In the Service of the King (Vampire Warrior Kings Book 1)

by Laura Kaye

  His voice in her head startled her so much she nearly released her suction from his neck. His hand tangled in her hair and held her down, petted her, encouraged her to take all she wanted.

  Do not fear, Shayla. We are a part of one another now, inside each other. Our blood connection creates a telepathy that is strongest when we feed and make love.

  Shayla was in awe of the rightness of his voice in her mind, like he had always been there, providing solace, comfort, companionship. But, just in that moment, there was something else she desperately needed.

  I need all of you in me, Kael. Please. I’ll go crazy if I can’t have you.

  A possessive growl rumbled against her breasts. We are fully mated, love. I wait only for you to be sated before taking you back to our chamber and making love to you until the sun rises. Over and over again. Until neither of us can move a muscle.

  She moaned against his neck. Just a little bit more. I just… She rushed and gulped at the life-giving sustenance.

  We have all the time in the world. Slow down. Take your time, dearheart. Savor. Remember? Never apologize for needing me.

  After a few more minutes passed, Shayla’s thirst was finally quenched. Slowly, she released her mouth from his neck, shocked to see the deep impressions of her teeth marks in an angry circle.

  She gasped. Oh God, I’m sorry.

  For what? For being enthusiastic? For being a little rough? My fangs are still buried an inch into your flesh, yes? Teeth marks come with the territory. A warm chuckle accompanied the thoughts. I know what I said, Shayla, but I need just a bit more of you. You taste so good, I don’t want to stop.

  Whatever you want, whatever you need, it’s yours, Kael.

  She stroked his hair and held him, adoring that he needed her as much as she did him. Her earlier urgency subsided, though it didn’t disappear altogether. Deep down, under her skin, a low-level need remained, maybe would always remain.

  She hoped so. She never wanted to lose this feeling.

  Free from her earlier bloodlust, Shayla became aware again of the men surrounding them, heads bowed and eyes averted, but still witnessing their union. The embarrassment or self-consciousness she might’ve expected never came. Her conviction in the rightness of all she had shared with Kael made it impossible to feel anything but confidence and pride and love.

  Kael released her flesh and licked the wound closed. Because of his body’s natural healing powers, his cut had already knitted together.

  He threaded his fingers into her hair and ran maddening openmouthed kisses from her chest, up her throat and over her chin. Finally, he claimed her mouth, tenderly, reverently. Minutes passed, or hours, she couldn’t really tell, before he broke off the kiss. Their marked hands joined, Kael pulled Shayla to his side.

  The warriors formed a line before them with Liam at its center. The fierce masculine approval they each wore made her feel like she was one of them.

  “My brethren, I present to you my mate, our queen, Her Majesty Shayla MacQuillan,” Kael said in a strained, proud voice.

  All of the warriors lowered to one knee in a coordinated movement, bowed their heads, and declared in one voice, “Your Majesty, we are at your service, now and forever.”

  Tears pricked Shayla’s eyes and words spilled from her lips before she’d thought what to say. “As I am at yours, and our king’s.”

  Approving murmurs and nods moved through the men.

  “Rise now, brothers, and be merry.”

  The group surrounded them, clasped arms with Kael and offered him their wishes. To her, they bowed and complimented the match. A deep sense of family and community embraced Shayla, and she knew this was where she belonged.

  But, just then, her interest didn’t lie in bonding with the warriors assembled around them, great as they seemed to be.

  She wanted Kael.

  The floor dropped away from her feet as he swept her into his arms. He winked and pressed a kiss to her forehead.

  The men laughed and applauded.

  “Well, my friends, if you’ll excuse me. I would like to have my mate to myself for a while.” A crooked grin brightened his face. “A long while.” He backed toward the door, still carrying her. “You see, I, too, plan to be in the service of the queen.”

  Shayla gasped at his brazenness but couldn’t help her laughter, especially once the warriors started throwing catcalls at their retreating forms.

  Good humor radiated from her lover, and his pleasure lit up her insides in return.

  Kael paused outside a room she’d never entered. “Our private apartment,” he explained as he carried her over the threshold. He kicked the door closed behind them.

  She could live on the adoration she saw in his eyes. “Mo chuisle mo chroí,” he murmured. You are the pulse of my heart, she heard in her mind.

  “I love you, Kael.” She pressed a lingering kiss to his full lips.

  “I love you, too,” he murmured around the edge of the kiss. “So much.”

  She pulled away and rested her forehead on his, looked deep into his eyes. “I meant what I said in there, my love. I will always be in your service.”

  “We are partners, now, Shayla. Equals. We will be in one another’s service, in all things.”

