“In our world, it means you’re mine.” That wasn't even the half of it, but I wasn't sure she was ready to hear the rest. “It means you come first. Your safety, your needs, your health. Because this mark signifies that I'm incomplete without you.” She placed her hand over my heart, over the identical brand inked into my skin.
“Then why do you stay away?” Her body undulated against mine, and her scent flared with the sweet, mouthwatering flavor of arousal. "Why am I sleeping alone in your bedroom? If you need me, why do I only see you at dinner?"
“Because I'm afraid I can't control myself around you." The admission was low, true, and only made her eyes spark even more.
"So don't." She tilted her face toward mine, rising so I could feel the sweet puffs of her breath on my lips, but she didn't close the distance. "I feel like something's missing when you're not around. Please, Alek. I know you won't hurt me. I trust you. I need you."
The air between us crackled with electricity. She was my mate, and I'd meant everything I said. Her needs came first. She needed me, she got me. It was that simple.
I took her mouth in a consuming kiss, sinking my tongue inside her with a groan. She tasted just as sweet as I remembered, fantasized about during the day hours in the room beside my own. I didn't trust myself not to take her, especially when all I wanted was to bury my body inside hers like my instincts demanded.
She whimpered, pulling on my jacket, pushing her breasts into my chest as she kissed me back with abandon.
I wasn't close enough, even with my tongue in her mouth and her ass my hands, so I yanked her into my arms.
She locked her ankles around my waist.
I ground my dick against the blazing heat between her thighs and pressed her against the wall.
"Alek," she moaned as I broke the kiss, moving my mouth down her throat in a series of kisses, careful to keep my fangs behind my lips. "You smell incredible," I growled against her throat.
Her fingernails dug into the back of my neck, and she gasped as I sucked at the patch of skin where her delicate neck met her shoulder. "Feed," she demanded, arching her neck.
“Lyric," I groaned.
"Feed," she repeated, her pulse leaping just beneath the soft skin of her neck.
The predatory part of my nature warred with the ever-growing imperative to keep her safe.
I wasn't starving this time. I was in control. And she was mine.
With a quick thought, I locked the doors of the private sitting room I'd brought us into. This wasn't going to be a public event.
I spun quickly and carried her to one of the plush sofas just beneath the open windows. The lights were off, but the moon shone brightly enough to see her every expression.
I settled her against the cushions and gave her a slow smile as I sank to my knees before her.
"What are you doing?" she asked as I gripped the hem of her dress and slid it up her thighs.
"I thought you wanted me to feed?" My shoulders spread her knees wider, and her eyes flared at the same rate.
"I do."
"Good, because I'm hungry.” I kissed a path to the inside of her knee, up her thigh, lifting her dress as I went. The smell of her was intoxicating and only grew stronger the closer I got to her pussy.
"Alek?" Her breath caught as I sucked a particularly sensitive spot. Her breaths came faster, her heart rate jolted, and it was all I could do to keep my fangs sheathed.
"Lyric?" The skin of her hips was so soft under my hands as they found the two tiny straps of her thong. I locked my gaze with hers, giving her every opportunity to say no, to tell me this was too fast as I pulled the tiny slip of fabric down her legs and over her sexy little heels.
Her knees trembled slightly as I pushed them wide, baring her completely.
Fuck me, she was perfect, pink and glistening. Staying away from her for the last week had been for her own protection, but it had only served to increase my hunger for her.
"I told you, you come first." That was all I said before my mouth was on her, licking her from opening to clit.
"Ohmygod!" She grabbed my hair by the fistful, but didn't tug me away. No, she held me right where I was, feasting on the sweetest nectar I'd ever tasted.
Shit, I was going to come from the overwhelming pleasure of feeling her slide down my throat. My cock throbbed in time with my fangs, both pulsing with demand.
Her hips rode the strokes of my tongue, and her little whimpers had me nearly undone. I sucked and licked around the swollen bud of her clit, then took it between my lips and flicked until her head thrashed on the cushions above me.
