by Kresley Cole
“Damn it, Myst, just answer the questions. Then you can come back up to my room.” He lowered his voice and curled his finger under her chin. “We can sleep together again as we did today—”
“But you don’t understand that torture would be easier for me than to go back to the Lore as an informant.” She’d no longer be an A-lister, an “avoid at all costs” enemy. She’d lose her status as a creature with which one did not fuck.
“My brother has tried to get information from the others—”
“But they didn’t talk either, huh?” Did she sound smug?
He seemed to shake himself, hardening his resolve. “You’re leaving me little choice.”
Well. She was about to experience first-hand the Overlord’s ruthlessness she’d admired, because apparently he’d decided she was an enemy just when she’d thought they were getting kinda cozy.
Way to hurt my feelings, Wroth. She sniffled. Now I’ll really have to kill you.
With his thoughts constantly on her throughout the night, he’d stalled for hours, as much as he could, waiting till nearly dawn, ensuring it would at least be brief.
“You’re really going to do this?” she asked as she turned from him, moving into the back corner.
Her shoulders were shaking, and he suspected she was laughing. When he crossed to her, taking her arm and turning her, he was shocked to find genuine tears streaming down her heartbreakingly beautiful face. “Wroth, I thought we had an arrangement. ” She cast him a brows-drawn look of betrayal.
She wasn’t feigning this. In her wild, mixed-up mind, she had thought they were…friends?
The cell wobbled and he braced himself, frowning that she seemed not to notice. Just aftershocks from last night.
He didn’t want her to hurt. But her eyes blazed with it, raw and true and bare. He was actually seeing her —Myst with her false swagger and play peeled back. This was a facet of her, but it was finally Myst, and suddenly he found it unbearable as each tear fell. He flinched when one dropped to her cheek, flinched as if he’d been hit. Another shake all around him.
She turned from him and appeared to wipe her face. When she turned back, she was blatantly sexual, as though she’d donned a mask once more.
“Myst, I don’t want to hurt you, but you must answer my questions. This isn’t a game.”
She gave him a look of utter disbelief. “That’s exactly what this is. You want to know about the Lore? Learn this lesson well—we are all pawns.”
The castle shook around him, and while he glanced around wildly, she remained undaunted. No, it was not the outside shaking.
The sound booming in his ears like an earthquake was coming from … within him. “What are you?” he demanded again.
Her face never lost its expression of vague distaste even when her hand pressed gently against his chest—to feel his heart stutter then thunder to life. Because he’d finally seen her and recognized her for what she was….
“Apparently, I’m your Bride.”
“I was wondering if I could get you to turn for me,” Myst purred to him, as he struggled to hide his shock.
She’d found him to be a cool, disciplined man, but she’d heard a new heartbeat was deafening for these unblooded vampires, the sudden rush of sexual desire overwhelming, their breaths unpracticed and rough at first. With soft touches, she eased him against the wall. His eyes were half-lidded as she rubbed up and down his chest. “How does the air in your lungs feel?”
He inhaled deeply. “Cold. Pressure, but it feels good.” He looked at her with such gratitude for blooding him.
They always did.
“How does your blood feel, heating and moving?”
“Stronger. It’s…searing.”
She palmed his erection through his pants, and his entire body jerked as he threw back his head to yell out. She was almost as shocked. She’d known Wroth was very well endowed, but hard, he was overly so.
Like Demon or Lykae endowed.
He held her hand in place over his shaft, making her fingers curve around it as he slowly thrust against her palm. Her body softened when she imagined the onslaught of need clawing at him. In a sensual whisper, she asked, “And how does this feel when it hardens and distends?”
“Good,” he grated with a shudder. “So damn good.”
“It’s been three centuries? Well, you are due I suppose.” She unzipped his pants just enough to wiggle her thumb inside and rub the broad tip of his penis, making it grow slick. His eyes rolled back in his head. “I can only imagine how heavy and tight this feels, throbbing with pressure, close to exploding.”
