Immersion: Bloodlust Series Book 2

by L. L. Ash

  “Stay the hell away?” I finished for him.

  “Unfortunately.” He frowned. “When I’m in my office, I’m unavailable. When I’m in our bedroom, I’m all yours. I promise you.”

  “Ok. I’ll deal with Aurora. Get her clothes, help her get settled in.”

  “Thank you.” He dipped his head, kissing me.

  The peck turned into a real kiss and soon we were eating each other’s faces. Calix quickly threw me over his shoulder, did his little vampire ‘flash’ run and plopped me in the bed, making love to me all over again.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Calix wasn’t kidding when he said I’d see very little of him the next few days. I saw neither hide nor hair of him except in the very early twilight hours when he came to the bed to sleep. Three hours of rest and he was up, showering under icy water then heading back to his office. In those three hours, sometimes he would drink from me and make very sweet, but quick love to me before passing out from exhaustion.

  I did as much as I could for Aurora, but she really didn’t want much to do with me. Her and Janie had evidently become fast friends and they spent most of their hours together. I in turn spent time with Chrys and found him very changed just in the week he’d been with us.

  He was acting years older than he was, and had a confidence I’d never seen in him before. His skin glowed and he always wore a smile

  It was like my brother took an aphrodisiac pill and suddenly had irresistible pheromones to every female in his vicinity. Even I could see the charm he radiated. My brother was going to be a lady killer… God help the female population of the world when he got out of here.

  The three of us were sitting in the dining room, me and Chrys eating some lunch while Nyx watched us with a satisfied smile when we heard shouting coming from the front door. Our laughter halted and me and Nyx caught eyes. We were up in a flash, running to the door. Chrys was right behind us and fairly slammed into me when I stopped dead in my stacks.

  Neither of us noticed as we focused on the large, hairy men bringing in battered and bloody vampires. Six men stood stoically to watch over them, large guns in their hands. The men were dressed in black, with black paint on their faces. They looked absolutely military, and with their crystal eyes, they looked scary as hell.

  “To the dungeons,” Calix growled at the werewolves dragging the men in.

  Their emerald eyes gave them away to me.

  Calix didn’t even notice us standing there, he was so focused on the battered men being brought in. But after the men, there were women, shaking and sobbing, and a few older children, maybe fifteen or sixteen.

  The cold gleam in Calix’s eyes scared me as he stared them all down, but I approached him anyway. He could not kill women and children.

  “Cal,” I touched his shoulder and he whipped around.

  “Leave me, Lily,” was all he said.

  “No. Cal, you can’t kill them all. You can’t hurt women and children!”

  “Do you think the women and children wouldn’t kill us if they didn’t have a chance?” he growled at me, hand flying to my throat. “Do you think it was only grown men who attacked me? Financed the attack? Planned the attack that killed my family? We cut the head of the snake off, but the rest of the snake must die. I won’t deal with revenge killings in the future because I gave mercy today. This… I... am what happens when you leave survivors. Now leave me. Go to your room, Lily.”

  “Then you are a monster,” I breathed, tears burning my eyes and overflowing.

  “I never once said I wasn’t.” He scoffed. “It was ignorant and naïve for you to think otherwise.”

  With that I turned and stormed away, back to my bedroom. Our bedroom.

  Hours passed as I sat there alone. I tried watching TV to kill time but I could hear the screams and cries of the children and mothers in my mind.

  When he eventually came through the door, he was covered in blood. His shirt was wadded up in his hands, stained red and his hands up to his elbows had dried and caked blood crusted on them. There were patches of crimson on his chest and stomach where it had soaked through his shirt, and splatters across his neck and cheek.

  He didn’t talk to me as he breezed past toward the bathroom. The water turned on.

  I couldn’t take the silence and the flame of my own brooding. I went into the bathroom to confront him.

  My feet padded quietly on the tile floor but I didn’t think he heard me. He was bent over in the shower, bloody palms on the glass wall as the water beat against his back. His face was tucked into his arm and his chest was heaving.

  He was crying.

  My heart shattered into a thousand pieces as I watched him, unnoticed.

  He sniffled, wiping his face against his arm as if he had actual tears before looking up. He must have sensed me because I hadn’t moved, breathed. He looked surprised at first to see me, but quickly dropped his hands and turned back under the water as if the sobfest had never happened. Rivulets of watery blood dripped down the glass from where his hands had been as he scrubbed the crimson from his body.

  “Calix...” I started but he shook his head violently.

  “I need some time, Lily.”

  He scrubbed viciously at his skin, his jaw clenched.

  I stood there, watching him for only a second before I took my shirt off, stripping down. I opened the door, a whoosh of cold air pricked my skin into goosebumps. Gentle droplets of water misted against my skin, freezing already, but he needed me. My mate needed me and I would do anything for him.

  “Lily,” he started to protest again but I put my arms around his neck and he folded into me.

  I immediately started to shiver, my skin stinging with the freezing water, but his arms squeezed around me and his chest heaved with deep breaths, coming in and out in rhythm, as if trying to calm himself.

