Kissed by a Dark Prince (Volume 1)

by Felicity Heaton

  Olivia straightened and curled her fingers into fists. That wasn’t going to happen. She would find a way to make her case watertight so Archangel couldn’t remove her from the team or make this about a team at all.

  “Thank you.” She picked up the scattered papers of her report from his desk and swiftly left the roomy cream office, heading along the pale corridor to the elevators.

  She pressed the call button. She would start with her report and her findings, and then she would state her case, embellishing a few things. If she said that Loren had agreed to the tests on the basis that only she would be involved, and they would be left in peace during them, would her bosses go for that? She wasn’t a great liar, but she was sure that Loren had only agreed to come to Archangel and work with her because he thought they would be working alone.

  He wouldn’t want others at the facility finding out what he was. He had taken his people away from the mortal world to protect them. If Archangel discovered that elves not only existed but lived in a whole different realm, accessed via teleportation, they would want to go there and investigate it.

  Olivia knew that for a fact because it was what she wanted to do.

  She headed down to the next floor, found the meeting room and set herself up at one end of the long oval beech table. She opened the folder and spread her report out in front of her, scanning over Loren’s vitals and the transcription of her voice recording. She could do this.

  No sooner had she thought that than the doors opposite her opened and several senior staff members filed in, together with four hunters, one of which was Sable, and some of the top medical staff. Mark was the last to enter. He took the seat at the other end of the table.

  Olivia glanced at Sable. It was nice to have a friendly face amongst a sea of scowling ones. No one looked happy to be here and Olivia changed her mind.

  She couldn’t do this.

  All three grey-haired men on her left, the senior members of Archangel based in this facility, looked as though they had already made up their mind about her request and she was going to be off the team. Two male doctors in white coats sat opposite them to her right, a smug look on their faces. They knew the deal. Let her speak, indulge her, and then watch as her superiors crushed her hope and gave the fae to them.

  They had probably all scanned her report in the last few minutes, taken a look at her findings, and then her request, and thought she had gone crazy to even think about asking to lead the study.

  Olivia’s hands shook as she shifted her papers around and then sharply raised her head and threw herself onto the tracks of the last train for La-La-Land.

  It took her less than fifteen minutes to outline her findings and field some very personal questions that she definitely hadn’t anticipated, and a few disdainful remarks, and then all Olivia could do was try to prove that she hadn’t gone insane and that she believed that the test subject wasn’t out to blow up the building.

  One of the doctor’s made a very snide comment about it being a male specimen and her report about his body. Olivia’s blood boiled and she pressed her hands against the desk, fighting to keep her anger below their radars. The chatter amongst the hunters, her superiors, and the doctors verged on an argument.

  “What she’s suggesting is crazy. A healthy fae male of unknown origin cannot have free run of the facility. At the very least, he should be contained during the study.” The oldest male hunter’s brown eyes had a twinkle in them that looked a touch sadistic to Olivia.

  “The male in question will not subject himself to containment. You’re talking about forcibly restraining him. Doing such a thing to a guest of Archangel is not going to help us improve our image.” Olivia’s words fell on deaf ears as the doctor who had remarked on her relationship with a demon spoke over her.

  “Of course we would contain the specimen. He should have been contained when he had first come into the lab. Then we could have carried out a full study on him, without this debacle.”

  Oh, he didn’t. Olivia almost growled. “He is willing to come in and let us study him. Surely you can’t expect him to agree to being strapped down while that happens? I want him here as a guest, not a prisoner. He must be free to come and go.”

  “As he pleases? That sounds dangerous to me.” The grey-haired man in the middle of the three superiors raised an eyebrow at her and the other two nodded in agreement.

  Olivia drew in a breath to stop herself from saying something that would probably get her the same treatment as they were offering to Loren. She had spent a few days in the cells at the containment centre before. She didn’t want to go there again.

  “Perhaps we should have a break?” Mark smiled at everyone, defusing the bomb that had come close to exploding.

  Olivia nodded and exhaled slowly. Everyone rose from their seats and the doctors immediately made straight for the senior staff members, schmoozing them with false smiles and talk of how they would handle this study. Sable caught Olivia’s arm and pulled her away, towards a table lining the cream wall.

  “Don’t kill the other doctors,” Sable said, her voice light and airy. Her friend was deadly serious seventy-five percent of the time. The rare times Sable let her sense of humour out, things were normally dire and about to get worse.

  “They’re going to take this away from me.” Olivia knew it. They were going to pull rank on her and take her off the study completely, and then they were going to strap Loren down and do God only knew what to him. “I can’t let that happen.”

  “So don’t let it.” Sable’s logic was sound but also full of holes.

  “And how do you propose I don’t let it happen? I have zero standing with the five most powerful people in this room. Even Mark doesn’t want to let me have this chance to redeem myself. I can see it in his eyes.” She looked across the room at him where he was talking to the three male hunters.

  The air between them shimmered and Olivia gasped as Loren appeared right before her. The air behind him wobbled too and the other one appeared, the one who had looked ready to kill her the few times they had met.

