by T. S. Ryder
She stopped in the doorway of her room. The bed, which she distinctly remembered carefully making the morning of the incident, was crumpled, the blankets in a twisted mess. Leaves were scattered all over the floor. Some were brown and dried, but others fresh, like they had just been plucked from the plant. Her heart beat with hope and she trembled, leaning against the doorway as her knees weakened. Could she withstand more disappointment if he wasn't here?
"Oliver? Oliver, please, if you're here…"
She rushed to the bathroom. Empty. But he had to be here somewhere, he had to be hanging around…
The screen in the bathroom window was missing. If she hadn't noticed that, Mack would never have seen the small shadow cast onto the sill. Like something was just outside, against the wall.
With a cry, she rushed to the window. Oliver stood on the small ledge just outside, clinging to the wall with his giant, nimble hands.
"Oliver!"
He winced as he looked down at her, not even attempting a smile. With a sigh, he slipped back into the room. Mack threw her arms around him, sobbing in relief.
"I thought you were dead! I thought that I'd never see you again."
Oliver's hands cased her shoulders, and gently but firmly he pushed her away. His eyes were on the floor as he shook his head. "I should be dead. No normal person could survive getting shot multiple times and falling off a building like that. But me, not even a scar,"
"You're alive." Mack reached for his face. He caught her hands, holding her away.
"I don't want you to touch me right now."
The smile slipped off her face. "Oliver?"
"I was going to tell you I'm alive. I wasn't going to make you suffer." His eyes fixed firmly on her feet. "But this… this just proves what I was worried about all along. I'm not human. I don't belong in your world. And after seeing what I did to all those men… Mack, I'm just too dangerous to be around people."
"You say that like you're not a person."
"I'm not! I'm an animal." He turned away.
Mack stared at him. The anger she never felt when she was around him blossomed in her chest and her fists clenched at her sides. "An animal? We're all animals. We all evolved the same way. I don't care if you turn into something that doesn't look human, you're a person. You're a good man, and as for what you did here–you were defending me! All the men you killed would have killed me and you if they had the chance. That doesn't make you dangerous."
Oliver lifted his eyes to hers. "You're angry."
"Of course I'm angry! You can't take this one incident, where you were protecting me, and say that it's more important than all the good times we had together. Playing on the jungle gym? Hide and seek in the atrium? Not to mention sex in the theater room!" Mack put her hands on her hips. "When have you ever hurt me? Not once."
"That doesn't mean I won't. In the future."
"You won't. Don't cut me out, Oliver. Please."
"I can't have children."
"I don't care. I love you."
"You love me?" A brief smile crossed his face. "I was afraid you'd run away from me. But I was wrong. You ran towards me." He stepped forward, and his fingers brushed her cheek. She pressed her hands to his chest. His heart beat sure and strong. "I don't understand why you want to be with me."
"Because you are the most unique, wonderful man I have ever met, and you let me be me." Mack pressed herself against him, smiling up into his deep eyes. "I'm happy when I'm with you… and I like to think you're happy with me."
Oliver wrapped his strong arms around her. "Deliriously happy. Happier than I've ever been in my life."
He pressed a kiss to her mouth and, with a sigh, Mack wrapped her arms around his neck and drew him in deeper.
Epilogue
Florida was growing on her. To hell with spanx and whatever else was going to make her look thinner and hide her wobbly bits. Now it was all tank tops and short shorts. Even less when she and Oliver were home in their countryside getaway, but with a business to run, they could only get out there during the weekends.
Mack smiled as she carried a basket of squirming, mewling kittens back to their mother after being weighed. Oliver had purchased a few acres of land just outside Orlando so she could finally set up her animal rescue shelter. They only had licenses to take in domestic animals at the moment, but she was working on getting registered to care for wild animals.
"Here you go, lovely." She slipped into the large pen where the mother cat was anxiously waiting for her kittens to return. As Mack put them down one by one, the mother cat began licking them. "All healthy and purrrrrfect."
She scratched the cat behind the ears, making her purr. In a few weeks, the kittens would be old enough to adopt out, and she already had a new owner for the mother and the runt of the litter when that happened.
Adopting out kittens and puppies was easy. The older animals, however, were starting to get overcrowded. They'd have to put out more advertisements. Even with all their space, they just didn't have enough room to care for them all.
After she fed the cats and cleaned a few cages, Mack sought her lover and business partner out. He was where he always was at this time of day, sitting outside the cage of a cat they had gotten from a hoarder two weeks ago. The poor thing had been half-starved, and though it had fattened up since then, the ragged patches of fur on its body had not regrown. The fur that was growing was a hideous poop-brown. As Mack approached, the familiar warning hiss issued from the cage.
"I don't know if there's hope for this one, Oliver." Mack put her hand on his shoulder. "He just doesn't like people."
Oliver pressed her palm to his lips. "And that's why I think he's perfect for us. Think about it. I don't like people, you don't like people. If we don't take him, who will?"
The cat spat at Mack as she looked at it. She closed her eyes very slowly several times until the growling ceased, then sat beside Oliver. Her family had found him strange and a little off-putting when she first introduced him, but he had soon won them over. Her mother had confided in him that she had never seen Mack so light-hearted and happy in her whole life, and his eccentric ways were soon labeled endearing.
