Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
The right of Gemma Mazurke to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Copyright © Gemma Mazurke 2017
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Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
CHRISTMAS: DRAGON STYLE
Book ONE of The Sanguenna Chronicles
Chapter One
His tongue slithered through the folds of her sex like a professional. A professional who specialized in her.
He knew exactly where to touch, where to lick, where to flick. He knew where to suck and when to fuck. When to flutter and tease and when to consume and devour.
He ate her up with everything that he had. He swept her along in the storm. Not stopping until she was lost in the eye with him. Until they were the only people left on the earth, the only ones who mattered.
And still, he didn’t leave her alone.
His focus on her clit had her grabbing his head, tugging at his ears. She wasn’t sure whether she wanted him to stop or to carry on.
He drove her insane with want, with need. Made her desperate for completion, for him. Only with him.
She spread her legs, pushing them apart until the tendons in her inner thighs protested the strain in the best possible way. She lifted her head and watched his tongue, his utterly talented tongue, eat her up like she was a banquet, and he was a man starved of food.
Watching him was like watching the most marvelous opera. She’d never been so engaged, so focused before. He made her the center of his universe, and she, in return, made him hers.
She cried out as he began to lash her clit and, thrusting two fingers into her pussy, began to fuck her, curling the digits up, not stopping until he found her G-spot.
As she cried out, hollering her orgasm, she felt like weeping, because with the delightful climax, as she’d done for the past two weeks, she woke up.
The man of her dreams, her dream man in more ways than one, was no more. He was gone, and she was left alone in her simple, solitary bed.
The thought, for the first time in her two centuries, had tears burning her eyes.
Mia was not a sentimental woman. She’d reached her position through brute force, a skill for diplomacy sharper than an Olympic fencer’s sabre, and wit so cunning she made even the wildest seem tame.
She was not a woman given to weeping. She was not a woman given to dreaming about a man.
And yet, here she was. For the dozenth time, her subconscious betrayed her.
That man, whoever he was, she longed for him like she’d longed for nothing else.
Her body burned for him. She ached, deep inside. And though, upon a night he gave her release, it was nothing to what she knew he’d give her if he were real.
But he wasn’t real.
He was a figment of a horny imagination, one captured in dreams because she’d been too busy for the last half a century ruling her coven to look for a lover.
She sucked in a shuddery breath and curled onto her side. Tucking her legs against her body, she rolled into a fetal position and tried to tell herself she didn’t need a lover.
The last thing she wanted was a man in her life. One who thought he could boss her around, take charge of her world.
Men were too convoluted. They brought with them complications, and at this point in her life, with as many balls as she was juggling making her coven as successful as possible, complications were the last thing she needed.
Still, as she closed her eyes, trying to tell herself she needed no man, a whisper from so deep down in her being she didn’t know its source told her that the man in her dreams was no ordinary man.
He would be no ordinary lover.
Once again, she tried to shut down those whispers. Only, they wouldn’t let her. And as she fell asleep, she prepared herself for the bombardment once more, for her unordinary lover to reach for her and to claim her as his.
***
“Are we really doing this?”
Mia LeRoche batted her lashes at her assistant. “You got a problem with Christmas, Brady?” she asked, like he’d never made a complaint about the holiday season before.
Yeah, right.
Now that would be a Christmas miracle.
On cue, his top lip curled upward, revealing sharp fangs. On anyone else, she’d take it as a warning sign. Well, that or the signal to attack first. On him, however, it was just loathing for anything festive.
“It’s a ridiculous human tradition. It doesn’t even make sense,” Brady growled. “Jesus wasn’t white. I mean, he couldn’t have been. He was Middle Eastern. And he was born in like February or something. How is that even accurate?”
She snorted at his disgust. “Does it matter?”
“Yeah. If they’re going to rip some pagan festival off, at least do it fucking right.”
“Well, I like it.”
“You just like the pretty lights.”
She chuckled as the two bartenders strung up lights around the bar in front of them. “Maybe. But you can have them all year round now.”
Brady grimaced. “Travesty.”
“Jesus Christ, you’re a fucking joy to be around today. What’s got your goat?”
“I’m always a fucking joy to be around. I’m offended you’re only just realizing this.”
“Oh, I’m not, you’re just worse than usual tonight.” She shot him a saccharine sweet smile.
His sole answer was a grunt.
“Bad day?”
