by Evie Byrne
“Absolute submission,” he said.
“Yes, but by my rules.”
“That’s not true submission.”
She lowered her eyes prettily, while simultaneously thrusting out her chest. Was she actually flirting with him? “Some people say the sub is the one with real power. Alya respects my limits, otherwise I wouldn’t be here.”
Alya was one of the strongest vamps in the world. This girl was a feeder. She had no power at all. If she thought she did, she was delusional. Among the vampyr power was not negotiated, it was quantifiable. The strongest always won.
He shut the drawer and walked away. “I don’t play with my food.”
But he was remembering a game. A game of wills, where Alya teased him mercilessly, brought him to the darkest place within and out again into the light. Afterward he’d felt reborn.
I am not one of her toys.
“Where is she?”
Maya flinched. “Please, sit.” She gestured to a black chair with a high back and scrolling arms. Alya had a damn throne. He didn’t even want to think about what went on around that throne. “I’ll go check.” Mikhail slumped in the throne, his chin on his fist, thinking about power.
Dominick met Alya on the stairs. “Faustin’s in the cellar. He wants to talk to you there.”
“What is he doing in my cellar?”
Dominick shrugged. “Damned if I know. It’s private?”
Alya didn’t want to be anywhere private with Mikhail. Ideally, she wouldn’t set eyes on him until they fought. Fighting the bond took all her strength. If she allowed herself to think about him for even a second she’d go soft. She’d start to think about the way he’d caressed her ear, and how his voice resonated in her bones, and how every step he took was perfection and grace, and how, just possibly, she might be tempted to give up an empire just to curl up on the sofa with him again.
“Surely you don’t think I should go down there?” She paused, and closed her eyes, fatigued. “Of course you do. You want me to change my mind.”
Fortunately, Mikhail was furious. No matter how much she girded herself against his thoughts, his emotions reached her. She’d succeeded in pissing him off so thoroughly that he was looking forward to killing her.
That was good. She couldn’t fight him if she knew he was pulling his punches.
“My job is to keep you safe. The code of honor protects you. Until the challenge, both of you have to mind your manners. There’s no harm in hearing what the man has to say.”
“There’s nothing left to say.”
Maya loped past and waved. “Hiya, guys!”
Dominick frowned at the girl and waited until she went out the front door before he continued. “By the rules of the challenge, you must give him a hearing if he asks it.”
“Oh, hell. I’ll give him a minute. But no more than a minute.” She couldn’t keep up her defenses for long. “And you’re coming with me.”
Dominick bowed. “Of course.”
They went down the hall. She swung open the heavy, padded door and hesitated on the first step, Dom at her back. Though she couldn’t see Mikhail, she could sense him. It was so eerily clear, the knowing of the bond. He was down there, he was agitated, in motion—pacing, she guessed.
You can do this. Just hear what he has to say and get out.
The door slammed behind her and the lock turned.
Chapter Thirteen
“Dominick!”
She threw her shoulder against the door, knowing it had a steel core and reinforced hinges. Outside, she heard the sound of a power drill, and an enormous amount of thumping. Dominick was securing it shut. It sounded like he had assistance.
The betrayal made her reel. Made her mind go terrifyingly blank.
Mikhail ran up the stairs. “He locked us in?”
Alya threw herself against the door again. Mikhail joined her. They hit it together and the wall shook, but the door held.
“What does he have out there?” Mikhail whispered, echoing her own thoughts. What would they meet if they broke through the door—a firing squad? The noises outside were confusing. She sniffed the air for hints, but a lot of people had been in and out in the last couple of nights. The inside of her nose was a little scorched, too. She shook her head. She had no idea.
Mikhail leaned close. Their foreheads nearly touched. Her skin prickled, waking to his nearness. “Show me your bolt hole.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Your secret exit. What did you think I meant?”
Alya thought it best not to answer that question. “Oh. There isn’t one.”
Mikhail narrowed his eyes at her. “You spend all this time and money outfitting this place with…laundry lines and…and…rotisseries and iron maidens and whatever the hell you’ve got down here to play your twisted games, but you couldn’t even bother building an escape hatch? I’m glad I’m not marrying you, because you are an idiot.”
Alya jabbed her elbow into his stomach. He tumbled backward, but righted himself midair and landed on his feet at the bottom of the stairs. She marched down to join him.
“Who would he sell us out to?”
“I don’t know. It must have to do with Halverson. I can’t imagine. I trusted him implicitly.”
“Maya is in on it too. She brought me here.”
Even Maya, her best feeder. Trust no one. Ever. It was her constant truth, but it hurt. Her throat constricted. This was bullshit. It was all bullshit. Hiding her face from Mikhail, she bent to pull her knives from her boots. Mikhail jumped into a defensive posture. Smiling grimly, she tossed him one.
As he caught it, she realized he’d reclaimed his magic rope. It was the least of her problems now.
Hefting the knife he said, “So you trust me—or are we dueling now?”
“Hell if I know what’s going to happen in the next few minutes. But I figure you should be armed.”
He nodded his agreement and tucked the knife into his belt. Whatever happened next, she knew he’d fight well. Working together, the two of them could take any–– Don’t go there, Alya.
