Grant’s usual cavalier manner was gone, anger brewing beneath his hard expression. “You and I need to talk.” His gruff command was out of place. No one spoke to a royal that way. Both Brennalyn and Sylvia noticed, staring at Grant as if he’d lost his mind. Grant added finally, “Your Grace.”
“We will. Later.”
Friedrich knew what conversation they’d be having later, the same one they’d had for the past few years. As his half brother, Grant had asked to become vampire, seeking that gift of long life. But if Friedrich had done so, Grant would have been shipped off to the Legionnaires. Vampires did not work in service to other vampires as humans did. They were either titled nobility by birthright or they served in the Legionnaires as soldiers and officers to the Varis Empire. Female vampires simply married a soldier or an aristocrat. This was a strict law enforced by the crown. As a bastard of a duke, he would hold no titles and would be sent away.
When Friedrich’s parents died fifteen years earlier, he learned that the teenager who’d been raised in the servants’ quarters was actually his half brother by their father’s favorite concubine. Another secret sin of the great Duke of Winter Hill. Grant’s mother took her own life when her duke was killed. Friedrich and Grant were both motherless and fatherless. Left behind. Friedrich refused to let the boy wander off on his own. As a young vampire at fifty years old, Friedrich still realized that this was the only family he had left. He’d hired private tutors to educate him since Grant bore the same keen intelligence as the father they shared.
Grant had finally asked him to make him a blood brother in the vampire sense right about the same time whisperings of the Black Lily swept through the north. It was also when Friedrich began to suspect that his uncle had planted spies in his Legionnaires to watch him. He’d promised Grant that one day he would turn him vampire, but now he needed him to remain a servant in his house, being his true eyes and ears. A servant could move about unsuspected.
Mikhail, Dmitri, and three others of the Bloodguard marched into the hall, their boots stomping in unison across the wood floor. The guards spread throughout the room, urging the remaining townspeople toward the exit. Mikhail stopped before them, expression calm but grave.
“We’ve swept the town. There is no other intruder.”
“What?” asked Brennalyn. “But how? You haven’t been gone more than ten minutes.”
Friedrich and Mikhail exchanged a glance before the captain answered.
“We are fast and efficient, Miss Snow.” He turned to the duke. “Your carriage is waiting. I will go ahead to Miss Snow’s household to be sure all is well with the children.”
Without waiting for a response, the captain vanished into a blur, leaving a rush of wind in his wake.
“I will be happy to take Miss Snow home,” came a voice behind them.
Mr. Dawson had been standing there the entire time and Friedrich hadn’t even noticed. Brennalyn’s mouth opened as she sought some response, glancing between him and the mason. Though Friedrich might sound like a callous bastard, he simply didn’t care. Better the man understand the situation clearly now for his own good. Better Brennalyn understand it as well.
“No need, Mr. Dawson,” said Friedrich, looping his arm about her slim waist. “Thank you for your concern, but I will be ensuring Miss Snow’s safety.” She stiffened when he pulled her against him. “From now on.”
With that, he guided her toward the door, ushering her wide around the bloody pool in the middle of the floor.
“I didn’t give you permission to take me home.”
“I didn’t ask for it,” he declared, grabbing her cloak from the pile of coats on a table in the corner.
He draped it over her shoulders and clasped it at the front.
“How do you know that’s even my cloak?” Her bow-shaped lips pressed together, a small signal of defiance.
He lifted the hood over her dark hair then slid his hands within to cup her face, pressing his palms to her cheekbones. Lowering his face to meet her stubbornly averted gaze, he answered in the softest voice he could manage, considering death hung in the blood-scented air and his need to get her to safety clutched him like an eagle’s talons to her fledgling fallen from the nest.
“Because your night-flower scent is embedded in my skin. Whenever I draw near to you, it settles on my tongue, watering my mouth, making me ache for you. Yearning for one little taste. But it isn’t just your blood I want.” He smiled when her pouty lips dropped open in shock and her eyes dilated with desire. “That is how I know this is your cloak, kitten.”
