by Leia Shaw
The stone crumbled and his shoulder popped from its socket. As he struggled to his feet, a thick vine wrapped around his throat then lifted him off the ground and held him there.
Sage told the silent vampire to leave the room and he begrudgingly obeyed.
The evil glint in her eyes as she watched him squirm to get free unnerved him. Was she too far gone?
No. The memory of their time in the cave had sparked her temper. Hate was preferable to apathy.
“You’ll regret saying that,” she told him. “I’m more powerful than you now, James. I’d watch your tongue.”
He managed a smile despite the vines around his throat. They weren’t tight enough to cut off his air, which said she was holding back. Another good sign. “More powerful?” he rasped. “Prove it. Free me and we’ll have a duel.”
“That’s a stupid move. You can’t win.” She allowed the vines to release him and he sank to his knees on the floor.
Despite his current condition – bruised, sweaty, and barely remaining upright – he took the opportunity she presented. “I can win. And I will win. You’re powerful, yes, but you’re still a slave to your emotions. You’ve already proven it.”
She laughed. “So you want a fight? To the death?”
“I could never kill you, Sage. And you couldn’t kill me.”
“Ha!”
“You couldn’t.”
She didn’t argue. “Then a fight for your freedom? Is that what you want?”
“And yours.”
“I am free. Besides, being with you isn’t freedom.”
“If I win, you come home with me for three months. If you still want to come back after that, then I’ll let you go.” That should give him enough time to convince her to stay.
“Let me? As if you could stop me.”
“Then we agree.”
“And what if I win?”
James thought for a moment. “I won’t kill your father when I capture him.”
She waved a hand dismissively. “Kill him.”
“You don’t care?” He’d assumed that they’d bonded in some way. Cadmael had let her live. That had to mean something.
“Nope. Don’t even like him. He’s completely obsessed with Caerwyn. I keep trying to tell him there are other enchanted subterranean surfaces in the sea,” she said in a sing-song voice, “but he’s hell bent on it. Oh well, family, right? Anyway, he’s out pillaging towns or something.”
Inside, he was reeling. Things weren’t adding up right. What the fuck had happened in the last two weeks? “What do you want then?”
“From you? Nothing.”
He was growing tired of the games. “Enough, Sage. Release me.”
“Oh, don’t pout.” She exhaled an exaggerated sigh. “Alright. I’ll do it anyway. Just for fun.”
Finally. “I’ll need blood.” At her raised eyebrows, he added, “If you want a fair fight.”
She unlocked the cuffs and he stretched his sore arms and shoulders. His wrists were in even worse shape. When her gaze rested on the burns, he thought there may have been a hint of concern in her eyes.
“I’ll send for some blood,” she said.
He shook his head. “It has to be from you, cariad.”
“I don’t want to give you my blood.”
“Then you’ll fight me as I am. It will probably kill me but –”
“Fine.” She made a show of reluctant concession, but he could see the excitement behind her eyes. She liked it as much as he did. “Before I give you my wrist, and it will be my wrist, how is this duel thingy going to work?”
“Whoever gets these handcuffs on the other, wins. We’ll place them here.” He set the silver cuffs Sage had unlocked on top of the stair banister using his shirt as a barrier. He swept his gaze over her body. “Don’t you want to change?”
“No. This won’t last long.”
He held back a chuckle. As arrogant as ever. It would be her downfall today. “Blood,” he demanded.
A moment later, she looked nothing like a dark princess. Her face flushed as she walked unsteadily towards him, keeping her wide eyes fixed on his. No longer the heir to the most powerful kingdom in the supernatural world, she was just a girl, needing to be loved.
She slid her hand into his outstretched one. He seized her arm with both hands and bit into her flesh.
The blood was just as he remembered, perhaps a bit sweeter. But it was still orgasmic. After three long draws, he swallowed then looked down at Sage.
