by Lola Gabriel
He rushed to her, and she received him with open arms, letting him bury his face in her hair, inhale her scent, hold her as close as he could with a windowsill and half a wall standing between them.
“Ellen,” he gasped, dampening her curls with his own tears. “Oh, Ellen, I’ve missed you so much—”
“Me, too,” she sobbed, pushing her face into the crook of his neck. “I’m so sorry, Maddox. If I had known you were here—”
“No, no, you don’t have to apologize, it’s not your fault,” he reassured her, pulling away to cup her jaw with his hands, his thumbs running over her tearstained cheeks. “I’m so happy to see you again.”
“Okay, well,” said Oliver, still standing outside the window. “I don’t want to interrupt the heartfelt reunion, but do you two lovebirds think you can continue it once we’re out of here and in my car on our way back to EMU?”
“Right!” they both exclaimed. Maddox didn’t want to let go of Ellen now that they were finally together again, but he didn’t know how long they had until his father’s men heard the ruckus and came to investigate.
Although it was clear that Ellen didn’t want to let go of him either, she forced herself to break away and step back from the window, giving him room to climb out.
Maddox had snuck in and out the window hundreds of times as a child, mostly to try to escape having to talk to the other royal kids during the Vampire King’s balls, so he shouldn’t have had any problem climbing out through it now. The difference was that he was bloodied, bruised, and weak after trying to break down the door for the past couple of hours.
Ellen and Oliver each took one of his arms and put them around their shoulders, helping to pull him the rest of the way out. Once Maddox was standing on the grass outside, his knees buckled, the adrenaline rushing out of him and sending him to his knees.
“Maddox!” Ellen cried, her hand on his chest to hold him up.
“Jeez, dude, when was the last time you fed?” Oliver asked.
“Two weeks,” Maddox answered, closing his eyes. He felt woozy and lightheaded. He’d forgotten that he’d refused to drink the blood bag offered to him after being locked up. Knowing the lengths his father had gone just to keep him away from Ellen, he couldn’t trust that this blood had been taken from a blood bank and not from an unwilling human.
“Maddox!” Oliver chided him. “God, no wonder you can barely stand!”
“Why, what’s wrong?” Ellen asked.
“He hasn’t had blood in two weeks,” Oliver explained. “Add that to his wounded body and you get…well, how he is right now.”
“Can’t we get him some blood?”
“Not immediately,” he told Ellen. “We’d have to either sneak inside for a blood bag or go find a blood bank.”
“Can he drink from one of us?” she wondered.
“Not from a vampire, no,” Maddox said, keeping his eyes closed. Even like that, he felt like the world was spinning around him. “Our blood is like water to other vampires, it does absolutely nothing.”
“What about an angel?” Ellen said.
Maddox forced his eyes open to look at her and found Oliver staring at her in shock, too. She didn’t pull her gaze away from him, and Maddox could see the determination in it.
“I don’t know,” he confessed. “We…don’t drink from other immortals.”
“But it’s worth a shot, right?” Ellen pressed, glancing at Oliver for support.
His best friend looked back at her, at Maddox, and then at her again, sighing. “We might as well try.”
They maneuvered Maddox so he was leaning against Ellen, held up only by her arms around him, keeping him close. His nose nuzzled the skin where her neck met her shoulder.
“I’ll, uh, go make sure we’re clear to go,” Oliver said. Maddox heard his steps getting further and further away, and he silently thanked him for giving them some privacy.
“Are…are you sure?” he asked Ellen, feeling the last bits of his strength fading. If he didn’t feed soon, he would pass out until his body had healed itself, which left them with no time to lose, but he would rather be locked up again than hurt Ellen. “I don’t know what will happen.”
“As long as it helps you,” Ellen said, her arms tightening around him, “that’s all that matters.”
“Promise me,” Maddox mumbled. “Promise me you’ll tell me if…if it hurts.”
“Maddox—”
“Please,” he begged. He couldn’t stand the thought of bringing her any harm, much less to save his own skin, and he needed to know she would stop him if she had to.
“I promise,” Ellen said. “But I trust you, Maddox. I know you won’t hurt me.” She gently cradled the back of his head with her hand and delicately nudged it forward.
Maddox took a deep breath and sank his fangs into her neck before he could think twice about it.
Ellen’s body stiffened against him, and at the soft, pained noise she let out, Maddox almost pulled away, but she kept a firm grip on his head.
“It was just the sting of the bite. I’m fine,” she assured him.
Maddox started drinking slowly, getting used to the feeling of Ellen’s blood on his tongue, to the taste of it. It was so much different than human blood, sweet rather than bitter, yet also thicker, and it smelled just like Ellen. It tasted like her skin, it smelled like her slickness, and it felt like Ellen in his arms: a fire warming his cold flesh, electricity coursing through him, relief and calm settling in his very soul.
