Furbidden Mate

by Jessica Snow

  Right then her cell, which was sitting on her desktop, rang. Liz nearly broke her neck rushing over to pick up the phone.

  "Hello?" she answered breathlessly.

  "Liz, thank God you answered!" came her seventeen-year-old sister Cassie’s anguished voice. "I can’t deal with her anymore."

  Elizabeth held in a sigh of disappointment. "What is it this time, Cassie?" Having moved out long ago, Liz’s younger sister was forever calling to complain about their mother. Usually, Liz was tolerant, but she did not feel like hearing Cassie bitch at the moment.

  "Mom banned me from seeing Josh," Cassie whimpered, "because she thinks we’re having sex."

  "Well, are you having sex?"

  "Liz!"

  "Don’t call me telling me about your problems if you’re not going to be forthcoming."

  There was a short pause filled with light breathing. "We haven’t had sex, but we’ve messed around a few times."

  "Like what kind of messing around?"

  Cassie sniffed. "He likes to go down on me...a lot."

  Elizabeth made a face. "I don’t blame mom for banning you from seeing him. You’re too young to be doing that type of stuff."

  "Are you serious?" Cassie asked incredulously. "You were the biggest slut when you were my age in high school!"

  Cassie had a lot of nerve insulting Liz when she was looking for sympathy. "You are not me, Cassie. Besides, I was much smarter about messing with guys."

  Cassie snorted. "Whatever...can I come live with you?"

  "Absolutely not."

  "But Liz—"

  Liz heard a sudden pounding coming from the living room.

  "We can talk about this later, Cass. I gotta go."

  "Liz don’t hang up—"

  "Love you, bye." Elizabeth pressed the hang up button and set her cell down on the desk. She rushed over and grabbed her discarded clothes off the floor. Moving quickly, she stuffed herself back into the dress she wore at the club the night before and then rushed out of her bedroom.

  In the living room, she did a quick check over of her appearance in the vanity mirror above her small love seat. After finger combing her hair several times, she paused. Her dress had several claw marks on the side. The odd thing was, they did not look human.

  "What the hell?" she muttered.

  Whoever was outside, pounded on the door, rattling it on its hinges.

  "I’m coming!" Liz called with irritation.

  She rushed over to the door and opened it. Her jaw dropped. Standing there, silhouetted by the sun, was her friend Ashley, dressed in a black, latex skin-tight body suit, her ample cleavage on display.

  Not paying Liz’s shock any mind, Ashley walked right past her into the apartment. "I figured you would just be waking up." She turned and crinkled her nose. "God, you smell."

  Once she was over her shock, Liz shut the door. "What the hell is up with that getup? In case you hadn’t noticed, club night was last night."

  "It’s my work outfit."

  Liz snorted with mirth. "Did you suddenly quit your job and become a street walker or something? Last I checked, it’s Sunday, mid-morning, you know? Church day? And if that outfit is any indication of your sins, you’re going to hell!"

  Ashley shook back her hair, ignoring the wisecrack. "Listen, Liz, there are some things you don’t know about me."

  "You’re telling me."

  Suddenly, Ashley’s gaze turned solemn. "Have you heard from Kat?"

  "Kat?" Come to think of it, Elizabeth hadn’t heard from her voluptuous friend in over a week. Last she heard, Kat had gotten fired from her old job but had quickly found a new one working for some hot guy. "I haven’t heard from her since she started working her new job."

  Ashley’s eyes turned thoughtful. "I thought as much," she muttered.

  "Why? What’s wrong with Kat?"

  "I think Kat may be in danger."

  "What makes you think that?"

  "There are some things you need to know."

  Liz placed her hands on her hips. She was getting tired of Ashley’s coy and nonsensical answers. "Well go ahead and spit it out."

  Ashley shook her head. "It’s not that simple. What I have to say will challenge everything you’ve ever been taught your entire life."

  Okay, Elizabeth thought. This girl has definitely gone off the deep end.

