The Queen's Protectors (A Throne of Blood Book 1)

by Scarlett Snow

  “Of course I will, Mr. Digby. If my mother trusted you, I see no reason why I shouldn’t. I hope the next time we meet will be under lighter circumstances. Thank you for coming here so quickly.”

  “It was the least I could do. Your mother was such a gracious woman. To have gone in such a cruel, barbaric way…” He seems to regard himself, and his worried eyes search my own. “Forgive me.”

  Ronan places a comforting hand on my shoulder, and I give the lawyer a genuine smile. “My mother did deserve better. It’s why I promise to make sure her assets continue to grow as best as I can and that she is not forgotten.”

  In other words: I’ll kill whoever laid a finger on her even if it costs me my life.

  Digby beams and lets go of my hand. “Marvellous. You look just like her, if you don’t mind me saying. It’s the eyes. The amethyst glow in them. And the blonde hair, of course. Eloise was as graceful in beauty as she was in her heart.” His voice breaks a little. He clears his throat. “She will be sorely missed.”

  “She… she will be,” I agree, swallowing the lump in my throat. “Thank you, Mr. Digby.”

  He reaches into his pocket and hands me a glossy business card. “Do call me whenever I can be of use. I shall be honored to serve you as I did your mother. G’night to you.”

  I nod and watch Ronan escort him out. Once I hear his footsteps enter the elevator and Ronan close the room door behind him, I burst into tears. I’m unable to restrain myself. It’s like the dam has erupted within me and the water gushes from my entire body. I bury my face into my trembling hands, fall onto my knees, and cry my heart out, picturing my mother butchered on her kitchen floor, over and over again, drowning in her own blood.

  At some point, Ronan cradles me in his arms, and my tears soak through his coat. I bundle his shirt into my hands, press my face into the hollow of his neck, and I weep until I lapse into a dreamless exhaustion. Only then does the pain end, but it only serves as a momentary reprieve.

  Since vampires do not require sleep, I hold Violet in my arms until a deep slumber takes her. Mouth slightly parted, her breath is hot against my neck as I gaze down at her, running my eyes over the dark smears her bloody tears left down her freckled cheeks.

  Pressing my lips to her forehead, I whisper, “Today’s the day everything changes, my queen.”

  I hate how my stomach churns at the thought of sharing Violet with the others, but I know it must be done. I’ve dreaded this day for nearly sixty years; I can no longer keep her to myself. I cannot indulge my selfish desires, not when her life will soon be under threat. I guess I just never expected to fall in love with her.

  In my two hundred years, I’d never met anyone like Violet. As she grew up and continued to defy her caretakers, I soon learned that she was as resilient as she was passionately stubborn. She didn’t shy away from danger. She faced her problems in life with a level of certainty that even some of the oldest vampires I have encountered aren’t capable of doing. When Violet vowed to avenge her mother’s murder, I harbored no doubt that she would.

  In all honesty, when I first met Violet, I thought I was being saddled with a brat. I’d been a member of Sinclaire’s Paranormal Protection Unit (The Unit) since the doors opened in the early 1960s. I had heard whispers of the CEO’s child on my first day and how Violet was an abomination among vampires and shifters. No dignified creature would be seen mating with the opposite race after the ancient immortals forbade the coupling long ago. It had become taboo once a member of the shifter royal family, Princess Tara, was abducted and maliciously turned into a vampire. The princess later decided to create her own royal family, consisting entirely of vampires, and both families have been at war ever since, each fighting for ultimate control of the Shadow World. It’s been a long, bloody feud, with seemingly no end in sight. As a result, mixing both races has been punishable by death for over a century now.

  So when I was summoned to Eloise Sinclaire’s office late one night, and saw the sleeping creature bundled in her arms, I never in my wildest dreams thought I would become her Protector.

