by R. E. Butler
A month ago, Mishka had woken from a dream about a woman with brown and blue hair. He’d only glimpsed her briefly in the dream; a mist blocked him from seeing her entirely. He didn’t normally dream, so remembering one so vividly had left him to ponder its significance. The dream came again the next day, and then the next, with the same woman too far away to touch but close enough to see she had brilliant, robin’s egg blue eyes, and a lush mouth made for kissing. He knew the woman must be important.
A knock sounded on his chamber door, and he called, “Enter.”
Cella, the only female in the family, a woman he had turned three hundred years ago, strode in. Her tall heels clicked on the black marble floor as she met him in front of the mirror in his closet.
She wore white lingerie, with pink-tipped feathered wings arching over her shoulders. “You look nice,” Cella said. “I’m surprised your body didn’t reject you trying to be a saint this year.”
He chuckled. His usual costume was a devil, so trying to go in a saintly direction had been interesting. Cella had chosen a Prince Charming costume for him. The tight-fitting powder blue pants and matching jacket came complete with a sword in a jeweled scabbard that hung from the belt. He completed the outfit with black knee boots, and his slicked back, dark-blond hair was tied into a low ponytail.
“What’s up with you?” Cella asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I think I’ve known you long enough to know when you’re not quite here because you’re thinking of something else,” she said, smiling at his reflection in the mirror.
“I’ve been dreaming of someone.”
She made a surprised noise. “Anyone you know?”
“No. I don’t know why, but she’s been appearing daily in my dreams, and I feel like this party tonight might be where I see her. I…don’t know if I’m just being ridiculously optimistic or if something might actually happen.”
“You’re not the optimistic sort,” she said.
“You are,” he said, turning to face her. “You hope to find your Prince Charming someday.”
“I’m not sure there is someone for everyone. I’ve been unmated for three hundred years.”
“I’m over five hundred,” he reminded her.
She rolled her eyes. “It’s different for males.”
“How so?” he asked with a snort.
“It just is.” Shaking her head so her curls bounced, she said, “Never mind me. I hope you find your dream girl. Besides, you’re Prince Charming. He always gets the girl.”
* * *
An hour later as the first band of the evening began to play, Mishka sat in the family room and watched the strobe lights as they bounced off the gyrating bodies. The guests in the club were dressed in various costumes depicting different versions of saints and sinners, everything from sexy nuns to princesses to barely clad devils and angels.
He took a drink of reheated blood from the wine glass. When he pulled the glass away from his lips, he watched as the blood slid back down slowly, coating the interior. In the past he’d preferred to feed from a live donor. With a single phone call, he could have a handful of females to choose from. The paid food were employees of the club. When they were working, they wore white shirts and used red ribbons to mark where they wanted to feed from – the neck or the wrist, or both. After his affair with the witch had ended, he hadn’t wanted to feed from brunettes. Ever. But as his daily dreams had spun through his subconscious, he realized he’d outgrown the grief that the ended relationship had caused him. He didn’t really care what color hair the female in his dreams had; that she had chocolate brown tresses with streaks of electric blue in them only heightened his desire to meet her in person.
Rage and Vex, the only twin vampires that Mishka had ever known, lounged on a couch across from him, their gazes far off as if they weren’t seeing anything in front of them. He cleared his throat, and Rage’s pale green gaze met Mishka’s. “Something on your minds?”
Vex, identical in all ways to Rage except for the bronze color of his eyes, glanced around the family room and then said in a low voice, “We’re ready.”
“For?”
“To find our beloved.”
Mishka snorted. “If it was as easy as just being ready, then we would all be cuddling up to our beloveds right now.”
“No, we had a dream,” Rage said.
“You shared a dream together?”
They nodded. “We were in the woods. It was hazy, but we’re pretty sure our mate is a wolf,” Vex said.
Mishka didn’t hide his surprise. He knew the twins shared females often, but vampires were, by nature, solitary creatures. Ménage relationships between vampires were unheard of. It was one thing to play at a threesome, but it was an entirely different situation to consider sharing a female for all eternity.
“I’ve been having dreams too. How long have yours been going on?”
“Every month for the last year, on the day of the full moon,” Rage said. “They’re always the same – foggy woods, full moon, female just out of reach.” He cracked his neck, and Mishka wondered if Rage was walking a fine line between sanity and losing it entirely.
Mishka could empathize.
“The wolves aren’t our biggest friends right now,” Mishka said. Although the coven held an alliance with each shifter group in Northern Ohio, the alliance was shaky at best. He could call on the leaders of the shifters for help if he needed it, but he doubted that any of them would reach out to him unless they were out of options. Centuries ago, vampires kept shifters in what were called “blood dungeons.” They were bred and bled until they died. While the vampires had moved on – creating a synthetic blood substitute called SyBl as well as using human volunteers – the shifters had long memories and didn’t often choose to spend time with vampires.
“We know,” Vex said, scrubbing his hand over his face. “It’s been a fucking year. It’s too long.”
Mishka decided not to mention that he’d been having dreams for a month. Considering they’d suffered for a year, knowing their beloved was out there somewhere without them…he would probably have gone on a killing spree.
