Hearts Unleashed: A Limited Edition Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy Collection

by C. D. Gorri

  “Jesus Christ.” I lean against the wall and rest my head against the cool tiles. What the hell just happened there? Anyone would think I was a teenage human the way I went off.

  Fated mate.

  The word is a whispered threat in the back of my mind. I push it away because no way can one moment of met gazes and a quick fist-fuck in the shower mean that I’ve met my fated mate, not when I was only thinking how ridiculous the whole notion is only moments before. That’s too much of a coincidence. Then again, the fates do like to play with us.

  Despite my personal denials about the mud-covered redhead, I take extra care as I dress that evening. I put on a pair of dark, rich velvet trousers and match them with a loose silk shirt, tucked into my waistband but billowing loosely over my broad shoulders and down my arms. My hair is short, unlike many males of our kind, and I wear a short beard, which is again unusual for vampire males. Many of them wear their hair long and their faces clean shaven. I like to keep myself as I was when turned.

  Unlike many of my brethren, my build is large and muscular. When I was turned, my skin was golden from hard work in the fields as a youth and later my calling as a soldier. It has retained some of that luster and never become quite as pale as many of my kind.

  I probably don’t look too different to the human males the red-haired beauty will have been used to seeing - except perhaps taller and more muscular. I was a soldier already, before I was turned, and I had a powerful build from long days fighting and marching. The vampire who sired me was a king, which makes me rather unusual.

  Half-blood. Call me what you will. I’m not vampire royalty, but I’m not far off. Not one of the ancient purebloods but turned by one. It means that if there were no one else to succeed, I could eventually become king. The Queen hasn’t turned anyone herself for hundreds of years, and her biological children have all passed before her - some of them in wars and some to accidental death.

  When one can’t die from biological illness or old age, one can become rather cavalier at the risks all around. I know a vampire who died when he fell to his death from a window, impaling his heart on a wooden plinth below. If he’d simply smashed into the ground, he would’ve survived the fall. It’s ironic that most of us meet an untimely end because we’ve gotten ourselves blood-drunk and let the sun burn us, or had an accident with a candle, rather than dying honorably in war…the way it used to be.

  I add a splash of aftershave, again specially prepared by the maidens, and check myself in the mirror. I grin. I’m not big headed, but I know I’m handsome; the maidens tell me often enough. Tonight, I look particularly smart. I wonder if the redhead will think so? I take one last glance and turn away.

  It’s a complete myth that we can’t see ourselves in the looking glass; we most certainly can. How humans think we would manage if we couldn’t is beyond me. We’d spend our lives not knowing how we looked, and there’s nothing vainer than a vampire. Male or female. We warriors of the Legion are less so as we are trained to fight, but good gods above, the rest of them? They love to wear bright colors and beautiful silks and adorn themselves in expensive lotions and potions.

  Vampires are sensual creatures.

  Grabbing my knife in case the Queen needs me to fight, and because a warrior is always prepared for battle, I leave my room and head down the hallway.

  “What are you thinking so deeply about?” Sebastian says as he falls into step beside me, closing the door behind him to his own suite.

  “If you must know, I was thinking about the days when we used to die a glorious death rather than falling accidentally to our death on wooden spikes or burning to death in our sleep because we were drunk on human blood and left the candles too close to the curtains.”

  Sebastian laughs. “We don’t have curtains here anymore, Dragan. The windows are all fitted with state-of-the-art blinds. I believe this points to your deeper malaise. You need a purpose in life, my friend.”

  He’s right. I do need a purpose in life, but it’s not what he thinks, which is getting married and settling down with some vampire wife for the next few hundred years.

  “How is your betrothed this eve, brother?” I ask him, formally in the old language.

  He chuckles and shakes his head. “She has spent the past three days doing nothing but looking at materials for her dress. It will have to be made with alarming speed because she can’t decide what to wear.”

