The Vampire's Protector [The Protectors 4] (Siren Publishing Classic)
Page 1
The Protectors 4
The Vampire’s Protector
She is a Protector, sworn to kill vampires, not mate with them.
Eva Arnett is not having a good day. Not only does she prang her bike, but she is also set upon by a nest of vicious vamps, and then wakes up in an enigmatic stranger’s bed—naked and tied up. Her eagle has lost its mind. The ancient vampire cannot be her mate, but she cannot ignore this overwhelming urge to submit.
Dimitrius Zolnerovich isn’t overly fond of those pesky Protectors keeping him from his food supply. However, when he comes across Eva fighting for her life, he has to intervene. Six vamps against one woman—that’s just bad manners—even if she is a Protector.
He should keep his distance, but this experienced Dom cannot resist the gift of Eva’s submission, and besides, his myshka needs watching.
When trouble hits the village, lethal choices have to be made that may well spell the end for them both.
Genre: BDSM, Paranormal, Vampires/Werewolves
Length: 46,258 words
THE VAMPIRE’S PROTECTOR
The Protectors 4
Doris O’Connor
EROTIC ROMANCE
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Erotic Romance
THE VAMPIRE’S PROTECTOR
Copyright © 2015 by Doris O’Connor
E-book ISBN: 978-1-63259-412-9
First E-book Publication: May 2015
Cover design by Harris Channing
All art and logo copyright © 2015 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
PUBLISHER
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
Letter to Readers
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DEDICATION
With thanks to Evita and Rhonda.
Evita (Eva) for the use of her name, and Rhonda for finding the awesome visual inspiration for Dimitrius.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Epilogue
About the Author
THE VAMPIRE’S PROTECTOR
The Protectors 4
DORIS O’CONNOR
Copyright © 2015
Chapter One
Dimitrius closed the door of the caravan with a soft click and inhaled deeply of the crisp night air. A grin spread across his harsh features as he looked around the holiday park set deep in the middle of Cumbria. Tourists—they were such a delightful food supply.
This one had been a particularly fine vintage. A rare blood group that meant he had taken rather more than he should have, but who could resist such a sweet young thing? Whistling softly, and with his carnal appetites and his libido well sated, he slid behind the steering wheel of his Jaguar. The powerful engine roared into life, and Dimitrius left the scene of his latest assignation behind.
The girl in question would put her headache down to a hangover, and if she noticed his fang marks on her inner thighs, she would think them to be insect bites. The young student would also have the compulsion to have steak for breakfast and drink a liter of orange juice. Dimitrius had been sure to plant that in her subconscious, before she had passed out on him, while his cock had still been lodged deep inside her hot little cunt. He didn’t usually use the same host twice, but he was sorely tempted to make an exception for this one. This was another good reason to use the tourists. Less temptation for him to stay around, no matter how delightful the food source was and they all moved on, none the wiser.
Yes, that really had been a most pleasant way to spend an evening. He smirked, and put his foot down. His trusty old classic Jag responded with its usual reliability, and hugged the twisty roads as though they were nothing. Dimitrius did have rather a fondness for this part of Cumbria, annoying Protectors notwithstanding. It was good to be back, especially on a clear moonlit night like this one, when he could drive with the top down, and enjoy the ambience of the place.
The roar of a motorbike reached his ears seconds before the single beam of the powerful machine almost blinded him. Well, talk of the devil. Here was one of the annoying shifters, and riding far too fast for the road conditions. Judging by the intoxicating scent that hit him in the face with a blast of cold air, as the bike overtook him on a bend, this one was a woman. A curious thought. He wasn’t aware of there being any women Protectors, and this one wouldn’t stay alive much longer either, if she rode this carelessly. She might be a shifter, but even her kind’s accelerated healing skills wouldn’t help her if she came off that bike at those insane speeds, especially if she ran into one of the nests of new vamps, which roamed along this patch of the countryside at night.
Dimitrius pursed his lips in disgust. Newly turned vamps really weren’t very clever, and they had no finesse whatsoever. There was little point in killing the food supply, afte
r all.
