by Ella Frank
“Why bother lying now? He already told us you gave him a key to your place.”
Alasdair stopped by the corner, out of sight, and waited for—
“He said what?”
Despite his hunger practically gnawing a hole through his stomach lining, and that he’d no doubt pissed Vasilios off tonight, Alasdair found a wicked grin stretching his mouth at Leo’s rage. That sure woke the human up.
“Where the hell is he?”
Not one to ever hide from a demand, Alasdair stepped into view and when Leo saw him, he pushed a simple thought inside his mind: Miss me?
LIKE A TOOTHACHE, Leo thought as he brushed by Elias and marched over to the infuriating vampire. So I didn’t dream him up. Good to know I’m not delusional at least.
The menacing male currently leaning against his wall was very real, and he looked as sinful as he did deadly. With his long legs crossed at the ankles and his arms mirroring the pose over his chest, he appeared as normal as the rest of them. Except for the small fact that he could kill us all in the blink of an eye.
Choose your next words very carefully, file mou. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to your friends.
Coming to a stop opposite Alasdair, Leo crossed his arms and held his ground. He was in his apartment now, damn it. On his turf. And he wouldn’t be—
What? Intimidated? Don’t forget what I am, Leonidas. Just because I haven’t killed your friends yet doesn’t mean I am not imagining them as my next meal. Now, turn around and tell the stubborn one over there that you fell madly in love with me two weeks ago and lost your head. Well, not literally. But there’s always time for that later.
Leo glowered at him, and as Alasdair’s eyes creased around the edges, he was amazed by the way his lips tipped up into a sexy curve. Add one more weapon to Alasdair’s arsenal—that seductive smile was killer.
“Did you think I’d left? I was waiting until you woke up. I thought you needed the extra sleep. You know, especially after the last two weeks we spent together.”
When Alasdair added a flirty wink to accompany the outrageous words flying from his mouth, Leo clenched his teeth together so hard he was surprised they didn’t crack.
“That’s nice of you,” he forced from between tight lips.
Alasdair pushed away from the wall and took a step towards him. “Your friends here were telling me how worried they’ve been about you.”
He remained rigid as Alasdair placed his hands on his shoulders.
“I thought you called them. You told me before we left that you had contacted everyone you’d needed to.”
Shut up, Leo stressed inside his head so only Alasdair would hear.
“Leo?” That time, his name was said behind him—from Elias.
Alasdair released him, and Leo pivoted back around to face his longtime friend and employer. The man who’d made him fall in love with history back when he’d been in college.
“Why didn’t you call me?”
Leo didn’t know what to say. No matter what he said, nothing would excuse what Elias thought he’d done.
“Because you knew I’d say no to taking time off at the moment. Correct?”
Leo remained silent as Elias stormed over to where they stood.
When he stopped, he cast a suspicious eye over at Alasdair. “We already contacted the police to tell them you’re home safe and sound. Not that I know what the fuck to think about your mental state.” He sighed in disappointment and ran his fingers through his short, black hair. “I expect your ass to be in my office tomorrow morning no later than seven thirty a.m. Which is when I’ll decide if you still have a job or not.”
Leo swallowed as Elias aimed a steely glare at Alasdair.
“I would like to say it’s nice to meet you, but I don’t trust you. So let’s say this has been interesting. If he doesn’t show up tomorrow, expect to see your face plastered all over the news by noon. Got it?”
Leo tensed, expecting to see Alasdair’s fingers wrapped around his boss’s arm and his fangs sinking into his neck. Instead, Alasdair was offering his hand. When Elias took it, Alasdair nodded once and said quite seriously, “I will make sure Leonidas is at work on time tomorrow morning.”
Elias looked his way one last time and muttered, “See that you do,” before he strode back into the kitchen. “Come on, Paris. We found who we were looking for. Not that he seems to care too much.”
Leo winced at that, and then a chair scraped across the tile floor. As his friends left his apartment, he realized, with something bordering on murderous rage, that even though Alasdair hadn’t killed him, he’d still managed to effectively fuck his entire life up.