He brushed a thumb down her cheek to her parted lips. She snapped them shut at once before he could slide his thumb inside to feel her hot mouth. He chuckled.
“Let’s get you home.”
Soon, he promised himself. Soon.
Chapter Nine
She sat back against the cushion, her heart hammering like a jack rabbit’s. Her speeding pulse quickened even more when the duke sat back on the bench across from her, banged twice on the side with the flat of his hand, and the carriage lurched forward. The man made her want to climb in his lap and run away all at the same time.
“What did you take from her purse?”
“It’s something that’s been passed around as of late. A leaflet by someone called the White Lily. Have you seen them before?”
Her fingers trembled as she held the paper, staring down at her own words with the girl’s blood coloring it red. “Yes.”
“You have?”
“I mean no, but I’ve—I’ve heard of them. And the White Lily.”
The duke’s demeanor had transformed from the seducer to the lion-like hunter and protector, his countenance stern and grim. “This White Lily is going to get himself killed.”
Her voice shook. “I knew that girl.”
His gaze shifted. “I’m sorry. Were you friends?”
“No. But I knew her. Saw her in town. I taught her little brother until he went to work in the fields.”
He sat with his legs apart and stared across the dark cabin. “You’re too far away, Miss Snow.”
“What do you mean?”
In a flash, she was lifted off her seat and put in his lap.
“You’re trembling. I’m sorry you had to see such a thing.”
“It’s not that. It is, but it’s—”
She couldn’t tell him what she was really thinking. That he’d hate her if he knew who she really was, conspiring against his own family, and yet she despised herself for the attraction she couldn’t deny. Even now, in the close quarters of the cabin, his hot breath upon her neck, she could only think of one thing.
“What is it, kitten?” His dark voice was like the silk he threatened to drape her in. Without thinking, she wrapped her hand around his nape and pressed a soft kiss to his lips.
His groan beckoned for more but he made no move to deepen the kiss, allowing her to take control. She took it willingly, flicking her tongue into his mouth for a slow, lingering exploration. She pulled away and pressed her forehead to his.
“Bloody hell. Miss Snow.” He slid one knuckle along the seam of her bodice, dipping low in her cleavage then back over the mound of her breast. Though it was nearly pitch-black in the cabin, she could make out the silhouette of his face as he stared at her, the weight of his intense gaze.
“I can feel the anxiety vibrating on your skin.” He slid a gentle hand up her arm, then back down. “Let me soothe you. Comfort you. Pleasure you.”
While framed as a request, urgent demand filled the velvet deep of his voice. She’d lied. She was afraid—of the vicious vampire attack, of the things she couldn’t control, of the emotions that swirled in her chest like a tempest for the man enveloping her in heat and heady desire. Sinful or not, she wanted to know what it would feel like to be soothed, to be comforted, to be pleasured by the duke. She gave a single nod, knowing he could see her far better in the dark than she could see him.
“Thank you for wearing your hair d
own.”
With one strong arm across her upper back, he guided her to settle her weight at an angle against him. Her bottom sat on his left thigh. He widened his legs till his right leg hooked under her knees. He nuzzled into her hair near her ear.
“Did you do that for me?”
She clutched his shoulder. “I didn’t know you’d be there tonight.” She was unwilling to confess that she had worn her hair down, hoping he’d be there.
Her skirts rustled as he lifted them above her knees. Cool air kissed her bare legs. On instinct, she tried to squeeze them closed. He splayed one large hand across her outer thigh, holding with a firm grip.
“Do you want me to stop?” he asked as he nuzzled tenderly at her jaw.
“No. I want you to kiss me.”
He did, angling his mouth so he could taste her deeply. He rolled her skirt even higher till air cooled her hips and abdomen.
His mouth brushed against hers as he whispered, “I’m going to take care of you.”