  Was Ashley on some new street drug? Seeing as how often the girls enjoyed the club life, which was rife with all sorts of party enhancers, it seemed very plausible. But her eyes were clear, and her expression was deadly serious.

  Suddenly, Ashley pointed at the claw marks on Elizabeth’s dress. "You were with an animal last night."

  Elizabeth's eyes turned dreamy, remembering the hot sex from the night before. "Yes, I was," she purred.

  Ashley shook her head as if she was ashamed of her best friend. "You are lucky you weren’t infected."

  Elizabeth laughed. "Girl, please. I use protection. Always."

  "That is not what I’m talking about."

  Elizabeth threw her hands up, fed up. "Then what are you talking about?"

  Ashley only shook her head and made her more infuriated. "That doesn’t matter. Go change your clothes so we can leave and I’ll tell you everything you need to know on the way to finding Kat."

  "For Christ’s sakes Ash!" Liz snapped. "Tell me what the hell is going on! Enough with this silly act already."

  Unperturbed by her anger, Ashley glowered. "Do you want to know what happened with Kat or not?"

  "Yeah, but—"

  Ashley walked past Elizabeth, her latex outfit making squeaky noises with each step. "I’ll be out front waiting in my car. You have five minutes."

  Then she walked out and closed the door.

  Elizabeth stood there for several minutes staring at where Ashley had been standing. Finally, she sighed with defeat, going to her room to get a change of clothing, and muttered, "Crazy bitch."

  Chapter 30

  Kat came to with a gasp. She was seated at an Oakwood table in a darkened room lit by scented candle light. The smell of ancient wine, sweet and cloying, invaded her nostrils.

  "Care for a drink?"

  Whipping her head around, Kat looked into chilling, blue eyes. Theon.

  The handsome vampire was seated across from her, dressed in dark clothing, just like the night she met him, but this time he had on a black hoodie that was thrown back across his shoulders and a long-sleeved shirt and gloves. A large wine bottle and two wine glasses sat on the table in between them. A face mask with polarized lenses sat next to Theon’s wine glass. That’s how he could come out in daylight, she realized.

  The room they were in was filled with shelves stacked with bottles of vintage spirits. With her sensitive nose, Kat was almost overpowered by the heady aromas, so much so that she feared she might get drunk off the smell alone.

  Theon chuckled as he watched Kat’s eyes rove around the room. "My personal collection, aged to perfection."

  Not caring if the bottles of wine were one-thousand years old, Kat was not impressed. "Where the hell am I?" She quickly noted the escape exits, the door and two boarded up windows.

  In response, Theon took up the wine bottle and uncorked it. Immediately, a sweet odor filled the room. Kat felt her muscles relax involuntarily. Slowly and with grace, Theon poured the wine into the glasses and then he pushed one over to Kat.

  Kat glanced down into its depths. It was dark and looked like blood, except she knew it wasn’t. "I thought you vampires only drank blood."

  Theon chuckled. "We can still indulge ourselves in earthly pleasures from time to time. Wine is one of the finer things in life that our evolved digestive system can handle well."

  Ignoring the sweet scent that continued to bombard her nose, Kat tore her eyes away from the wine and repeated her question from earlier more sternly, "Where are we?"

  Theon sighed. "I went through a lot of trouble to get that particular bottle of wine. I had to fight a whole compan
y of French soldiers back in the seventeen-hundreds to acquire it if I remember correctly." He sighed again at the look of anger that crossed Kat’s face. "But if you must know, we’re at a safe house not too far from where your father was taken."

  Kat shot to her feet, nearly knocking her chair over. "Take me back to him now!"

  Theon eyed her with calm amusement. "Sit back down, Katerina. There is little to be done for your father now."

  "But they might kill him!" cried Kat.

  Shaking his head, Theon matter-of-factly replied, "The Wardens won’t harm your father."

  Kat paused. "The Wardens?" Big Mike hadn’t said anything about the people they were going to meet other then he knew that they could help them find McKenzie."

  Theon clucked his tongue with disapproval. "Did your wolf lover not teach you anything? The Wardens are a secret caste of humans, created by the witches to keep watch over us supernaturals." He nodded at her chair. "Sit and have a drink so I can tell you more."