Mack put her head on her lover's shoulder, enjoying the warmth from his skin.
"If we take him home, he'll run away and end up being an alligator's snack," she said, while Oliver made gentle hooting noises towards the ugly, defensive cat. "I have to admit, though, you're really good with him. Look at that. He's visibly relaxing."
"We could have him in our city apartment at first until he won't run away. I just hate to see him in here. It's so lonely… And I know how he feels. Like he's not wanted, like the world will hurt him if it gets too close." Oliver turned sad eyes on her. "What if I promised to stay home every day to take care of him? I'll buy scratching posts and toys and treats. I'll buy you a new car," he added. "And a new dress. And I'll buy your parents a new house."
"You just bought them a new house."
"I'll buy them another one. And your brothers, I'll buy them houses, too. I'm very rich, you know." He said it seriously, as though she didn't know that already.
Mack laughed. "You crazy monkey."
"Ape," he corrected. "Or hominid-ape. Maybe I'm Bigfoot. It doesn't matter." He beamed at her. "I have you and I'm happy. I just want to give him the same chance that you gave me."
Mack felt herself caving. She straddled Oliver's hips and nodded. "Fine. We can adopt the cat."
Oliver's eyes lit up.
"If, and I do mean if, you clean up after yourself for a full week," Mack smiled, knowing that he wasn't going to do it and she was going to let him have the cat anyway. Her heart felt full to bursting and she pressed her mouth to his. "Let me change that. You can have the cat if you tell me you love me."
"I love you," Oliver said at once. "Have since I first laid eyes on you."
"I love you, too."
He drew her back for another kiss. Their lips parted and their tongues flicked against eac
h other. Mack moaned, pressing herself tighter against him. The cat hissed and Oliver laughed, sticking one of his fingers through the cage.
"Silly kitty. You're coming home with us tonight. You're going to have to get used to it." He sighed, resting his head on her chest. "He's perfect, isn't he?"
"You're perfect," Mack replied, smiling at him.
Oliver chuckled. "No, you're perfect."
Mack tilted his face to hers, cupping his face in her hands. "This is perfect."
"Can't argue with that." He pulled her in for another kiss.
*****
THE END
Vampire Romance: The Vampire Prince's Bride
Description
A BBW with a secret PLUS a vampire general who needs human blood PLUS a shifter army out to kill!
Vampire general Darius isn’t looking for love or romance. He’s looking for a promotion. And for that, he needs a human wife and a baby. Just one look at Cleo’s curves and he knows she can give him what he needs. The thought of another man touching her makes him want to kill.
Cleo has always been strong, always in charge of her own destiny. But what Darius doesn’t know is that she isn’t as invulnerable as she seems. She keeps her secrets just as he keeps his. They made a deal. Why should they be concerned with each other's intimate lives?
But Darius and Cleo are forced to confront their worst fears when Darius is sent to fight a group of rebel shifters that may just get him killed. Violence is a vampire’s domain. But can he survive this?
As feelings deepen and danger grows ever closer, Cleo and Darius will have to face hard truths–and decide if ambition is really worth their lives, or if love is worthy of sacrifice.
Chapter One – Darius
A picture of Iosif hung over the mantle in Darius's study. The king had ruled all the lands from the Black Sea to the Carpathian Mountain range to the Danube River for almost two thousand years now and was a vampire of great strength and pride. This study had once belonged to his father and Darius had sat on the floor and stared at wonder at the king's picture ever since he was a young boy.
Hearing about the king's great feats against the shifters, who used to run rampant and murder recklessly, had always made his heart swell with pride. He had determined from a young age that he would be as great as the king, one day wearing the crown on his own head. As he grew up, he realized that his goals required a lot of hard work, but Darius was nothing if not determined.
"There have been reports of wolves here and here," he said, pointing to the map spread out on his desk. "Three dozen sheep were killed and a shepherdess has disappeared only a dozen leagues from here."
His best friend and second-in-command, Gordon, frowned. "You think it's the Rebeluna?"
Darius grimaced as he considered. The Rebeluna was a self-proclaimed rebel group that resisted the vampire king in any way possible. Shifters of various clans gathered and were responsible for more vampire deaths than any other group in the past decade. Since they assassinated the last colonel charged with finding them, the king had turned the investigation over to Darius.
"No," he decided. "The Rebeluna are organized, efficient. These are minor inconveniences, more likely wolves who consider themselves rebels but don't have the courage to actually commit to open rebellion."
"Then why bring them up?"
Darius straightened and grinned. "They're exactly the type that the Rebeluna will recruit for cannon fodder. Send a couple of men to investigate. If humans think that we're allowing shifters to steal them away with no consequences, it might stir up unrest. Find the shepherdess, if nothing else."
"Am I interrupting?"
The cool, confident voice made him turn to the door. His twenty-year-old human wife of four months, Cleo, stood in the doorway. Darius smiled at her. Iosif and his own human mate had had no children of their own and had made it clear that the vampire they chose to replace Iosif had to prove he had good relations with humans. The best way to do that was to marry one, and so he had.
