Pursued: A Vampire Syndicate Paranormal Romance (The Vampire Syndicate Book 1)

by Rebecca Rivard

  I was so used to being wound tight that being tense felt like my natural state. But now, I raised my face to the wind and the sun. I drew a deep breath, let it out.

  My shoulders eased away from my ears.

  Right here, right now, I was happy…at peace.

  It wouldn’t last. It couldn’t last.

  I could almost hear the seconds ticking by. Whatever Andre had planned, it would happen soon.

  But for these few moments, I let myself enjoy it.

  12

  Gabriel

  I found Mila on the balcony, looking like a wildflower in the bright clothes, her face lifted to the sun, her hair in a careless ponytail. Already, a few strands had escaped to whip around her head.

  My breath punched in my chest. She was so beautiful, so vibrant. A sunlit sprite too good for a dark creature like me.

  She looked so at home, just as I’d pictured when I’d purchased this house three years ago. I’d planned on surprising her with it as a mate-gift. There was even a meadow she could use to start her flower farm.

  I watched her for long minutes, hidden in that shadowy dimension where vampires can’t be detected before returning to the physical world. Opening the sliding door, I stepped outside.

  I could tell the instant she sensed me. Her spine straightened, her face lowered.

  My mouth twisted. She didn’t come back for you.

  It was so obvious she had a hidden agenda. But I could wait. Sooner or later, she’d tell me the truth. Mila was too open, too honest, to keep a secret for long.

  She finished her coffee and set the mug on a round black patio table. By the time she turned to me, she had a smile on her face. A smile that almost looked real. “Morning.”

  I inclined my head. “You slept okay?”

  A small shrug. “Yeah.” She waved a hand at her outfit. “I wanted to thank you for the clothes.”

  “You like them?”

  This time, her smile was genuine. “I love them. Lougenia has good taste.”

  I nodded noncommittally. The hour I’d spent ordering her clothes had been worth it. It satisfied something primal in me, seeing her dressed head to toe in an outfit I’d chosen.

  And I couldn’t wait to see her in that blood-red romper-thingy.

  Mine.

  I fingered the gold bracelet in my pocket and prowled closer. “Everything fits?”

  “I think so. Yeah.”

  “You don’t know?”

  I stopped a foot away from her. She gazed up at me, brown eyes wide. “I didn’t try everything on.”

  I captured a strand of wavy dark hair between my fingers. “What about the nightgowns? And that red mesh romper?”

  She moistened her lips. “What about it—them?”

  “Did you try the romper on?” I pictured her leaning over a chair, bottom turned up with those crotchless panties framing her pretty sex, and went instantly hard. But I kept my face expressionless, enjoying how her heart sped up as if she were picturing the same thing.

  “No. Not yet. But I’m sure it—they’re—fine.” She gulped. “Everything’s fine, I mean.”

  “You’ll tell me if there’s a problem.”

  “Okay. Sure.” A pulse fluttered in her throat.

  I snaked an arm around her waist and set my mouth to that tempting flutter. Not to drink, just to tease us both. I wouldn’t feed from her until she was stronger, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t touch her.

  Her throat muscles worked beneath my lips. I nudged the shirt away from her shoulder and trailed kisses over her collarbone. She smelled clean and fresh.

  “Would you like to see the beach?” I moved my mouth to the soft golden skin beneath her jaw and sucked—hard.

  Her breath hitched. Her heart sped up, the rapid beat a counterpoint to the boom of the surf.

  “The beach?”

  “Mm-hm.” I nibbled on her earlobe. “Down below, there’s a private beach. Nobody can reach it except us, and the local boaters know to keep away.”

  Her hands came up between us. But not to push me away. No, her fingers curled around my shoulders, pulling me closer. Round, firm breasts pushed against my chest, the tips hard.

  Without looking away from her, I set my sunglasses on the table next to the mug and moved my mouth to hers. She opened her lips…and melted into me.

  Lust punched up my spine. She wanted me. That part, at least, was no lie. I could scent her desire, a honeyed female spice. Hear her pounding heart.