  "But—" Kat began to protest.

  "Sit!" Theon’s voice cracked like a whip through the room and Kat could have sworn she heard one of the bottles crack from the sound.

  But as angry as Theon appeared, Kat was even madder. She could not sit around drinking wine with some vampire while her father was captured at the hands of unknowns and possibly being tortured.

  "Fuck off!" Ignoring his wrathful expression, she walked across the room, making her way to the door.

  "I know who has your sister."

  Kat paused, her fingers just touching the doorknob. Slowly, she turned around. "My sister’s dead," she said hollowly.

  But did she really believe that? Liam had done everything to convince her that McKenzie had died, and she had even struck him for it, had even returned to her father for help because she believed that McKenzie was still alive, but now she was beginning to wonder if it was true and she had been fooling herself all along.

  "Not true," Theon shook his head. "She is alive." His words had a ring of truth to them. "Though you may soon hope she isn’t."

  "What do you mean by that?" Kat demanded.

  Theon nodded at the chair again. "Sit."

  After a moment of stubbornness, Kat reluctantly walked back over to the chair and sank down into its velvet cushions.

  "Now was that so hard?" Theon asked. "In the future, you should show more respect to your saviors."

  "Savior?" Kat snorted. "You kidnapped me!"

  "Only for your own good. Had I not intercepted you at that exact moment, you would have wound up in a cage beside your father."

  It was true. Theon had saved her. But that didn’t matter. First, her sister was missing, now Big Mike needed her help. "We should go back and kick their asses! I saw how fast you moved. With your speed and my strength, we can easily take them!"

  "The Wardens are dangerous adversaries, even for a vampire. They are trained in the art of battling our kind from young childhood on."

  "Are you kidding me?" Kat asked with incredulity. "They’re just humans!"

  Theon gave her a direct look. "Dangerous humans."

  "Look, I don’t give a shit if they were trained by Bruce Lee’s ghost on crack!" Kat snarled. "I’m not leaving my father there!"

  Theon studied Kat for a long moment, before moving his arm onto the table and pulling back the sleeve of his shirt, revealing a nasty blister next to his rose tattoo.

  Kat eyed it wearily. It looked like it was healing...slowly. "What the hell is that?"

  "A sunburn. It looked far worse than that a few minutes ago. I sustained it when I grabbed onto you and my sleeve was pulled up. You see, we vampires are susceptible to the sun’s light, our eternal bane. So, even if I wanted to take you back to your father, all it would take is a large part of my skin to be revealed and then..."

  Kat leaned forward. "And then?"

  "Dust." Theon’s words echoed ominously in Kat’s ears. "You see, Katerina, I rescued you at a great cost to myself, no small thing I might add." Theon chuckled. "Many a maiden would give all that they have for such a rescue."

  "What were you doing there anyway?" asked Kat, holding back a roll of her eyes. For someone five hundred years old, Theon had not learned an ounce of humility.

  His blue eyes pierced hers. "Following you." He grabbed his glass of wine and then took a long sip. "Besides, the Wardens captured your father for a reason and whatever those reasons are, they shall remain unknown to us. But I want to assure you that they will not harm him in any way." When Kat continued to look unconvinced, Theon assured, "I give you my word."

  After a long moment, Kat let out a giant, defeated sigh. "Fine. I’ll listen to what you have to say concerning my sister for now, but after, I want assurance that my father will be all right."

  Theon’s blue eyes twinkled in the candlelight, but Kat could not tell if it was from amusement or something else. "Deal." He nodded at her drink. "Now will you kindly sample what I went through so much trouble to get for you?"

  Kat glanced down into the dark liquid again. The smell was so cloyingly sweet. It called to her, begging her to taste it.

  When the smell became too sweet for her to resist, she shrugged. Oh, what the hell? She needed a stress reliever anyway. She lifted the glass to her lips.

  The first sip went down her throat like smooth honey and filled her belly with warm fire. "My God," Kat murmured, her eyes widening as she studied the dark liquid, "this is some exquisite stuff!"