“Ask Arissa.”
“Ask her what?”
“She’s still part of the coven. The wolf pack has a lygisa, a Wiccan-wolf hybrid named Cinder. Arissa and Cella are friends with her. Maybe one of them would be willing to reach out to the pack on your behalf. But not tonight. The females are already up to their eyeballs in the party. If you ask them for a favor now, they might not react kindly.”
“It’s worth a shot,” Vex said. “I just can’t stand thinking of another full moon going by and us not being with her. Whoever she is.”
The blood in Mishka’s glass had cooled enough to become unappealing. He set it down on a small table and stood as the door opened. Temple, another family member, strode in. He wore a red suit and blinking devil horns on his head.
“You look ridiculous,” Vex said.
Temple straightened the blood-red tie. “You’re just jealous. Cella’s asking for you, Mishka. She said you promised her a dance.”
He let out a sigh. “I suppose I did.”
Mishka, Vex, and Rage followed Temple out of the room. Over the speaker system, the DJ announced the next band.
“Did he really say their name is Fluffy Venom?” Mishka asked.
“Yeah, it’s a trippy name, right? The leader is gorgeous, and she sings like an angel. I was with Cella and Arissa when they watched the band’s audition video,” Temple said.
“They’re human?” he asked as he skirted around the outside of the dance floor.
“Nope. The guys are different kinds of shifters, and the girl is a muse.”
“Amuse what?”
“No, a muse. Like an inspirational creature.”
Mishka hummed but said nothing as they moved toward the stage. Temple was right about the lead singer; she was beautiful. In fact…she looked very familiar.
At the first stra
ins of music, the singer tossed her dark hair over her shoulder, and he saw pale blue highlights. Could it be?
She began to sing, and everything inside him jolted in surprise. He would swear his heart was beating. He was in the presence of his dream girl, his beloved mate. She locked her gaze with his and froze, her words dying on her lips as an awareness rocked through him. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and she fell to the floor in a heap.
Mishka roared in alarm and raced to the stage, hauling himself up onto the platform and pushing his way past her bandmates. From offstage someone yelled to close the curtain as recorded music played over the speakers.
“Who the fuck are you?” the drummer asked.
“I’m master of the city, and she’s mine,” he snarled, unable to stop the ferocity that poured through him. He didn’t like the males so close to her. “What’s wrong with her?”
“Shit, really?” the bass guitarist asked. “How do you know she’s yours?”
“I dreamed about her,” he said, clasping her hand with his to connect with her. Her back arched off the floor, and she screamed, even though she seemed to still be unconscious. Her body twitched and writhed, and Mishka looked up at the males, feeling entirely helpless.
“You have a place for privacy here?” the drummer asked. “You need to feed her. It’s part of the bonding process.”
Mishka stared at his beloved as her skin paled and her body shook. He lifted her into his arms and hurried from the stage, barking orders at his people to open the doors. He moved as fast as he was able, her body cooling as she shivered harder in his arms. When he unlocked the door to his chamber, he rushed her inside and set her on the bed, grabbing furs from the foot of the bed and pulling them over her.
“What does she need to eat?” he demanded, looking at the three males who stood just outside his chamber.
“You,” the lead guitarist said.
“What?”
“She’s a muse. When she meets her truemate, her nature demands an immediate blood bond. You need to open a vein and feed her. She’ll wake up and then you can talk about how different your lives are going to be,” he said with a chuckle.
“I’m a vampire. My blood isn’t good for anything unless she wants to become one.” He swallowed hard, and the idea of feeding her his blood filled his mind with erotic images.
“She’s immortal. You can’t change her into what she already is. Just feed her, and then she can tell you everything. We’ll go perform without her,” the drummer said.
“I’m Bridge, and these guys are Tamar and Wyst. We’re her bandmates and friends.”
“I’ll take good care of her,” Mishka promised.
“Of course you will. You’re beloveds,” Wyst said as he closed the door.
Looking down at his beloved, he stroked his fingers over her pale cheek and wrapped a lock of her blue-streaked, chocolate hair around his finger. He’d never seen anything so beautiful. As her body shuddered again, he settled next to her on the bed and raked his fangs along his wrist, opening his vein. He opened her mouth and worked his wrist between her teeth, closing his eyes and thinking over how fast his life had changed. One moment he’d been contemplating his dreams, and the next he was feeding his blood to his beloved.
Her shudders eased nearly immediately, her skin flushing as her heart beat steadily. She made a soft sound of contentment, and he extracted his wrist from her mouth and wiped the blood from his quickly healing skin with the hem of his jacket. She sighed but made no other sound, seeming to be asleep. He could feel a connection to her that was unlike any other he’d ever encountered. Even without truly mating her, he felt connected to her. She was his and he was hers, and nothing would ever be the same.
But that was just fine with him.
Chapter 4
Harmony’s whole body felt warm, and there was a strange metallic taste in her mouth. She couldn’t remember going to bed, so she wasn’t sure why she was lying down. She opened her eyes slowly and found herself looking up at a ceiling carved out of rock. Lights flickered and bounced off the ceiling, and she frowned, wondering where the hell she was.