"Alek," she begged.
I slid one finger inside her tight sheath, and she clenched around me, clamping down in a velvet vise. She was so snug, her muscles rippling along my finger as I thrust in and out, working her clit with my tongue.
Fuck yes, I'd found a new way to spend my days, worshiping the incredible woman I'd somehow been lucky enough to find.
I added a second finger, curling them at just the right spot to drive her wild. Her breathy cries echoed off the walls, filling my head as I ate her relentlessly. It was only a matter of minutes before her legs tightened, then shook as her keening little moans pitched higher.
I pressed against her with the flat of my tongue, and she came, screaming my name so loudly I almost expected the windows to shatter. I grinned in satisfaction, but my instincts demanded appeasement, and my fangs lengthened.
With one last lick, I turned my head slightly and sank my teeth into that pulsing vein in her thigh.
Her blood was a symphony in my mouth, mixing with the honey of her pussy and creating a flavor I knew I'd never get enough of.
She moaned, her hips rolling, and I fucked her with my fingers as I fed, using my thumb to rub her clit and coax another orgasm from her willing body.
I took just enough, then lifted my head and sealed the two tiny puncture marks with my tongue. The healing agent in my saliva wouldn't only stop the bleeding, but speed up her body's ability to replace what I'd taken.
The walls of her pussy were still contracting with the last waves of her orgasm when my fingers retreated. I leaned against the couch, hoping my dick would get the message that it didn't get to come out and play tonight, but the painful throbbing only intensified.
"Alek." She yanked on my hair, and I went willingly, taking her mouth in a deep kiss.
"God, I want you," I said against her mouth, keeping my hands firmly planted on the cushions beside her.
"Then take me," she whispered, reaching for my belt.
I groaned in sheer frustration. "We can't."
"I'm pretty sure we can." She gripped my length through my pants.
Pleasure shot up my spine. I'd never felt this urgent before, never needed to fuck a woman more than I needed my next breath. But we couldn't, not tonight.
"I want nothing more than to drive myself inside your body, but we can't. Not until we're married." Yet another reason I'd been staying away from her. Vampire law was absolute when it came to royalty, and I would never let my own lust jeopardize my throne, not when it was the only thing keeping her alive.
"I'm sorry?" Lyric froze. "Did you say married?"
“Married.” I nodded, already moving to slip her panties back into place.
She arched her hips as I slid her underwear over that incredible ass. Twice now I'd had my hands on her and had to yet to see her naked. Soon, I promised myself.
I stood and helped her to her feet, but she didn't look like a satisfied woman on the cusp of wearing her own crown. She looked pissed. Alarm bells went off in my head as she backed away, shaking hers.
"I am not marrying you over a severe case of Stockholm syndrome!" She continued retreating, and I followed, matching her step for step.
"You're my mate." My brows drew tight, not understanding why she thought we had a prisoner-captive relationship.
"I'm a doctoral candidate who has missed three weeks’ worth of meetings with my advisor!" H
er beautiful green eyes widened in obvious panic. "I just met you. My best friend is probably going out of her mind. I've gone so nocturnal trying to keep your schedule that my eyes water as soon as the sun rises." She lifted her fingers to her temples. "Not that you would notice, since I'm the only one sleeping in your bedroom. It almost took an act of God to get outside your house in the morning considering the whole place locks down with iron over the windows like you're expecting some kind of hurricane."
"Why would you go out in the sun?" My stomach roiled at the thought of her wandering unprotected, where I couldn't get to her.
"Why am I a prisoner?"
"You're not a prisoner. You’re protected," I countered.
"You can't keep me here forever." She turned on her toes and strode the door. I would've stopped her, but then I would have been guilty of exactly what she was accusing me of. "Marry you," she muttered as she reached for the door handle.
"Would it really be that bad?" Sure, I hadn’t gotten down on one knee, hadn't presented her with a ring, either, but was this really how this was going down?