  Vampire females don’t wear white on their wedding day because it would be ruined when the groom takes the first taste of their rich blood. Instead, they choose bright silk colors of deep reds, purples, royal blue, and rich emerald greens. Once married, vampire mates can only take human blood together and only for sustenance, not pleasure. Seems like a lifetime of boredom if you ask me.

  “Where are you heading?” Sebastian asks me.

  “To the great hall. There is an auction for a human female. I want to see what’s going on.”

  He pauses for a moment and turns to me, brow furrowed. “We don’t auction humans anymore.” He states the obvious. “I mean, we don’t need to because they all want to come here and be blood donors. At least the ones that know about us do.”

  We pick the humans quite easily by using their technology against them. We monitor chat rooms and find vampire fan boys and fan girls. Those are the humans that we bring to our fortress, the ones we know already love the myth and legend that surrounds us.

  “The only things we auction these days are the filthy wolf shifters we catch on our land.” Sebastian shrugs as we start to head down the stairs.

  I’d had the same thought, but she definitely wasn’t a shifter because I couldn’t smell her stinky wolf. I wouldn’t have felt the way I did over a shifter.

  “I hate that the only wolves in this damn forsaken country are the shifters,” I tell my friend.

  “They might not be soon,” he replies. “I read that the humans are thinking of re-introducing wolves, eagles, and maybe even bears to this region.”

  Bears? For fuck’s sake, that’s all we need roaming around here. There are already eagles here in Scotland, so unless he means a different species, I don’t quite know what he’s talking about. He is probably correct though because Sebastian reads a lot about the human world. Not me. I can’t be bothered with understanding what those idiots are doing. They’re a food source and nothing more.

  “This is where we diverge.” Sebastian slaps me on the back as we reach the bottom of the stairs. “I’m heading to the kitchens to fetch some blood wine for my beloved. She needs sustenance.”

  I pause and turn to him. “Doesn’t it bother you that once you’re married you won’t be able to take blood wherever you see fit? You’ll have to search around to find a donor that she approves of. And you’ll always have to feed together.”

  “Not one bit. I wouldn’t let her take blood from any male unless I had approved him and I was in the room at all times. We’ve agreed that one month our feedings will be from a male and the next one from a female, and we will get to pick together who we allow into our bedroom. There will be no sexual contact between us and the donors. They will only provide the blood and then leave. If you could understand even a minuscule amount of the depth of feelings I have for Laura, then you wouldn’t ask me this question. I know you have some sort of strange phobia about commitment, Dragan, but it’s the best thing that’s happened to me.” He starts to walk away but then he stops and turns around, facing me with a somber expression on his face. “In fact, the only thing that could make this better would be if my best friend approved.”

  “It’s not that I don’t approve,” I tell him. “I suppose I just don’t understand.”

  “No, but perhaps one day you will. You can’t win against biology, Dragan. When you meet your mate, that’s it. Boom. It hits you like a truck, and you can’t walk away from it.”

  His words send a shiver of forewarning down my spine. The redhead’s gaze hit me like a ton of bricks, didn’t it? I ought to turn around r
ight now and go back to my room. Let someone else buy the human and use her as a servant and keep well away from her. She’s human for pity’s sake. If she’s my fated mate, then she’ll be in for a whole world of shock.

  Sebastian stalks off towards the kitchen to gather fortified blood-wine for his betrothed, and I turn in the opposite direction and head towards the Great Hall, despite my own better judgement.

  When I enter the room, the noise is almost deafening.

  There is an excitement in the air, and it tells me something different is occurring this evening. Damn right it is - the auction of a human.

  The Queen isn’t here, which is unusual for an auction. However, the mage is, and he sits in the chair next to the throne of the Queen at the head of the top table.

  The massive table runs almost the full length of the back wall of the room, and it groans with food. The feast won’t provide us with any energy or calories that we can consume and convert, however, we do enjoy the sensual pleasures in life, and food is one of them.

