by Heaton, F E
Sophis shook her head.
He reached for it and she shoved him away. He hit the bench with a thud and she didn’t look back to check whether she had hurt him. She ran barefoot into the maze, fixing her dress as she fled. If he recognised and reported her, Tynan would reprimand her. There was only one punishment she could think of for what she had done. She had slacked off tonight and had left the ball, forgetting her mission to protect the lords and ladies in favour of sleeping with a man who might have been from any bloodline.
Vivek would get his wish.
She would lose her position.
What was she going to do?
There was a part of her that was already considering leaving the guard but she wanted that choice to be hers, not taken from her by a moment of madness. If Tynan discovered what she had done and threw her out of the guard, she would have no choice but to leave. Her life would be over. What had she done?
A bright light shattered the darkness above her and a cacophony of shouts and screams rent the still night air. Her senses sparked into life, the presence of human blood bringing them quickly to focus on her surroundings. She ran harder, heading towards the source of the noise now, away from the mansion.
The sight that greeted her as she exited the maze and ran out onto the open lawn had her immediately reaching for her knives.
They were under attack.
CHAPTER 12
Vivek crashed back onto the stone bench, threw his arm across his eyes, knocking his mask hard against his nose, and exhaled slowly. Somewhere between dragging Sophis out onto the balcony and chasing her into the maze, his plan had gone severely off the rails. What had possessed him to go along with her? He had been set on just speaking to her and explaining everything, and letting her know that it was him. Now what was he supposed to do?
He had sensed her relief when she had seen his altered eyes, but also her fear. When she discovered that he was the one she had slept with, she was going to be madder than she had ever been. His chance of convincing her to stay here and to forgive him had just gone from slim to non-existent.
And what the hell had possessed him to say those things to her?
Stay with me. Don’t leave me alone here.
He was so desperate for her, needed her with such ferocity, that he couldn’t think straight let alone function whenever he thought about her leaving him. His heart had forced those words from his lips, uttered as a plea to hers, a pointless hope that she would listen and understand them and that everything would be alright.
He wanted to bask in the afterglow of what had just happened between them but it was impossible. She didn’t know that it was his body that had given her pleasure and his heart that had looked at her with total adoration through his eyes.
He dug his fingers into his hair and growled at the moon.
And now she had run away in fear.
A bright flash and discordant cries of battle reached his senses a second before the rich smell of human blood.
Vivek leapt to his feet, his sword in hand. He shed his mask and his jacket, hastily buttoned his shirt and tucked it into his trousers, and then fastened the sword belt around his waist. A heartbeat of time later he was racing through the maze, heading directly towards the fight.
Sophis.
She had gone in this direction. Had she heard the fight too? He crashed through the corridors of the maze, following her scent, and broke out onto the open grass. The battle was already underway, the werewolves savagely attacking the human intruders and the Venia guards fighting at their sides. He scoured the chaotic scene for Sophis, his chest tightening with each passing second. She couldn’t fight in this with only those small throwing knives at her disposal. He had to find her and keep her safe.
Vivek crossed the grounds in a blur, his senses stretching far and wide, searching for her. The smell of human blood and the emotions of everyone collided and swamped the area, dampening his senses and making it impossible for him to get a fix on her location.
He growled, drew his sword, and cut down a hunter as the man wildly attacked him with a stake. Who were these humans? None of them were the ones he had seen during patrol with Sophis, and he couldn’t smell Aleksis or Izabella anywhere amongst them. They were weak and inexperienced, falling easily to the blades and claws of their adversaries.
Noise from behind Vivek caused his senses to shift there even as he cut down another hunter, this time a young blonde woman. He moved on, pressing further into the fray, seeking Sophis. Panic pushed him, turning him tighter inside, twisting his stomach and stabbing his chest until he was grabbing everyone within reach and pulling them to face him. He skewered any humans with his rapier and moved on, leaving the guards and werewolves to finish them. She had to be somewhere. All he could see were guards in their black uniforms, the large furry forms of werewolves and humans. There was no sign of her in the moonlit darkness.
Vivek stopped in the midst of the battle and turned in a circle, his heart in his throat. Where was she?
There were barely thirty hunters remaining and they were falling fast, their blood filling the night air and bringing back the taste of Sophis’s on his tongue. She tasted so divine, just as he had known she would, and he wanted to lick her blood again and savour it this time, to watch her take pleasure from his bite. He had felt the ecstasy it had given her in the flutter of her body around his and the emotions that had come to life on his senses.
A vampire hunter slashed at him with a short blade, cutting across his upper arm, and Vivek snarled at the man for daring to interrupt his blissful memory of being with Sophis. He dodged the man’s second attack, spun low to avoid the dagger, and came up behind him. The man screamed as Vivek sank his fangs into his throat and he covered his mouth to silence him, digging his claws into his cheeks as he drained him.
When the man’s heartbeat stopped, Vivek dropped him and found himself face to face with Sophis. She was unmasked and unarmed, her hand outstretched towards him, and wore a scowl that didn’t suit her.