Brady was a daywalker. Born of a human mother and vampire father, he had the best of both worlds. Could walk in the sunlight, didn’t need blood to eat, and didn’t have to sleep. Plus, ya know, chocolate. But he was mortal. He wouldn’t live past a
hundred, unless he had help.
Mia, on the other hand, product of two Vampire parents, would live until she decided to walk into the sun. Or someone decided to push her into it.
She didn’t intend on pissing off someone enough to murder her, but when you lived a long time, pissing people off was surprisingly easy.
Daywalkers made great companions for nightwalkers. Brady had been with her for forty years now. He was her assistant, making sure everything ran smoothly during the day while she slept, as well as being her dinner.
The blood exchange kept him young. It also kept him loyal to her; if he wanted to live longer than his body was capable of, he needed her as much as she needed him.
It was a fair exchange of power.
His presence in her life was a huge matter of trust. She trusted him to protect her and her world. He had to trust her to keep him alive. Daywalkers didn’t like to feed just anybody. They were surprisingly tight fisted with their blood and who they shared it with.
“Not more of the damned things. Think of our carbon footprint.” Brady groaned as more bartenders appeared carrying strings of red, green, and white lights, which would flash when plugged in.
“You didn’t think that tree was going to stay bare, did you?” she asked with a grin, eying the fir that she’d stacked in the middle of her nightclub.
Three floors high with a mezzanine landing, the tree was tall enough to peek up to the third story. She had no idea how they were going to top it with a star, but she could leave that to her staff. If someone had to play Tinkerbell, she’d give them a bonus for ingenuity.
Seeing the wait staff appear with boxes, which had arrived from her epic online shop, she clapped her hands happily. “They arrived.”
“Nearly a thousand baubles. What a waste of funds.”
She shot him a look. “Since when did you question what I spend my money on?”
He flushed. “I meant no harm.”
“I know,” she told him brightly, but the point was made. She granted him a lot of leeway. The last thing she wanted was him terrified of her; he was a part of her life from waking to sleeping. Friendship was a must.
But as he got older, he got grumpier, making him a pain in the ass of grand proportions when it came to things he didn’t agree with. She peered at the bar, saw the stock was topped up correctly. She watched the DJ setting up his station, looked at the sparkling clean dance floor and seating areas, and knew from an earlier look that the second and third floor were equally as polished.
“We’ve only got two hours to decorate, people,” she called out. “Do me proud.”
On the receiving end of a heap of nods, she spun on her heel and headed toward the back office, where there was an entrance to her private quarters, Brady at her back.
His break was approaching, which meant it was time for dinner.
She’d bought the warehouse in the Tribeca area back in the days when slaughterhouses had been on every corner. She’d made a lot of investments that hadn’t made much sense over the years, but she was reaping the benefits now.
Half the warehouse she’d dedicated to the nightclub. The other half was her home as well as quarters for loyal staff who lived in with her.
Nightwalkers as old as she usually had a large entourage. The warehouse was perfect for housing her coven.
She stepped through the single door that led between the nightclub to the main house and nodded at the two daywalkers she had guarding it.
“Sanguenna,” they said dutifully at the sight of her, bowing their heads and crossing their left arm over the chest to cup their throats. It was a bizarre genuflection only granted to a coven leader.
Literally offering her their throats and their blood, it was the ultimate sign of respect.
As they walked away and headed for Brady’s room, she murmured, “Remember the days when you used to call me Sanguenna?”
He snorted. “The bad old days.”
She couldn’t help but chuckle. Far too accustomed to his grim humor, she shot him a look as they traipsed down the cream-carpeted hall. “I rather liked it. I got less snark back then, too. You weren’t always such a misery.”
“Now, I’m offended. If you wanted a court jester, you should have told me years ago.”
Grinning, Mia told him, “For someone who’s about to have my fangs in his throat, you’re remarkably gloomy tonight.”
“You know I hate Christmas.”
“And you know I love it, and the punters adore it even more,” she told him softly. “The holiday season is one of our busiest times. You know that.”
He hunched his shoulders. “Doesn’t make the memories any easier.”
“I know,” she said in an even gentler tone and leaned over to cup his shoulder and give him a one-armed hug.
Vampires didn’t celebrate Christmas, usually, but her coven was accustomed to the merriment at this time of year, and Brady, with a human mother, had been raised with the festivities.
He should have loved it as much as Mia did, but she understood. Memories could be a bitch. A drunk driver had snatched his mom away on Christmas Eve fifteen years ago, and ever since, Brady had been getting gloomier and grumpier. Not just during the season, either. All year round.