  Sable drew her short collapsible crossbow from the belt of her black uniform and had it aimed at Loren before Olivia could react. The other three hunters sprang into action too, drawing their weapons and aiming them at the two elves.

  Loren stood before her, dressed in complete black scale-like armour that hugged every inch of his lithe body like a second skin. A black helmet covered most of his head, the top flaring up from a point above the bridge of his nose, sweeping back into serrated curved spikes that almost resembled a crown. The black metallic material obscured the lower half of his face, but she would recognise his blue eyes anywhere.

  His fingers flexed around the black sword he had drawn. His armour turned them into long jagged claws with sharp pointed tips that looked deadlier than the blade they gripped.

  Loren’s blue eyes met hers, a touch of warmth in their silent greeting, and the lower part of his helmet folded back to reveal his face, stopping when it had cleared his cheeks.

  She had forgotten how tall he was, but she hadn’t forgotten how beautiful. He stole her breath.

  The hunters behind them called for assistance on their communication wristbands and the alarms in the building wailed, dropping the room into red flashing light.

  Loren’s sensual lips peeled back and he bared his teeth. All blunt. He was masking what he was and she couldn’t blame him.

  He raised one hand, his claws flashing menacingly in the red strobe, and the alarms went silent and the lights came back on.

  Everyone stared at him, surprise written across their faces. She probably looked the same way. What powers did Loren have? Just the abilities she had seen him use so far were incredible and she had the feeling they were just the tip of a very big iceberg.

  Loren turned on her, his blue eyes cold now, his voice little more than a thick snarl. “Is this the greeting I was to expect?”

  Olivia raised her hand and lowered Sable’s weapo
n for her, and indicated for the other hunters to do the same. They didn’t. This wasn’t going to go well. If Loren felt threatened, his friend would attack to protect him.

  The male tossed an emerald green glare at the men around him, disgust written in every line of his handsome face.

  Olivia stepped towards Loren. “No, but we hadn’t settled the details regarding your visit and your arrival was unexpected... and you’re not exactly dressed in the friendliest way.”

  “You expected us to walk into this trap without weapons... pitiful mortal.” The man behind Loren sounded just as gruff and vicious as he had the time he had barged in on her and Loren back in the castle. He went to draw the black blade hanging at his waist.

  Loren placed his hand on the male’s arm. “We are not here to do battle, Bleu. Remember that. Our quarrel is not with these mortals.”

  He sheathed his own sword and released Bleu.

  “I apologise for the manner of our arrival, Olivia. We had not agreed a time and I had concluded my business, so I felt it provident to come here so that we might begin our tests.”

  Olivia stared up at him. No one in this world spoke like Loren. He sounded antiquated, a constant reminder of his incredible age. A cute sort of reminder. She liked how he spoke all formally and rigid. All noble and princely.

  Her bosses came forward, the three male hunters flanking them, leaving the doctors to stare at Loren and Bleu from across the room.

  It struck Olivia again how tall the elves were, towering four inches over the tallest of the men in the room. They were slighter than two of the male hunters, but Olivia knew that didn’t mean a thing when it came down to their actual physical strength. These two elves probably had the strength of twenty powerful human males.

  “I apologise for the way you were greeted.” The senior staff member who had said it was dangerous to allow Loren to come and go as he pleased held his hand out to the man he wanted contained and Olivia wanted to tell Loren not to take it. It turned out she didn’t need to. Loren just stared at the man’s offered hand and then into his eyes, a cold edge to his blue irises. The man shifted nervously and lowered his hand. “We are not a threat to you.”

  Bleu smiled grimly. “At least you are aware of that.”

  Olivia had the feeling he wanted to squish the man like a bug, and there was a tiny part of her that would pay to see it because he was being an almighty ass.

  She cleared her throat, bringing all eyes to her, including Loren’s. They burned into her, setting her body aflame, making her yearn to look up into his eyes and lose herself in them all over again.

  “Now that we’ve established that the fae I want to study is real and he’s not a threat to us and we’re not a threat to him, will you send out the notification that he and his comrade are off limits to all staff?” Olivia smiled, figuring that it wouldn’t harm her chances.

  “I believe our top medical staff should handle this case,” the grey-haired man said and the other two backed him up again. The smug doctors in the corner exchanged a glance and sized up Loren and Bleu.

  Olivia opened her mouth to protest.

  Loren stepped forwards to tower over the man. He tilted his head and narrowed his gaze on him. “I believe Olivia must have mentioned that I will only work with her, and the data from our tests will remain private until she sees fit to make it available to others. I am a busy man, and I do not have time for this delay. It is very simple. Olivia is to work with me, alone, and if anyone seeks to harm myself, Bleu, or the female, they will answer to me.”

  Olivia might have omitted the threat at the end, but all in all, he had perfectly captured what she had wanted to say.

  The senior staff members scurried off to a corner with Mark, talking in low voices. The irritating doctors cast thunderous glances her way. Bleu eyed them and the three male hunters as though he was already dismembering them in his head, and was enjoying it.

  Loren stared at her. “It will work out, Olivia. There is no need to be anxious.”