“There you are,” a masculine voice whispered in her ear, warm breath fanning over her cheek.
Under any other circumstances, she might have completely flipped out and screamed for help, but as she turned her head toward the source of the voice, she wasn’t afraid in the least. She had no clue how she knew the voice, but she did. It belonged to her truemate.
He was gorgeous. Golden eyes and dark-blond hair that had come partially undone from a ponytail. High cheekbones and pale skin that looked luminous in the candlelight.
She touched his cheek and then curled a lock of hair around her finger. “I hope to hell I’m not dreaming,” she said.
He smiled and fangs peeked from his parted lips. “You’re not. I’m Mishka.”
“Harmony.”
“Do you remember what happened?”
“I remember taking the stage and then…everything went dark.”
“Sounds about right. I was on my way to the stage when our eyes locked. You passed out cold. I brought you to my chamber and fed you my blood.”
That explained the metallic taste. “Thanks,” she said. “I didn’t know what would happen when I found you.”
His brow rose. “You were looking for me?”
She sat up and turned to face him. “I’ve been dreaming about a blond vampire for two years.”
He sat up and rested his hand on her shoulder, his thumb rubbing circles on her skin. “I had dreams too, but only for the last month.”
“I didn’t know that dreaming wasn’t normal for vampires.”
He shook his head. “It seems to be only prophetic dreams. Sometimes I would relive something from the past, but that’s not necessarily a dream, just a memory. I’ve heard that newly turned vampires will dream more frequently, but eventually the humanity is entirely forgotten.” His golden gaze raked over her appreciatively. “You’re even more beautiful than the dreams portrayed.”
Her cheeks heated in blush. Mishka was so handsome; she imagined he’d been on the receiving end of attention from truly beautiful women over the years. Jealousy flickered to life within her, but she squashed it. There was no room for a third party in their relationship, and jealousy was not wanted.
She wrapped her hand around his wrist and rubbed her thumb along the underside. “They told you I’m a muse?”
He nodded. “I’ve never met a muse before. I didn’t know that your kind were actually real. I thought that you were an abstract sort of ideal for creative people.”
She’d heard that many times over the years. “There are many different kinds of muses, but I’ve actually never met any other muses aside from my mother.”
“Where is she?”
“She’s in Europe. We Skype once a month to keep in touch. I was born in the states, and when I finished high school, she was ready to move on to somewhere else, but I didn’t want to follow.”
“And your father?”
“He died when I was eight from an illness. He’d been to many healers but no one could help him. What about your parents?”
“They were never turned. My mother died of illness when I was a teenager, and my father drank himself to death a few years later.”
“I’m sorry you lost them,” she said.
“I thought I might have to change you.” His brows drew down.
She rubbed her thumb along the corner of his frown. “What? Are you disappointed I’m not mortal?”
He snarled softly, his lip curling in displeasure. “Nothing could be further from the truth. It’s a relief not to have to take your humanity. To turn someone is…it’s traumatic for both parties. That you’re naturally immortal is wonderful.”
She reached for his hand where she could see a smear of dried blood. Turning his wrist up, she ran her thumb along a very faint, nearly healed scar. “We’re partially bonded right now. You’re my beloved, but I’m not yours.�
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His golden gaze darkened, and a shiver ran down her spine. He looked so hungry, so filled with desire as if he was a tiger caged and desperate for freedom. He tugged on the ties of her corset. She was dressed like a pirate wench, with a full, layered skirt, a shoulder-baring blouse, and a black leather corset. “I want you more than I want my fangs, Harmony. I want you to be mine in every way, but we don’t have to rush.”
She pushed him back to the bed, lifting her skirts and straddling him. “I don’t want to wait.” She ran her fingertip down the gold buttons of the pale blue uniform top. “Are you Prince Charming?”
“I’m usually a sinner. I wanted to be a saint,” he said, smiling rakishly and flashing his fangs at her.
“The pirate wench and Prince Charming. Sounds like the title of a romance novel.”
He grasped her waist and rolled them until he was overtop of her. Lowering his head, he grasped the corset’s tie with one fang and cut it. He gazed up at her and then frowned. “There’s something we need to do first.”
She shivered at his hungry gaze. “What?”
“Kiss.”
Chapter 5
Mishka gazed down at her. Her skin was flushed, her blue eyes were dark like sapphires, and the faint scent of her arousal was in the air. Part of him wanted to simply ravage her. Make her scream his name in pleasure a hundred times while he rutted on her like a beast. But this first time they were together, when they would bond for all eternity as beloveds, was more important to him than anything. He wanted to show Harmony that he would always, always put her first. He’d been the master of the city for decades. He had dozens of vampires under his authority. But he’d never really had anyone to take care of. Here was his beloved. The one woman in the world who was perfect for him, and he was going to prove that he was perfect for her, too.
Lowering his head, he pressed his lips gently to hers. Their lips parted at the same time, and she moaned softly as their tongues touched. Awareness jolted through him as he sucked on her tongue, careful not to nick her with his fangs. She tasted sweet, reminding him of a honey cake he’d enjoyed when he was mortal. He tilted his head and deepened the kiss, stroking his tongue along hers as need spiked within him.