“I don’t keep guns down here.” She realized she was babbling to fill the silence. “But there are whips…and such.”
“That’s great. Maybe they’ll send down tigers and ponies.”
They turned in unison toward the stairs, toward the door. All was quiet. She said, “I suppose they could just leave us here to rot.”
“It would be the safest course. Unless they’re working for someone who wants our blood hot.”
“I’ve known Dominick for seven years. For the last three he’s been my first lieutenant. He’s had so many chances to betray me. I just don’t understand why he’d act now.”
“Have you had any disagreements lately?”
Alya snorted. “Only about you. He doesn’t approve of the challenge.”
Mikhail sat on her spanking horse and rubbed his chin. “Put yourself in his place. If we duel, and I win, he loses everything. He’d have to go searching for work under some other prince, most likely starting at the bottom again. If you win the challenge, he’s still unhappy. Why?”
“Because I’ve killed you? He has such a crush on you.”
Alya suppressed a smile. This was all deadly serious, of course, but his face went blank, as if she’d just lapsed into Swahili. He didn’t understand. Not that Dom was gay, but that anyone, male or female, would find him attractive. He’d been like that as a boy, and he hadn’t changed at all.
He dismissed her comment with a wave of his hand. “That’s absurd. I think he doesn’t want to work for someone cold enough to kill her destined mate.”
That hurt. More than it should, since it was true. “That’s you talking, not Dominick.”
“Dominick and I are honorable men.”
“And I’m not. That’s what you mean. Honorable!” Sputtering, she pointed her knife toward the locked door—and Dominick beyond it. “Honorable?” She pointed the knife at his nose. “Where is the h
onor in being cruel?”
He got off the horse, took a step toward her. “Oh? Have I hurt your feelings? I wasn’t aware that you had any.”
Self-righteous son of a bitch. “As if! As if you are the injured party here! You came to LA. You attacked me. Twice. You took my blood by force. Even so, I saved your life. Twice. And now you’re standing here talking to me about feelings? I know all about your feelings. I know what you want, what you dream about. Me. Bending me to your every whim.”
“Just how have you seen this?” His pale eyes fixed on her and he took a menacing step forward. She realized she’d just made a big mistake.
“You’ve been reading my thoughts. In depth. Are you bonded to me?”
Alya kept him back by knifepoint and tried to diffuse the truth. “I don’t need to be bonded to you to know how you think. You’re a prince. You’re all alike. We’re all alike. We take what we want. We don’t take anything by halves.”
“You’re afraid I’d devour you. I wouldn’t.”
“Of course you would. You couldn’t help it.” Even while he claimed he wasn’t a threat he was advancing on her, step by step.
“I don’t want your territory.”
“It would be yours anyway. The moment we married. And maybe you don’t want it, but the New York families will pressure you to take what is yours by right—”
“This isn’t about territory at all, is it?” He searched her face, intent as a dog on a trail.
Oh no, what is he seeing? She tried to close her mind to him, but it was getting harder all the time. They were too close together, their emotions too charged.
“There is only one good path out of this cellar. If we don’t find it, one of us will die. And I am certain I can kill you, Alya Adad.”
Alya sniffed.
In a low, strained voice, he added, “But I am also certain my life will not be worth living afterward.”
Her lungs seized up. She’d never heard anything so terrifying. He could not depend on her. She didn’t even know how to love. All she knew how to do was fuck and fight and scheme.
Reaching deep, she found the strength to hold on to her composure, to answer airily, “Nonsense. You’d be free. You could hunt again, go back to New York—”
“Don’t.”
“It’s true.”
“You insult us both. And you’re lying—either to me or to your self.”
“Don’t lecture me about my own heart.”
Mikhail closed his eyes. She could hear his inner turmoil. He might be more confused than her. Which was saying something, because she was on the verge of a full blown panic attack. She couldn’t think in captivity, only beat her wings against the bars.
“Fine,” he said abruptly.
“What?”
“I won’t marry you. I don’t want you to bear my name. I don’t want your goods or territories. In fact, I don’t even want to live with you.”
Alya just stared at him, confused. He couldn’t walk away now. Neither of them could. His words were measured, but desire radiated off him, hot as a furnace. He said, “I don’t want anyone to know this ever happened.”
“But it did.” Saying it aloud made it real. Made it huge.
He agreed. She saw the enormity of it in his eyes. “It did.”
They’d fed on each other. She lowered the knife. A long silence passed between them as she remembered drawing his body into hers and drinking his crystalline soul.
“All we have to do is complete the blood bond.”
Alya choked. “That’s all?”
“It doesn’t make us Siamese twins. Once the bond is complete we can live separately. We’ll be able to feed as usual, and we can learn to control our minds, to give each other privacy.”
“You mean, make this a disease we can live with?” It was a dubious premise.
“I’ve been angry. But we both have responsibilities beyond ourselves. What will happen to your territories if I kill you tomorrow?”
“More to the point, what will happen to yours if I kill you?”
“Let’s make a deal. Neither of us takes Minnesota.”
