Death of Gods (Vampire Crown Book 3)

by Scarlett Dawn

  “I’m serious. You need to keep your strength up.” I kissed his forehead one more time just because I enjoyed the mint smell of him…and because I wanted to kiss him again.

  The bed hadn’t been made yet, still rumpled from our rest the night before. With the sun just rising on this dreadful day, I slid onto my side of the bed, pulled the cover up over my head, and pressed my cheek to a fluffy pillow.

  It took longer than I’d admit for the flashes of my would-be killer’s face to go away and allow sweet slumber to take my exhausted body into its peaceful depths.

  * * .*

  The affectionate brush of lips on my collarbone woke me. I hummed in approval, sleepy and rough, the cover still high over my head, trapping Bel and me together underneath its soft material. Those fascinating lips of his took a slow journey across my neck, pausing over my pulse. His mouth opened wide and gave an open-mouthed kiss over my beating pulse.

  I squirmed underneath him in pleasure, only to feel soft sheets beneath my bare flesh. I giggled, and teased, “Sneaky vampire. You already removed my clothes.”

  Bel lowered his body against mine. Bare skin touched bare skin as his talented mouth continued down my body, licking and caressing my right shoulder. “I removed mine, too. If you’d like, I can dress us again, and then take the time to get rid of them once more. If it bothers your majesty that much, that is.”

  I tipped my head to the side and nipped his ear. “Smartass.”

  Ice blue eyes, not as chilling as they usually were, met mine, and then he went back to the skin he was gifting with succulent affection. His lips opened, and his tongue slid across my left nipple before he opened his mouth wider and feasted on my breast.

  I groaned and arched underneath him, grabbing onto his too-intelligent head. “Fuck, I needed this.”

  He chuckled against my damp skin. “So have I.”

  His fangs flashed and stabbed into my breast.

  I shouted in pain, but it quickly turned to a pleasure-filled moan while he drank my blood and twirled his tongue around and around my nipple at the same time.

  Bel hadn’t bit me since our first time together.

  Guess he was done waiting to do it again.

  My own fangs descended and my head pressed back on the pillow, offering myself to him.

  The invitation given, he struck faster than I could see. His fangs left my breast and sliced into my fragile neck, while he pressed one finger into my wet channel, shoving my legs apart with his knees.

  I shouted in sweet agony.

  My lover was greedy tonight, sucking hard and swallowing with loud moans. His finger pumped into me, adding a second long finger, and then pressing the heel of his hand against my clit with each drive.

  I dug my feet into the mattress for support and humped his talented fingers with abandon.

  He purred deep in his throat, enjoying my loss of control, and sucked harder against my neck.

  A few pieces of his long black hair had fallen loose from his bun and brushed against my face as my head shook back and forth, lost in his touch. “Please… Oh, please.”

  With the hard thrust of his fingers sliding inside my wet core, I tumbled over the edge of climax, my shout imprisoned under the cover with us. My body shuddered against his warmth and strength. I gripped his hair in my clenching fists as my channel throbbed against his fingers.

  I swallowed on a dry throat and jerked inside his hold, the vampire gone from my neck with the flick of his tongue over his bite, and his fingers gone from inside me, replaced by the shove of his massive cock.

  His face hovered over mine with his fangs still lowered. Bel lifted on his arms, the blanket rising with him in the darkness, and he thrust again. He didn’t relent as his hips pistoned until he was fully seated inside of me. With blood red eyes, he stared down at me with fangs flashing and hard muscles tightening, not stopping to allow me to adjust to his size, thrusting his hips faster and harder. My vampire Overlord wanted to fuck me.

  I dug my fingernails into his back, just as fiercely as he was screwing me, and dragged them down his back.

  Bel hissed in pleasure, his lips pulling back from his teeth. He snarled, “Harder, Gwen.”

  I shoved my hips up against his with each of his brutal pounds, his cock filling me so full, and curled my fingers further into the skin of his back and slowly scratched down his flesh again.

  He shuddered over me, his eyes closing in rapture.

  Sweat coated our skin. Our flesh smacked together.