She clung to his shoulders as he swept his lips gently, prying her mouth wider with each gentle invasion. When she surrendered, tilting her head back and opening her mouth for him, he surged inside, stroking his tongue, penetrating deep.
He lifted his heavy hand where it gripped her thigh and trailed the pads of his fingers along the inner slope, skimming the apex between her legs then sliding down the other side. If he wasn’t so much bigger than her and didn’t bear so much of her weight against his body, it would’ve felt awkward. Instead, she felt vulnerable and aroused and deliciously wicked. Out of control in the best sort of way.
He continued to stroke his tongue into her mouth with fierce determination, in direct contrast to his fingers circling her sex with lazy exploration, up one thigh, crossing the sliver of skin below her corset, then down the other side.
“Your Grace?”
“Yes?”
“Can you move a little faster?”
He chuckled. “Those are unexpected words coming from you, Miss Snow.”
“There are a lot of things about me you’d find unexpected.”
“Really? Like what?”
Out of patience, she slid her hand from his nape and clenched a fist in his hair, then tightened her lips around his tongue and sucked him as he stroked.
The feral rumbling in his chest and sudden tightening of his hand on her upper thigh, his thumb pressed in the fleshiest part, told her she’d done well. She moaned as she sucked him again with fervent need.
He drew back on a pant. “Kitten. Are those claws I feel?” he ground against her lips, his hand gliding up to her sex where he slid a finger along her drenched slit. He groaned, mumbling, “Soaked for me.”
His other hand came up into the back of her hair where he fisted gently, tilting her neck back. He kissed a hot line down the center of her throat to the hollow at the base where he opened and suckled with his warm mouth. He circled his finger around the tight bud at the center of her cleft, teasing around and around.
Hazed with lust, she whimpered and pumped her hips in small circles, trying to get more of him, needing more. He chuckled and slid through her slick folds down to her entrance, continuing in torturous circles, evading where she wanted him to go. She clutched his hair in a tight fist, desperation making her too rough.
“Inside me,” she breathed. “Now.”
He tilted her body at an angle toward him, his mouth licking at the base of her neck, her cloak falling open. “Yes, kitten. That’s where I belong.”
With a slick thrust, he pushed his long finger in deep. She gasped at the intense pleasure. She was no virgin, but it had been a long time, her tight sheath clutching at his eager intrusion.
“I think you need more,” he rumbled, sliding in a second finger, stretching her in the most wonderful way.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“I need to taste,” he growled, begged.
“Yes,” was her quick reply, brain hazed with clawing need. “You may.”
Then she felt the prick of fangs only a second before he bit down and slid them inside her flesh. She clenched her fists in his hair and his shoulder, hanging on tight, for that was all she could do. He groaned, his lips humming against her tender skin as he sucked hard, his fangs buried deep. A sudden wave of erotic pleasure pulsed through her veins. His elixir.
“Oh, God,” she murmured.
White hot arousal burst through her body, screaming through her blood and rushing between her legs. His intoxicating potion washed through her, a blend of strength, power, seduction, and dominance.
Her nipples ached beneath the binding of her bodice. She wished she were completely naked atop his lap, too far gone to be ashamed of the thought. He pressed his thumb on her swollen bud, grinding softly, then pumping his fingers, the perfect alternating tempo, pushing her higher.
She hardly recognized herself. Gone was the controlled, staid schoolteacher. Sprawled across the vampire duke’s lap, her legs spread wide, her back and neck arched, offering herself up as a feast of flesh, was no longer the woman focused solely on the needs of others, but the woman who longed to take what she wanted. To satiate her own fleshly desires.
He suckled on her throat, his fangs still penetrating her flesh as he drank his fill. The precipice drew closer, her orgasm building.
“Yes.” She whimpered and rocked her hips wildly, both of her hands clutched in his hair and holding him to her throat. “I’m going to come.”
He growled against her skin, not letting go of the primal hold he had on her neck. Then he eased his fingers out.
“No…please, don’t…please.” She was so close to a powerful climax, vibrating her body to the edge.