  I was quickly sent to London to be the child’s shadow and make sure nobody found or harmed her. It wasn’t an easy task. I hired nannies to raise the child while I, too, blended in with the rest of her servants, constantly monitoring her to make sure she kept out of harm’s way. I’d been a friend, in a way, but nothing more. It wasn’t until she tried running away again on her twentieth birthday, back to her mother in New York, did I realise how much she meant to me—to our world. Somewhere along the way, I found myself falling in love with her. It was like I had seen her in a completely new light. I desired to protect her, yes, but I also craved her touch, her blood, her lips on my cock, and her pussy clenching around me. She became the light within my darkness I had been seeking my entire life. I can’t imagine my life without her now, not just as her bodyguard, but as her lover.

  Her Protector.

  I gently ease Violet forward and lay her on the bed. I stretch up from the mattress and rotate my neck and shoulders. I didn’t feed last night, and I can feel the minor toll it’s taken on my body. My vision has darkened, which suggests my emerald eyes have turned crimson, and I can smell humans in the room next door. Such a delectable, tempting smell. I shake my head and make my way into the kitchen. My appetite is stronger than Violet’s since I’m not half-shifter, and sometimes, I cannot resist the temptation of drinking from a willing human. But only when Violet allows it. She is my queen, after all, and I must obey her no matter what.

  My stomach rumbles as I open the fridge, grab a blood bag, and throw back the contents. I toss the plastic into the trash and head for the bathroom. I run Violet a warm bubble bath, drop in her favorite lavender bath bomb, and gather some towels. I roll my shirt sleeves up, which I notice are stained in Eloise’s blood from last night, and check the temperature. Violet prefers her baths to be scalding. I’ve never understood why. It’s like she’s cooking herself from the inside out. I smile to myself envisioning how endearing she looks when she steps out, her skin raw, her freckled face flushed, and telling me to stop judging her masochistic desire for worryingly hot baths.

  When I enter the bedroom to rouse Violet, I find her already sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at her palms. Her posture and countenance is unlike anything I’ve ever witnessed from her in her adult years. Violet has always been so headstrong and emotionally in control. It takes a lot to break her, but right now, she is exactly that: broken. I pause at the door and watch her, wishing I could take away her pain. I suspect she’s trying to figure out how to go on living without her mother. Not even magic can erase the loss of a loved one. I tried that ninety-one years ago when my wife and children were taken from me.

  I’d give anything to take this pain away from Violet. Even though I’d raised her in England, Eloise had visited her daughter as often as she could. As any child would, Violet loved her mother dearly despite the distance, and until recently, the two were close. While we didn’t know the exact circumstances, she’d understood why her mother may have cut contact off. Violet’s existence was forbidden among shadow folk, and she knew that was one of the main reasons her mother couldn’t be with her all the time. If she were, Eloise’s concealment spell would have weakened around the manor and over Violet, which meant Violet’s scent would’ve soon been picked up by nearby spies. It was imperative that Eloise had only visited on a Blood Moon, when her powers were strongest and more difficult to intercept, because of the danger of spies lurking in the shadows. This meant Violet rarely saw her mother, and she’d come to terms with that.

  I felt Violet lived a rather solitary childhood, particularly considering she found it increasingly difficult to make any friends. Behind the scenes as her bodyguard, I arranged multiple activities and holidays for her when she was a child. I instructed her caretakers to keep her busy at every waking moment, but more often than not, Violet tried running back to her mother in New York. Money and the best schooling were just empty ad
hesives when missing your loved ones. I knew that better than anyone. I guess that’s why, once she came of age, I stopped treating her like my client and acted more like her friend. I never expected to fall in love with her—my queen.

  “I’ve run you a hot bath,” I murmur, leaning a hand against the door frame.

  Violet looks up at me, her lilac eyes dry, expression vacant. “Thanks, Ronan. I guess I could do with a bath.” She glances at her blood-stained hands. “I scrubbed them just now yet nothing seems to be working. It’s like she refuses to let me go.”

  I hold out my hand to her. After a pause, she pushes off the bed and takes it. I steer her into the main bathroom, help her remove her bloody dress, and I guide her into the tub. She lies back against the ceramic and stretches out her legs. A look of contentment flits over her face, and she lets out a sigh.

  I roll my sleeves up higher, walk around the bath, and pick up a sponge.