“That’s fine. I never wanted Minnesota. I wanted New York.”
One corner of his mouth quirked up, not so much amused as rueful. “You already have New York.”
Alya’s stomach flip-flopped. Who was this man? Why was being near him so sweet and bitter and scary?
“You’ve had me for a long time.” He stated it as a plain fact. “Give me your hand.”
Alya locked her hands behind her back. “No. You have to fight me tomorrow. For your own good. Otherwise…”
“Otherwise what?”
She drew a shaky breath. “Otherwise you’ll end up marrying me.”
He threw his arms wide and shouted, “I came here to marry you!”
“I can’t.” She retreated, her stomach threatening to heave. Couldn’t he see what a bad idea it was for both of them?
“I don’t want to be your cage. I want to be your shield. Give me your hand and let me prove it.”
Blazing with righteous sincerity, he thrust out his hand. She glanced at the door, hoping for an attack. Where were the bad guys when you needed them?
He didn’t withdraw his hand, and she knew she couldn’t hide from him anymore—not when he lived in her heart and swam in her veins.
She put her palm across his. Their fingers intertwined. A faint electrical charge passed between them. The rope came to life. It slithered over their joined hands and headed up her arm.
Terrified of being bound, she tried to jerk away. When he wouldn’t let go, she aimed a kick at his kneecap.
“Easy!” He dodged her foot. “It’s for you. I’m giving it to you.”
“Why?”
“Because a knyaz makes his own rules.”
The rope had reached her shoulder. She wanted to rip it off. Mikhail wasn’t making sense. She needed to get out of there. “I don’t understand.”
For the first time in this conversation he faltered. For a moment he seemed unable to speak at all. “We’ll live apart, but I imagine sometimes we’ll…visit.”
His mind pressed against hers, flashing images of their skin sliding together, their mouths joined, his cock hot against her thigh.
Alya’s mouth went dry. “Visit? Under…uh…what terms?”
His expression flat, he began to unbutton his shirt. “I’m willing to meet your terms of engagement.”
Alya had never been a nervous virgin, but suddenly she felt like one. Pretending to be uninterested in his state of dress, she said, “Are you?” She gestured at the equipment surrounding them. “Do you really understand how I prefer to engage?”
Spreading open his shirt, he shrugged it off first one shoulder then the other. The rough A on his chest stretched and contracted, riding on the muscles that girded his lean torso.
“Didn’t I give you the rope?”
Holy hell. “Are you saying you want me to use it on you? That you want me to tie you up?”
Instead of answering, he sat on the spanking horse again and began to pull off his shoes.
“What are you thinking? Someone might come through that door any second.”
“No one is coming.”
“Dominick is—”
“Matchmaking. It’s the only logical conclusion. He wants us to work it out.”
“What if you’re wrong?”
Mikhail leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his bare, high-arched feet vulnerable and tempting beneath the hems of his tailored trousers. “You trusted him implicitly, you said. If you can’t trust your own judgment, what can you trust?”
Nothing. That was the problem.
“Trust me. I’m sure of it. We’re safe.” His focus shifted to the rope on her arm. He eyed it like an adversary.
“I’m not going to do it.” Even as she said it, the rope slid across her shoulders and down her opposite arm, delighted with the idea, apparently. Irritated, she shook her arm and it calmed down. “T
his isn’t your scene. I’m not going to blue ball you into doing something absolutely contrary to your nature.”
“I want the rope.” He spoke to the ground.
She squatted next to him, tried to see his face behind his hair. “That’s impossible.”
He jerked his head up, meeting her eyes for a brief, intolerably intense instant. “This is about the bedroom. Only the bedroom. And I said I was making my own rules.”
Confused, she shook her head. “Just because I have to…because I can’t…?”
“Not just that.” He clasped his hands together and brought them up to his bruised face, like he was praying. “Not just that. When you took me in the living room. Took me. I’d never felt so free. And on the roof. Bound, with you on top. I swear to God I knew I was dying but I’ve never been so happy.” He made his hands into fists and brought them to his knees.
“Mikhail.” Her hand hovered over his shoulder. God help me if I touch him I’ll never let go.
“I’m not ashamed.” The words were a lash, his posture anything but submissive. “This is our path. I understand that now.”
Of course she remembered how completely he’d let go when she’d blown him, and how much she’d enjoyed taking him over the edge. There’d been little time for her to think about it, but she’d categorized that encounter as just another kind of fight in a night of battles. And the roof—he’d actually enjoyed it?
“I’m not sophisticated. Not this way. I don’t understand this world, this scene, whatever you call it. I don’t know what you do down here. I don’t know what this makes me or you. The outside world might think me weak—”
No one would ever mistake him for weak.
“Test me.”
And he said it with such vehemence that a shiver passed through her. A prince yielding to her. Mikhail yielding to her. All that strength, that enormous will. The possibilities…
She inclined her head, accepting the challenge.
Chapter Fourteen
It was like walking into a dream, but she assumed her role effortlessly, natural dominance wrapping her like a cloak. She stepped closer, so that the toes of her boots threatened his bare feet, sending a little thrill of erotic pleasure through her.
