The prince took her hand and kissed it in a similar manner to his brother, and she felt the same rush of electricity as she had when she had kissed him earlier and when Julian had kissed her hand. Silas turned after letting her go and, after straightening his clothes, reentered the ballroom.
“So, were you having fun making out with my brother?” Julian asked.
Charlotte almost choked on her own spit. It had been the last thing she had expected him to say, but she was nothing if not honest—well, except for when it came to her identity, so she said, “I was, actually. He’s a good kisser.”
“Really? A lot of women find him overpowering.”
“Do you often interrogate the women your brother kisses?” She grinned at Julian, who laughed.
The simple fact that she was a maid in the household, one who picked up the slack wherever it was needed, meant that she probably knew more about the brothers than she had initially thought. A few nights came to mind from when she’d first joined the staff. The brothers would go out together and often come home sharing the same woman, not only for sex but feeding as well. She knew because she had found them all piled in the same bed together on multiple occasions. The idea had always been tantalizingly sexy to her, something she had never thought in a million years she could experience.
“We talk sometimes. My brothers and I are very different when it comes to sensuality,” he said as he sat down beside her on the bench.
“Really? How so?”
His eyes were hooded as he looked her up and down before holding her gaze. “I prefer to take my time, to wring every drop of pleasure I can from my partner, before I satisfy myself.”
The low, almost growling tone of his voice left her shivering with desire. “Well, that does sound quite different from what I was just experiencing with Silas.”
“Indeed. He’s more intense. Likes it harder and faster.”
“I think there is a place in the world for both.” She winked at him.
“Is that right?”
She nodded, biting her lips slightly. His gaze dropped to her mouth.
“You have unusual pigmentation.” A strong, masculine hand reached out and ran fingers through her hair, gently skimming over the skin underneath.
Charlotte shivered again before saying, “Yes, most of my family is . . .”—she couldn’t say that they all had silver hair or that they had silver eyes and red lips. Any of the above could give her away—“fair. I seem to be the fluke with my mismatched eyes and red hair.”
“You’re captivating,” he whispered.
“Thank you.” She bowed her head, and a slightly awkward silence fell over them, so she changed the subject. “What do you think of splitting the kingdom in three?”
“I don’t think it’s a good move, if I’m honest. It makes us look weaker since we won’t have one ruler.”
“Who do you think should rule?”
“Either Silas or Owen. They are both better at schmoozing. I’m too blunt for most people.”
“Both have their place, just like the slow and sensual versus intense and fast.”
His eyes snapped to hers, and she could see the lust burning brightly within them, just as she was sure it was burning within her own. For some reason, around these men, she couldn’t help herself. She was a kid in a candy store, and all she wanted to do was eat them both up.
“Sweetheart, if you keep looking at me like that, I’ll have to take you back to my room and show you exactly what I mean when I say I like to take my time.”
The rush of heat between her legs let her know exactly what her body thought of the suggestion. It had been too long since she had indulged in the company of any man, let alone a generous lover like Julian promised to be.
“And just how am I looking at you?” she asked, playing innocent. She even batted her eyelashes a few times for good measure.
A dark chuckle escaped Julian’s pale, rose-colored lips, and he showed a hint of fang. “You’re looking at me like you want me to eat you up, which is altogether too tempting.”
“Who says I don’t?” The question was out of her mouth before she realized how it sounded.
“When you were just kissing my brother? Either you are desperate to befriend and seduce a prince, or you truly don’t know our reputation. I can’t decide which,” he mused aloud.
“I didn’t even expect to be talking to one prince tonight, let alone two. All I wanted was to watch people in fancy dresses and suits dance and make asses out of themselves as they tried to impress you.” It was only after she was done speaking that she realized she might have offended him. Her hand flew to her mouth as she turned to face the prince. “I’m so sorry. I hope you didn’t think I meant to insult any of your guests.” She gasped, searching his sage-green eyes for any hint of a reaction.
What she hadn’t expected was for him to burst out laughing. She’d always assumed he was too serious for anything more than a chuckle. This thigh-slapping laugh was something she’d never even heard of him doing before. When he was able to get himself under control once more, he wiped the moisture from the corner of his eyes. “Oh, by the Maker, I needed that.”
“Happy to be of service, Your Highness.” She smirked.
“Come and dance with me,” he said. It was a statement, but the way his rough, gravelly voice lifted at the end let her know that it wasn’t an order.
“Can we dance out here?”
“Afraid to be seen with me? I am the mean eldest brother, so I get it.” He cocked his head to the side like he was trying to figure something out.
“No, it’s just that everyone stares at me in there.” She shrugged.
“As they should. You’re radiant. If it makes you uncomfortable, though, I’m happy to stay out here, on one condition . . .”
“Which is?” she asked as she squinted at him, suddenly suspicious.
“Come to the ball in two weeks and dance with me in front of everyone. It’s the ball that is held to celebrate my birthday, and having a friendly face there that isn’t family would mean a lot.”
“Aren’t all the balls supposed to be for your birthdays? And to help you find mates?”