Her tongue sat glistening on the edge of her lips. Unable to stop himself, he yanked her into his arms and kissed her, deeply, desperately, making up for more than fourteen days without her. She didn’t hold back either. Maybe he wouldn’t have to fight her after all.
“God, I missed this, cariad,” he muttered between kisses.
With the fresh blood in his system and Sage in his arms, he felt stronger than ever. He lifted her and placed her on the ground while he lowered himself carefully on top of her. Touching any bare skin he could reach, he skimmed his hands along her body.
Hungrily, he kissed her neck, her ears, her chest, he even lifted her hand and kissed each fingertip. He wanted his mouth on every inch of her skin. Eventually, he found his way back to her lips. While he fingered the edge of her flimsy shirt, their tongues danced together. As he began to peel her shirt from her body, he felt a sharp prick split his bottom lip and he tasted blood. His blood.
He lifted his head and peered down at her. “What was that?” There was something different about her mouth, though it was shut with her lips locked tight. “Sage, open your mouth.”
She smirked then nibbled on her bottom lip with one…small…glistening…fang.
“No,” he muttered. “It can’t be.”
***
“He turned you?” James whispered, his face stuck in a grimace.
She frowned. “Not exactly.” Using his shock to her advantage, she pressed on his chest and pushed with all her might.
He soared into the back wall for the second time. His body replenished by her blood, he bounced off and landed on his feet, facing her with a furious glare.
A second later, he had her shoulders in his steel grip and her back against the wall. She’d forgotten how fast he was.
“Tell me what happened,” he ordered, emphasizing it with a firm shove into the wall.
She winced. “I guess you know I’m immortal now.”
“Talk!”
She blasted him with a Bolt, but he didn’t move. “My blood must have done you well,” she said. When he tightened his grip on her arms, she quickly spilled, “I’ve always been one quarter vampire but I didn’t get the traits until I drank blood for the first time.”
He released her and stepped back, gaping at the wall. She slipped away and rushed to the handcuffs then gripped them with her shirt. When she spun around, James slammed her to the ground with an arm across her chest. At the last second, he cushioned her head with his hand.
The handcuffs flew out of her grasp and landed only a few feet from his reach. Pinning her under his body, he asked, “You drank blood?”
His disgust was as obvious as his fangs, now drawn in anger. His expression made her feel, for the first time, self-conscious about what she was. “Not by choice.”
While James was busy sniffing her hair and examining her fangs, the vines she’d summoned earlier came to life.
Two thick branches wound around his ankles and pulled him off of her. But he was quick. He cut them from his legs with one claw.
She jumped to her feet and reached for the cuffs.
Before she could grasp them, one of the vines whipped her in the ass. She shot upright and swung around to face him, her palms already ablaze with blue light.
He chuckled softly, holding a vine in each hand. He whipped one toward her, looking like a red head version of Indiana Jones.
“Come, my little vampire,” he taunted. “Let’s see what those itty bitty fangs can do.”
She growled and blasted at him, one Bolt after another. He ran across the room, dodging each Bolt as it hurtled toward him. The stone floor exploded with each blast. Dirt and rocks scattered all over the hall.
He ducked behind a stone fountain and she stopped to conserve energy while she came up with her next plan.
The handcuffs caught the light, tempting her just a few yards away. She eyed them longingly but didn’t dare turn her back on him now. Something cold tightened around her ankle. She looked down and gasped. Fucking hell!
A string of light encircled her leg, running the length of the foyer. At the other end, James grinned at her.
“Give up yet, princess?”
“Fuck you.”
Smug grin still in place, he looked at his end of the rope then at her ankle. He raised his brows in question.
Oh shit.
One quick tug and she was on her ass, locking her lips together so she wouldn’t cry out. From behind the fountain, he reeled her in like a caught fish.
She dug her heels into the stone floor, then her claws, but he was too strong. When she got closer, she noticed there’d be a moment where he wouldn’t see her round the corner. That would be her only chance.