  Violet’s cheeks turn pink, and I know it’s not because of the steam. “Ronan, you don’t have to wash me. I’m perfectly capable of doing that myself.”

  “I know you are. Tilt your head back for me, please.”

  Violet places her arms on the side of the tub and tilts her head. I bend down next to her, dip the sponge into the soapy water, and squeeze the liquid over her long blonde hair. The wet strands cling to her glistening body. A thin rivulet of blood from her skin races into the water and the valley in her throat flutters with restrained desire. I swallow the saliva gathering into my mouth and trail the sponge over her shoulders and back. I quickly lather shampoo into my palms and massage her skull.

  “Your mother’s secretary is expecting to meet you at Mystique today. He’ll be able to explain everything better than I.”

  “Will you come with me?” she asks, tensing her shoulders.

  I grab the sponge and rinse water onto her head. She moans as the warmth trickles down her spine. “As always,” I reassure, brushing her temple with my lips. “My body is your shield. Where you go, I go. Nothing will ever change that.”

  I kiss her cheek, her jawline, the hollow of her deliciously pulsating throat, and I scrape the sponge over her nipples. I take a nub between my fingers and twist. Violet gasps and presses her head into my chest. I deliberately breathe on the sensitive spot behind her left ear, and she shudders against me, tightening her grip on the tub.

  Smirking, I let go of the sponge and dip my hand below the water, seeking her warmth. I nibble on the side of her ear as I slip a finger into her wet entrance. She reaches back, tangling her hands into my hair, and pulls. I glide my fingers into her, hard and fast, the way she likes me to, while tugging at her nipple and grazing her throat with my fangs. Her scent consumes me. The room fills with the sounds of her intoxicating moans, and I release her nipple only to seize the swelling button between her neat folds. With my other hand I continue to pound into her, hitting her g-spot, until I feel her muscles spasm under the water, and she yanks harder at my hair.

  “Ronan… oh God, yes!”

  Her heartbeat is like an intoxicating thrum inside me. I go harder on her, circling her clit and fucking her pussy with my fingers. I want to take her mind off everything. For those few moments, as she whimpers in my arms, wet and wanting, I want my touch to be all she can think about. Pleasure over pain. Life over death.

  Violet seizes my forearms, and her moans pitch. “I’m… I’m going to… Oh, fuuck!”

  Her juices spurt into the water. I feel her muscles spasming around my fingers as I continue easing into her, draining her of every last droplet of her pleasure. When she relaxes against me, I retrieve my hand from the water and hold her gaze as I lick my fingers clean. A wicked grin plays on my lips as I watch her gasping and twitching in the bathtub. The smell of her sex drives me wild, and I want to keep going, want more of her. I need to be inside her, almost as desperately as I must quench my desire for blood. But I don’t want to push her too far. She just lost her mother, and despite how strong I know Violet is, I refuse to take any risks with her.

  I press a kiss ripe with longing to her forehead before turning to leave. I’ll make her some breakfast, and then we’ll be on our way to Mystique. My abdomen twists at the prospect of going there, however the sooner Violet is made aware of her situation, the better. She’ll be safer then. My queen must be safe at all times.

  I barely reach the door when Violet leaps from the bathtub and seizes me by the throat. Her lips crash against my own in a desperate rage of passion. Her tongue forces entry, and she yanks me against her with ravenous hunger, breathless and moaning. I grin against her sweet mouth. Yes, this is the Violet I have grown to worship. My ward. My soul mate. My queen. Soon, there will be more of us, and I can only pray she will have use of me still. Ten years as her lover is like a heartbeat to an eternal being such as us. I don’t want to lose her. She means everything to me now.

  I close my arms around her naked body and deepen our kiss. My unspoken doubts must have transmitted through my touch, for suddenly Violet swings me around and crashes me into the bath. Water surrounds me, plastering my clothes to my tensing body, and Violet straddles my thighs, her tongue hard at work inside my mouth.

  “No matter what happens from now on,” she breathes, her chest pounding, lilac eyes wild with hunger, “you’ll never leave me. You’ll always be at my side.”

