as himself.
* * * *
Van couldn’t exactly watch what happened after he was forced to leave, but he had good hearing, and staying at the bottom of the stairs and straining his ears made it fairly obvious what had happened.
And he was disgusted.
Seth, a dragon Van respected and admired for his judgment and strength, the man who had suffered as much, or more, as most dragons in the clan at the hands of the vampires…that he would hand that vampire over to anyone, much less another dragon, for a mating absolutely sickened him.
Van clenched his teeth, shaking his head, and he walked off.
He wasn’t sure how he was going to break this news to the omegas unhappy with Sorin’s continued presence in the mansion. Some had told Van straight out that they didn’t feel free when one of their former masters was still in the house.
Now Lucian would be taking Sorin for a mate. Sorin would become truly protected when that happened, and by law, no one would be able to touch him or punish him aside from Lucian or Seth.
Van would see about that, and he didn’t give a shit what happened to him. If Seth wasn’t going to protect the men and women in this house, the people who had been slaves under Sorin and his father, then Van would do something about it himself.
Chapter Seven
Taylor panted for breath. His lungs no longer felt as if they were on fire, so that was a good thing, but he was desperately thirsty, and the man dragging him along didn’t seem ready to stop.
They’d been on the run ever since the getaway vehicle that had apparently been left behind for the assassin had been found without its tires.
The assassin had hissed at the sight of it, and even Taylor knew better than to think someone had robbed the man out in the woods like this.
That meant only one thing. Sabotage. Someone on the inside of Varrick’s crew of goons didn’t want this assassin to succeed in his mission.
And Taylor was just glad it was a kidnapping instead of an assassination. Otherwise, he would be well and truly fucked.
More than he already was.
The man yanked on the rope that was attached to Taylor’s bound hands. Taylor stumbled, nearly falling.
He kept himself upright. He’d already thought about pretending to be clumsy and falling all the time in an effort to get away, but the man seemed to have thought of that and had already threatened Taylor.
“Do that again and I’ll bring you back to Varrick with your nose cut off, Miles,” he’d hissed through his mask.
If he brought Taylor back to Varrick, they might both lose a lot more than that. The assassin had gotten the wrong person. Taylor knew his life depended on making sure his kidnapper never found out he’d picked up the wrong fox shifter.
And Taylor was torn between keeping up so he wouldn’t get hurt and letting the man who had kidnapped him know that he couldn’t possibly keep walking anymore.
Ultimately, he had to stop. His knees buckled, and he fell, and not because he was faking clumsiness.
His kidnapper yanked on the robe holding his hands. “Get up.”
Taylor tried. He could hardly push himself to his knees. “I can’t.”
Taylor couldn’t see much of the man’s face, just his eyes through the slit in his black mask. His eyes were so dark they appeared as black as the clothing he wore, and they were cold as hell when they narrowed at Taylor.
“I said get up!”
“I can’t!” Desperation and terror struck him hard. Taylor had been fighting to keep from losing it, but he couldn’t contain it anymore, and the force of the anxiety rushing through him made his entire body tremble. He couldn’t seem to calm down.
He was scared to death his kidnapper would decide Taylor wasn’t worth the reward he would supposedly get for bringing him in, terrified he would realize he’d grabbed the wrong person, terrified he wouldn’t be able to get
away before or when that happened. It paralyzed him. He wanted to go home. He would even take being a slave to the vampires again over this. This was absolute hell.
The man in the black mask continued to look down at Taylor while he had his freakout. Taylor could hardly bring himself to look back up at him. Not when he was so close to actually pissing himself.
A soft sigh. That was the next thing Taylor heard.
“We’ve made some distance. You can sleep for an hour, and then we move again.”
The hour sounded like heaven. Taylor was shocked as all hell to hear he was getting it.
It took him a second to be able to breathe again, and then he looked up at the man. “Wh-what? But…why?”
Those eyes, which had seemed to look at him with some pity, turned scathing once more. “Don’t make me change my mind.”