They walked to his room with him tucked in her one-armed embrace, where he invited her in. Another tradition. He had to step inside first, open the door wide, and give her the same genuflection as her guards had.
With a majesty that came from years in her position, she nodded regally and stepped into his room.
It took five minutes to feed. Barely that. After so many years, they had it down pat. He stood beside his bed, head tilted to the side. She approached him with a business-like air, deleting any sensuality from the act as she nuzzled her lips against his throat, bared her teeth, and sank her fangs deeply into the thick, padded flesh.
When his blood seeped into her mouth, he heaved out a sigh, and she closed her eyes in delight.
After she finished, he’d be in a stupor for the next few hours. It was what they considered to be his rest. When he’d broken free of it, he’d eat—human food—then come to her side and his day would start again.
For her, she could feel his blood, his heat, pouring through her veins, soaking into tissues that had grown dry after a day’s fast.
When she’d had enough, when she felt reenergized, she pulled her fangs from his throat and licked her lips after the sharp tips retracted. Quickly sucking the few drops of blood from the puncture wound she’d made, she sealed the bite with her tongue then looked up at her blood addled assistant.
He had a dopey grin on his face, as he reached over to pat her cheek. “Thank you, Mia,” he told her, sounding drunker than some of her clientele after a night’s binge drinking. “You’re a star, you know that?”
She hid her grin. He only ever complimented her when he was too high to remember to be grumpy. “Yeah. I do. Come on, let’s get you into bed.”
He didn’t wait for her help, just toppled backward onto the mattress. When he started snoring almost immediately, she decided to leave him to it.
She didn’t think she’d taken more than usual, but his reaction suggested she had. Normally, he had time to shuck off his shoes and strip down to his boxers before getting under the covers.
Pondering the unusualness of his behavior, something he’d been manifesting the last few nights as well, she headed out of his room and carried on down the corridor to her office.
When she got there, she heard a voice inside and frowned. Opening the door to her ante-chamber, she frowned harder at the scent of shifter. Sniffing a little more, she scented not just any shifter but a reptilian one.
A dragon?
That couldn’t be.
Dragon shifters were not only few and far between in this realm, they also didn’t make appointments with coven leaders.
Still, her second assistant, a newish daywalker who’d been with her only two decades, Elenor, fluttered around a huge male, se
ated in a club chair opposite her desk.
He made the piece of furniture look minuscule, which was ridiculous. She didn’t buy furniture that would fit in a doll’s house, for God’s sake. Still, that was how it looked, because boy was he something.
As she swept into the office, he got to his feet. All seven feet of him. He was strong, big. Like Dwayne Johnson big with biceps she kind of wanted to bite, either that or see how much of them she could cover with her hands. He was covered up in an exquisitely tailored suit, but no amount of work from Saville Row’s finest was going to make him look smaller. The thin pinstripe merely elongated his length, and the oxford collar enhanced his thick throat. Jesus, she’d like to bite that too.
Mouth salivating at the sight, she was quick to lift her eyes to his face and saw her fascination amused him. He was dark-haired: sable locks that lay about his shoulders looked as silky as a spider’s web. His jaw housed a mouth that looked eminently kissable, and a Roman nose added to his aura of obstinacy. His eyes were what caught her, though. Arched beneath strong brows, they were crystalline white and silver. And as she looked, a thin membrane slithered across his eye—the nictitating membrane, if memory served. It was unobtrusive, and she only noticed it because she was looking at him so intently. Still, if his size hadn’t been confirmation, that was.
He was a dragon.
There was a dragon in her office.
She frowned at him. “Who are you, and what are you doing in my office?”
She refused to wince at how rude that was, but Elenor, more nervous than usual, stuttered out, “I’m sorry, Sanguenna. He barged in and refuses to leave.”
“She’s right,” the dragon confirmed, sounding uncaring as to the accusation. “She’s not to blame for my being here. I need to speak with you.”
Mia arched a brow. “Why is that?”
He took a seat, and she folded her arms in irritation at his failure to ask her permission.
Vampire society was heavily formalized. Even the most minute of faux pas could cause grievous insult.
As she barely had any interaction with anyone outside Vampire society—she only danced with humans from time to time, and she certainly didn’t talk to them or fuck them—the shift away from formality put her on edge.
Christmas: Dragon Style (The Sanguenna Chronicles Book 1) Page 1