  It makes me laugh sometimes how wrong the human myths about us are. I don’t even understand where the whole thing about garlic comes from. It is true that if a human being eats a meal full of garlic and onions it makes their blood taste sour, however, we can still drink it. And holding up a garlic bulb towards us will do absolutely nothing to protect anyone. Neither will throwing holy water at us.

  The human God is not our God.

  Someone on a table a few feet away guffaws loudly and pulls a human female onto his lap. He bares his fangs and sinks his teeth into her neck. She moans, and her head lolls against his shoulder as her eyes roll back in her head. In about two minutes, she’ll come like she’s never come before. Drinking from the humans always has that effect on them. The males don’t even make it two minutes before they’re spurting in their pants.

  I look away and gaze around the room.

  In front of the large top table there are smaller tables, where the lower members of our hierarchy can sit to eat and drink. Beyond those is a space for dancing, fighting and general merriment.

  Then there lies the centerpiece of the room, the wide marble steps leading up to the marble stage and our altar.

  The altar is a huge bowl made of the finest ancient Jade atop a gold plinth. This is where we used to, many centuries ago, spill the blood of virgins.

  We would drink the blood because our belief then was that it was purer. Now, we know with the advancement of science that was idiotic. The only thing that makes blood taste better or worse is what the person has been eating and drinking, and what their blood type is. For some reason, some of the rarer types taste all the more sweet.

  We still use the marble stage upon which the alter sits whenever we hold an auction. We’ve not had one in ages because no wolf shifters have been idiotic enough to venture near in a long time.

  I take a seat at the head table and wave over one of the serving boys. He offers me a glass of wine, actual wine rather than fortified blood, and I nod my head in a yes. He fills the glass and retreats.

  I sip at the dark red wine, enjoying the feel of it warming my throat and stomach as I stare ahead at the steps, waiting for the moment the woman that I saw earlier appears.

  To my side, the mage is making conversation with Joella, a female that I cannot stand. She’s un-trustworthy and scheming. Still, those are probably the very character traits that make the mage like her so. He’s also untrustworthy and scheming. The only reason he is here is because his magic is what keeps this fortress hidden from human eyes.

  We have a bargain with him. He keeps us safe with his magic, and the Queen keeps him alive with her blood.

  Sipping some more at the wine, I let the raucous laughter and conversation flow over me. I’m lost in my own world when I realize that a hush has fallen over the room.

  I look up and see in front of me the female from earlier. She stumbles as she’s pushed up the steps until she is standing on the marble stage right next to the altar.

  I stare at her as she gazes out into the room, her eyes round and wide, the terror in the depths hard for me to watch.

  I get an overwhelming urge to leap out of my seat and take her away from the room and everyone who is gawping at her.

  What the fuck? Why do I want to save her? This isn’t me. I’m not a rescuer of damsels in distress. Why do I care now? I force myself to stay in my seat.

  “Ladies and gentlemen. We present a real treat for you tonight,” Xenia begins, her voice full of excitement. “We found this little morsel wandering around on our land, and now she must pay the price for her trespass.”

  She must be a shifter. I shuffle in my seat and lean forward, taking keen notice. I’m confused. They wouldn’t take a human this way, but I scented no wolf on the female.

  The tattered clothes she is wearing do nothing to hide her petite but curvy frame, and my gums ache as my mouth waters. Her top is long sleeved, but muddy and ripped, and her plain pants are splattered in mud. I’ve not felt this level of desire for a long time. I want to devour her. I want to drink her blood, and as I lap at her slender neck, I’ll thrust into her soft wetness with my thick cock.

  She’s a shifter though, one of our mortal enemies and so far below us, it’s laughable. I can’t want her this way.

  The female clasps her hands in front of her, and Xenia rips her shirt from her torso, leaving her trembling in only a thin strappy top. Her nipples harden, and my whole body tenses with desire, swiftly followed by rage at the lewd comments racing around the room. Every male is looking at this female with desire, and she’s mine.