  “What happened?” I asked, my body trembling now.

  “Fuck… Lily, you’re freezing,” he murmured in a low, gravelly voice, which wasn’t like him.

  He turned, shutting the water off before lifting me, still shivering violently and carrying me to the bed. Wrapping me in our quilt, he tucked me into his arms and spooned me.

  “W-w-what happened,” I managed to fumble the words through my chattering teeth.

  “It was so many people...” he whispered, his voice pure pain. “So many deaths...”

  His arms squeezed me tightly.

  “The children, Calix… The blood...”

  “It wasn’t theirs. The women and children...they died quickly, painlessly. It was the men’s blood on my hands. It was all their blood on my hands, Lily… Thousands...”

  He drew in a shaky breath.

  “I didn’t think…that it would feel like this. I thought I was immune to guilt after all these years.”

  “You’re still human where it counts,” I told him, turning and pressing my hand against his chest. “Your heart might not beat, but it’s still there.”

  He closed his eyes and touched his forehead to mine.

  “I’m sorry for what I said to you… I was...”

  I pressed my fingers to his lips to stop him.

  “I know. I forgive you. I love you, despite all of this.”

  “I did what I had to do. I know that. No matter what you think, I know they all had to die. If I’d left even one alive they would come back. They’d come back and they could hurt you, hurt my family.” He looked me in the eyes and I saw the passion and conviction in them. “I will not let you be hurt, or my babies… You are my life, Lily Dahlia. You are the reason I even try anymore.”

  “Sometimes I feel like I’m not enough for you, Calix,” I admitted, tears flooding down my cheeks into the pillow beneath me. “You need a strong person… someone who can handle the death and the killing and the coldness...”

  “No… No no no…Lily. I am those things. I need you. You bring life, vibrancy and warmth. We are yin and yang. You are my opposite and that is what makes you perfect. You fulfi
ll me. You fill up all those empty places within me.”

  “You sound like a bad romance novel.” I grinned at him as he wiped the tears off my face.

  “Lily, I want you to marry me.”

  My eyes widened.

  “Marry you?” I almost gasped.

  “Marry me.”

  “But we’re mates… I thought royals didn’t marry...”

  “They don’t generally. But this relationship isn’t just about me. It’s about you, and I know it was always a distant dream of yours to be married. You crave it as I crave you. I want to give that to you. I want to prove to you that I love you, that I only want you. It will show the world that you are mine and not to fuck with you. Though, they will figure that out soon enough.”

  I laughed again, this time with happiness.

  “Will you?” he asked again.

  “Well duh!” I shrieked and he smiled for the first time in days.

  “Tomorrow evening.”

  “But that’s so soon!” I slapped against his chest with my open palm.

  “I’ve no patience. I’ll have it all put together. But you will not leave my side for the next month. Promise me.”

  “I promise,” I agreed with a grin, the whole traumatic evening behind us.

  He pulled me closer again and held me tightly.

  “I wish it could have been different tonight,” he eventually whispered as we laid there. “And I’m sorry you had to see that.”

  “I understand why you did it, Calix. I don’t like it, and I don’t approve, but that’s why you are the king and not me. I couldn’t make those kinds of decisions.”

  “Even if you knew it was either them or your children? Think of Heron’s family. They felt no remorse for murdering his mates, his older and young children. Evil begets evil. Even I cannot be exempt from the rule.”

  “It’s done then? All the Dorian line are dead?”

  “Every last one of them. I kept some alive until they gave the coordinates to some of the brothers hiding out.”

  “The men you brought in?”

  He nodded.

  I quieted. I didn’t want to know anymore. I could forgive him, because he truly believed there was no other option. Maybe there wasn’t; I didn’t know our enemies. I just knew they had tried to kill us, and that they had killed so many of his family.

  He wasn’t perfect. He was actually far, far from perfect. He was kind of a mess in a lot of ways, but he was my mess, and I loved him.

  Epilogue

  “Are you ready, Agápi?” Calix asked me, hands on my face.

  I’d been staring at that face for the past almost ten years. It hadn’t changed. Not one wrinkle, one freckle or spot. He was still, perpetually perfect. His smile still took my breath away and my heart still beat uncontrollably every time he came near.

  But soon that would cease. My life would cease as I knew it. He stood in front of me with his knife and his shirt sleeve rolled up.

  I was about to become like him, so that we could live forever as husband and wife.

  He was still the king, and I had given him three big, beautiful, healthy children. Our first was a spunky little girl, and the other two were boys. All handfuls.

  I had just delivered my youngest a few days prior and Calix was eager to turn me immortal.

  I teased him and told him that he just wanted me to stop aging and getting old, but he admitted that he worried for me every day as a human with my ‘weak little body’.

  So here we were. I had skipped dinner as he’d suggested and I was ready. I’d been preparing for years.

  “Yup,” I nodded with a grin.

  He smiled back, kissing my lips.

  “Let’s make you strong, wife.” He winked at me as he crouched before me.

  I was perched on the edge of our bed, ready for the worst.