  Anxious. Elevated pulse. Increased hormone levels. Everything that Loren was probably experiencing just because she was feeling it. She nodded and breathed slowly, settling her racing heart. She didn’t want to make him ill again.

  Her superiors returned to them and Mark came forwards. “We have agreed you can work alone with the fae, but on the proviso that they are not allowed to roam freely without supervision and you run thorough tests, including those requested by other medical staff, and document everything.”

  Loren looked reluctant to agree to that and hair-trigger boy looked as though he was going to draw his sword and cut her boss into tiny bite-sized pieces.

  Loren’s blue gaze slid down to her and he spoke softly. “I will subject myself to whatever you believe is necessary.”

  Olivia nodded. “It will be simple tests. Stamina, strength, abilities. That sort of thing.”

  Loren still looked uncertain. He leaned closer, bringing his lips down to her ear. His breath tickled her neck and his proximity did funny things to her insides, making them quiver and heat. She ached for his touch, her body curving towards his against her will, drawn to him.

  “My results may not be the most sensible to record,” he whispered and Olivia’s eyes widened. He was right. His bond to her had affected him physically, weakening him because of their link.

  He was weaker because of her.

  Was she stronger?

  She was curious about that and wanted to run a few tests on herself too. Loren drew back enough that she could see his eyes. The moment they met hers, she was lost in them again, fighting the current in the torrent of desire that flowed between them and feeling as though it was already pulling her under and she was going to drown before she could save herself by breaking the bond.

  CHAPTER 7

  Loren much preferred the location Olivia had led them to compared with the one they had arrived in. She had been quick to make her excuses and usher them from the room, leading him to suspect that the males who had stated they were not a threat to them had lied. He would have to be on his guard while they were here. It wasn’t only his life at risk now. It was Bleu’s too.

  Bleu had been twitchy from the moment they had arrived, refusing to remove his armour and vehemently stating that he wouldn’t allow Loren to either. Loren had kept his armour on to placate his friend while they had walked from the meeting room down to the laboratory where Olivia was to study them.

  His second in command had also muttered dark things about the tests that Olivia had to run on them, giving Loren the impression that he wanted to refuse. Olivia would need Bleu’s data though. In desiring to keep Loren safe from the mortals, Bleu had inadvertently offered himself as another test subject. She would desire to record Bleu’s data in order to compare it with Loren’s so she could understand how they differed now.

  Bleu paced to Loren’s left, along the front of a table which held a row of three machines he had learned were computers. The brightly lit white room they were in was smaller than the one Loren had come around in when he had first met Olivia and there was no bed or any of the equipment that had been present.

  Olivia sat in a black swivel chair in front of him, closer to the glass door off to his left, and patted the seat of a tall chair beside her. It was different to the one she sat on, made of white metal with black leather padding, and bolted to the floor. It had a plate for the occupant’s feet and a headrest too.

  Loren removed his sword belt from his waist and set the weapon down on the long table with the computers. He crossed the room to Olivia and sat in the chair.

  Bleu cast him a curious but dark glance. Loren could almost read the doubts crossing his friend’s mind and hoped to allay them by allowing Olivia to test him first, showing Bleu that she could be trusted and was not out to harm them.

  Bleu’s fingers rested around the hilt of his sword, his green gaze monitoring Olivia as she took her dark hair down, neatened it and twirled it into a messy bun, pinning it at the back
of her head. She brushed a few rogue strands from her forehead, glanced across at Loren, and smiled. His heart beat harder, a familiar rush of heat racing through his blood. Not her feelings. His. She was beautiful, her deep brown eyes bright with excitement that he knew was because she was going to study him, unlocking secrets about his species, learning about him.

  Loren wanted to study her too. He wanted to unlock all her secrets, learning her sweet spots and her taste, how she would feel beneath him, around him. How she would sound as he made love with her.

  Her cheeks flushed crimson and he cocked his head to one side, intrigued by the blush of colour. Did her thoughts run along the same lines as his were, imagining them together, touching and kissing, learning each other?

  Her eyes darted away to settle on the white table to her left and then crept back again, the colour on her cheeks rising as they edged towards him and her pupils slowly dilating. Her heartbeat picked up, a flood of hormones surging through her blood and through his in response. He breathed hard, a slave to the feelings she awakened in him, his body aching with a need to have her in his arms again, pulled flush against him, feeling every inch of her pressing against his flesh.

  Bleu cleared his throat.

  Loren snapped his gaze away from hers and fixed his eyes straight ahead on the glass doors, focusing to eradicate the out of control emotions that threatened to have him thinking about kissing her again.

  Humans slowed as they passed the doors, glancing in at him with curious eyes. Some were dressed as Olivia was, in a long white coat. Others wore black combat trousers and t-shirts. Hunters.

  He recognised one of the males dressed in white. This one stopped at the doors and stared at him. He had been present in the meeting. One of the doctors who had looked at Olivia with disdain in his eyes. Loren gripped the ends of the armrests, his claws slicing into the metal as though it was as soft as flesh.