  And as he opened his eyes and gazed down at me with raw, carnal pleasure etching his features, I had never felt this close to anyone in my entire life.

  I lifted my hands up, grabbed his whiskered chin, and yanked his face down to mine, ordering on a growl, “Kiss me like you’re fucking me.”

  Bel’s mouth slammed against mine, his tongue thrusting past my lips. I tasted my blood inside his mouth, copper and potent and delicious, as his tongue battled with mine. He pressed harder until my head was shoved back against the pillow with no more give to the material. He claimed and owned my mouth.

  I groaned and ran my hands up his cheeks and into his thick hair, and held the fuck on.

  Our growls and hard touches consumed us; pain turned into pleasure. I yanked his head back so fiercely he groaned in ecstasy, and then I attacked his neck, biting violently enough it was just shy of piercing his flesh. Bel lifted his right hand from the mattress and twisted my left nipple so brutally, I screamed against his neck as I shuddered with desire. Everything was so much more with this man.

  The headboard smashed against the wall every time his hips met mine with crazed savagery. Uninhibited, we fucked how we wanted. All fears and reserve gone. We did as we wished.

  I wrapped my right leg around his waist and shoved up against him, pressing my clit to his groin. Faster and faster, I thrust up against him. I wanted what I wanted.

  I screamed as my climax detonated inside me.

  Bel hissed above me and his fangs sliced into my neck again, sucking my blood down as he shoved into my core, finding his own fierce release.

  Our bodies pressed together as our muscles trembled.

  I shuddered so brutally, the bed shook with me.

  Bel snaked his arms under me, holding me tight against his body as we floated in our fiery climaxes.

  I blinked hard up at the cover pressed against my face, my eyelashes rubbing against the soft material, and tried to breathe as my chest heaved. I unclenched my fingers in his hair and let my arms drop to my sides, thumping loud on the mattress.

  Bel wasn’t any better, yanking his fangs from my neck and licking over the wound, then dropping his head next to mine on the pillow. His breaths labored in his lungs, both of us currently spent.

  He panted his words. “You okay?”

  “Yeah.” I swallowed hard. “You?”

  “Yes.” Even though neither one of us could breathe well, he scooted his head closer and turned his face toward mine. With his nose smashed against my cheek, he muttered, “Blanket. Move the fucking blanket.”

  I barely had the energy to blink, but I managed to grapple with the edge of the cover at our heads and yank it down hard.

  Fresh, cool air rushed over our faces.

  We both inhaled heavily, our hair sticking to our sweaty faces. My lover groaned and hugged me tighter, not moving from lying on top of me. I merely closed my eyes and passed the hell out in sated pleasure underneath him.

  KNOCK, KNOCK.

  I froze in place with my sweater halfway off and hanging over my head. “Shit.”

  A growl erupted in the air. Pissed…off.

  I shoved my sweater back down over my head and patted the air in my lover’s direction. “I’ll take care of it. Don’t worry.” I sidestepped a broken lamp lying on the floor in front of me and hurried to Bel’s bedchamber door. I opened it swiftly and stepped out into the hallway. I surveyed the scene, and stated, “Now is really not a great time, my lords.”

  L
ord Cato and Lord Xenon stood in the hallway, both wearing horrible scowls on their faces.

  My father hissed, “It’s been four days. Without any word from him.”

  I peered down my nose at him. “I’ve kept you informed.”

  “All you’ve told us is that ‘he’s working on it’.” Lord Xenon shook his head hard, his black military-style haircut harsh with his features. “That isn’t good enough right now. We need transparency, and we aren’t receiving it.”

  “We need to speak with him.” Lord Cato pointed at the door. “Now.”

  I held up a stopping hand. “If you go in there right now, you’ll only make matters worse. He’s barely slept. He’s barely been eating. And he’s in a horrible mood tonight.”

  My father glowered. “I don’t care if he’s in a bad mood—”

  “You don’t understand,” I growled, cutting him off. “He’s agitated right now. Do you want to go in there when he’s pissed off? Do you want to poke the beast when he’s already in a bad mood?”

