by Elena Lawson
Provoke Me
THE LAST VOCARI: BOOK 2
Elena Lawson
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
AUTHOR NOTE
Copyright © 2019 Elena Lawson
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Characters, incidents and dialogs are products of the author’s
imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events is strictly
coincidental.
Cover by Moorbooks Design
1
I wanted to rip his fucking head off.
It was damn near impossible to hide the swell of thoughts the moment I looked into his eyes. Like a dam lowering, they flowed unrestrained into the forefront of my mind.
It’s him.
Holy fucking shit it’s him…
The bastard who murdered my mother.
Right here. Right now. Trying to cut a motherfucking deal with me.
I quelled the urge to charge him with shaking fingers. Had to snuff out the burning thoughts so he wouldn’t hear them. Hot, furious tears welled along the rims of my eyes, and I lowered my head, not wanting him to see. My teeth clenched together so hard I thought I’d crack a damned tooth.
He must have kept his word this time. He must’ve been staying out of my thoughts because he said nothing, just waited there patiently for my response.
My response?
Right—he’d asked me a question I had yet to answer.
“Do we have an agreement?” the vampire called Azrael asked again, repeating the question more slowly, as though he were speaking to a young child.
My skin bristled at the barely concealed condescension and disgust in his tone. My heart thundered in my ears and I made a knee-jerk decision. “Yes,” I ground out.
“Good.”
He rose from the chair by the fireplace with practiced grace. I didn’t dare look up again—still trying to conceal my thoughts from him.
I imagined a blank wall of white stone in my mind and focused on building it larger to try to stop the hemorrhaging of thoughts I was trying to conceal.
The ancient vampire went to move away, and my heart skittered. I glanced around at my surroundings; the cold stone walls, the bed, a side table, and the open maw of the hearth were the only things in the congested space. My stomach dropped. He was not about to leave me here in this fucking tomb.
“Wait,” I stopped him, my face pinching with the effort of keeping my voice level. “Where am I?”
He didn’t reply.
“How long do I have to stay here?”
Still no reply. The fucker left me staring at his back. His long russet hair glinting with strands of red in the firelight. His thick shoulders tensing with each question I asked.
I gulped, deciding to change tactics. It was obvious I was stuck here—at least for now. But there was one thing I needed from him before I could condemn myself to this cold cell. One small bit of reassurance.
“I want to see that they’re alright.” I tried to sound demanding, but as my hands curled into fists in the fur atop the bed, I only managed to sound pathetic to my own ears.
“And you shall,” Azrael responded, his deep voice gravelly. “Once you’ve proven…cooperative with my requests.”
I stiffened.
“Rest now, sweet Rose. I’ll have someone bring you something to eat shortly. You’ll be needing your strength.”
When I looked up, he was gone. A whisper of movement the only indication he’d been there at all.
Fuck.
I smashed my fist against the bedpost and growled my frustration, the pain of my knuckles splitting open against the hard wood helping to sharpen my focus. Warm blood dribbled down my fingers as I shook out the sting.
The deluge of thoughts came back as the white stone wall I’d erected around them fell flat. I could only pray Azrael was far enough away that he wouldn’t hear them.
Angry as I was that he wouldn’t allow me to see the guys—to verify with my own eyes that they were unscathed—a slow smile spread across my lips and I shivered at the intense feeling of anticipation that washed over me like a balm to my shaken nerves.
Reeling back, I hit the bedpost again and was rewarded with the beautiful sound of splitting wood as the top section of the post broke off from the base and skipped onto the bed and clattered to the floor. The sharp edge where it’d broken free from the whole wouldn’t need much whittling to be shaped into a stake.
‘I’d encountered this phenomenon only once before, but unfortunately the subject died…’
Azrael had all but told me from his own lips that he was the one who’d murdered her. And his eyes were proof enough for me. They were the same ones I’d hunted for the last ten years. The ones I checked for after each kill—hopeful that I’d finally delivered the true death to the one who ended the life of the only family I had left.
I’d play this fucker’s little game.
He wanted a cooperative captive and I’d give him one.
Azrael was clearly the oldest vampire I’d ever encountered. He’d be the fastest and the strongest too. I had no doubt. I could feel it in my bones whenever he drew near. That otherness made my blood buzz and my heart pound in warning against the monster it sensed before it.
I wasn’t naïve enough to think I could take him with nothing but a wooden stake and pure rage.
I would need to heal and gather my strength. To get a lay of this creepy ass cave he had me trapped in.
It would take time and careful planning.
It would take patience.
But I smiled because The Black Rose never lost. I was infamous for a reason. There was a bounty on my head for a reason. Azrael knew my name because the underground world of immortal beasts whispered it in hushed tones, afraid to speak it too loudly for fear of conjuring me.