“Yes, but each night is for one of us specifically. Tonight is Silas, next week is for Owen, and the third is mine.”
“You have a deal,” Charlotte said, sticking out her hand to shake on it.
He took her hand in his own, and that same charge that she had felt earlier rushed back. As they shook, he looked down at her hand. “You have the hands of someone who works hard.”
It was then that she realized her mistake. Sure, she’d taken off the necklace that changed her appearance visually, but it didn’t mask any physical changes to her body, like callouses and raw skin. “I like to work with my hands.” She laughed, hoping the sound didn’t betray how nervous she felt.
Before she could find out whether or not he believed her, the brother she’d only ever seen from a distance came out, tugging at the bowtie that adorned his tuxedo, the silky fabric coming undone with just the slightest movement of his hand. He hadn’t even noticed that the two of them were there until after he’d taken a swig of amber liquid from his glass, the ice cubes clinking against the sides when he lowered it from his mouth.
“Owen, are you bored with the party already?” Julian asked.
The middle brother jumped as he finally realized he wasn’t alone as he first thought. After a second, he said, “Brother and woman I wouldn’t expect him to be sitting with, I’m sorry if I disturbed you.”
“Not at all, Your Highness,” she blurted. “I was just about to go back into the ballroom. I’ll leave the two of you out here to chat. If you’ll excuse me, it was a pleasure to meet you both.”
“How can you say that when we haven’t been properly introduced?” Owen asked as he approached her. His dark earthy-brown eyes were more intense than either of his brothers’, which hadn’t seemed possible. His hair was more of a dirty blond than the bright shining blond of Silas
’s or the light-caramel color of Julian’s, and it was shorter and carefully styled to look carefree yet polished.
“Charlotte, this is my brother Owen. The ball next week is in his honor and when he will hopefully find a mate,” Julian said. “Owen, this is Charlotte. I found her making out with Silas.”
Chapter 4
Charlotte felt the blush race up her neck and cheeks, as though she had something to be ashamed of, even though the kiss was between two consenting adults. “Your brother is a fantastic kisser,” she added. Julian could stick that in his pipe and smoke it for trying to make her feel embarrassed. She wasn’t a wilting flower who would allow herself to be walked all over; at least, not when she was herself. Jane had to allow people to walk all over her just to get by, but in that moment, on the balcony with two of the three princes, she wasn’t going to be squashed.
“Is he now?” Owen asked.
“Very intense and thorough,” she said. After a moment, she added, “Well, now that we’ve been formally introduced, I’ll leave the two of you to discuss your princely matters.”
“What about my dance?” Julian asked as she turned to leave.
“Julian dancing? Now that I must see!” Owen scoffed. “Have you even done a waltz since our dance lessons as kids?”
“What I do when I’m alone is none of your business,” he growled at his brother.
Charlotte, meanwhile, stood frozen in place, the brotherly banter making her heart ache for her own sibling. Tears rushed to her eyes, and when she began to walk away again, it was Owen who called out to her. “You’re really going to deny me the pleasure of watching my brother trip over his two left feet?”
She turned back, intending to tell Owen off, but found Julian striding toward her, looking like something out of a magazine ad for an expensive watch or cologne. When he dropped into a low bow with his hand extended, she paused just long enough for him to say, “May I have the honor of this dance?”
How was a girl supposed to say no to that? She sighed and slipped her hand in his own once more. It wasn’t as though he could notice anything more incriminating than her hands, right? When she’d first run away, her hands had been smooth, her skin unmarred by hard work. That had all disappeared quickly, though. The blisters that had formed on the palm of her hand after she had started working any job she could find that would pay under the table were horrendous. Yet, it was those very jobs that had formed the callouses on her hands that allowed her to work in the princes’ household without needing to bandage her hands every day. There was only so many cleaning products and so much scrubbing the skin could take before it objected, and for Charlotte, that either meant blisters or cracks that formed in her skin. Both were painful and slowed down her work too much when they happened.
Julian’s strong arm wrapped around her back, pulling her close, but not too close, while they listened to the music of the next song start up. With just the pressure of his hands and the movement of his body, he moved her around the balcony area. The further they got away from his brother, the more Charlotte sensed he was using their dance as a way to put some distance between them.
“Everything okay?” he asked quietly.
“I’m dancing with a prince under a starlit sky. Why would anything be wrong?”
“Answering a question with a question? Something is definitely wrong. Not to mention the way you froze back there, and the slight salty scent coming from you now.”
“You can smell my tears?” she asked incredulously before she realized she just told him the very thing she was trying to hide from him.
“Why did you tear up? There are no tracks on your face, and I didn’t see you wipe anything away, so I know it wasn’t full-blown crying,” he said, preempting her argument that she wasn’t crying.
She sighed and tried to explain as best she could. “I lost my brother a couple years ago, and sometimes it’s hard to hear sibling banter like that without wondering how things would be if . . . nothing had happened.” The ending was lame, but it was the only truth she could tell him without raising suspicions.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Julian said, just before spinning her out and twirling her back against him, closer this time. “What you heard isn’t how it always is, though. Mainly, that was just Owen letting off some steam. He and I butt heads more than we get along, at least recently, but I’m hoping that once the stress of all this mate business dies down, the three of us will get back to the way things were.”