  Her words are not a question but a statement, and a jolt of pleasure rushes to my cock. I wrap her dripping hair around my hand and pull her down to meet my lips again. A bloody tear escapes her eye and drips down her ashen cheek.

  I lean forward and lick the salty droplet onto my tongue. “I’m not going anywhere. Not unless you stake my heart, right here, right now.”

  Violet grins and relaxes her grip on my body. “Good. I just don’t want you to forget that.”

  “As if I ever could,” I reply, kissing her once more. “Your Majesty.”

  I watch Ronan adjust his silk tie in the bathroom mirror. He’s dressed in his typical gray suit again, but his tie is a deep red that makes me recall the taste of his blood on my tongue. I wet my lips and stand under the door frame, my hands pressed on my hips.

  “Earlier, you called me Your Majesty,” I say, suppressing a grin.

  I wiggle my eyebrows at him, feeling much lighter than I did yesterday. Shadow folk grieve differently than humans. We do not dwell on the past for long. Instead, we focus on the present and future, and both of mine are filled with avenging my mother instead of mourning her.

  Ronan’s hands still in the mirror. He side-eyes me, his knuckles blanched from tension, then returns to adjusting his tie.

  I step forward and take the silk between my fingers. I pull the material into a tight knot and smooth my hands down his chest. “There. All done,” I say, smiling up at him.

  “Thank you. Now, we should get going,” Ronan replies, avoiding my question. That never bodes well. “Kaleo, your mother’s secretary, is expecting us. I said you’d be there by noon.”

  I purse my cherry-red lips. “Why didn’t you arrange the appointment for night time like you normally do?”

  Since he became my lover, we agreed to conduct our business after dusk, though it’s not because the sun causes us to combust into flames. On the contrary, vampires only do that if they’ve been exposed to the sun for long periods of time. But the sunlight does irritate the pigmentation in their eyes, skin, and hair. It’s like a severe rash that can be fatal if left untreated by a healer. My mother was never seen without her sunglasses during the day, even within buildings, and Ronan prefers to work when the sun has gone down. If there was one perk of the fact I wasn’t born a full-blooded vampire, it was my ability to enjoy most hours of daylight/sunlight without taking the precautions most vampires find necessary.

  Ronan sweeps by me and into the lounge. I follow in his wake, arching an eyebrow at his dismissive response. He’s been cryptic ever since my mother stopped contacting me a few months ago. It was Ronan who suggested I visit her in the first p
lace. I think he feels guilty. I doubt he intended me to find my mother butchered and left to die like roadkill when he made the proposal.

  Anger coils in my stomach at the memory. I can’t believe it was only a day ago, yet so much has already changed. Not only have I lost my mother, but I’ve inherited everything she owned, including her fancy social club, Mystique, which boasts venues all over the world. I’ve never stepped foot in one before, my mother forbade me, but I wasn’t stupid. Or blind. I knew the Mystique clubs hosted extravagant burlesque and fetish shows for the elite. Despite the fact that Ronan and I dabble in BDSM, self-centered aristocrats aren’t my favorite kind of people to be around, so I agreed to steer clear of the clubs without argument. It was a good thing, too; I can barely eat a single meal without spilling something on my clothes.

  I grab my purse from the sofa and hold it against my tight, ruby hued cocktail dress. I chose to wear my favorite pair of Dr. Martens—old, tattered, worn-out black leather—and I smile at the thought of my mother clicking her tongue. She never did approve of them. At least these boots have heels on them.

  “There’s a car waiting for us outside,” Ronan informs me, holding the door open.

  I snort as I pass by him. “They sent a car for us? How fancy.”

  “Well, you are their boss now, Violet. One of the most powerful women in New York.”

  My blood freezes in my veins.

  Me—powerful? A hybrid exile who can barely walk two feet without tripping over her own shoe laces and is almost guaranteed to try to pull open a push door?

  “Lord help us all,” I say, stepping into the hallway with a grin.

  Ronan places a hand on my elbow and steers me into the elevator. “You’ll do fine. I’m right beside you.”