  He assured me that it wasn’t as bad as when Ariston had turned. That I would pass out through the worst pain of my heart stopping and my lungs seizing. I prayed he was right.

  Taking the knife across his arm, he slit a long, deep gash before drawing it gently across my arm. Pressing them together, he looked into my eyes.

  “I love you so much, my little flower.”

  “Love you too, sexy beast.” I grinned back before my stomach began to get nauseous.

  “Let it take you,” he whispered as my vision began to blacken around the edges. “I’ll see you when you wake.”

  If you enjoyed this book, please leave a review. It means the world to me!

  Keep reading for the first chapter of Revelation: Bloodlust Series Volume 3 to find out what happened to Wesley

  Keep reading for the first two chapters of the five part episodic paranormal romance Devil’s Cupid

  Revelation

  Bloodlust Series Volume 3

  L. L. Ash

  Chapter One

  I yawned.

  I was way too old for this shit.

  Laughing at myself, I sat up in bed and looked around my lux room. Too old? I was only twenty-four. I had so much life yet to live, and oh what a life it was.

  A knock on the door had me standing and shifting my underwear a little over my morning wood.

  Ugh.

  It sucked being a guy sometimes.

  “Come,” I said and the door cracked open.

  My normal girl came into the room, a tray of breakfast in her hands.

  “Breakfast,” she said as always, a small smile on her face as if she were embarrassed.

  I couldn’t help but smile. She always acted so innocent, as if that was my sort of thing.

  “Get in the bed or go do your work,” I told her, picking a halved strawberry off a plate on the tray before heading to the bathroom to piss.

  “Which would you like me to do, sir?” she asked now, her voice turning from innocent virgin to rakish whore.

  Taking a moment at the toilet, I flushed, slipped my underwear back in place then washed my hands at the sparkling white sink.

  “Eh, morning stiff is just about gone. Go do your work. Papa say anything? A note?”

  “It’s on the try, sir,” she said with a disappointed sigh. “I’ll see you this evening.”

  I nodded, tossed down my drying towel and waved her off, out of the room.

  I sat at the little table with two matching little chairs in the corner of the room, only used for breakfast and the occasional note writing. Digging into my omelet and bacon, I managed to open Papa’s note with one hand.

  9AM meeting. See me before.

  One glance at the clock above the TV said I only had twenty-three minutes.

  “Shit...” I mumbled, scooping the rest of my breakfast into my mouth before stripping and stumbling on my way to the shower.

  The pristine crystal shower walls fogged with steam as I got in, letting the water run down my dark blond hair and scruffy cheeks. Shaving was annoying so I only did it once a week. About the time when Papa always demanded I did something about the ‘fur’ on my face.

  I had just enough time to brush my teeth and throw on some clothes, completely disregarding the fruity remainder of my breakfast. I would get a draught of whiskey instead in Papa’s office before the meeting.

  Slipping my tie from yesterday over my head and tightening it up, I jogged down the corridor, letting my door close behind me on it’s automatic hinges. I stopped in front of Papa’s office door, looking at my watch to see I had one minute to spare as I took a couple deep breaths, stretched out my shoulders and lifted my hand to knock.

  “Come,” his Irish stained voice called through the thick door.

  I clutched the curved handle and pushed down, opening the door.

  A wrinkled face met me, light green eyes stared back at me as his expression went from serious to happy.

  “My boy, come and sit.”

  I nodded, finding a familiar chair in front of his desk. A chair I’d been sitting in since boyhood.

  “What do you need, Papa?”

  “And who says
I need somethin’?” A pale red eyebrow raised at me, wrinkling his forehead all the way up to his barely-fuzzy scalp.

  Papa had lost his hair a long, long time ago and he groaned about it almost every day.

  “‘Cause you don’t call me before a meeting unless you need me.” I grinned at him, standing to raid his extensive drybar.

  Grabbing a really nice whiskey, I poured a couple inches into a glass before finding my seat again.

  “So? What is it?”

  Papa laughed and leaned back in his chair.

  “Boy, I ought to slap your mouth.”

  “Oh, c’mon. A whole lot worse has come out of my mouth.” I grinned at him, taking a long sip of my drink.

  “Spirits this early, aye? Bad night or bad morning?”

  I shrugged.

  “We’re talking about you, not me.”

  “Cheeky lad.” He grinned back at me, reaching over to take his own glass off the sideboard table beside his desk.

  The crimson liquid spilled into his mouth before he sighed a loud ‘ahhh’.

  “So, a new shipment comes in today,” he said as he leaned back in his chair again. “I’ve got some guests coming into town this afternoon so I’d like you to take charge of that for me today.”

  “Sure.” I shrugged.

  “A relatively new friend of mine is visiting,” he went on. “He tells me about some woman he has known a while. A black haired beauty he calls her. I am looking forward to meeting her. A vampire, she is.”

  “So you’re leaving me to deal with the shipment so you can get your rocks off?” I glared at Papa playfully and he grinned.

  “A man can hope.” He shrugged. “Though, time hasn’t frozen me in my best year, I’m not a bad catch, I don’t think. If only I still had my hair...”