I smiled as I ran the edge of the busted bedpost back and forth against the rough stone floor because…Azrael had just given me my greatest challenge yet.
2
Azrael wasn’t lying about sending someone in with food. A slight woman with graying hair in a tight bun and a soft and warm countenance came into my room about an hour later.
By then I’d had time to sufficiently destroy the rest of the bed frame and posts and completely shatter the small end table to unrecognizable bits against the stone floor. My newly fashioned stake was carefully tucked up into the bottom of the bedframe, and with all the destruction, I hoped no one would be able to tell there was a piece missing.
Though if this Azrael fucker had lived as long as I assumed he had, I had to believe it wasn’t because he was stupid. But cocky was another form of stupid I’d found most males with half a brain possessed. Azrael may catch on to the fact that I plan
ned to kill him—he just had to be cocky enough to believe I posed no threat. Then I could prove otherwise.
“Oh!” The older woman exclaimed as she entered my chamber from the dark stone hall. A hall I fully intended to investigate as soon as I was able to re-break and set the bones in my foot.
The woman huffed, and I felt for the otherness that would tell me whether she was a vampire but felt nothing. She couldn’t have been more than five feet tall and at least fifty—she posed no threat—even in my current state. But that didn’t stop me from watching her every movement like a hawk circling prey.
I didn’t make it as far as I had in life by underestimating people.
“This won’t do,” she tutted as she set the tray down on the bed next to me, clucking her tongue. My mouth watered at the feast laid out on the tray. A thick and juicy-looking steak, herbed potatoes, and buttered green beans. The white mug was steaming with an aroma that could only be coffee, and a tall glass pitcher of water dominated one side of the tray.
I swallowed hard, hesitating to reach out for the water. What if it was poisoned? What if it was all poisoned?
“Master Azrael is going to be so upset…”
The woman bent to begin cleaning the mess on the floor, tossing small pieces of wood into the fire. It was like I wasn’t even here.
“Uh…” I began, watching as she knelt among the mess, gathering her apron and skirts to sit back on her heels. “I’m…sorry?” I tried, the word souring on my tongue.
If I was going to have any chance of getting what I wanted, I had to at least pretend to be pliant. To ‘cooperate’ as Azrael said.
She finally looked up and her glassy faded blue eyes roved over me. She clucked her tongue again and shook her head. “You’re skin and bones. Go on—eat up and then I’ll take you to the devil’s spring.”
“The what?”
“To bathe,” she threw her hands up and huffed as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Begging your pardon, miss, but you look positively awful. I’ve never seen a grown adult so dirty.”
She was going to take me out of this cell?
My eyes widened as a thought struck me and I shoved myself from the bed and knelt in front of her at eye level. She recoiled back in surprise, but then her gaze met mine.
I let the power of my compulsion rise within me and focused my thoughts on twisting hers. “Show me the way out of here,” I said.
She blinked twice and cocked her head at me. “I can’t, dear. I’m afraid I don’t know it, myself.”
Groaning, I rocked back on my heels, biting the inside of my cheek as I considered another route. When I glanced back up at her, I found her watching me curiously and I realized all at once that the glassiness I saw in her eyes wasn’t the dull gloss of age, but the shining veneer of compulsion.
Fuck.
She’d already been compelled. And if it was Azrael who compelled her, there was no way in hell my compulsion would be strong enough to combat his.
Solemnly, I bowed my head. “Never mind,” I said and hobbled back to the bed on my broken foot, grimacing.
The woman continued clearing the mess from the floor, muttering something to herself. She was old enough to be a mother—maybe even a grandmother. I wondered what family the beast had snatched her away from and a bolt of sizzling fury rippled through my body.
What right did he have to kidnap people and bend them to his will? I tried to get a look at her neck beneath the collar of her blouse but couldn’t tell whether or not there were puncture marks there. If he was feeding on her, too, I might just vomit.
“Eat, girl!” The woman chastised as she rose, adjusting her back to get out an obvious crick. “You’re skin and bones.”
My mouth watered again as I looked down at the tray. For half a second, I thought eating it would be worth the risk of poisoning…
“Do you think the master’s poisoned it?” The woman asked, seemingly confused at my reaction.
I didn’t answer, just glared down at my steak and potatoes.
“Foolish girl!”
She stomped over to the bed and plucked a potato from the tray, popping it in her mouth. “The master wouldn’t dream to feed you poison. How ridiculous,” she said around the mouthful of potato. “I didn’t spend my evening for it to go to waste. If you won’t have it, I will.”