His body felt rejuvenated, the bruised skin on his shoulders and arms starting to stitch itself together, his broken nails beginning to heal. Maddox had had his fill, had fed exactly how much he needed, and so he pulled away from Ellen’s neck to close the wound with his tongue, kissing the spot afterwards to soothe the sting.
“Are you done?” Ellen asked, her voice small, and Maddox nodded his head, breaking from her so he could look directly at her. Her skin was still the same beautiful complexion it had always been, and her eyes, if possible, were brighter than before, the hazel glowing almost golden.
“Are you okay?” he wondered. “How do you feel?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” she said. “I feel great, actually. I thought it’d take longer than that, though. Are you okay? You didn’t stop before you had to, did you?”
“No,” Maddox answered, smiling. “No, my body took exactly what it needed.” Come to think of it, however, Ellen was right: it hadn’t felt like he’d fed for that long. He was sure it took him more time than that to finish a blood bag.
“Whoa.”
They both turned toward the gardens, where Oliver was gaping at them.
“That was fast,” he said. “But you do look a lot better. How you feeling, champ? Ready to make a run for—”
Oliver had no chance to finish his question, because he was tackled to the ground by one of the king’s security agents.
By the time Maddox and Ellen realized what was happening, their path was blocked by a line of vampires all pointing their guns at them.
“HEY!” Oliver yelled as his arms were pinned to his back and he was held against the ground. “What’s the big idea?!”
“Your Highness,” said one of the agents in front of Maddox and Ellen. “His Majesty orders you to come back with us.”
“So you can lock him away?” screamed Ellen, standing up. “Is that what the Vampire King does? He keeps his own son against his will because he doesn’t like the immortals he hangs out with?!”
“Don’t you dare talk about His Majesty!” replied another agent.
“Ellen!” Maddox cried. He tried to stand, but his body was still processing Ellen’s blood, focusing all of his energy into healing his wounds.
“Step aside, angel,” snarled a third agent, motioning with his gun.
“No!” Ellen moved to stand in front of Maddox and held her arms open at her sides. “If you want to get to him, you’ll have to go through me first!”
“Ellen, no!” Maddox pl
eaded, reaching out to grab her shirt. “Don’t do this!”
“If you do not move,” hissed the first agent, “we will open fire on you.”
“NO!” Maddox shouted. The only way to kill an immortal depended on the species, but the bullets within the guns of the Vampire King’s men had been specifically designed to kill all immortals, as long as they were shot at the head or the heart. Maddox knew that if one of the vampires shot Ellen, she would be dead before she hit the ground. “Ellen, please don’t do this, it’s okay!”
“No, it’s not!” Ellen shouted back without tearing her gaze away from the vampires threatening to murder her. “It’s not okay for us to have to give each other up just so your father will leave you alone! If he wants to get rid of me so badly, he’ll have to do it himself!”
Maddox saw the vampire pulling the trigger on his gun in slow motion, like the world had slowed down. Ellen—stubborn, determined, magnificent Ellen—wouldn’t have time to move away, and even if she did, Maddox knew she was willing to die right then and there, just to give him a chance to be free. But he was not going to allow it. He was not going to let anyone hurt his mate.
With a cry of her name, Maddox pushed himself up on his shaking legs, grabbed Ellen, and pulled her to his chest as he curled his body around her so that he was standing between her and his father’s men, bracing himself for the bullet that would kill him.
Well. At the very least, he would die in his mate’s arms.
9
Ellen felt time freeze when Maddox wrapped his arms around her, shielding her from his father’s men, from the bullet one of them had shot with the intention to kill her. She wouldn’t be able to turn them around before the bullet reached them. If she didn’t do something, Maddox would die and she and Oliver would have come all the way here just to lose him.
That was the one thing she wasn’t willing to let happen. She had been prepared to die so Maddox could be free from his father’s shackles, but she wasn’t going to just stand here and let her mate, the love of her life, die.
She hugged him as tightly as she could, hooked her chin over his shoulder, and squeezed her eyes shut.
Please, she begged. Please protect him. Please let me save him.
She waited to hear Maddox cry out in pain, to feel him collapse in her arms, but neither happened. She held her breath, and yet she still felt Maddox’s body solid against her, his arms still tight around her.
Slowly, warily, Ellen pulled away from Maddox just enough to look him in the eyes. They were still the same beautiful dark brown that she loved, and his skin was still the same complexion, and he was alive in her arms. Ellen ran her hands all over his face, his hair, his arms, but the conclusion didn’t change.
Maddox was, against all odds, still alive.
What the hell had happened?
“What is that?” questioned the vampire holding Oliver down, getting to his feet. Oliver followed suit.
It was only until he spoke that Ellen noticed what seemed to be a translucent dome around her and Maddox, like they were the figures inside a snow globe, except that the globe pulsed and crackled with energy, as if it were some sort of force shield.
A force shield. A shield. Her shield.