  I slid a hand between her thighs. Even through the shorts, I felt her heat. I undid the button of her waistband.

  She moaned and slid her fingers into my hair. Sucking on my tongue. Nipping my lips.

  I eased her zipper down, caressing her mound through her panties. With my middle fingers, I teased her clit, rubbed her plump folds.

  Her groan was raw, needy. “God, I missed you,” she said against my mouth.

  I stilled, recalling two things. We were on the balcony, in full view of my bodyguards—and she couldn’t have missed me as much as she claimed, or she wouldn’t have stayed away for so long.

  I withdrew my hand. She pressed closer, undulating against my hard, very ready cock.

  I tightened my arm around her waist, urging her up against me. The only thing between us were a few layers of material—my T-shirt and board shorts, and her thin summer clothes. Her leg came up, twining around mine. Her flipflop fell off, and warm toes caressed my bare calf.

  Holy Dark Mother, it felt good.

  I took the kiss deeper, eating at her mouth, sliding my tongue over hers. Letting her feel my hunger before backing off in small increments, rubbing my lips over hers, pressing kisses to her eyes and her nose. Finally, I gripped her arms and set her away from me.

  “No.” She whimpered my name and tried to squirm closer again. “Don’t go.”

  I took a choppy breath.

  Her eyes opened. They were dark, dazed. “Please, Gabriel.”

  My fingers flexed on her arms. “There’s a bodyguard on the other side of that window,” I said in a rough voice. “Unless you want him to see me pull down those shorts, bend you over the rail and fuck you, then we need to cool it.”

  “Oh.” She glanced at the window and flushed. “Yeah.”

  Her elastic hair band had fallen onto the balcony floor, leaving her hair in a wild mass around her shoulders. I picked it up and handed to her.

  She took a deep breath, then her face shuttered. I watched as she coolly zipped up her shorts and redid her hair.

  Her smile was even more cool. “I’d like to go to the beach now.”

  I stared down at her. The wildflower was gone, an ice-cold lily in its place. And damn, I hated myself for making her retreat behind that emotionless façade again.

  She arched a slim dark brow. “Gabriel?”

  “One thing first.” Removing the bracelet from my pants pocket, I clasped it around her wrist. It was slim but unbreakable, with three tiny gold daisies in the center. I engaged the special clasp to ensure it couldn’t be removed.

  She frowned. “What’s this?”

  “A symbol of our blood bond. All the blood-bonded thralls wear one.”

  “Oh,” she said flatly…and then ran a fingertip over the delicate flowers. “You got me daisies.” Her throat worked. “A daisy chain. You remembered.”

  Our gazes snagged. For a few heartbeats, we were both back in that summer meadow the day she’d turned twenty-two.

  As the sun slid beneath the horizon, she’d danced barefoot through the tall grass in a tiny T-shirt and cut-off jeans, hair in a thick braid that fell halfway down her back. Heat shimmered around her.

  I picked a handful of daisies and wove a lopsided crown to set on her head.

  She laughed up at me. “I’m a princess. And you’re my prince.”

  “Always.” I wrapped my fingers around her nape and reeled her in for a kiss. She smelled like the meadow, fresh and sunny. The white daisy petals glowed like pieces of moonlight agains
t her dark hair.

  Now I tore my eyes from hers.

  “The bracelet can’t be removed,” I said in a voice as cool as her own, and opened the sliding door. “The beach is this way.”

  We were on the lower level. The staircase to the beach was accessed through a door at the other end of the building. We headed down the hall, a dhampir enforcer trailing us. We passed the gym, empty now, with the vampires asleep in their underground lair and the two dhampirs on site handling security.

  A set of wall-mounted shelves held suntan lotion, caps, towels and beach blankets. I offered Mila a cap, but she refused it, so I set it on my own head before grabbing a blanket and a couple of towels.

  The door to the outside was solid steel reinforced with silver strips to repel vampires. I touched a palm to the sensor and the door unlocked with a soft snick.

  The dhampir enforcer made to follow us, but I halted him with a look. “Wait up here.”