His curiosity alerted, he set off in pursuit of the lone rider. She was good, he gave her that. Reckless, but good, until one of the sheep which always roamed the verges ran out in front of her, and she slid the bike. Dimitrius winced at her screech of pain, as she skidded along the tarmac, and her bike wrapped itself around a tree. The coppery smell of blood filled his nostrils, and despite his just-fed status, his fangs ran out. Another rare blood type. How utterly delightful.
He got a flash of dark brown hair as she threw her helmet on the floor in disgust, and he grinned at the fury behind her chocolate-colored gaze as it briefly connected with his, before all hell broke loose.
Dimitrius rolled his shoulders, and exiting his car, perched on the bonnet of his Jag to watch the show. Naturally the young’uns would smell her injuries from miles away, and sure enough, several of them emerged from the shadows. Dimitrius watched in silent admiration of this young woman’s skills as she took the first two down with ease. Their heads rolled toward him before they exploded into ash, having been taken off by her hands alone. Very impressive indeed. A third was dispatched with a stab to his heart. The moonlight glinted off the sharp talons this Protector sported on her hands, as she ripped this vamp’s heart out of his chest and he, too, exploded into dust in front of her. Dimitrius’s smirk deepened when she sneezed, as all the left over vamp debris got up her nose.
“Damn it. You blasted things messed up my outfit. Fucking vamps.” This woman’s voice…even swearing her head off, it did something to him. Throaty, and surprisingly deep for a female, it was sex on legs, and combined with the delightful scent of her blood stirred his interest.
She threw him a wary glance as well she might. If he were human she would have some explaining to do, but before she could do anything else her head spun round and she paled. Dimitrius, too, swore under his breath. Fucking vamps, indeed. Now, that was just not honorable, not at all.
The storm of poisonous arrows rained down on where she had been standing mere moments ago, and Dimitrius drew in a sharp breath as she shifted into a magnificent eagle. That sure explained the talons then. She soared up into the air, and took out two more vamps, before one threw a knife. It pierced her right wing, and she screeched, and took a nose dive to the ground. Her body hit the tarmac with a sickening thud, and the lily-faced cowards who had resorted to bringing her down surrounded her.
Flexing his hands, Dimitrius let his own claws run out. It had been a while since he’d been in a good fight, so this should be fun. Besides, six against one—that just wasn’t fair.
“Gentlemen, I suggest you pick on someone your own size, and leave the female be.”
The ring leader of this motley crew of vamps turned round and bared his fangs at Dimitrius, only to stumble back in surprise when Dimitrius let his own canines drop.
“Surprise.”
* * * *
Shit, shit and double fucking shit. She was in so much trouble here. Everything hurt, and Eva curled into a ball on the dirty tarmac to make herself as small as possible, as all around her vamps exploded in a cacophony of dust. It made breathing even more difficult, as her lungs filled with the hated leftover debris. Judging by her shallow breathing she had at least cracked, if not broken several ribs when she fell out of the sky. Her injured arm hung useless by her side, and hurt like the fucking bitch. Whatever the knife that had lodged in her wing had been coated with, it stopped her from healing. What’s more she could feel the sludge solidifying in her veins, as her rapid heartbeat spread it around her body.
More dust rained down on her and the sounds of fighting around her ceased. A pair of dusty, expensive-looking leather shoes appeared in her vision, followed by an elegant, manicured, masculine hand, which held a monogrammed handkerchief.
Clearly she was losing it, her mind already hallucinating from the poison in her system. The man that hand must belong to murmured something under his breath in a foreign, guttural language. What was that? Russian maybe? Whatever it was it sounded sexy as hell, and her eagle strained toward that sound. Typical, she lay here dying, naked as the moment she was born, on the day her inner animal decided to announce that she’d found her mate.
My Mate?
Eva groaned as the man lifted her to a semi-upright position, until she caught a glimpse of his face. A strong, proud jaw, covered in designer stubble, a slash of a nose, and black fathomless eyes that assessed her from under dark eyebrows drawn together in a frown. An elegantly messy hairdo that just asked for her to run her hands all through it completed the look. The silver threads in his black hair as well as the laughter lines around his eyes and the grooves running from his nose to his full mouth spoke of years of experience, and Eva drew a gurgling breath into her collapsing lungs. Way out her league, so maybe it was just as well she was dying. How fucking typical.