“Why are you doing this to me?”
Because I can.
Soon he would have no more thought than an animal. His eyes were growing black. She stroked his length through his pants, relieved she would never have to take his uncomfortable size within her body. Five, four, three, two…
Wroth attacked, groaning, and he was surprisingly strong as he pinned her arms over her head. He kissed her, deeply, possessively, seeming to brand her with his kiss. He left her panting when he bent down to lick her nipples, sucking at them through her blouse. His other hand cupped her sex.
With a growl, he yanked himself from her, and took her elbow. “Come with me.”
Damn it, dawn neared. Where were they? She had to keep him here. “No, Wroth,” she said.
“Won’t claim my Bride in a dungeon.”
“But I can’t wait,” she cried. “Tell the guard to leave.”
“No—”
“Wroth,” she gripped his shaft hard while whispering in his ear, “my body weeps for this thrusting inside me.”
He bellowed out that order, then tore open her blouse and bra, suckling and tonguing her nipples roughly. Involuntarily her back arched, pressing her breasts into his gorgeous lips. When had she begun undulating her hips for him?
“I’ve waited for you,” he bit out. “So long I’ve waited.”
One hand pinned her wrists above her, the other shot up her skirt and ripped her panties completely from her. His fingers roved, hot and slow over her, teasing. He knew exactly how to set her on fire, using the moisture from her own body to slide his thumb around her clitoris in slow, slick, mind-numbing circles.
“So wet,” he rasped against her breast. “As soon as I saw you, I wanted it to be you.” His lips took her hardened nipple, sucking on it till it throbbed. He turned to the other one for the same attention.
Myst made a decision then. There was simply no way she was going to miss this.
She moaned in truth, unable to control herself as lightning fired outside in conjunction with the emotion inside her. When he plunged one finger into her, withdrew, then thrust two deep within her, she wanted to come around them. He slid them into her unhurriedly but with enough force that she was rocked to her toes each time.
She arched her back more, wanting to offer up her breasts. She spread her legs, taking his fierce touch. “Don’t stop,” she panted, so close, aching to reach for his shaft. But he’d captured her hands above her.
“Never.” He thrust harder, until she didn’t know if her toes even touched the ground, then he spread his fingers inside her as if preparing her for his size. Her head fell back and she moaned at the overwhelming feeling of fullness.
She raised her leg to lay it over the knee he’d placed against the wall as if just for that purpose. Spread to him, she ground her hips wildly.
At her ear, he rumbled the words, “Come for me, milaya.”
“Ah, yes … Wroth,” she moaned again, about to succumb to his stroking. She gave a strangled cry and climaxed with a fiery, wet pulsing that staggered her and made him groan as if he had as well.
“I can feel you come,” he grated while she clutched him, rolling her hips against his masterful touch until she was too sensitive to continue. But he didn’t stop until she was mindlessly moaning his name in his capturing arms.
When she was spent, she sagged against him, still weakl
y undulating for him. Her nipples were wet and achy from his tongue.
He cupped the back of her neck and yanked her up to face him, gazing down at her with lust, but his words were more. “I will be good to you, Myst. I will protect you. You are mine.”
He was saying these things because he was about to shove into her with that huge shaft, to claim her. A true vampire’s Bride. He took her leg and clutched it to his hip, about to free himself.
Her half-lidded eyes had just widened with true alarm when she heard the merest whisper at the gateway to the dungeon.
Before he could react, Myst flung herself away. Why would she do that? His hand shot out to pull her back, but she shrank from him. Why wasn’t he inside her right now? He’d made sure she was wet, ready to receive him—
He heard movement and jerked his head around, fangs sharpening in fury.
“Look at the lovebirds.” A creature similar to Myst was standing at the entry to the cell, a bow at the ready.
A second one with bright, glowing skin joined the first, happily chewing gum and flipping a dagger in the air. “Don’t make me look—I think I’ll be sick. Myst, cavorting with a vampire is a new low even for you.”