The man looked around, and then he pointed to what appeared to be a soft patch of grass beneath a tree. “Sleep right there. I’ll have food when you wake up.”
Not that Taylor had a choice since the man yanked him forward by the rope. Taylor fell onto his side, but he’d been right. The grass was so soft that, after all that running, it felt like he’d landed on a cloud.
The man actually jumped fifteen feet up in the air, catching one of the thicker branches. From all the way up there, he used one hand and tied the rope off in what appeared to be a knot so simple it bothered Taylor he couldn’t reach that high to untie it.
His kidnapper let go of the branch and gracefully landed on his feet, glaring hard at him. “If you try to get away, I’ll notice, and I will be forced to hurt you.”
Taylor cringed, and he didn’t say anything.
“Go to sleep. I’ll be back,” the man said, and then with a swiftness of an alpha, he ran through the trees and was out of sight.
Taylor watched him go. By now, after only a couple of days, he’d realized a couple of things about his captor.
The first was that he was not a vampire. Even with all that stuff covering his body, the gloves, the mask, the boots, everything, his eyes would have burned when they’d been running in the daytime, even with the canopy of trees above their heads. Taylor never once smelled burning flesh or noticed the man squinting in pain. He didn’t even wear sunglasses.
Another thing Taylor picked up on was his stamina. Vampires were strong, as well as alphas, but without any blood, they weakened. This man didn’t try drinking from him once, and jumping that high into the air, and then running off, was proof he wasn’t human and wasn’t a vampire either. His scent was strange, however. Something that felt familiar, but different to Taylor.
He must be a slave. Very few alphas worked for vampires willingly, and even the ones that did always had some ulterior motive, something that always led back to a method of force.
Taylor almost felt bad for the man, but then he told himself that was the stupidest thing he could do, considering his situation.
Taylor looked up at where the rope was tied off. It was barely a double knot. He could untie that so easily if he could just reach it, but he wasn’t that tall, and he didn’t have nearly the strength needed to climb up there.
He was so tired and hungry. He hadn’t eaten since dinner the night he was taken, and they’d barely stopped running since.
Taylor had been sick so many times from the exercise. He was filthy, and he was tired.
He knew it was stupid, but he couldn’t stop himself from letting his head rest and closing his eyes. He wished this were like a comic or television show, where he suddenly would have the energy and strength to escape through sheer will and determination, but that wasn’t going to happen, he was completely drained.
An hour wasn’t going to be enough.
* * * *
Lucian wanted to be in the room when Seth had his chat with that dumb motherfucker who had terrorized Sorin and pulled out his fangs.
Lucian wanted to get a pair of pliers for himself and rip out a few of the dragon’s teeth and see if that made him feel sorry about what he’d done.
Except Van’s self-righteous bullshit gave off the very real impression that he wouldn’t be learning shit. He was too caught up in the idea that he’d somehow done the right thing, that he’d honestly been defending the omegas in the house.
And Sorin refused to give the rest of the names of the people who had been there. Van would likely refuse to give those names as well.
It was enough to make Lucian want to destroy something, anything, so long as he could get revenge for Sorin.
Seth wouldn’t have it, however.
“Take him back to your room. You both have a lot to talk about, and from the looks of it, he needs to finish feeding.”
Sorin looked embarrassed by that statement, but Lucian knew it was true. A small amount of blood from his hand wouldn’t be enough to feed a fully-grown vampire male.
“I want to talk to Van when you’re done with him,” Lucian demanded. “I’m not going to let this slide.”
“I know you’re not,” Seth said, glancing down at Sorin. “But for now I need you to just take him and…do whatever it is you need to do. Talk, finish the mating, anything.”
That last bit made Lucian’s heart seize up in his chest. He struggled to keep from looking down at Sorin as the man looked up at him.
Mate. He couldn’t believe it was a reality, but the more he heard that word, the more natural it sounded.
He just wished he’d been able to see it before and that he hadn’t been so cruel to Sorin in the beginning, that they hadn’t almost faced such a monumental misunderstanding.