He pushed back inside of her with three fingers, stretching her with a twinge of pain that rolled over to intense pleasure.
“Friedrich.”
That point of pleasure-pain sent her body over the edge, her sex clenching and pulsing around his fingers as she thrust her hips up toward him. He clutched her throat tighter at her highest point of orgasm, releasing a second wave of his elixir, stretching the moment into a long, pulsing sensation of pleasure that wrung out her body.
As the waves subsided, he slid his canines from her throat and licked the wound gently, holding the back of her head as she’d gone boneless in his arms. With his fingers still inside her, he cupped her mound and massaged the heel of his hand in soft circles while she came down. She turned her head into his chest, embarrassed at having lost herself entirely. Somehow, she still couldn’t make herself regret this moment.
With slow movements and tender care, he eased his fingers from her body and righted her skirts then held her close with both arms enveloping her against him. Her body was so utterly relaxed, languorous from the intensity of her orgasm that she’d drifted as he nuzzled close to her ear. She flinched when he spoke.
“I promised I would take care of you.”
“What?” Her raspy voice didn’t even sound like her own.
“Time to get you in your bed, sweet kitten.” He pounded a fist three times on the inside wall.
That’s when she realized the carriage had stopped. And probably had been for some time. “Oh my God. What must your coachman think of me?”
“It matters not at all.”
The door popped open. Rather than let her stand, he stooped with her in his arms and sped in a blur to her front door.
She shook off the dizzy wave from moving at such speed. “You can put me down now.”
He promptly set her on her feet, “I’m coming inside to check for safety.”
She glared up at him, holding onto his biceps to keep her steady. “That’s not necessary. We can protect ourselves.”
He arched a dark brow at her, his blue eyes glinting even in the dark. “I’m coming inside.”
With a quiet sigh, she put her key in the lock and opened the door. She had no will or strength to argue.
Helena sat up from the rocking chair by the fire, dagger in her lap. Ca
den was sprawled in the other chair completely asleep, his long legs stretching out, his chin tucked against his chest. He looked so young and sweet when he slept, not like the wild hellion when he was awake. Helena stood, her wide brown gaze on the duke crossing the threshold.
“Helena,” whispered Brennalyn. “There was a disturbance at the ball tonight. The duke would like to check our home for safety.”
Helena simply dipped a curtsy, unable to form words with the vampire standing in their small entryway.
“Pardon my intrusion.” He swept a cordial bow to Helena. “I won’t take but a moment.”
Brennalyn caught him glancing at the dagger she now cradled to her chest and the gold tip of the blade. But he made no comment. Thankfully. She touched his arm and pointed toward a stair against the wall.
“The boys sleep in the loft. And down that hall is Helena and Beatrice’s bedroom. And mine.”
He nodded and swiveled his gaze toward the door on the other side of the hearth. Brennalyn’s pulse tripped faster.
“That’s just the basement for food storage. There are no windows and no other way for an intruder to get in or out. Don’t bother checking there.” She lifted a hand toward the loft.
At first she thought he would ignore her argument against checking the basement. He swept an unreadable gaze across her face then blurred vampire-swift up to the loft.
Helena gasped. “Oh, my goodness.”
“Yes,” agreed Brenna. “I know what you mean.”
In another minute, he returned to the first floor and stalked down the hallway to the bedrooms in human speed. Brenna urged with a hand for Helena to stay put. She nodded vehemently, still wide-eyed.
Brenna found him standing in her bedroom, sweeping the dark from one end to the other. He checked the locks on the windows. Brenna walked to Izzy’s single bed against the wall where she’d hung all of her paintings from school, creating a wallpaper of drippy flowers and crooked rainbows. She tucked her leg back under the covers and pulled them up tight. Izzy was wont to restless sleeps. Hence the reason she’d put in a smaller bed for her. Brenna learned her lesson the first night she brought her home, finding a tiny foot jabbed in her ribs every hour.
The White Lily (Vampire Blood series) Page 8