“You might want to feed after the fight,” she said and his eyebrow rose when his senses came back online and he heard the person behind him slump to the floor.
He looked down at the dead hunter sprawled out on the grass with a knife buried between his eyes and then back at Sophis. She was gone.
He turned to go after her but the whole sky lit up in bright shades of purple that seeped downwards, forming a dome over the entire mansion grounds. Vivek’s eyes widened when a hunter tried to pass through the shimmering barrier and disintegrated on contact. Werewolves and vampires alike backed away as one by one the hunters on the other side saw sense and turned tail, leaving their comrades trapped inside the dome.
The source of the spell wasn’t difficult to locate. She stood in the centre of the grounds, her right hand raised towards the sky and the amulet on her palm giving off violent purple flashes of light. Flanking her were her mate and her lover. Lady Prophecy.
Lord Hyperion stood off to one side, an amused smile on his face as he watched the fight.
Vivek turned and ran into the fray, searching for Sophis. He found her in the middle of the battle, her supply of knives exhausted and her claws out. She fought valiantly despite the odds, slashing at the hunters who dared to come within her reach. Claws weren’t weapon enough against hunters though. Movement out of the corner of his eye caught Vivek’s attention and he roared when he saw a hunter had broken away from the fight and was raising a crossbow, aiming it directly at Sophis. Vivek shifted course, heading for the hunter, and focused. His eyes switched, his fangs extended, and he shot through the snapping werewolves, snarling vampires and desperate hunters towards the man. His first swipe of his sword shattered the crossbow. The second decapitated the man.
His head dropped to the ground with a thud. His body followed it, slumping down to its knees and then rolling to one side to land on the grass.
Sophis seemed oblivious to the danger she had been in, just as he had been earlier when
she had saved him. She fought on, growling and snarling, her eyes ice-blue and fangs on show as she battled the remaining few hunters with the rest of the guards.
Vivek remained at the perimeter of the fight, keeping an eye on her, ready to intervene if she ended up in danger again. It was over and he hadn’t sensed Aleksis or Izabella, or any hunter that was worthy of fear.
Was this a real attack or just a test of their defences?
Sophis was a mess by the time she walked back across the blood-soaked grass towards him. Crimson covered her shoulders and splattered across her chest, and her lips were darker than before. A line of blood crept down from the corner of them, tempting him. Her beautiful dress was a wreck, torn at the hem and split up the side to reveal her knee and a sliver of creamy thigh with each step forward she took. Her feet were bare. Had she left her heels behind in the maze?
There were thin lacerations across her upper arms that had bled.
She wasn’t the only one injured.
Vivek could feel the blood sliding down from the wound on his arm, and the cuts she had made on his chest too. His gaze drifted to her throat when she reached him and her eyes widened, her hand came up and she covered the bite mark.
His bite mark.
Just the memory of the taste of her had him hardening in his trousers.
He dragged his gaze away, intending to look her in the eye and see if the fact he had noticed the mark embarrassed her, but it caught on her mouth. Her dark kiss-swollen lips brought everything flooding back. He ached to kiss her again, physically ached with the need to step up to her, pull her back into his arms and taste her lips. The intensity of his need overwhelmed him and he stepped forwards, desperate to touch her again and watch her surrender to the pleasure as they made love. The sound of her moans, the way she had kissed him with such desperation and hunger, was still driving him crazy. The heat of battle had done nothing to quench the flames of his desire for her.
“Has the cat got your tongue?” she said in a small voice and looked away the second his eyes met hers. “There must be something wrong with you... you’re not picking on me the moment you saw me.”
Vivek gathered himself and then reached out to brush her hand away from her neck. She frowned at him and dipped her shoulder out of the path of his hand. Unwilling to let her hide his marks, he shot his hand forwards, grasped her wrist, and tugged her hand away, revealing them.
Sophis lowered her gaze and turned her head away from him, exposing the marks on her skin. Her arm trembled in his hand and he stood there in silence, taking in the sight of his bite mark on her beautiful throat and her reaction to him seeing it. Her shy air added to her beauty, stealing his voice and leaving him unable to say anything snide even when he knew that she was expecting to hear it.
She closed her eyes and pulled her arm free of his grip, but didn’t cover his marks again.
“Were you disobeying orders and forgetting your duty when you were supposed to be undercover guarding our family and important members of the bloodlines?” The moment the first word left his lips, she was glaring at him, and with each one that followed the fire in her eyes grew hotter until he felt as though her look alone could set him aflame like sunlight.
“I was doing my duty. It was just one dance!”
He smirked. “You were doing someone alright... and it looks as though it was more than just a dance.”
Sophis stormed past him but he didn’t let her escape. He followed, keeping stride with her as she headed back towards the mansion, waiting for her to say something else. Curiosity wouldn’t allow him to let her go. He wanted to know what she thought about what they had done. The dance was nothing compared with everything that had come after and he couldn’t get it out of his mind. He needed to hear her speak about it, needed to know if she had truly enjoyed it and whether she had any notion that he was the one she had slept with in the middle of the maze where anyone might have seen them.