“I want to go with you,” Sorin said softly, looking up at him before shyly glancing away again.
That wasn’t going to fly with Lucian. Even now, he needed to see the look in those eyes. He needed to see that gorgeous blue with those green flecks focused on him and no one else.
He needed it so much it made him ache. Even now his blood ran hot, and he honestly felt as if he was in the throes of a mating heat.
Like he could grab Sorin, rip his clothes off, and fuck him right in front of Seth in the hallway for all it mattered.
Okay, apparently Seth was right. Lucian needed to get out of here and get some privacy with his mate before he did something stupid.
Lucian gritted his teeth, still struggling between the urges of his cock and the urge for revenge. “Make sure that stupid shit knows I’m going to break his nose the next time I see him.”
“Will do,” Seth said. “You want me to let the omegas in the mansion know that, too, so word will spread out to the ones who attacked Sorin.”
“Fine by me. They’re adults, not children. They can face the consequences of what they did.”
Sorin grabbed Lucian by his arm, gripping tight. “No, Lucian, please don’t. I don’t want you to hurt them over me.”
Lucian glanced down at Sorin, at his mate, and he struggled to take in a calm breath.
“I can’t…promise you that. “Lucian scratched the back of his neck with his free hand. He felt so antsy with lust and anger that he needed something to do. “But I’ll try.”
It was the best he could offer to his mate.
Sorin seemed to accept it, though he still didn’t look happy.
“I’m sorry I doubted you,” Seth said. “I’ll be going. I’ll come back in a couple of hours, or just text me when you’re finished. That might actually be the better plan.”
Did Seth actually look embarrassed by that? Holy shit, he did. It was amazing. Almost enough to make Lucian smile about the whole thing.
“I’m sorry, too,” Miles said, and he looked the most embarrassed and red-faced. The fox ears on top of his head were pressed down on his hair, his tail looking very much as though it was trying to tuck itself between his legs.
Lucian couldn’t blame him for any of this either. It wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t anyone’s fault.
“Thanks for looking out for Sorin,” Lucian said, meaning it a hundred percent. He would put in
the effort and hope that would be enough to bring Sorin some happiness.
Sorin’s expression changed, not to one of relief, but he did appear accepting. “Thank you,” he said softly, still clinging tightly to Lucian’s arm.
Lucian curled it around Sorin’s shoulders, and that proved to be a mistake because it just brought the man closer to him, brought his scent right under Lucian’s nose, and it made his body react.
“Okay, we’re going to go now,” Lucian said, looking up to Seth. “Make sure Van gets the message.”
He didn’t bother trying to hide the growl in his voice. Sorin might want to beg for mercy for the omegas, and maybe Lucian would be able to listen to him, but he wasn’t even going to try holding himself back when he got that shithead in his hands.
Van was going to know what real pain felt like very soon.
Just as soon as Lucian no longer felt this pain in his balls.
“I’ll make sure of it,” Seth promised, taking Miles by the hand as he started to walk past Lucian, a little faster than he normally walked. “See you around,” he called.
Lucian finally felt as if he could breathe when Seth and Miles were out of sight, even though he knew he had no privacy right now. The chances were good there were some omega servants listening in on the conversation around the corners of the hallway.
Lucian needed to get to the wing of the mansion where his room was. Where the room that Lucian was going to share with his mate was. But first things first.
“I’m really sorry for causing you all this trouble—”
Lucian cut off the apology Sorin was about to give him as he shoved his mate against the wall, a little harder than he intended to, and crushed their mouths together, drinking in the taste of his mate now that he was free to do so.
And Christ, using the word mate, even inside his head, was enough to make him hard, make him ache for the heat of Sorin’s body even more than he already did.
He really could strip the man naked and take him right here.
Sorin kissed him back as if he were thinking the exact same thing. His fingers threaded through Lucian’s hair, trying to grab at it, but it was so short he couldn’t grab a proper fistful.
