His gaze shot straight to her.
Interesting.
He had found a way to pinpoint her. Is that what he had been doing when he had stared at her for those long minutes after she had made herself invisible in the private box? Putting her to memory and training his senses to make them accustomed to her so she couldn’t hide from him.
Devious son of a bitch.
His aura darkened even as his eyes brightened, his pupils enlarging to show a trace of desire.
“Reveal yourself.” Those words rolled off his tongue in a sultry bass voice created by the gods for setting women’s hearts aflame.
His aura showed no sign of the conceit that the male performer backstage had worn. This vampire was far more handsome, worthy of a little male pride in his aura, but it remained black and unreadable.
Varya lifted her glamour and shimmered into being just two metres in front of him. Out of arm’s reach. If he tried to lunge for her, she would disappear in a flash. She wasn’t sure where in the theatre she would end up, but any place was better than locked in the grasp of a man who wanted to hand her over to his master.
His pupils widened, edging further into the deep sea blue of his irises, and his nostrils flared.
“What are you?” he said and exhaled a soft curse when their eyes met.
That same blood-heating jolt she had felt on first locking gazes with him rocked her again and she had to take a step backwards to steady herself. Her hunger came upon her so swiftly that it almost knocked her flat on her backside and it must have shown in her eyes because the vampire changed. His irises burned as red as the flames of Hell and his pupils narrowed and stretched, becoming cat-like.
He snarled, sensual lips peeling back off enormous fangs.
A flicker of red punctured the black of his aura.
Passion?
Varya stood her ground, legs trembling and belly heating with desire in the face of the explosive combination of his anger and arousal. She didn’t understand why she couldn’t read his aura or what it meant, and she didn’t care.
She wanted a taste.
Before he could launch an attack on her, she teleported herself right into the danger zone, not settling for even a few inches between them. Her body pressed into the delicious hard contours of his and she looped her arms around his neck, buried her fingers into his thick brown hair and dragged his mouth down to hers.
A white-hot bolt struck her right down to her soul and she gasped.
He echoed it and grabbed her waist hard, pulling her roughly against him as his mouth claimed hers.
Varya’s head spun. She had died and gone to Heaven, a place beyond the reach of all fae. This man was her Heaven.
His mouth mastered hers, forcing her into submission, tongue plundering and leaving her breathless, until she felt as though he was the one feeding on the energy that crackled between them, not her. Her hands slipped to his strong shoulders, feeling the hard muscles beneath his soft black clothing, and she frowned, the taste of him so divine that she didn’t want to give him up. There was no reason this man should be forbidden. Gods. Every one of her clan should be searching for their own shadowed male.
She could live forever on the taste of him.
He turned and shot across the room with her, slamming her violently against the wall, his body delicious steel against hers as he pinned her. Varya leapt up and wrapped her legs around his waist, hooking her feet together and dragging him closer to her, until not a single molecule of air existed between their bodies. He snarled into her mouth and ran his hands up her calves, past her over-knee stockings, and teasingly light along the underside of her thighs. His palms grazed her buttocks beneath her skirt, sending a hot shiver bolting over her skin, and then he clutched her backside, squeezing it as he kissed her. The feel of his strong hands palming her bottom, fingertips pressing in so hard she was sure he would bruise her, increased the inferno raging out of control inside her. She let slip a moan of pure pleasure, unable to hold it in. This man had been made for her. The way he dominated her, his passion and roughness, not to mention how damned hot he looked, everything about him called to her, excited her, and she was powerless to resist.
Varya melted into him and turned up the heat at the same time, matching his ferocity stroke for stroke as her tongue duelled with his and she raked her nails over his scalp. He snarled into her mouth, a hungry feral sound that sent another shiver of pleasure skating over her skin, and rocked his hips into hers. Oh my. Her heart fluttered and heat pooled in her panties. The feel of the hard hot length pressing divinely against the apex of her thighs had her writhing in his arms, mimicking his rocking and meeting him grind for thrust. He groaned and tightened his grip on her, holding her hips immobile, and pressed his hard cock against her. His breathing came out in rough ragged gasps between kisses. Not just his breathing. She panted too, breathless, but she couldn’t stop. Did he feel as desperate as she did, as though this kiss was as vital as air? No. More vital. She felt as though she would die if he stopped. It was intoxicating, drugging, addicting, and incredible. Lost in the fathomless depths of the passion that blazed between them, pleasure so consuming that she swore she had never experienced anything like it before, Varya couldn’t stop herself from stealing some of his intense energy through their kiss.
He turned with a snarl and shoved her off him so viciously that she flew across the expansive room, smacked into the wall near the staircase and crashed to her backside on the floor.
Shock rushed through her, cold, fierce and startling.
What the hell? No man could withstand her kiss. He should be putty in her hands, hands that wanted to touch every delicious inch of him, not standing there pinning her with a thunderous look that warned if she came near him again he would forget what his master had ordered and would kill her instead.
Varya stared at him in silence, her chest heaving in time with his, struggling to catch her breath and make sense of what had just happened. The vampire’s red eyes and black aura gave nothing away, concealing whatever he was feeling as he glared at her, his hands fisted at his sides.