  Theon grinned. "I told you."

  Kat took another sip, this time gulping down the entire the glass while Theon watched her with that devilish grin. When she was done, Kat opened her mouth to speak, but a large belch came out instead.

  What a pig I am! She looked sheepishly across the table, her cheeks burning with embarrassment. "Sorry about that."

  Theon’s eyes twinkled with amusement. "No need to be. You would be aghast at the burps that some of us vampires let out after a meal."

  Kat shuddered as the image of bloody burps came to mind. But she quickly pushed the unwanted image away and asked, "Now...tell me which one of your people has my sister."

  The vampire sat back in his seat, a solemn expression settling on his face. "First, I will need to give you a little more of my history so that you will understand some things."

  Suddenly, the story Theon had told her when she had first met him about his pregnant wife came back to Kat, and she found herself overcome with curiosity. She nodded at him. "Go ahead."

  Theon took another sip of his wine before speaking. "As I told you before there are vampires who don’t play by the rules set forth by the council and engage in human trafficking, a practice that has been forbidden for more than a century. These vampires are a troublesome lot and have always remained a thorn in the Vampire Council’s side. The particular vampire that has your sister is one such individual."

  Kat glanced at the bottle of wine sitting in between them. She wanted some more, but learning about McKenzie’s whereabouts were more important than getting a buzz. "So where is this douchebag at? And why haven’t you demanded that he hand over my sister?"

  "It’s not that simple. If I could do that, she would be here with you now. You see, though we have laws against such conduct, they are rarely enforced. As long as no one openly knows, vampires can and do keep human slaves for their personal pleasure."

  Kat felt nausea twist her stomach. The thought of McKenzie being some sadistic vampire’s slave filled her with anguish and rage. "So, what are you telling me? That you vampires are as evil as I was told?"

  "I’m telling you that it is likely that your sister is being tortured at this very moment."

  A cold chill clutched Kat’s spine. No, not McKenzie, her baby sister. She could not be being tortured. She just couldn’t be.

  "Not only that, I know the one who has her. I know him very well, in fact."

  "Who is he?" Kat demanded. Everything in her body told her to jump up and find whoever this vampire was and rip his immortal
balls off—then do it again once they grew back. Unfortunately, she had no idea where he was. Therefore, she needed Theon.

  A sneer twisted Theon’s lips. "His name is Cole, my former lieutenant and fellow Knight of The Rose." Anger flashed like a raging storm in Theon’s blue orbs. Whoever this Cole vampire was, Kat could tell Theon absolutely hated his guts.

  "After that argument with Eva, we rarely talked and I became very busy, only checking in with her to see how her pregnancy was coming along. At the time, I should have stopped and listened to her wishes and her concern about my safety, but I was a fool." Theon’s eyes were on the distant past and a melancholy tone had entered his voice. "I had become driven by ambition, by my desire to elevate my station at all costs—a desire that would eventually land me the role of Captain of the Guard and the King’s most loyal servant...and subsequently a place of unimaginable suffering."

  Kat was surprised at the pain that shown in Theon’s eyes and felt a twinge of sympathy. "So how did this Cole guy play into all this?"

  Theon shifted in his seat. "Like me, Cole was an ambitious young man who desired to elevate his station. He made it no secret that he coveted the position I had earned, and when the day of my promotion came, there was no person that was more jealous or filled with hate.

  “But I couldn’t be bothered by Cole’s hatred. After all, I was a greater swordsman than him and had earned my position fair and square. Truth be told, I reveled in his jealousy. Cole had always been a pompous ass with a cruel streak, and I found his misery at my expense very satisfying.

  “Anyway, I was made Captain and assumed leadership over all of the Knights of The Rose. But little did I know that my new leadership would be under assault, because from that day forth, Cole tested me at every turn. Whenever we were out and about on duty, he would second guess my orders and outright disobey my wishes. Not only that, he would do extra noble things when we were among the public, making sure his generosity and gallantry were seen by all. Soon the townspeople began to love him...more than me.