  I wanted to be alone with Mila, and no one was going to reach the beach without his knowledge. And if they came by boat, I had a secret passage carved into the cliff that no one but my brothers knew about.

  “You’re the boss,” he said with a shrug, and took a stance on the concrete landing just outside the steel door.

  The beach was sixty feet below in a cove hemmed in on three sides by jagged rock outcroppings. I led the way down the steep metal staircase. During high tide, the beach was reduced to a strip of sand and pebbles, but right now it was a large expanse, broken only by a heap of boulders to our right.

  As we stepped onto the sand, Mila turned to me, eyes wide. “You really do have your own private beach. No one else comes here?”

  “Nope. It’s just us.”

  “That’s insane!” She dropped her flipflops next to the stairs and ran straight into the ocean. A wave slapped against her legs, nearly knocking her over. She simply laughed and opened her arms, the bracelet gleaming on her wrist.

  “It’s cold!” She spun to face me, the water up to her thighs.

  I smiled, more relieved than I cared to admit to have my wildflower Mila back. I toed-off my sneakers and joined her. “Careful. There are some strong undercurrents along this part of the coast.”

  “Lougenia told me.” Her reply ended in a yelp as another wave crashed into her, splashing her to the chest. She giggled, arms spread wide like she was embracing the whole world—ocean, sky, sun.

  Maybe even me.

  My heart constricted. I gripped her hand as the ocean sucked at our feet. The next wave was the largest yet. It slammed into us, nearly knocking her over, and soaking us both to the skin.

  I snagged Mila by the waist and moved her a few yards closer to shore.

  She chuckled and swiped a hank of wet hair from her face. “Why didn’t you warn me? I would’ve worn a bathing suit.”

  “Maybe I wanted to get you out of your clothes.”

  She stilled. We stared at each other. My blood surged, slow and hard, in my veins.

  Then she grinned. “I always did like how you think.”

  She jogged back to the beach blanket. I remained where I was, the ocean churning around my calves, while she unbuttoned her shirt and dropped it on the blanket. Next she peeled off the shorts, leaving her in a blue exercise bra and matching boyshorts.

  My fangs pricked my gums. Yeah, she was thinner, but the woman still had some sweet curves.

  She ran past me into the surf, executing a clean dive into the next wave. So much for my warning about the currents.

  I didn’t love the sun, but I could tolerate even bright sunlight for an hour or two. Leaving on my sunglasses and cap, I pulled off my T-shirt and joined her.

  She splashed me in the face and dove under. I was after her in a flash, capturing her by the ankle and pulling her to me for a hard, salt-flavored kiss.

  We played in the waves until I turned to look at a boat motoring by a little too close. Behind me, Mila fell silent. I glanced over my shoulder to see her staring at the snarling wolf tattoo on my right shoulder blade.

  Fuck. Just when she’d finally started to relax around me.

  She moved closer, touched the tattoo. “That’s new.” Her fingertip followed the midnight swirls over my skin, outlining the wolf’s snarling mouth and sharp fangs. “When—?”

  “A few months after you left.”

  “Why?”

  I sent her a hooded glance. “I think you know.”

  It was the official emblem of a made enforcer in the Kral Syndicate, although I’d been bloodsworn not to speak about that with an outsider.

  “Mm.” She brought her hand back to her side.

  I turned around again. “You have a problem?”

  Yeah, I sounded belligerent, but she knew what I was…who I was. Once, she’d said it didn’t matter, that she loved me anyway.

  I was proud to be a Kral enforcer. My father had built a powerful organization from one small coven. We had a strict code of honor, one he insisted everyone followed to the letter. A Kral Syndicate member didn’t lie, steal, or cheat—unless you lied to, stole from, or cheated us. And we only killed when absolutely necessary.

  Mila exhaled. “Well. Congrats, I guess.”

  I jerked my chin in acknowledgement.

  “No.” She shook her head at herself. “That sounds like I’m not happy for you. I am—truly. It’s what you wanted, what you worked for.”

  “Thanks,” I said, but the playfulness had gone out of the afternoon.

  She pushed her hair off her face—she’d lost the hair band in the water—and glanced around. A shiver went over her too-thin body.