As she swallowed the hunk of root veg, I watched her carefully, making sure there were no obvious signs of poisoning.
Finally, she huffed and threw up her hands. “Starve, then, if you please,” she balked, and turned to leave. “I’ll be back to take you for bathing just as soon as I’m finished with the mess in the kitchen.”
I considered the food in front of me again, and a thought crossed my mind—prodded by something she’d said. ‘The master wouldn’t dream to feed you poison…’
He said he needed me, hadn’t he? This Azrael needed me to cooperate. And I couldn’t very well do that if I were dead or ill from poisoning, could I?
Begrudgingly, I knelt before the tray, my mouth watering as I carved a massive bite from the steak with the dull butter knife I was given in lieu of a proper steak knife. Smart fuckers. Though, it didn’t seem to matter much. The meat was incredibly tender and came apart easily under the pressure of the knife.
I didn’t stop at the first bite. Suddenly ravenous and eager for my body to finish healing itself, I’d inhaled the entire meal within ten minutes. Finished all the water, too.
Distantly, I felt the weak urge to use a bathroom, but with my stomach full and the adrenaline of waking in a strange place, with a strange man, fading…I found it almost impossible to keep my eyes open.
Had I been wrong?
Was the food laced with something, after all?
A…a sleeping elixir, maybe?
My vision doubled. And then tripled. The weights on my eyelids grew heavier and my head spun as I flopped back onto the fur and cushions.
3
His hands circled my thighs, gripping tightly to the supple flesh there as he pulled my legs apart. My heart skittered into a frenzied pounding in my chest as his warm breath gently caressed my lips.
I was buck ass naked and tied to the bed like before, except this time there was no blindfold. My hands were tightly bound with leather straps to the bed posts, and my legs were tied the same, but with a little more slack in the length of stiff leather cord.
Between my legs was Blake. I could just make him out in the flickering light of the fire. The roaring flames in the old stone hearth making his near-black hair shine with red fire and his dark eyes flash every time he looked up at me.
“Blake,” I whimpered, pulling at the binds holding me against the mattress. I wanted to run my fingers through his hair. I wanted to trace the lines of every whorl of black ink on his immaculate body. I wanted to kiss every fucking inch of him. And then I wanted to take the proud length of him into my mouth and let the little minx in the back of my mind take over until he saw stars and nothing else.
I could do none of those things. Not tied up like I was. I was powerless to do anything but writhe and moan as he finally mercifully took my pussy into his mouth, his expert tongue circling my clit.
Fuck.
He really knew what he was doing down there, another few minutes and this Rose would burst into a puddle of petals against the satin sheets.
I arched my back as he slipped two fingers inside, playing me like a musical instrument. I hissed and moaned and nearly screamed when he started that maddening flicking with his tongue again.
“Come for me, Rose,” he paused to whisper against the sensitive flesh and something inside me came undone at the commanding tone in his voice. He wasn’t asking me. It was an order. And my body felt the need to obey.
I came against his lips, as his fingers drove into me again and again, lengthening the orgasm until all my muscles were coiled tight and bright spots crowded my vision.
I didn’t have the chance to get my head straight or to
clear my vision before Blake had moved. My body heaved and my breath left me in a great gasping breath as he impaled my pussy. The thrust so hard it was almost painful, but the almost pain made the pleasure that much more delicious.
Blake settled himself inside of me and I looked up to find my tall-dark-and-handsome staring down at me with a delicious grin on his lips. I bit my lip at the marvel of him and he growled, his fangs sliding low. My heart pumped and my blood sang with the need for him to bite me.
I wanted those fangs inside of me just as surely as I wanted his cock.
I bared my neck to him, and he hissed, sliding himself out only to drive back in hard—a punishment for tempting him. As Blake began to circle his hips slowly, letting me adjust to the size of him while simultaneously hitting every fucking nerve down there, my body shook with desire and longing. Greedy and wanting another release already.
“Not yet,” Blake commanded. “You’ll cum when I say so.”
I nodded, straining against my binds as he began pumping into me, slowly at first, but then faster, and faster still, until I was on the verge and the ability to contain myself was slipping.
“Good girl,” he said, his own voice straining now.
His cock drove into me again and again, and as my eyelids fluttered open, I saw how his fangs were out in earnest now and my body responded to the desire, my back arching up sharply until he couldn’t stop himself.
Blake’s head lowered until my breast was in his mouth, until his fangs pierced the sensitive skin there. I cried out at the initial pain, but as the pain smoothed out into an intense and all-consuming pleasure radiating out through every nerve, I shivered. Blake drank from me as he fucked me until I could hardly see for all the sensations taking over my mind and body.