LEO QUIETLY WALKED over to the kitchen sink and braced his hands on the counter. They were shaking he was so livid. His back was still facing Alasdair, and for the last several minutes, tense silence had filled the small space.
He wasn’t sure what had happened between now and when he’d been standing amongst the crowd of hungry vampires back at the Walk. But he knew one thing: He’d be damned if he would go back there without a fight.
“Who said I was going to take you back?”
Alasdair’s voice closing in had Leo rounding on him with a glare.
“Why won’t you just leave me alone?” he finally asked as Alasdair came to a standstill by the kitchen table. “First, you terrorize me, then you kidnap me, and now, you’re hell-bent on destroying my life. If this is your version of playing with your food, I think you’ve taken it far enough.”
Alasdair’s brow rose as he studied him. “Haven’t you awoken in a particularly spirited mood? Thanos was right. I like it,” he said, his tone dropping a few octaves. “It’s more fitting of you.”
“You know nothing about me. And I’m positive you care even less,” he grit out, his anger rising inside him now as he bravely stepped closer. “Why haven’t you killed me? I don’t get what your deal is. Are you bored? Defective? Or something else I haven’t thought of?"
The words fell off his tongue and hovered in the air between them like a provocative dare. He wasn’t sure how Alasdair would react, but before he could continue, he was crushed back against the sink. His hands were trapped behind his back, and the counter dug into his hips as Alasdair held him in place.
“I assure you I am certainly not defective. And you should stop talking. Your words, they will get you—”
“What, killed? You said you liked my newfound spirit. Now, all of a sudden, you don’t?”
“We vampires, we’re fickle creatures. We change our minds every split second,” Alasdair said. “And right now, I’d prefer you to shut your mouth. Or I’ll do it for you. Permanently.”
Leo narrowed his eyes, refusing to back down. “You keep issuing deadly threats, yet here I am, alive and standing in my apartment. Right back where I started.” Straining against the hand holding him captive, he pushed his face in closer to Alasdair’s. “The only difference this time? I know you can’t feed from me or something happens to you. You get all locked up, don’t you? So. You going to snap my neck instead?”
The fingers around his wrists constricted, making it clear Alasdair could do whatever he wanted with him right then, but…
“I don’t think so. I also think you have no idea what happened the night you tried to kill me. And that pisses you off because you think you know everything. But you don’t, do you? You’re a little bit scared.”
“Stop talking. Now.”
The smart thing to do would’ve been to heed the warning, but Leo was on too much of a roll to stop now. “I think it’s even more than that though. You find me…” His voice trailed off as Alasdair’s top lip retracted.
“Oh, don’t stop now. I find you what, Leonidas?”
Just like the previous times Alasdair had threatened him, Leo’s body reacted. His breath came in rapid bursts, and a warm flush hit his cheeks. He was aroused by this side of Alasdair.
This intimidating I-can-kill-you-with-my-bare-hands side.
For some reason, it got him off and gave a whole new meaning to wanting the bad boy.
When Alasdair pulled him close, Leo’s heart began to trip all over itself, and his cock made it crystal clear he was undeniably attracted to the male snarling at him. That was when he was struck with another truly baffling thought—he wanted Alasdair to crush his lips against his and kiss him.
“I asked you a question. Now answer me. I find you what?”
Leo’s eyes fell to the lips issuing the demand, and he replied, “You want me. I can tell. You find me as fascinating as I find you.”
“And what makes you think that?”
Leo raised his eyes, and his breath caught at the light in Alasdair’s. “Your eyes. They were glowing that time you were with the other male, Vasilios. When he was kissing you and sucking you. They’re glowing now. They do that because you’re turned on, am I right?”
Alasdair lowered those eyes down his body, and Leo’s erection ached under the inspection.