  “It doesn’t matter. We need to go inside.” Lord Cato scratched his cheek and sighed. “We need to figure out how it’s going and speak with him.”

  My eyebrows rose. “I think you’re making a mistake.”

  Lord Xenon muttered, “Thank you for the advisement, your majesty, but we’ve been dealing with him longer than you have. We’ve seen his bad moods before, just like he’s seen ours. We know how to deal with him.”

  I pinched my lips together.

  Lord Xenon was probably right.

  I still didn’t like them bothering him, though.

  I leaned toward both men, and snarled, “If either of you upsets him too badly while he’s already troubled, I will fucking hurt you. Understand?”

  Both stood silent for a long moment.

  Lord Xenon broke the quiet first. He hummed softly, “You’re awfully protective of him, your majesty.”

  My brows snapped together. “And?”

  He chuckled. “I was simply stating an observation.”

  I swung my gaze to my father. “Do you have any commentary you’d like to add?”

  “Nope.” Lord Cato rocked back on his heels and placed his hands into his pockets. “You’re old enough to know what you’re heading for and make your own decisions on your personal life.”

  “That’s very kind of you to say, my darling Father,” I muttered. I turned and opened the door for them. “Enter at your own peril, my lords.”

  Leaving a grand total of five personal royal bodyguards behind us, we stepped inside Lord Belshazzar’s bedchamber. I shut the door behind us and went to sit on the unkempt bed—no housekeepers having been allowed in here—and watched the events with an eagle eye.

  Lord Belshazzar had shoved all the furniture to the walls of the room, leaving a large clearing in the center of his intimate bedchamber. He sat in the center of it, unshowered for four days, wearing a pair of dress slacks and nothing more. The tomes written in the ancient druid language were spread around him in a circle, each one opened to an exact page, while he wrote on a pad of paper and crawled from book to book studying each one carefully as he took more notes.

  My vampire Overlord didn’t look up from his work, but he did growl under his breath at their interruption.

  Lord Cato stepped over the broken lamp and walked to the edge of the circle of books. He took a seat and crossed his legs, and then placed his hands in his lap. My father stayed silent as he looked over the situation happening before him.

  Lord Xenon stayed farther away and leaned a shoulder against the door, asking quietly, “What progress have you made, my lord?”

  Lord Belshazzar shifted from his sitting position. He crawled to a book on his right and stared down at it. His eyes slowly read the words there, and then he wrote on his pad of paper again. He finally answered in a voice rough from disuse, “The spell needed is complicated.”

  My father stated gently, “We can see that. But is it feasible in the timeframe we need?”

  “I believe so,” Lord Belshazzar mumbled and crawled to a different book. He pointed at the page, still not looking at either one of them. “I will need Chester. He needs to be brought here immediately.”

  “Is that all you need?” My father didn’t argue, even though he had said he hated the man. “We need a list of what it’ll take to complete the spell.”

  Lord Belshazzar raked his fingers through his tangled hair and lifted his pad of paper to view it. He stated, “I’ll also need a druid woman with a child in her womb. Her blood needs to be drained—all of it—and kept in a vase made of amethyst. She needs to be a willing sacrifice, not coerced.”

  Lord Xenon tapped his fingers on his cell phone, taking notes, while my father stayed silent and was his ear for patient listening.

  “I’ll also need snake’s venom. It doesn’t matter what kind of snake. And I’ll need four rocks, one from the east, west, north, and the south. And two feathers from a crow. Two feathers from a dove.” He scanned his notes and flipped the page, reading further. Eventually, he bit his lower plump lip, pulling it out slowly between his teeth. “And the fucker’s head. It’s fortunate we have that. Otherwise, the spell wouldn’t work. I think that’s it for ingredients.”

  I breathed a silent sigh of relief.

  That list wasn’t awful. And I had made the right decision allowing the lords in, even if I hadn’t wanted them to disturb him. It would take a few days to wrangle up what he needed.

  “How long until you’ve got the spell ready?” My father asked with serenity in his tone. “When should we have everything ready for you?”