  “I love the sound of that.”

  “Mmm, so do I.” He turned on his heel and crossed the large living room. “And I suggest we begin right now.”

  Shayla laughed as he picked up speed and pushed through a door into a large bedroom. In the center of the space sat a king-size poster bed with layers of gauzy, sheer panels hanging down from the four corners. That was all she had time to notice before Kael threw her onto the bed and sprawled on top of her.

  His kisses started soft, but quickly became demanding, needy. She felt his urgency and returned it. They kissed and shared whispered declarations of love and removed each other’s clothing until nothing in the world stood between them.

  Everything she’d ever wanted she held within her arms and the cradle of her thighs. Her Vampire Warrior King. Her Kael.

  Then he was in her once more.

  And they well served each other all that night. With love and passion. Over and over again.

  Thank you for reading! I hope you loved meeting Kael and Shayla. The next book in the Vampire Warrior Kings series is SEDUCED BY THE VAMPIRE KING. Find out what happens when exchange student Kate runs from her fate—right into the arms of an injured vampire who takes her prisoner. Need another reason to grab the next book? I have four words for you: Hot jail sex scene.

  CLICK HERE TO READ SEDUCED BY THE VAMPIRE KING NOW!

  “OH.MY.GOD. Laura Kaye delivers as only she knows how….The sensual tension is…h.o.t. and the love making is…*sigh* Laura Kaye’s fans will fall in love yet again!” ~In Love with Romance Blog

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  READ ON FOR AN EXCERPT FROM SEDUCED BY THE VAMPIRE KING

  Read the Next Book in the Series!

  SEDUCED BY THE VAMPIRE KING

  CHAPTER 1

  Nikolai Vasilyev was right in the middle of the shit, and it was exactly where he wanted to be.

  Shots erupted from two positions ahead of him and ricocheted off the abandoned cinder-block streetscape he’d been patrolling. Ducking into an alley, he felt a telltale whiz of air buzzing his ear and went flat against the concrete wall of the old factory. The frigid winter night air burned Nikolai’s lungs. His hackles rose and his fangs stretched out. His enemies were close enough he could feel their evil.

  He wanted trouble. And he found it. Or it found him. Semantics.

  Somewhere ahead, c
oncealed among the long-neglected buildings, a band of Soul Eaters apparently had a sniper’s roost. Those demented murderers jeopardized the hidden vampire world by caving in to the lure of exsanguination. All vampires drank from humans, but only the Soul Eaters consumed human souls by drinking through the last beat of their hearts, then removing and eating it. Their addictive recklessness threatened to expose them all to the broader human world, and escalated the ancient war between the two rival strains of immortals.

  Nikolai plotted out a plan of attack, the street taking shape in his mind’s eye like a 3-D simulator. Dark satisfaction pooled in his gut. Sending these little birdies flying from their nest—permanently—was going to turn this night from a miserable waste to decently tolerable. It didn’t get any better than that for him.

  Not anymore.

  Not since he’d dishonored himself, and the Soul Eaters killed Evgeny and Kyril.

  The hushed, efficient chatter of his warriors sounded in his earpiece and drew Nikolai from his thoughts. Torturing himself over his brothers’ deaths had no place out on the street. There was plenty of time for that while the sun kept him inside cooling his heels.

  He peeked over his shoulder and around the corner of the building. A volley of shots rang out and Nikolai growled a curse under his breath, his gaze swinging around to the rusted industrial street lamp illuminating his position. He sighted the bulb and squeezed off a single bullet that solved that problem, then turned, fell to a crouch and took another light out farther down the street.

  “Who’s got a lock on that gunfire?” came Mikhail’s voice through the earbud. His second-in-command was a consummate soldier and the only thing holding his kingdom together at the moment. Nikolai was man enough to admit that. “Report in.”

  One by one, six of his finest warriors gave the all clear and confirmed their locations.

  Nikolai sighed. He didn’t want to share this one. He didn’t want to have to rein himself in. When he found the Soul Eaters’ position, he wanted to unleash the inhuman monster within, to surrender to the grief and rage boiling inside him as he tore his enemies to pieces with his bare hands and fangs. No fucking audience required.

  As if they all didn’t worry about him enough. He hated the weighted silences and sidelong glances that seemed to follow him wherever he went these days. Christ, he needed to release a little of the volcanic agony expanding in his chest, making it hard to breathe, hard to think. Hard to care.

  An awkward silence passed before he heard, “My lord, what’s your area of operation?” Mikhail’s tone no doubt sounded level and professional to everyone else, but Nikolai recognized the wariness and exhaustion in his oldest friend’s voice. Guilt soured his gut. “I say again, my lord, what’s your AO?”