Dragged across the floor, her underwear riding up her ass, she was in no mood to play around. When she came around the corner, she lit up a sword in her hand.
“Release me,” she ordered, placing the tip of the sword at his throat.
He gulped but his eyes flickered with amusement. He shook the light free from his finger and it dissolved from around her ankle.
She rose to her feet, shifting the sword to his chest as he rose with her.
With her best, pissed-off queenly glare she told him, “You have ripped my fishnets, messed up my hair-do, destroyed parts of my castle, put a welt on my ass –”
He smiled at that.
“– and now I want answers!”
“Are you going to stab me, Sage?”
“I might.” She shrugged and looked him over for the best place to skewer him. It gave a whole new meaning to meat on a stick. “Why don’t you want me to be a vampire?”
“I never said that. I was surprised, that’s all.”
“Why are you here?” Make this simple, she secretly wished. Say you want to beat me bloody and move on.
“For you. I miss you.” The teasing was gone from his eyes. “You might be the evil princess of the Underworld, cariad, but you’re my evil princess. And no one else’s.”
Her eyes almost fluttered closed at the word cariad. She never thought she’d miss hearing that silly pet name. But this was no time to get sentimental.
She took a step toward him, putting the sword only inches from his chest. “And Cadmael? Do you still want to kill him?”
“Yes. But I’ll see you to safety first.”
And now for the twenty million dollar question of the day. “What if I don’t want to leave? Would you stay here with me?”
He shook his head. “Not an option. You leave with me tonight.”
She gave him one long, expressionless glance before she thrust the sword into his chest. “Wrong answer.”
He gurgled then coughed as blood seeped onto his shirt. His eyes glazed over.
She withdrew the sword and spun on her heel, leaving him bent over moaning. Only a few steps toward the handcuffs and he grabbed her. A second later, he had her pinned on her back on the hard floor.
“Now that wasn’t very nice.” He hovered over her with an eerie smile on his lips. Blood dripped from his wound onto her exposed collarbone.
His eyes were bottomless pools of black – she’d never seen them that dark before.
Though she struggled with all her might, he easily kept her pinned to the floor with his knees on top of her forearms. It was uncomfortable, but nothing compared to the way he was looking at her.
“You’ve made me very angry,” he said as he stroked her cheek with his knuckles then drew his thumb along her bottom lip. When she snapped at him with her fangs, he smiled. “And now you’re just turning me on.”
She renewed her struggle beneath him and he closed his eyes. “Ah, yes. That’s good. A little harder now.”
She growled but stopped moving. “You haven’t won. I’m still not handcuffed.”
“I know. I’m just enjoying the moment. It’s not every day I have a sexy sorceress-witch-vampire at my mercy.” He strummed over her nipple with his thumb.
Without meaning to, her back arched and she let out a moan.
“Still like that, do you?”
She didn’t know if she wanted to rip his head off or ride him like a cowboy.
“Glad to see I can still take your breath away,” he whispered in her ear.
She just about melted into the floor.
Get a fucking grip! She was a queen now – not some horny adolescent who got all hot and bothered by a little dirty talk from a goddamn vampire!
Batting her lashes, she purred, “Kiss me.”
He bent down, seduced by her command, and when his nose lingered just above hers, she head-butted him, hard. So hard that even she felt a little dizzy from it.
He reared back with a groan and she squirmed out from under him. Catching sight of the handcuffs, she crawled on all fours toward them.
They were only a few feet away, but they might as well have been in another world, because when James growled, low and threatening, behind her, she knew she would never reach them.
His hand locked around her ankle and dragged her backward across the floor. He yanked her arms behind her back where a cold, hard metal locked them in place.
Handcuffed? Wait. What?
“You had another pair,” she said accusingly.
“Yes.” He pressed his knee into the small of her back, holding her still while she kicked and squirmed.