"I have a life!"
"You are now my life," I snapped.
She paused at the door, then muttered a curse under her breath and stepped into the hallway. "You have to be fucking kidding me," she said. "Were you listening at the door?"
I didn't bother to walk, I wended straight into the hallway. Lyric stood with her arms folded, glaring at Cassandra.
Shit. I stepped between them, and bared my fangs slightly to warn the pain-in-my-ass-noble that Lyric was off limits.
"Seriously?" Lyric stepped to my side. "I can take care of myself."
Cassandra was bold enough to laugh. "Oh, you silly little thing."
"I'm silly?" Lyric lifted her arm, bearing the mark she wore on her wrist and facing it toward Cassandra. "At least I got my mark for free."
Cassandra's eyes shot to mine, startled and slightly accusing.
I nodded once. I wasn't hiding the fact that I’d found my mate, but I hadn't officially announced it either. Which was probably a good thing, considering she refused to marry me. Now that was a problem I hadn't foreseen.
"That's right," Lyric snapped. "Unlike your decorative tat, mine means something. So you can stop offering to feed him and casting little doe-eyed looks his way."
Well, this was interesting. Had to admit, Lyric’s possessiveness was sexy as hell. It was also the trademark of a mated female. She might not have wanted to marry me yet, but she wouldn't be leaving either. She would feel the pull between us just as strongly as I did.
"You may bear his mark, but you'll be dead long before I am," Cassandra said with false sympathy, earning my growl. "My poor Alek." She shook her head slowly, casting her eyes downward. "Humans have such short lifespans."
Lyric reared back as though she'd been struck.
"That's enough." The only reason I didn't crush Cassandra right then and there was the headache involved with dealing with her father. Aristocrats were a pain in my ass.
Lyric recovered quickly, tilting her chin upward. "That may be, but this little mark doesn't just mean that I'm his. It means he's mine, too.” She blew by Cassandra, dismissing her in a way that left me grinning as she headed for the residence.
Lyric’s temper only proved that she was indeed my mate.
Now I had to figure out how to keep her alive.
“Tell me you’ve found something,” I said to Julian the next day, not bothering with pleasantries as I walked into the archives located deep beneath the estate, Lachlan at my side.
The room was roughly the same dimensions as the ballroom above and lined with both shelves of books and pressurized, humidity-controlled rooms we’d had installed in the last few decades to preserve the oldest texts.
“My king.” Julian looked up from the table where he sat surrounded by yellowed manuscripts and ancient scrolls. The vampire had two hundred years on me, not that anyone could tell. He was dressed like he’d just walked off a college campus, in a zip-up hoodie and athletic pants. “It’s more that I haven’t found something,” he said slowly.
“Go on.” I looked over the open legal text written in our ancient language, and Lachlan sank into the chair across the table.
“I feared that the translation of our laws may have missed a word or two.” He spun in his chair, and retrieved a book from the desk behind him, then flipped it open and set it before me. “See here, it says that the King will wed a bride of his choosing who bears his crest from an acceptable line.”
“Right.” I folded my arms across my chest. That was why Cassandra had been all too happy to tramp stamp my crest across her lower back.
“If I may be so bold—”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Julian. You’re our elder. Be bold,” Lachlan muttered.
I shot my second a look, but he simply shrugged.
“What? You’ve been an ornery, twitchy arse the last month, and it’s only getting worse. If Julian doesn’t find a solution, it will be your own Assassins that kill you off, and I’ll be first in line.” He leaned back in his seat.
Julian’s eyes narrowed in my direction. “Has it gotten worse since the mark appeared on the human’s wrist?”
“Lyric, Julian. Her name is Lyric.” Now that I thought about it, the last week had been nearly torturous. “And yes. It’s worse. There’s a pounding, clawing need to be at her side, and there’s not a lot of downtime when it comes to the overseeing of our species and tracking down my sister’s attackers. Even when I do manage to see Lyric…” Dinner was especially difficult. “There’s a craving that demands all my effort to deny.”