“It was just one moment... nothing more,” she said and it wasn’t enough.
Vivek realised that he didn’t just want her opinion. He wanted his ego rubbing. What was wrong with him? He would do better to confess that the marks on her throat belonged to him and let her unleash Hell on him rather than goad her into talking about what she had done on the off chance that she might say something complimentary.
He kept pace with her.
She stopped, faced him, and said with an air of victory laced with malice, “He wasn’t another bloodline either. He was a Venia.”
Vivek feigned shock. “Do you know who it was?”
She hesitated. “No, but I’ll find out.”
“Maybe I could help.”
Her eyebrows knitted into a tight frown. “Maybe you could go to Hell.”
Vivek caught her arm, offended by her words for once and the venom in them. She stared up into his eyes and he struggled against his desire to kiss her and lift the veil of deception. If he kissed her, he was sure that she would realise that he and the man were one and the same.
“What if the man was a servant or a guard who had stolen a mask and dressed up for the night?” he said and her eyes went wide before narrowing with her scowl.
“He was a man... a strong, powerful man...” She stepped up to him, as though trying to intimidate him with her posture and words, and he smiled at her attempt. She could never scare him, not by trying. The only time she scared him was when she recklessly threw herself into the path of vampire hunters with little regard for her safety. At those times, she had the power to crush and break him. “He wasn’t a servant. He was something else... something more than that. He was... special... different. Gorgeous.”
Vivek grinned now, satisfied. “How do you know he was handsome? Weren’t you both wearing your masks?”
Sophis hesitated again and toyed with the slim black mask she held, twirling the ribbon around her fingers. “I just know that he is.”
“I am a Venia and I was at the ball, so what if it was me?”
Her laughter stabbed his heart and burned it to ashes in his chest. “I said gorgeous. He was more of a man than you could ever be, Vivek. Whatever I might have thought about you... well... you changed all that. You’re nothing but a cruel, nasty little man.”
“You want me to show you how cruel you can make me? I could tell Commander Tynan.” He silently cursed himself the moment he finished his sentence and her expression turned to one of horror, her signature radiating anger and hurt.
“You wouldn’t.” She hit his chest and he flinched, the scratches from her claws throbbing.
Sophis stared at his chest, her mouth open and eyes round. She raised her hand and frowned as she went to touch the spots of blood seeping through the white material. Vivek beat her there, covering the marks.
“I picked up some wounds when you were in recovery and they have been slow to heal. The fight tonight reopened a few of them.” It was a reasonable excuse and she wouldn’t call him on it because she probably hadn’t been interested enough in him to ask Commander Tynan what had happened during her absence.
After all, she despised him.
He was a cruel, nasty little man.
Why did he feel as though she had sealed his fate with those words and doomed him to a miserable future without her?
He couldn’t face such a thing, not after he had tasted how sweet she was and had drank from her delicious lips and drowned in her.
He trembled on the brink of confessing everything, desperate with the desire to hear her say that she didn’t really think he was callous and a bastard and that he could fix her poor opinion of him and bring things back to how they used to be between them. He needed her to know that he was sorry and needed to hear her tell him that all was forgiven. It meant the world to him. It was all he wanted now.
He needed her.
He didn’t want her to leave him.
Couldn’t she see that now? Couldn’t she just look in his eyes and see that he had changed again and that she didn’t need to d
espise him because he despised himself for the way he had treated her and had hurt her?
Couldn’t she just tell him that everything would be alright?
His heart ached, fracturing as he looked into her eyes, waiting, hoping that she might say something to give him a reason to stay and make him believe that all wasn’t lost.
When she said nothing, Vivek turned away from her and muttered, “I will leave you alone now.”
He strode across the grass, feeling her eyes boring into his back, sensing her jumbled feelings. He couldn’t stay. She could make him fear her after all. He feared that if he stayed even a second longer that she would turn to him and tell him that she knew she had slept with him and that it disgusted her.
It hurt.
He pressed his hand to his chest, dug his fingers in, and grasped his shirt in his fist. His heart burned with the intensity of a thousand suns, incinerating him from the inside out, destroying him. He dragged in a breath and then another, fighting back the pain that threatened to consume him.
It was pointless.
She had said it herself.
Whatever she had once felt about him, it was dead, killed by his relentless pursuit of having her demoted to a civilian.
She wasn’t the reason his heart was breaking in his chest. He was. He had destroyed it himself.
“Vivek,” she called across the grass to him but he didn’t slow. Couldn’t.
If she saw him now, she would see all of him. He wouldn’t be able to hide anything from her. He had to keep walking away, couldn’t face her until he had found his strength again.
“Vivek,” she said, closer now, and he realised she was coming after him.
He scrubbed the heels of his hands across his eyes, shut his feelings down, and waited. She caught up with him at the gravel path but didn’t say anything. Her eyes locked on his profile, her senses touching his, and he still waited. Could she feel how much he was hurting? Was it as much as she hurt whenever he did something to upset her?