“What is this?” Wroth demanded, stalking toward them.
The archer nocked an arrow with supernatural speed and let it sing without hesitation. He lunged to dodge it, but she’d anticipated his move and the arrow pinned him to the wall. A second took his other shoulder, drilling its tip half a foot into the stone. He cast her a killing look, then lurched forward to simply let the arrows tear through him, but the shafts were ringed like shank nails.
When he realized he wouldn’t be moving, he bellowed with rage.
He saw Myst pulling her clothing together, turning for the door. “Don’t you walk away from me.”
“So sorry to interrupt your plans for tonight.” She cast him that hurt look. “You almost made me forget that you’d come down here to torture me. You want to learn? Know that we hate torture. It starts to add up over the years—”
“That was before I knew you were my Bride.”
Her face went cold in an instant. “Before you knew you could finally screw me? Now that your body’s in working order, I don’t feel the skin flayed from mine?”
“You’re my Bride. Mine. You belong to me.”
She flew back at him, enraged. The bright one tossed her a dagger and Myst caught it behind her without looking. Again his mind demanded to know what she was.
She pressed the blade to his jugular. Her pupils were silver and lightning bombarded the castle. “If I belonged to every man who wanted it so or to every vampire I’ve blooded there’d be nothing left of me. But no one cares about that.”
“You’ve not blooded others. They would be here protecting you, fighting for you.”
“Not”—she leaned in closer, tilting her head like an animal—“if I killed them all.”
Then she grabbed the back of his head and pulled him to her, pressing her lips against his. She kissed him hard. Yet he soon tasted … her blood? Just as he groaned, she drew back with an inscrutable expression on her face.
Unimaginably warm and rich, her blood was as exquisite as everything else about her, and he shuddered in ecstasy at the luscious taste. “You know I’ll want nothing else now,” he rasped.
In response, she snapped her teeth at him. To the others she commanded, “Leave him,” then exited the cell.
The archer and the bright one exchanged a confused glance. “And by ‘leave him’ you clearly mean leave him beheaded, disemboweled, and chock full of quills like a pincushion.”
“You heard him—I’m his Bride.”
“Ohhh,” the bright one said, blowing a bubble. “You mean he hasn’t, uh, you know, released, the first time since his blooding?” Then with a quick glance at his crotch, she said, “And he stays like that without you, right?” She chuckled. “I’m cool with the plan.”
The archer wasn’t convinced. “Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy condemning vampires to unending sexual torture as much as the next fabulously talented huntress…” When Wroth heard a guard charging in, she leisurely shot an arrow in that direction, tilted her head at the result, then sighed to Myst, “But Vampire Bride just sounds so B-movie. He just dragged you down to B-moviedom.”
The bright one made her voice overly dramatic, saying, “For that alone … he must die. Seriously, Myst. Your ‘husband’ has irrevocably damaged your street cred unless you kill him like the others.”
They were all mad.
And still he was hard, aching for her body, for the blood she’d given him just to torture him. “You evil, teasing bitch. Kill me then.”
For just the merest second he imagined he saw compassion in her eyes, but when she shrugged, his hazy mind finally grasped that she was going to leave him here with nothing but a body knotted with lust for her and a taste of blood that he would go to his knees for. “You’re the most malicious bitch I’ve ever known.”
“Flatterer,” she chirped.
Across the corridor, she easily leapt to the window forty feet above, opening the shutters to draw the unfortified bars from the space as though she might pluck back a curtain. She held a hand down for the others.
“I will find you,” he bit out. “I will find you and make you pay for this a thousand times.”
The bright one leapt up and caught Myst’s forefinger with her own. “Sounds like he’s setting up a date,” she said as she dangled.
“Oooom,” Myst purred, her gaze flickering over him. “Dress casual.”
Chapter Four
Present Day
Never-ending sexual desire that could never be slaked.