That was putting it lightly. Every time I was in the same room with Lyric, it was all I could do to keep from throwing her on the table so I could get inside her with both my fangs and my cock. Even now, I could sense where she was on the estate—the library in the residence—and had part of my mental reserves concentrating on staying in this room so I didn’t follow through on my desires.
“That’s going to get worse until you complete—”
A low growl rumbled through my chest at his implications.
Julian paled slightly. “Until you’re with her.” He rolled his chair another foot away.
“See? He’s impossible to live with right now,” Lachlan noted with a roll of his eyes.
“The good news is, once you’ve solidified that bond, the cravings will be more intense for a period of time—”
“That’s not good news.” Lachlan sighed, scratching the back of his neck.
“— but then they’ll be manageable. Mated pairs always need the physical contact of the other, it’s built into our genes, but even something as simple as…” Julian swallowed. “Sleeping next to your mate at night should help keep the worst of it away.”
The need between mated pairs was ingenious in a way. It made sure that the two couldn’t go long periods without sex or contact, which was essential to the survival of our race.
“Fuck that.” Lachlan scoffed. “Sorry, Alek. You can keep your leash. I’ll be happily single for the rest of my existence.”
Julian looked across the table at the burly Scotsman. “I’m sure you know that every female you touch could become that…leash.”
Lachlan’s brows furrowed. “Aye, but it’s rare. How many mated pairs have you known in all your years, Julian?”
Several seconds went by before he answered. “Sixteen. Thirteen of which were either of the royal house or in the Order. Stronger blood, stronger males, stronger bonds. There’s a balance to it all.”
“And how does all this help me keep Lyric alive?” I snapped. Every day Xavier sent a demon emissary to the opera house, waiting for me to turn her over. Every day he went home empty-handed, only riling up the demon king’s temper even more. “Conclave is in a little over a week, and I have to have legal grounds to stand on.”
“Then do what I already told you to and marry her.” Julian pointed to the passage he’d just read out loud. “T
his says acceptable bloodline.”
“Not sure if you’ve noticed, but Alek’s girl isn’t exactly a vampire,” Lachlan stated with an obvious lack of patience.
My stomach flipped as it hit me. “It doesn’t say vampire.”
“Exactly.” Julian grinned and turned to the ancient text he’d been studying when we walked in, flipping back a few pages. “Now, since I was the one who did this translation between the two British wars, I was worried perhaps I’d gotten something wrong, but the old text is translated perfectly, see? The King will wed a bride of his choosing who bears his crest from an acceptable line.”
The two British wars—the revolution and 1812. Julian knew our laws better than any other living vampire. He’d been there at the formation of Conclave, too.
“Acceptable blood,” I muttered. That was our problem.
“I’ve found a potential solution for that, too, but I’m not going to lie and say that marrying Lyric won’t jeopardize your throne. Wait here.” The scholar rose from his seat and grabbed another text from the desk behind him. “If you look back in the law to which families are deemed acceptable for writs of nobility, it is at the discretion of the King. Whomever dictated our ancient laws must have worked off the assumption that only a vampire would be considered. That arrogance is going to give you the loophole you need.” He flipped through the text—this one a modern, typeset version, and pointed to the passage. “Here. So, if you deem her to be of an acceptable bloodline, then you can argue that she is worthy to be your queen. As long as…” He looked away.
“As long as what?” Lachlan barked. “Spit it out, man. You’re holding the future of our species in your hands.”
He wasn’t wrong there. There would be no other for me.
“As long as she’s…and this is the law, sir, not my opinion—intact, as it would say.” He got out those last words slowly.
“She has to be a virgin? What kind of bullshit is that?” Lachlan spat. “We’re immortal, we’re not just hanging around for centuries without sex, and neither are the females. Who the hell put that into law?”
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