  “Five days,” Lord Belshazzar stated instantly while writing on his pad of paper again. “No later.”

  My father nodded and stood to his feet. “Five days. We’ll have it ready for you.”

  When the lords were both at his door, ready to leave, Lord Belshazzar’s head snapped up, stopping them in their tracks. My vampire Overlord growled dangerously, “Do not allow Chester to be alone with our queen. If you do, I will end you.”

  Lord Xenon blinked…and repeated the words he had said to me outside, “You’re awfully protective of her, my lord.”

  “Yes, I am.” My lover didn’t blink.

  Lord Cato chuckled—evilly. “Don’t worry, my lord. I won’t allow that demented ass near her.”

  With that, they left the room.

  I hummed softly and scratched at my cheek. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of this Chester individual. I take it he’s a real piece of work?”

  “He is.” Lord Belshazzar’s attention returned to his writing. “If, by chance, he gets past Lord Cato, don’t hesitate to run from him as fast as you can. That wouldn’t be the cowardly act either, Gwen. It would be the smart one for you.”

  I pulled out my phone and started to research the druid. “I’ll make sure to stay clear of him.”

  “And keep Crow with you while Chester’s here. Crow is a little faster than Phoenix.”

  “Duly noted.” I flopped back onto his bed and held my cell phone above my face, scrolling through information. “Bel?”

  “Yes?”

  “You are eating tonight. I don’t want to hear you argue, either. You will eat and shut up about it, or I will stuff the food into your mouth.” I sniffed. “And you’ll sleep in bed with me tonight. Am I making myself clear?”

  He grunted.

  “That’s not a yes.” I had learned his ways, too, in the past four days I’d been sleeping in here. “I want to hear you verbally say it.”

  Bel hissed, “Yes.”

  “Thank you.” I flipped through another page. “And it wouldn’t hurt if you took a shower before coming to bed. You kind of stink.”

  Sniffing from the floor… “I don’t smell that bad.”

  I snorted. “Shower, Bel. You’ll take one. You’re fast enough. It won’t take that much time away from your work.”

  “Fine.” The beast growled.

  CHESTER WAS KEPT IN THE JAIL
WHEN HE ARRIVED. The druid had the entire place to himself—and a shit ton of vampire guards outside the door, watching it. I couldn’t disagree with our inhospitality with what I read about him, nor did I disagree with the way he was captured and brought here. It wasn’t exactly hospitable either, but it got the job done.

  Only my father went inside the jail with him.

  I didn’t ask how he received Chester’s compliance to help with the spell. I merely saw him leave with copious amounts of blood on his suit, a contract in hand, and a smile on his face.

  Although I had hoped that we would be able to kill the insatiable monster once we were done with the spell, his release had been part of the deal my father had struck with him.

  Two days after his arrival, bound in spelled chains around his wrists and ankles, Chester wobbled into the stronghold with armed vampire guards surrounding him.

  I stood next to Lord Belshazzar, who was back to rights in a tailored suit and looking as sexy as ever, on the winding steps leading up from the colossal foyer. The other lords stood behind us, a different Overlord on each step above us. I surveyed the druid, getting my first view of him in person, not just the stolen shots an idiot had managed to snap of him.

  Chester was shorter than I had expected. The top of his head reached five feet nine inches, though the muscles underneath the gifted clothes he had received were large enough to be impressive. His strawberry blond hair, blue eyes, and freckled features lent the man an innocent mien that belonged nowhere on this druid.

  He tipped his head back to look at us above him, and his crystal blue eyes ran over the Overlord next to me. Chester chuckled and lifted his red brows. “Here we are again, Lord Belshazzar. All these years later.” He lifted his bound hands. “And it seems you have me at your disposal this time.”

  Lord Belshazzar smirked. “I believe you were in cuffs the last time I saw you too, Chester.”

  Unprepared for that comment, my brows snapped together, and my lips thinned. I clasped my hands behind my back and attempted to keep quiet. Maybe it wasn’t what I was thinking—

  “Yes, you’re correct, my lord,” Chester drawled, a sensual gleam entering his eyes.