“Didn’t anyone ever explain that you can never go home again?” She paused, hoping she didn’t sound too bitter, and he frowned. “The things in your life that are changing will result in changes in your relationships. Once change takes place, you can never go back to the way things were. If all goes well, then the three of you will have mates, right? So, no matter what, nothing will go back to the way it was, since you’ll have mates to contend with anyway.”
“Shit . . .” He sighed.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to bring you down.”
“You have nothing to apologize for,” Julian said, releasing her other hand so he could wrap both around her waist. She felt like a young girl again, like the first time she had danced with a male she was interested in. The two of them just stood and swayed to the music at the edge of the room, not daring to take their eyes off each other for fear that it would break whatever spell they were under.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“For what?”
“Asking what was wrong. I forgot what it felt like to have someone give a shit.”
“I’m sure your life is full of people who give a shit. You just may not know it.”
Charlotte wanted to laugh in his face. She had no one, which was the whole point of running away, first from her family, and then from her brother. She didn’t want to endanger him any more than she had to, so she’d left him.
Glancing over Julian’s shoulder, she saw that Owen had left. It was just the two of them once more, and while that was comforting, it also made her nervous. The pull she felt to the three brothers was the sort of thing that was talked about in the Scrolls of the Chosen. It was what millions of her sister and brother mages spent their whole lives hoping for—the chance to encounter their soul mirror. Most mages didn’t even get to have a relationship of their choosing, since her kind was all about the bloodlines and keeping them pure so as not to dilute their magic or cross-contaminate it with a different kind. Why on earth would a spirit mage breed with an earth mage? At least, that was how she had been raised. Now, she wasn’t sure she agreed with any of that.
Charlotte was a blood mage, and females of her lineage were especially rare. It meant that she was a priceless doll who was given everything but had nothing while she lived in a gilded cage. There was nothing she wanted more than to find her soul mirror and have them choose her for no other reason than who she was. That was a child’s dream, though. One that her parents had tried to stamp out as early as possible. Occasionally, on nights when she let her mind roam free, that dream would flicker back to life, but she tried her best to squash it down once more. There was no hope of finding her soul mirror, especially now.
Julian was watching her with careful eyes when she brought her own gaze back to his face. The music had stopped, but the two of them were still swaying as though he didn’t want to let the moment end.
“Where did you come from?” he asked as his fingers stroked a lock of her red hair away from her face.
She almost snorted and responded with the truth just because she was curious how he would react, but that was the old, reckless Charlotte coming to the forefront of her mind. The one who could do as she pleased so long as she stayed in her family’s home.
“Not far from here,” she said, glancing back into the ballroom.
“If you lived close by, I would have met you before now.”
“I’m very private.” She shrugged.
He waited a moment, and her eyes drifted back to him. “Do you feel it?”
“Feel what?” she asked innocently.
“The connection between us? It’s like I know what you need, what you want, and I want nothing more than to give it to you.”
“Oh, and what is it I want, then?” she asked, ignoring his first question and hoping he would let it go as well. She couldn’t afford to feel attached to these princes. Mainly because she was just a serving girl now, and they were, well, princes. At any moment, she could be dismissed from the house, shoved out into the cold, and she had nowhere else to go.
“Love, freedom, to be yourself?” His eyebrows drew together as confusion filled him.
“Those are pretty broad concepts there, champ. You could say that about most people.”
“Most people don’t list freedom as something they want, not in this day and age.”
“I didn’t agree with you. I’m just pointing out that you’re basically acting like a horoscope right now, being as vague as possible to let people draw their own conclusions. I’m free. I came to this ball, didn’t I?”
“But there’s something . . .” He licked his lips as he looked down at her as though he could taste her hopes and dreams on the air. “You want the freedom to be yourself. Something is trapping you, making you hide.”
“I’m as free as a bird,” she said, lying through her teeth.
His head dipped to hers, and just when she thought he was coming in for a kiss, he veered off, instead running his nose down the line of her neck. Not touching, but not leaving much distance between them, either. “Lie,” he said eventually.
“You can’t tell when I’m lying by smelling me. Vampires don’t have those kinds of senses,” she scoffed, but inside, her heart began to race, and she knew he’d be able to tell.
It was time to abort the mission. She’d accomplished her goal, watching pretty people dance in fancy dresses, and now it was time to withdraw. The need to disappear clawed at her chest, making it feel tight, like she wouldn’t be able to breathe much longer.
“Maybe not a run-of-the-mill vampire, but I’m royal, a prince, and our families are royal for a reason. Enhanced senses are just one of the perks. Maybe I’ll get to show you some of the others sometime?” His voice dripped with lust and the promise of hot nights spent with the sheets tangled around them while they drove each other to ever-increasing heights of pleasure.
Holidays Bite: A Limited Edition Collection of Holiday Vampire Tales Page 47