He framed her face in his hands and touched his forehead to hers. Their breaths mingled, and Anna shut her eyes, letting all her worries drift away. She couldn’t explain this bond to herself, let alone anyone else, but there was nowhere else she’d rather be right now than here in the arms of her very own vampire.
“There are things I still need to tell you, little one, but never doubt that I meant every word I said. I swore to protect you from the minute you were assigned to me. You opened your eyes, and I was lost.” He smiled and kissed her nose. “Finding you again after all those years, and to see the beautiful woman you have grown into.” He stopped and pulled back to study her, the depths of emotion in his crystal clear gaze making her chest feel tight with longing. “You have no idea how much self-restraint it took for me to not just fling you over my shoulder and storm out of that room, ethics be fucked. But I had to expose Brian, and I had to clear this with the council. Contrary to popular belief, we are governed by strict rules of conduct. It’s what keeps us all safe and existing in harmony with humankind as much as we can. You had enough uproar in your life already without me adding to it.”
“And if I want your kind of uproar in my life?” she asked, shifting on his lap.
He groaned and wrapped her long hair around his hand, forcing her head up, and exposing her neck. She held her breath when he ran those lethal looking fangs up and down her pulse point. Her blood rushed in her ears, and she tried to free her hands, but he held them securely in his other hand.
“Then you have it, for all eternity, little one. All you have to do is ask.”
He kissed her and shifted them until she sat straddling him, his cock nudging her entrance. She moaned and lifted herself slightly to let him slide home. His hands dug into her hips holding her still, and they stayed locked, looking into each other’s eyes, seeking confirmation of the feelings pulsing between them.
She rocked her hips, grinding herself against him, and he swore and took over.
“Anna, you’ll be the death of me, you know that, right?”
She smiled and tipped her head sideways to offer her neck in silent submission. He hesitated for only a moment before his fangs sank in, and Ana saw stars. Joined together as closely as two people could be, she rode the waves of sensation, as every thrust of his hips, and every sip he took cemented the bond between them. Release, when it came for both of them, stole their breaths, and they collapsed on the bed, holding each other until they fell asleep.
The last conscious thought invading Anna’s brain was his whispered, “I love you, little one.”
She sensed rather than saw his smile in response at her answering thought.
“I love you. Now get out of my head and let me sleep. I think you broke me.”
Epilogue
“Stop fidgeting. You’re making me nervous.” Jonathan held his hand out and pulled her out of the car in one fluid move. He turned her around, and they stood facing the impressive old house together.
Dread filled Anna’s stomach, vying to destroy the bubble of happiness she had been in since Jonathan had claimed her. They had not made it out of his hotel suite at all that weekend. She had made her excuses to her Grand-pops, not ready to explain the nature of her relationship with Jonathan. Despite her assurances to him that her grandfather would not stake a plant, she wasn’t at all sure what Grand-pop’s reaction to her dating a living, breathing vampire would be. He had lost his family to that race after all, and here she was, as good as married to one.
The bond they had created could not be broken. Every time Jonathan drank from her, her life span extended. Already she could feel the changes in her body. Her hair was softer, her skin smoother, and that niggling back injury she’d carried for years after a riding accident did not plague her anymore. Her hearing was sharper, and she had perfected her mind conversations with Jonathan to such a degree that folks looked at her funny when she burst into peals of laughter at something he’d whispered to her consciousness.
The dratted man loved to tease her, and many a boring business meeting had taken on an entirely different meaning in her head. Anna had been deliriously happy for the last month in fact, but her time was up. She had to tell Grand-pops about Jonathan, and not even to herself would she admit how nervous she felt at the possibility that the two most important people in her life could end up hating each other.
Somehow she got her feet to move, Jonathan’s hand a reassuring presence at her back, and she pushed open the heavy door left open as usual. Jonathan clucked his disapproval.
“I know. I keep telling him, but he won’t listen. Anyone could walk in.”
“Hardly anyone, Anna.”
Her eyes widened in the gloom of the long hallway, as she stared down the barrels of a shot gun. Her beloved grandfather stood on the bottom of the unused stairs, his grey eyes trained on Jonathan with unwavering directness. The heavy gun in his hands was rock steady and ready for use, she noticed.