"Darius. Gordon." Cleo strode in, her shoulders back, her head held high, exuding an air of confidence about her.
She had been Darius' choice wife for two reasons. One, she was beautiful. Bronzed skin, long curly hair, stunning black eyes. When Darius first chose her, Gordon had questioned whether he really wanted somebody as 'robust' as her. She was all curves and softness, nothing angular or sharp about her–except her piercing gaze.
Which brought him to his second reason for choosing her. She made no pretenses about what she wanted – a husband who could give her all the luxury and power she desired. She wanted to be queen as much as he wanted to be king, and she would do anything necessary to ensure that happened.
Having a woman like that by his side only heightened his possibilities. She was clever, level-headed, and he had never seen her act based solely on emotion – exactly what he was looking for in a wife.
"You didn't come to bed last night, Darius." Cleo walked into the room, her black eyes never leaving his face. "I bought a new… dress that I wanted to show you."
The colonel could imagine what she would look like in the 'dress' and swallowed hard. Heat curled in his lower belly.
Gordon cleared his throat. "My lord, if you want some privacy—"
Darius waved his hand at his friend, an annoyed expression on his face. "As much as I would like to ravish my wife on every surface available in this room, I don't have the time."
"More news on the Rebeluna?"
"A small envoy of vampires were attacked yesterday evening. It's the Rebeluna's style, but there are many other reports of shifters that I have to have investigated."
Cleo nodded. "What envoy did they attack yesterday?"
"Lord Virgil's taxes. He still insists on delivering them in gold every year. Claims it's safer."
Cleo snorted. "Maybe he'll start using a check or e-transfer now."
"Maybe. And maybe I should have seen it coming. Virgil's so stuck in the past that he's an easy target for the shifters. They pretended to be a roadblock and shot the tires of his Hummer. They took the gold but didn't stick around to kill anybody."
Gordon coughed, drawing attention to himself. "We think they are gathering funds for a larger-scale attack."
The vampire didn't look at Cleo. But then, Gordon had never liked the human. He always thought that Darius deserved someone 'better'. The problem was he thought 'better' meant thinner and more emotional, worshiping the ground Darius walked on. He didn't want that.
He didn't want love.
"They could be collecting funds to bribe the lower-ranked vampires," Cleo suggested. "Or to donate money to the outlying human settlements. Turn them to the shifter cause."
"It wouldn't be the first time," Darius agreed.
"I'm having tea with a few of the other wives today. I'll discuss an outreach program to bolster vampire relations with the outliers. I know that the recent earthquakes have caused some flooding. I'll be sure to increase aid to the areas affected."
Darius nodded, smiling at his wife. She didn't think in terms of battles and conquest, but rather how kindness could change the tide of wars. A valuable ally. In this seemingly unending war between vampires and shifters, humans were the key figures. They were vital to vampire survival, and not just because vampires required human blood to sustain themselves.
The common assumption that humans could turn into vampires was wrong. It was true that the humans who lived among vampires and were regularly fed from took on vampiric traits: their aging slowed to the point where they hardly aged at all. They also grew stronger, faster, and developed a taste for blood. But they remained human. Vampires were born vampires – and usually males at that. Without human wives like Cleo, they would be extinct within three generations.
"What are you grinning at?" Cleo narrowed her eyes at him.
"I was just remembering how we met." His voice turned low and husky. "And how I knew instantly that you were the woman to be my bride."
Cle
o smirked back at him. Both of them ignored Gordon rolling his eyes.
Their first meeting was indicative of their whole relationship. There had been no romance. He had been patrolling his lands with Gordon and half a dozen sergeants. They stopped at a station in the closest city to refuel their motorcycles. Normally humans looked at them with awe, but Darius had noticed Cleo leaning against the building, gazing at the vampires as though she was measuring them up and finding them lacking.
He hadn't been able to help himself. He walked over to her. Her expression had changed slightly, and when she looked at him, her gaze lingered on the insignia on his jacket.
"You're a colonel," she had said.
"Yes, I am. If you come back to my estate with me, I'll marry you."
She had given him that cool, sharp gaze and shrugged. "I could hold out for a general, but you'll be one soon enough if I have any say in the matter. Let's go."
The wicked grin on Cleo's face showed that she was remembering as well. Darius circled the table and caught his wife in his arms.
"You took a big risk on me."
"Hardly." Cleo rolled her eyes. "I did my research. I already knew everything about you. I knew you took weekly patrols, and I knew you always stopped at that station for gas. I had everything planned. If you hadn't approached me, I would have gone to you."
With a light chuckle, Darius gave her a quick peck on the lips. She moaned, indicating her wish for more, but the vampire pulled away. It was difficult. He had been so busy lately that he hadn't actually drunk from her in almost two months. Blood bags didn't taste as good as the real deal, but drinking usually led to other things… and when he only had a few minutes to spare, he couldn’t indulge in anything.
Her scent was driving him crazy, though. She was wearing an essential oil fragrance, which most vampires didn't like. He loved it. Rose and lavender with a hint of peppermint. Delicious. Her natural scent was only enhanced by the oils.