  I swore under my breath. I should’ve remembered how run down she was. “You’re cold. Let’s go back to the beach.”

  I swept her into my arms and headed back to the beach. She stiffened. Not much, but enough so I noticed.

  But as I stepped out of the surf with her, she twisted so her arms were around my neck. Long legs twined around my waist. Even with the cold water, I’d been half-erect as we played. But now, with her soft sex pressed against me, I started to lengthen.

  She nibbled on my ear. “Warm me up, Gabriel.”

  At her husky tones, I went rock hard.

  She gave a hum of satisfaction and undulated against me. “Nobody can see us here, right?”

  “Mm-hm.” The enforcer above knew better than to watch us.

  “Good.” Her tongue traced my earlobe. “It’s okay if you want to fuck. I had an injection.”

  My brows snapped together. I pulled back to scrutinize her face. “Why?” I told myself I wasn’t jealous, just possessive.

  A shrug.

  I tightened my grip on her. “You weren’t with anyone else while you were gone. So why get an injection?”

  “So you were watching me.”

  I tangled my fingers in her wet hair and pulled back her head so I could see her eyes. “Answer me, Mila.”

  A shadow crossed her face. “I—had a couple of times where I was afraid a guy would—you know. So I got the injection, just in case.”

  “Gods.” I squeezed my eyes shut. “Give me their names.”

  “I…can’t.”

  I glared down at her. “I. Want. Their. Names.”

  She heaved a breath. “I don’t know their names. Or if I did, it was just first names.”

  “Gods.” Fury rose up in me—at Mila, for running and making herself vulnerable, and at myself for allowing it.

  I was grasping her hair too tightly. I forced my fingers to release their grip. “So that’s why you took those self-defense courses.”

  Her breath sucked in. “Were you spying on me the whole fucking time?”

  “Not the whole time. I just checked on you now and then.” Setting her on the sand, I wrapped a towel around her shivering form. “But I should’ve been, if this was the sort of shit you had to put up with. Did you think I wouldn’t worry about you? I wasn’t even sure if you’d been kidnapped.”

  Her gaze slid from mine. “I left a
note.”

  “Yeah, you did,” I said evenly. “A goddamn note after thirteen months together. You said you loved me, and you didn’t even have the balls to say goodbye to my face.”

  She chewed her lip, gave a small shrug. “I hate goodbyes.”

  “Don’t give me that.” I gripped her shoulders. “You owed me more than that.” The hurt she’d dealt me made me snarl in her face. “Was the idea of accepting my blood bond that bad? You had to run from me like I’m some kind of monster?”

  She seemed to wilt in my arms. Then she lifted her chin and pulled the striped towel more tightly around her.

  “You know I don’t think that. I never thought that. I may wish you’d been born someone else—someone normal—but I never thought you were a monster.”

  “No? Then why did you leave?”

  She shook her head. Her soft lower lip trembled.

  I swore. “Don’t you fucking cry. I swear, I’ll turn you over my knee if you pull the tear-thing on me.”

  Her chin jutted. “I’m not,” she snapped as a fat tear rolled down her cheek…her too-thin cheek. She gave another hard shiver.

  I let out a few choice words and pulled her into my arms, towel and all.

  Gods, I was an ass. Not for having it out with her, but for doing it now, when she was clearly not up to it. “Take it easy,” I muttered. “It’s all right.”

  She burrowed her head into my shoulder. “No,” she said, so low I barely heard her. “It’s not all right.”

  I tipped her chin up and rubbed my lips over hers. “Then tell me, Mila. Tell me what’s wrong so I can make it right.”

  She pressed her lips together and shook her head.

  My insides twisted. Why wouldn’t she trust me?

  “Have it your way, then.” I went to pull away, but she released the towel to grab me.

  We were both damp and sticky from the salt water. She wrapped her hands around my shoulders and pressed up against me. The bra and boyshorts were so wet, she might as well have been naked. I felt every curve and line of her.

  My cock swelled even more. I gripped her round little bottom, pulled her closer. The towel fell the rest of the way to the sand.