Were they fisted because he wanted to strike her?
Or because he was resisting touching her again?
“Andreu.” The door burst open and the blond bastard entered, jogging to a halt beside her vampire. He turned cold slate-grey eyes on her.
Varya hissed at him and disappeared.
Wind buffeted her as she set down on the rooftop of a building across from the theatre, breathing hard and still reeling. She wrapped her arms around herself, rubbing her bare skin to keep the sudden chill off it. The warmly lit sandstone building of the theatre shone like a beacon in the darkness, the six columns of the facade supporting a triangular carved frieze that lent it a very elegant air. Varya focused beyond the walls even though she knew her senses wouldn’t be able to locate her vampire.
Andreu.
There was no way he should have been able to resist her like that.
There was something different about this vampire.
She wanted to know what it was.
She wanted to know why he was forbidden.
* * *
CHAPTER 3
“I want to know what the fuck she is!” Andreu snarled and paced the black-walled double-height room, shaking all the way to his bones.
Whatever she had done to him with that kiss, it had been potent and drugging, leaving him all too compliant and hazy. His senses still hadn’t come back to full strength yet and his skin felt too tight and too hot. Not to mention that his cock was on a hair-trigger, eager to get instantly and painfully hard whenever he recalled his moment with her, which was around ten times per second.
Wherever she had touched him burned with blistering heat that had branded her imprint onto his flesh and he couldn’t shake the images of her that rushed through his mind, constant replays of how good it had felt to pin her against that wall and kiss the breath out of her.
Payne stood in the middle of th
e room, calm and cool, impassive grey gaze following Andreu. Snow had collected Antoine from his room, and Javier had phoned Callum to tell him to stay away from the theatre, just in case things turned violent with their intruder.
“Whatever the creature is, it is gone.” Snow’s words were of little comfort. Andreu hadn’t sensed her fully until she had let him. What if Snow was wrong and she could fool his senses too?
“How do you know that?” Andreu turned on him and the cold edge to the immense ancient male’s icy eyes warned him to back off or face the consequences.
“I know.” The calm reply was one he would be a fool to challenge but he was too fired up, too rattled by how easily she had closed the gap between them and brought him to his knees, to heed any warnings.
Andreu curled his fingers into fists and clenched them so tightly that his bones ached.
“Andreu.” Javier stepped into his path, blocking his way to Snow, and settled his hands on Andreu’s shoulders. He squeezed them, a show of solidarity and comfort that Andreu needed now more than ever. “We will find out what the creature is and how to protect against her.”
“Succubus.”
Everyone turned to stare at Payne.
“She is a succubus. They feed on sexual energy but normally they have more sense than to wander into a vampire’s territory.” Payne shook his head, the motion echoing the disbelief in his tone. “This one is missing a few pieces of her puzzle, if you get what I mean. Not only did she breeze straight in here to catch the show, but she sucked your face.”
Andreu frowned at him, unsure whether Payne was insinuating that she had made a poor choice by kissing him and could have done better or she had been insane to go after a vampire.
“You seem to know a lot about fae.” Antoine stepped away from Snow and towards Payne. Payne shrugged again but a glimmer of discomfort surfaced in his eyes, demolishing the effect of his casual air. He flexed his fingers, causing his forearms to ripple and tighten against the rolled up sleeves of his dark silver shirt. A nervous trait? What did Payne have to be nervous about? “Is she going to prove a problem?”
“I doubt it.” Payne ran his fingers over the soft spikes of his blond hair, revealing the elaborate swirling symbols tattooed on the undersides of his forearms. “Succubi know better than to meddle with vampires. We can sense them. She was using a strong glamour tonight, one that would have been draining her fast, and we startled her. She probably kissed Andreu to take some strength, enough for her to zip out of here and away to somewhere safe.”
“So she won’t be coming back?” Andreu frowned at himself. Why the Devil did he sound so disappointed? The succubus had tried to drain him with that kiss. What a kiss it had been though. He couldn’t remember ever sharing a kiss quite like it. His blood heated at just the memory, scorching him with the need for another, and his cock hardened once again.
Dios. He would probably end up dead if she kissed him again. He wasn’t even sure how he had found the strength to push her away. One moment he had been swimming in the kiss, oblivious to anything other than the bliss of her lips on his and wanting it to go on forever, and the next he had come crashing back to the world and realised that she was out to harm him. He had reacted on instinct to protect himself. He hadn’t meant to toss her across the room as he had. He had just wanted her mouth off him.
Was the pleasure he had felt when kissing her the result of her power as a succubus? For some reason, that thought didn’t sit well with him. It had felt real at the time, a natural passion and hunger for her that he hadn’t been able to deny. He didn’t like the idea that it might have all been the product of her tampering with his feelings. That was what succubi did. They toyed with men and made them feel things so they could get off on their aroused state. Andreu growled under his breath. She had played him.
But it had all felt so real at first. He had wanted her and when she had kissed him, he had given in to that need, surrendering to the attraction he felt towards her and his desire. It had been bliss and fire until his senses had sparked and he had suddenly weakened.