Her defense mechanism had activated, but instead of it just being a small barrier blinking in and out of existence, it was now a protective bubble that wasn’t going anywhere.
“Ellen?” Maddox asked, staring at the translucent dome. “Did you do this?”
In a way, yes. But she hadn’t conjured this shield on her own. Never had it lasted this long, and never had it been a giant dome.
Had Maddox somehow helped her? He had drunk her blood, so did that mean that he now had control over her defense mechanism, too?
“I think we both did,” Ellen said. She didn’t know how or why, but Maddox had augmented her abilities, allowing them to protect them both. Nothing was going to hurt them—touch them, even—if they had anything to say about it.
“What is all this?”
Maddox swirled at the voice of the man who had joined the vampires standing in front of them, somehow never pulling his arms away from her. They moved away to let him pass, showing Ellen that this was the Vampire King, who had locked his own son in his palace and ordered his men to kill his mate. He didn’t even look like Maddox save for his black hair, which made it easier for Ellen to hate him.
She glared at the man and squeezed Maddox tighter.
“This, Father,” her mate said, “is Ellen Williams, an angel and my mate, whom I love more than anything.”
Ellen gasped quietly and turned her eyes to Maddox. Although Oliver had told her the exact same thing, it was different to hear it from Maddox himself. He loved her. More than anything.
“I always thought we had a good, healthy relationship,” Maddox went on, still addressing the king. “Now I see that you believed in your prejudices more than you believed in me. I don’t want to turn my back on my people, Father, but if you prefer to imprison me in my own home rather than letting me be happy, then we will leave, and you will never see me again.”
“Maddox!” Ellen whispered.
“No, Ellen,” he said. He turned to look at her, his eyes soft, his smile sweet and gentle. “You were right. It’s not okay—” He shook his head. “It’s not fair that we have to give each other up. Not for anything. I thought I had lost you once, Ellen. I’m not going to lose you again.”
Ellen felt more tears stinging her eyes, but she managed to blink them back and kiss Maddox, relishing his presence, his mouth against hers, and his body in her arms.
“I love you,” she said, her lips brushing his. “Maddox, I love you.”
Maddox grinned and pressed his forehead to hers. Around them, the protective bubble slowly fizzed out of existence and was gone as if it had never been there to begin with.
“I love you too, Ellen.” Then Maddox looked back at his father. “So? What will it be, Father?”
The Vampire King stared at the scene in front of him. After a moment, he let out a long, deep sigh.
“You have changed, Maddox,” he said. “And not necessarily for the worse. A month ago, you would not have spoken to me like that. Perhaps angels…” He glanced at Ellen. “Perhaps she is meant to be royalty after all.”
With that statement, the Vampire King turned to his men, said, “Let them go,” and walked away.
Ellen and Maddox watched the vampires follow their king, and soon, they and Oliver were the only ones standing in the gardens.
“Does that mean it’s all over?” Oliver asked. “I never thought I’d say this, but can we go back to school now?”
Maddox snorted, which made Ellen snort, and in the blink of an eye, the two of them were laughing hysterically, letting all of their pent-up fear and terror and shock and dread out of them with how hard their bodies were shaking in each other’s arms. By the time they calmed down, tears were streaming from the eyes of both, and Ellen leaned forward to kiss Maddox’s away. He brushed the ones on her cheek with his thumb.
“Yeah,” he said, his gaze locked on hers. “Yeah, we can go back now.”
He tilted his head down to kiss her, and Ellen met him halfway.
“Okay,” Oliver said, making Ellen giggle into the kiss. She also felt Maddox’s smile against her lips. “I’m going back to the car to lie down for a while. It’s been a long day, my friends. Depending on how long you guys stay here and make out, I might be asleep when you get there. If I am, Maddox, you have my authorization to drive my baby. The keys are in my pocket.”
Oliver whirled on his feet with a flair and waved at them as he left them to their own devices.
Ellen was truly, unbelievably thankful to him. If it hadn’t been for him, she would have never found Maddox again, and she would have spent the rest of her life looking for him in vain, their souls calling out to each other.
No. She would have eventually found him, she was sure of it. It would’ve taken her a very long time—years,
decades, maybe even centuries—and she would have been driven nearly out of her mind, but she would not have given up.
Ellen tightened her grip on Maddox. Luckily for her, she didn’t have to wait anymore.
“We’re still going to have to cross more bridges in the future,” she reminded him, keeping her tone light so he knew she was only half serious.
Maddox chuckled and pressed a kiss to the top of her head.
“As long as we’re together,” he said, “there’s no bridge we can’t cross.”
London Mates
Paranormal Romance Collection
London Mates: Paranormal Romance Collection
Text Copyright © 2020 by Lola Gabriel
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.
First printing, 2020
Publisher
Secret Woods Books
[email protected]
www.SecretWoodsBooks.com
Secret Woods Books
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Boden: Dragon Ruler of London