She’d knowingly—delightedly—surrendered him to this torment. His Bride had blooded him, giving him his first need as a vampire, then stoked it to a fever pitch—and only his Bride could work his body free to release the first time. If she had only stayed long enough for him to take her just once, or to merely touch her skin as he’d taken his own ease, she could’ve spared him this. But then she’d clearly said that that was the plan.
And for the last five years, Wroth had been cursed with more than that. He was cursed with her memories as well.
The minuscule drop of blood taken directly from her body did more than make any other blood taste like tar to him—it did just what the Forbearers feared. With her living blood came dreams where her memories unfolded, so realistic they were as if he was there to experience scents she’d smelled and textures she’d felt. Sometimes he could even feel her hands clench in anger. But he’d told no one, keeping his secrets because he didn’t want to lose his power within their army—or be killed.
Each sunset he rose and checked his eyes for the telltale red, and every day if he could manage to sleep, he was subjected to the same series of memories that subtly grew in detail each time.
The first found her atop a hill, sun bright, with snow still on the ground. “I’ve cursed you to your hell,” Myst hissed at the site of a rough gravestone. She was roiling with so much hostility that Wroth knew she must have killed whatever being lay there. She spoke an ancient language that Wroth shouldn’t understand, but he did. He felt the sensations she’d felt, the constant sway of her chain around her waist, the smell of the ocean just below her, brine on a cold day.
Another familiar dream. A drunken Roman senator kneeling at her feet. “At long last, I’m about to have Myst the Coveted. And you’ll no longer be coveted, you’ll be possessed.” He laughed. “You’ll make me twist on your little hook no longer.”
Wroth had discovered the full name of his tormenter. Myst the Coveted.
With disgust, Wroth saw the Roman take Myst’s dainty foot in his mouth, sucking greedily, stroking himself, as she slowly lifted her skirt up her silken thighs for him. As ever, Wroth fought not to see this, fought to wake. His violent revulsion never diminished over time.
The first time he’d had that dream, he’d been relieved when another scene unfolded be
fore that one came to some kind of sick conclusion. But never again…
Myst was running past a Viking raiding party on the coast of some northern land. Purposely. She wanted them to hunt her. To catch her and throw her to the ground in the hard snow. What kind of twisted need did she have? She was excited, her blood pumping. Her skin felt like it was sizzling with electricity, and lightning was generated from her excitement. She stifled a smile, when with bellows and cheers, the men gave chase….
As ever, Wroth fought to force his mind away before he saw a dozen Vikings rutting on his Bride. To her delight.
Tonight a new dream. Finally. Snow outside, packed so high it covered half the window. Women, or other creatures like her, met around a great hearth. They were sisters and Wroth saw their faces as though familiar and knew their names and who they were as well as Myst did. He recognized the archer as Lucia, and the bright one he now knew was Regin the Radiant. A vacant-eyed one was called Nïx, the oldest of her sisters and believed to be a soothsayer. Their clothing indicated early twentieth century.
They were meeting over the fate of a baby that their leader, a somber creature named Annika, wished to keep. Myst frowned at the little girl in Annika’s arms, confused to feel some stirring of feeling for it.
“How are we to care for her, Annika?” Lucia murmured.
Regin snapped, “How can you bring a vampire among us when they slaughtered my people?”
One named Daniela the Ice Maiden knelt beside Annika, gazing up at her, briefly touching her with a pale hand. Myst shivered to think of the pain Danii had just felt to offer that cold touch. Daniela’s mother’s people had been the ice fey and she couldn’t be touched by anyone but one of them without extreme pain. “She needs to be with her own kind. I know this well.”
Annika shook her head determinedly. “Her ears. Her eyes. She’s Valkyrie as much as vampire.”
Valkyrie…? Impossible.
“She’ll grow to be evil,” Regin insisted. “She’s already snapped at me with her baby fangs. By Freya, she drinks blood!”