  Focusing on the task at hand, and not the way he was failing Mikhail—hell, failing all of them—Nikolai did a quick ammunition check and ran through his mental plan one more time. He took a deep calming breath and centered himself, using his memory of the last time he saw his brothers, expressions frozen in death, to fuel his resolve.

  “Son of a bitch, Nikolai, answer me. You’re there, aren’t you?”

  With indecipherable words still ranting from the speaker, Nikolai tugged the unit from his ear and yanked it from around his neck. He dropped it to the ground and crushed the receiver with his boot, insuring no one could come behind him and eavesdrop on his warriors’ movements.

  With an apology to Mikhail and a vow to Evgeny and Kyril, Nikolai moved out onto the street, staying low and tight to the building. He set his sights on the general location from which the earlier shots seemed to originate and ducked into doorways and alleys whenever he could. Twenty meters ahead, a third street lamp posed an insurmountable problem. Whether he got rid of it or left it intact, he would reveal his position to the enemy.

  He voted for the cover of darkness and took it out with a single shot, only the sudden blackness and sprinkling of glass against the concrete sidewalk revealing what he’d done.

  It was enough.

  A barrage of gunfire erupted, the snaps and crackles of high-speed projectiles close enough to make him dive for cover. The enemy fire brought something useful with it, too—the Soul Eaters’ muzzle flashes gave away their position and told Nikolai precisely where he needed to go.

  Release and relief were so fucking close.

  The break in the gunfire meant they’d likely lost his position in the dark, so he bolted from his place behind a car and flashed across the street at preternatural speed. Closer now. He was so close he could smell their fear. He reveled in it. Drank it down into his belly like the sweetest nectar. Soon, he would gorge himself on it.

  Reconnoitering the new side of the street, Nikolai shoved out of his hiding place and darted across the intersection to the block that housed the Soul Eaters’ fortified position.

  Victory lured him forward, out into the open.

  Bullets rained down around him, but he ducked and twisted, plowing onward. His fangs pinched his bottom lip as he hauled ass to safety. A doorway loomed ahead, one that should be shielded from the nest above.

  A new barrage of gunfire clattered and echoed in the space between the wasted buildings. The sound hurt his head and disoriented him. Nikolai couldn’t place its location.

  And then searing fire tore into his shoulder, the side of his neck, the back of his thigh.

  Fuck, somehow they’d gotten behind him. And no one was covering his six.

  Because he hadn’t let them.

  He was hit. Hit bad.

  Howling more from the agony of defeat than the pain of the tainted bullets, poisoned with the blood of the dead, Nikolai flashed down the side street before the blood loss and infection drained his powers, his life. He pushed himself to keeping moving and lost track of the distance he covered as he retreated from the abandoned industrial quarter toward the general direction of Moscow’s city center.

  His breathing was loud in his own ears, a mix of a rasp and a gurgle that told him the neck wound was critical.

  Son of a bitch. Mikhail was going to kill him. Assuming he survived.

  The poison hit his heart as the industrial area gave way to apartment buildings and shops. He crashed against the brick wall of a building and his vision blurred and twisted. The world went sideways and he hit the ground so hard it rattled his brain in his skull. Between the blood loss and the poison, moving took herculean effort, but he had to get off the street.

  Gun still tight in his grip, he dragged himself on his forearms, pulling the dead weight of his body toward a gravel path that ran alongside the building. His muscles screamed, sweat stung his eyes, and his gasping breath scorched his throat. A thirst more intense than any he’d ever felt made his tongue feel thick and his fangs ache.

  As the building’s shadow covered him, Nikolai could move no more. He hoped the kingdom he’d refused to lead these long months would survive the succession crisis his death would leave behind.

  Regrets. Oh, so many regrets.

  Bitter cold bent his bones until he was sure they would snap. He shivered, sending his teeth and fangs clattering against one another.

  How wonderful it would be to have the warmth and companionship of a mate right now.

  He had not strength enough to even chide himself for the thought.

  A black fog descended, stealing first his sight, then his hearing. Tortured thoughts remained to the end until, mercifully, they too faded to nothing.

  Just like him.

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  About the Author

  Laura Kaye is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of over forty books in contemporary and erotic romance and romantic suspense. Laura grew up amidst family lore involving angels, ghosts, and evil-eye curses, cementing her life-long fascination with storytelling and the supernatural. Laura lives in Maryland with her husband and two daughters, and appreciates her view of the Chesapeake Bay every day.

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  IN THE SERVICE OF THE KING

  SEDUCED BY THE VAMPIRE KING

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