“Grand-pops, what on earth are you doing?” she asked, instinctively moving in front of Jonathan to shield him as much as she could. Not that he was letting her.
He stepped around her putting himself in the direct line of fire.
“Wooden shot I take it? Enough to bring me down and enable you to take my head?” Jonathan put his hand up to silence Anna, and she complied immediately. He was in full alert don’t-mess-with-me-mode, which was sexy as hell in the bedroom, not so much when he was facing her grandfather who seemed intent on killing him.
“I told you fifteen years ago if I ever saw your kind near my granddaughter again I’d kill you with my bare hands. I have enough of the slayer’s weapons left. I may be an old man, but I will not let you corrupt my Anna.”
“Grand-pop, I—”
“Let me handle this, little one. Go and wait in the car for me.” Jonathan interrupted her.
“No.” Anna crossed her arms and stamped her foot. “I am not going anywhere, and you two can stop this macho bullshit right now. Grand pops, put that gun down before you fall down. I’ll make you an Earl Grey, and we’ll discuss this like reasonable people. There is no need for violence, and if you kill the man I love, I will never forgive you.”
Two pairs of eyes settled on her, one blue, one grey, eyebrows raised in disapproval, and Anna glared at them both.
“I love you both. You’re the most important people in my life, and this is my fault. I should have told you straight away, but I knew you would react like this. I’m not Mummy, Grand-pops, and I’m not under the influence or whatever you want to call it. You’ve raised me to know my own mind, to know right from wrong, to make my own choices, and my choice is Jonathan. He isn’t like the others. All the things that Dad drummed into us were half-truths at best. Jonathan helped me to research him. He wanted to be turned, you know. But the vampire he loved said no. It’s against the rules to turn a human, so he killed her. And then he couldn’t stop killing. He became obsessed, turning against the ones he once wanted to be like.”
She ran out of breath, having rushed the words as fast as she could, needing to make him see sense, and slowly that barrel lowered until it pointed to the floor. Jonathan stepped forward palm up.
“May I?” he asked, and Anna blew out the breath she’d been holding when Grand-pops nodded. He swayed, but before she could do anything Jonathan had him propped up against him. Grand pops looked old and frail now that he’d surrendered the weapon, and allowed himself to be led to his favorite spot in front of the Aga.
Anna sank to her knees and rested her head on his thigh, like she used to do as a child, whilst Jonathan stood back to give them some privacy.
Grand-pops’s fingers, bent by arthritis, stroked her hair, and Anna shut her eyes.
“I would have shot him in an instant. I still would if he ever hurts you, Anna.”
She looked up just in time to see the look of understanding pass between the two men.
“I would lay down my life for your granddaughter, Sir. I would never hurt her, and
I will kill anyone who tries to, human or otherwise. She is under my protection and the council’s.”
Jonathan’s solemn words settled in the quiet room, and Anna smiled at him. She didn’t want him killing anyone, but his protectiveness made her feel cherished. Now, if only Grand-pops would see it her way. The silence grew uncomfortable, the ticking of the old grandfather clock far too loud.
When Pops finally spoke his voice was rough with unshed tears.
“That’s all I needed to know.”
A ton weight lifted off Anna’s shoulders, and she jumped up and hugged him. He held her close for a minute and then laughed and shooed Anna away. “Now, go make us that cuppa, whilst I quiz this young whippersnapper of yours. I left the teapot in the study. Take your time. Some things are not for women’s ears.”
Anna snorted her disgust and glared at Jonathan’s smirk. She paused on the doorstep to see the two men with their heads together. Jonathan laughed at something that Grand-pops had said. No doubt he just told him one of his famous dirty jokes. Anna pulled the study door shut behind her. She would take an extraordinarily long time finding the teapot, left in its usual place by the fire.
Sitting down in her chair in the study, she picked up the photo of her and her mum, taken a few weeks before she died.
For the first time since her mum’s death she knew with absolute certainty that everything was going to be all right. She had never been so glad to be under orders.
The End
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