Did that switch between pleasure and pain signal the moment she had begun to feed from him?
If it did, then was everything that came before it real and not an illusion caused by her power?
He growled and tunnelled his fingers through his short hair. He would never know without asking her, and even if that happened he probably couldn’t trust a word that left her sultry luscious lips.
His cock hardened again.
Dios. She was going to be the death of him.
He tugged his black suit jacket down to make sure none of the males in the room with him would notice just how much that single mind-blowing kiss had affected him.
It wasn’t just the kiss that had him rock hard for her. She was undeniably beautiful, had dangerous curves designed for his hands to snake over and his lips to explore slowly, and extraordinary eyes that captured his whenever they met. She was bold, tempting and sexy. He had known some firecrackers in his time, but he had a feeling that she would outshine them all.
“I highly doubt she will return,” Payne said and Andreu nodded, and ignored the part of him that clung to the hope that Payne was wrong and she would return so he could kiss her again. Payne shrugged. “You saw how she reacted to me.”
Andreu certainly had. The succubus had stared at Payne as though he was the antichrist and had flashed a sharp set of teeth before disappearing.
“Either way, I want security at the theatre increased. Javier and Andreu, call the firm we use for day security and see about getting us some older vampires to protect the theatre. I want them to be discreet. The last thing we need are the attendees seeing them.” Antoine flicked a glance at him and then his brother. “All clear?”
Andreu nodded at the same time as Javier. It was clear all right. They were going to be on high alert for the next few performances at least. If their uninvited guest decided to return, it could prove to be a problem for the business, and the business was his priority, not pleasure. The older vampires had sensed her tonight. Chances were, they were already talking about what they had felt.
“Payne, I want you to come with me and Snow to my office. You are going to tell us everything you know about her species.” Antoine didn’t wait for the blond elite vampire to acknowledge him. He strode away with Snow stalking along behind him.
Payne muttered a curse under his breath and then followed.
Why had she reacted so violently to Payne?
When Andreu had seen her across the theatre, and when she had revealed herself to him in this room, she hadn’t reacted to him in that way. She had looked shocked, but definitely interested in him. Not scared.
Was she only interested in him as a target or did she desire him because she found him attractive?
He had seen the hunger in her incredible eyes. He had never seen eyes like hers. Deep brown edged them but in the centre, around the black chasms of her pupils, they were blue and flecked with gold. Maybe Payne was wrong and she was a siren rather than a succubus. She could lure a man with those eyes. Had lured him in with them more than once.
He frowned.
“It wasn’t chance that she kissed me,” he whispered and Javier looked over at him. “It wasn’t random. She didn’t just come across me and see a chance to feed so she could disappear.”
“What makes you say that?”
Andreu lifted his head and met Javier’s deep brown gaze. “I saw her in the theatre, when you went down to speak to Antoine and Snow. She saw me. She looked right at me and I felt pulled to her, and then she disappeared and the spell snapped. She was still there though, Javier. Watching me as I watched the spot where she had been.”
“What do you think it means?”
“I think it means that I need to take a shower and get my head straight.” Andreu pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes.
He was reading into things again and he only had to look at his brother to know where that sort o
f behaviour led when it came to females. He wasn’t about to become the victim of a woman’s charms. She was beautiful, but he refused to fall for her tricks. Nothing he felt for her was real. It was a fabrication created by her so he would go along with everything she did and she could feed on him. It was the same trick a vampire used on a human, putting them in thrall and making them feel pleasure so feeding from them was easy.
“She probably just chose me as a target because I saw her,” Andreu said, trying to convince himself as well as his brother. “If I hadn’t stopped her, she could have killed me. Maybe that’s what she wanted from me. I saw her and she wanted me dead. What other reason could she have for remaining at the theatre?”
“Payne said she needed more energy.” Javier ran a hand over his short sandy hair and settled it around the back of his neck, an action he often did when thinking or concerned. It was a wonder his brother had any hair left. “Do you think that wasn’t the case?”
Andreu nodded. “She had enough power to disappear. She could have used it to get out of the theatre, or could have slipped out with the crowd. Why stay if not to kill me?”
“I don’t want you sleeping in your temporary quarters today.” Javier frowned and touched his arm, his eyes warm with worry. “Stay in Callum’s quarters across from mine. I will keep an eye on you.”
Andreu covered his brother’s hand on his arm and tried to take comfort from it, and from the promise in Javier’s dark eyes. Neither gesture reassured him though. If the succubus wanted him dead, what was to stop her from feeding to regain her strength and then teleporting straight into his room? Would he be strong enough to fend her off again or would she get her wish this time?
Death by sex.
What a way to go.
He was too damn young to die though. At barely five hundred years old, he was in his prime and had centuries if not millennia ahead of him, and he wasn’t about to let a succubus take those from him.
She could come after him if she wanted but he wasn’t going to take it lying down. Andreu raised an eyebrow. He wasn’t going to take anything at all, and certainly not lying down.
Enslave Page 3