”You also said as much,” he continued, not to be dissuaded. “You never attend that thing we went to tonight. But then, when we arrived, you told everyone I was yours. And what about that cuff lying on the floor in my bedroom? You know, the one you used to parade me around like I was your latest—”
Alasdair shifted and leaned in the distance separating them to whisper, “Fuck?”
“Yes.” Leo barely breathed as the tips of those frightening as fuck teeth grazed across the curve of his lower lip. And when Alasdair stroked the back of his fingers down his cheek, a shiver of pure lust snaked through Leo’s veins.
He was sure he was about to remember how to speak when Alasdair moved his mouth to the corner of his and asked, “Is that what you want, Leonidas? To lie on your back, spread your legs, and let me inside you whenever I desire? Or how about we skip the bed altogether and I take you against whatever is near? Hmm? Are you sure your cock isn’t speaking for your head, file mou? Because, yes. Se thelo. And if I have you, I will not let you go until I am done.”
Leo let out the shaky breath he’d been holding, and against all common sense, he daringly pressed his tongue to the tip of one of Alasdair’s fangs. And that’s when a deep rumbling growl left Alasdair.
A dangerous thrill coursed through him, pumping his fevered blood directly to his cock as his own actions and Alasdair’s wild response affected him.
Fuck, he’s sexy. The glowing eyes, those killer teeth, and the way he fell in and out of his native tongue when he was aroused. Sexy was an understatement. Alasdair was every wicked thought and fantasy Leo could have imagined.
He could kill him any time he wanted. But God help me, I don’t care, Leo thought as he said, “Yes.”
THIS WAS ABOUT to get complicated as hell. When Leo had tongued his left canine, Alasdair’s cock stiffened like an iron poker. Ballsy human, taking liberties that made Alasdair want to fuck him until he got him out of his system.
But he had to think…or at least try to.
Fucking your prey was never a good idea. It always ended badly. Either they became clingy and needy, never wanting to leave your side, or they became the messy by-product of a feed-and-fuck frenzy—something he’d learned to avoid after the first time it’d happened to him well over a thousand years ago. But when Leo whimpered into his mouth and bucked forward against him, Alasdair’s opinion on the subject took on an entirely different view.
He spun them around and, with a flash of thought, shoved Leo on top of the kitchen table so hard the legs scraped against the tile floor as it slid under their combined weight. With his hands now freed, Leo clutched at his shirtfront, and Alasdair maneuvered his way between his legs, placing his hands on the surface and pinning the human in.
“So you think you want that, do you? To be my yielding? To submit to my every demand, my every whim?”
When sensual need swirled inside Leo’s eyes, Alasdair’s own arousal ramped up to the ragged edge. Leo’s erection strained through his thin pants, and Alasdair couldn’t help himself from driving his hips up and connecting their rigid lengths.
I’d be inside your body. Your mind. Sometimes both.
The red stain on Leo’s cheeks made Alasdair want the man underneath him begging for it, dying for the control he could ultimately give. He wanted to sink his teeth, and his cock, inside the man laid out under him. But knowing what happened the last time, Alasdair didn’t dare risk it.
He took Leo’s hands from his shirt and stretched them above his head, holding them trapped against the table.
You have no idea what you are inviting, Leonidas Chapel.
When Leo spread his legs farther apart, Alasdair narrowed his eyes at the thought the man let echo through his mind.
I know exactly what I’m inviting. Maybe you’re just too scared to touch me.
Alasdair revealed his teeth in a feral smile and growled. The control he usually held so tight finally snapped in half.
THE SOUND THAT came from Alasdair would’ve been a warning to most, a threat of imminent danger. But the deep cadence had Leo twisting up to get closer to the body pressing him down on the table. He found it difficult to breathe as a warm tongue licked over the pulse at the base of his throat, but he managed to take a shaky breath.
Who’s scared now? You, Leonidas?
He heard the question inside his mind, and even though the answer was a definite yes, he forced himself to say, “No.”
Cool lips pressed against the skin under his ear, and in his mind, Alasdair whispered, Again, you lie to me.