“Oh, no, myshka, it’s not your time, yet.” His deep, slightly accented voice meant she pulled another breath into her body, and another. Tears gathered and slid down her face, and then everything tilted. There was a curious click, and her mouth filled with hot, strangely metallic smelling liquid. She gagged when she realized what it was. Blood…what the hell.
“Drink, girl, if you want to live.” The unmistakable command behind those few words meant she obeyed them without question, and pain shot through her body, and her vision dimmed. “That’s my girl. Keep swallowing, and sleep. This will all be okay in the morning.”
With those words her world went black, and when she next became aware of her surroundings she blinked in the single ray of bright sunlight that seemed to have sought her face as its resting place. The rest of the room lay in semi-darkness, thanks to the heavy velvet curtains drawn almost shut against the late October sunshine. They didn’t quite meet in the middle, thus the annoying sun ray on her face.
Eva groaned as she tried to turn her head away from that blasted beam, and a soft laugh echoed from the bottom of her bed. Only it wasn’t her bed, was it? With a start Eva realized that she was naked and tied to a sumptuous four poster bed that wouldn’t have looked amiss in a period drama. Antiques made up the room, and on one of those surely priceless pieces of period furniture sat the man from last night. Her breathing hitched as he raised the crystal goblet in his hand, swirled the dark liquid around, and then raised the glass up in a mock salute, before he downed it in one swallow.
Unbidden her gaze followed the movement of his throat, as he swallowed, and snared on the open neckline of his shirt. He’d left several buttons undone, revealing a powerful chest with a light dusting of dark hair that led down to his belt buckle and her throat went dry as she caught sight of the massive bulge in his tailored trousers. He wasn’t a shifter, she sensed that much, and he didn’t have the overbearing muscle mass most male shifters had, but he still had a presence that took her breath away. Corded forearms flexed, as he leaned back in the chair he occupied, and the rolled up sleeves of his old-fashioned style of shirt hitched higher up his naturally tanned arms. It made her wonder what his nationality was.
“Sleeping Beauty is awake, I see. Tell me, did I pass the inspection?” Unwanted heat rose in Eva’s cheeks, and she groaned under her breath. Really, blushing? Had she woken up in an alternate universe, where she was reduced back to a simpering female who couldn’t look at a man without blushing? So, he’d caught her checking him out, so what?
Her eagle strained to get closer to this man, and Eva yanked on her restraints. The action made the sheet covering her slip, and she froze when one of her breasts was exposed to the chilly air. Immediately that nipple puckered, and Eva couldn’t shake the feeling that it had more to do with the sudden spark of heat in the stranger’s gaze than the actual room. It wasn’t that cold in here. In fact had he just turned up the heat? It sure felt like it, as he rose out of the chair with a grace belying his large frame, and walked up to her. He pulled the sheet back over her bosom with a sinful grin that made her curl her toes under, and meant her eagle was ready to snuggle. Really now, since when was
her inner animal the snuggly type, let alone with a man she had only just met and who had tied her up.
Belatedly that nugget of insight made it through her befuddled brain and she yanked on her restraints again.
The man shook his head, and put his large hand on her forearm. Curiously cool that hand seemed to nonetheless burn her skin, and meant she stopped struggling instantly.
“That’s better, myshka, I wouldn’t want you to hurt that arm again. It was a nasty break and I dare say you’ll be stiff for a while.”
That accent of his was to die for and the deep tones of his gravelly voice washed over her senses, and made her want to just do as she was told. It was ridiculous, this hold this man seemed to have on her, and hello, Eva, he’s tied you up, while you were unconscious. Wake up.
“Why the hell am I tied up?” She managed to get the words out, at last, and tried for her best intimidating glare. Tried and failed, if the breathy quality of those words and the amusement dancing in his black eyes was anything to go by.
Damn it all to hell and back, where was her usual spunk and attitude? She was a Protector, for fuck’s sake, and a majestic golden eagle, and this man…
“And who the hell are you? Did you kidnap me?” Her voice rose to a shrill shriek in her agitation, and her tormentor ran a hand through his thick hair, and smiled down at her. The bed dipped as he sat down on the edge of it, and her breathing sped up, when he ran just the tip of his index finger up and down her throat and into the valley of her breasts. The sheet slipped again, until it barely covered her assets, and she bit her lip. This really shouldn’t be such a turn-on. What the hell was wrong with her this morning?