  “Let us start the bidding at say, one hundred gold coins,” Xenia says.

  Excited chatter erupts in the room, and a female vampire stands and shouts, “One hundred gold for the wench.”

  I lean back in my chair and watch as the bidding unfolds. Female after female bids for the young woman on the stage. They will use her as a maid, and she’ll be made to fetch and carry, cook and clean. They won’t drink from her because we see wolf shifters as filthy, but as I stare at the female, I’m quickly reassessing my previous prejudices. I can think of much better uses for her talents than being a mere servant.

  The bidding carries on around me, and, suddenly bored of this, I push my chair back and stand.

  “One thousand gold coins.”

  The room falls into silence as my deep voice booms around it. Even if someone wanted to outbid me, they wouldn’t dare. Only the Queen herself, or perhaps her mage, would have the status to outbid me.

  As I expected, no one says a word. I smile to myself and step around my chair as I stride to the stone steps at the very front of the hall. As I near, the meek female shrinks back as if I’m the devil himself. A surge of anger reverberates within me, and my gums throb as my fangs push their way through.

  This female should be grateful to me, not frightened. I’m saving her from a life of servitude. If she is with me, she will be of great importance.

  I pause midstride and consider my thoughts. All the eyes of the hall are on me, but I pay them no heed.

  With me?

  What do I think I’m going to do with this female? Make her mine? The way that Sebastian has claimed a mate for himself.

  No, it’s a ridiculous idea.

  I’m a warrior. More, I’m the leader of the warriors. There is no place in my life or my world for a female. Their softness, their whimsical ways, and their cares for the fancy things in life are not welcome in the harsh world I inhabit.

  Of course, on the other hand, in my rooms I have many luxuries provided for me as head of the Legion, and I suppose the female will spend her time there.

  But, she’s a wolf shifter. Our mortal enemies. The creatures who nearly brought us to extinction. We might denigrate them now, but deep down, we still fear them. They almost destroyed us. I can’t let a wolf shifter into my world, can I?

  I realize I need to make a decision and move one way or the other. Either I cancel my bid, tell the
room I was only joking and humiliate the young female on the stage, or I go ahead with it and claim her as my own.

  Of course, everyone in the hall will think I am merely buying myself a servant. I know, though, that she is something more.

  There’s something special about that girl on the stage, despite her fear, her tattered clothes, and the mud on her skin, she shines more brightly than the best dressed vampire in the room.

  I find myself walking to the stage, propelled as if by some unseen force to move towards the female who is now openly struggling, trying to free her wrist from Xenia’s hard grasp. As I near, I take in a scent, trying to find her wolf, and my world stops.

  If I thought things were bad when I first saw the young female and her blue gaze hit me, this moment pushes everything else into oblivion.

  Gods, her scent.

  Everything about her calls to me. I’ve not even spoken with the creature, and she’s already beguiled me.

  As if in a dream, I keep moving, slowly, as if walking through molasses. I finally reach the stage and extend my arm. The wolf shifter tries to hide behind Xenia, as if she’d be safer with that vicious female than she would with me.

  “Come,” I say. “The transaction is made, and you have no choice but to come with me. You trespassed, and wolves know this is the price to pay if caught on our land.”

  She does not reply, but her eyes fill with glassy tears. I want to taste them the same way I want to taste her blood and the same way I want to taste her pussy.

  “Hand her over.” I order Xenia.

  “Gladly,” she says with a smile. “I know you’ll be good for the money, Dragan. Please bring it to my rooms by six.”

  I nod once, giving her my assurance, and reach farther towards the cowering prisoner. I take hold of her wrist as soon as Xenia lets go and pull her to me.

  “What’s your name?” I command.

  “Lisbeth,” she says, her voice trembling.

  Lisbeth. That’s a lovely name.

  “Come with me, Lisbeth,” I tell her.

  I start to walk down the steps, but she gives resistance, pulling away from me once more. She’s trying to move back towards Xenia and the others that took her in the first place.