He was ready to deny it, when Alasdair raised his head and crushed their mouths together. Leo writhed under the hard frame sliding over the top of his, and when Alasdair slipped his tongue out to sample his lower lip, everything flashed to white.
No, no, no.
It was happening again. That same odd kind of flashback. One minute, he was in the present with Alasdair, and the next—
“HMM... IT’S HARD to believe I found you before you promised yourself to another, agóri?”
I’m somewhere else entirely. Fuck, again? What is this? Wake up.
Wake. Up. Chapel.
He didn’t wake, but his vision cleared, and he saw Alasdair lounging on the steps of the large pool in the bathhouse. The crystal-clear water lapped at his chest, and half of his long hair was pulled up and tied away from his handsome face. Between his legs stood the other vampire, Vasilios. His muscular back appeared smooth as stone, and the look on Alasdair’s face as he gazed at the one before him was full of adoration—and Leo knew that what he was seeing had happened many years ago.
“Who said I am not promised?”
“Ahh yes, I suppose she counts, even if it was orchestrated by your fathers. Well, won’t they be disappointed when you do not return from this evening’s excursion.”
“Perhaps. But I cannot find it in myself to care.”
Witnessing moments like this was fucked up. It gave Leo a sense of unease in the pit of his stomach. This was an invasion of privacy, a glimpse of Alasdair’s past, and it felt wrong to be witnessing all that he was. He wasn’t sure why it was happening, but when Alasdair shifted off the step of the pool and moved closer to Vasilios, Leo wanted it to end.
He wanted to be away from the scene unfolding before his eyes and back in the kitchen where—
“AHH…” YES, RIGHT back here, where cool fingers had snaked between his legs and encircled his cock.
“It happened again, didn’t it?” Alasdair asked.
Leo panted and closed his eyes, hoping to hide whatever had just happened from the curious male hovering above him.
“What goes on when your eyes do that? When they cloud over that way?”
When Alasdair’s fingers stroked up the length of his erection and he leaned to the side to suck on his lobe, Leo groaned. He’d never wanted someone as much as he wanted the male currently working him over. He was close to begging when Alasdair nipped the shell of his ear and pushed into his mind.
You
still won’t say? Then let me show you what’s going on in my mind.
And just like that, Leo saw an image of them as they were now—but not.
He was stripped naked, and bent down over him was Alasdair.
He had him pinned to the table, and when he raised his head and glanced Leo’s way, a drop of blood slid down the corner of his mouth.
Fuck…fuck, that’s hot.
Where Leo had once thought he would be disgusted by Alasdair feeding from him—suddenly, he was not. Every beat of his heart was like a warning, telling him this was madness. But as it kept time with his throbbing dick, he realized he’d never wanted to come so hard in his life as he did while watching that. The twisted image had turned him on even more.
Twisted is right. But you want it anyway, don’t you?
Brought back to reality by that tempting voice, Leo grunted and flexed under the grip still holding him to the table.
Alasdair was spot on. Sexual arousal had overtaken his sanity and he wanted to be fucked by Alasdair. Even if it meant his very possible death.
One day soon, it will happen. I have promised myself that. But not tonight, Leonidas. Not tonight.
As the words drifted inside his dazed mind, Leo tried to make sense of everything that had happened, but before he could, it all stopped.
Alasdair was gone.
Not only had he vanished from Leo’s mind, but he’d also faded from his kitchen, leaving him alone for the first time in two weeks.
ISADORA PACED BACK and forth outside Alasdair’s bedroom. He’d returned alone an hour earlier from wherever he’d disappeared to with his human. Since then, he’d sequestered himself inside his chambers and had not come out.
Ugh, she hated when he got all broody and irritable. It usually meant he needed to fucking eat. But, being the arrogant ass he was, Alasdair always pushed his control to the breaking point. It was also evident from the fact he hadn’t fully claimed his yielding that the imbecile was waiting until he was ravenous. And with the way he was stalking that human male, she knew he wouldn’t have taken a meal elsewhere.