It wasn’t a smart move, she realized too late. Her skirt had ridden up and, with the handcuffs on, she was at his mercy.
He chuckled then smacked each globe of her ass, hard. “I think I like you this way.”
“Cheater,” she spat.
“Rule number one. Always be prepared to fight dirty.”
She sighed in defeat and laid her cheek on the cold ground. “Okay, fine. You win. Now let me go.”
“Three days,” he whispered harshly at her ear. “I was stuck in that goddamn cave. Three days with nothing to do but plot my revenge.”
Shivers traveled down her spine and her insides twisted in knots. Just what did he have in mind? He gripped her upper arm and hoisted her to stand.
“What are you doing?” she asked, trying to keep the panic from her voice. But, truthfully, her voice wasn’t the only thing trembling.
He grinned like a feral wolf. “It’s called payback, love.” Then he slung her over his shoulder and she bounced, upside down, as he ascended the stairs.
Her stairs. In her goddamn castle. She fought him every step of the way, stunned she couldn’t break through the handcuffs. When she bit into his back, she felt the sting of his palm connect sharply with her ass.
“Stop that,” he ordered. “The handcuffs are reinforced with magic. They won’t break. Now stop squirming. You don’t want to endure any more of my wrath than necessary, I assure you.” He repositioned her writhing body with a rough jostle. “Now, where’s your bedroom?”
“Why would I tell you?”
He froze mid-stride. “Because one way or another I am going to have you tonight. We can do it right here in the hallway but I would have thought you’d want some privacy.”
There was no teasing in his voice. She directed him to her room with a resigned sigh. When he threw her on the bed, she attempted to kick him, but he shoved his hips between her legs and pinned her to the mattress. Part of her wanted to beg him to ravish her greedily and the other part wanted to drop kick him off the balcony.
With her arms locked behind her, and his body covering the rest of her, she was good and caught.
“Do you still deny you h
ave feelings for me, cariad?” he asked in a husky voice she could barely resist. He pushed the hair from her face looking down at her with such tenderness, it made her heart ache.
What the hell? She almost preferred him handcuffing her and slapping her ass.
“That’s alright,” he said. “I plan to make you remember your feelings.”
She almost whimpered. Fuck. Get a grip! She was the goddamn queen of the –
Mmmmm. He coaxed her lips open with his tongue. She let him in and their tongued dueled as his hips rocked against hers. When he pulled away, it left her gasping for air.
He stared down at her, his eyes half-hooded and wanting. When he looked at her like this, she felt an overwhelming sensation that James really knew her. He knew her and yet he came for her anyway.
The corner of his mouth curled then he yanked up her shirt and clawed her bra in half. Her breasts tumbled out. He gaped at them until her nipples hardened under his heated gaze.
He placed slow, gentle kisses from her chin, down her neck then nibbled just above her collarbone.
A fever burned, starting in her stomach then moving down between her legs.
He shifted his hips and his erection rubbed against her clit. She gasped and thrust toward him, willing him to grind against her just a little harder, but he stilled.
“More” she pleaded.
“Not yet.” His kisses moved up the side of her neck. “I want to play first.”
The cool air of her bedroom felt icy against her sensitive nipples. They tingled in anticipation when he gazed at them. She squirmed, willing him to take one between his lips.
As if he knew what she was thinking, he lifted his head and grinned. “Is there something you want, cariad?”
“Touch them,” she breathed.
“For good behavior,” he teased. His mouth slid to one breast, lapped at her nipple softly then stopped.
She arched her back but stifled a moan.
“Do you want more?”
She wanted to smack him. “Yes.”
With a greedy glitter in his eye, he moved to the other breast then slid his tongue around her nipple before suckling it gently between his lips. Heat flooded between her legs and she ground against his hips. A moan escaped her and his eyes flared with desire.
He sucked harder and the moan turned into a cry, but when he placed a rough palm between her legs, sparks shot up her spine.
