“Yes,” he grunted through her bone-shattering orgasm, still tunneling as she milked him even deeper.
He released her throat and wrapped a strong arm around her waist, pushing in once more with a heavy groan, his face buried in her neck. His seed poured deep and hot with rippling pulses. He brushed breathy kisses along her shoulder. Though she was beneath him, her slight form hardly strong enough to bear his weight, it was he who held her up as he remained buried deep.
His languorous mouth kissed a line up her sensitive neck to her ear, both of them panting. He captured her gaze yet again, holding her for a beguiling, enchanting moment before he whispered, “My love.”
The chasm he’d opened in her heart cracked and gaped far and wide, swallowing any last doubt or resistance into the shadows, as he invaded the final space that she’d tried to keep closed to him. His domination was finally complete. She resisted no more, welcoming his love, regretting nothing.
“Yes,” she whispered, a tear slipping down her flushed cheek.
He straightened, pulling her body with him, sliding out of her on a hiss. Quickly turning her in his arms, he cupped her face with both hands, sweeping down with his lips to kiss the tear away before traveling lower to her lips. “Yes,” he murmured with ardent need.
She wrapped her arms around his neck, clinging tight. “Yes.”
He tipped her head back and angled to go deep, bracing an arm around her waist to lift her onto her toes. Their kiss was a violent clash of lips, teeth, and tongues. Neither of them able to lick and taste enough. The heady sensuality of this new, bright emotion igniting another bloom of heat in her belly. With shaking restrain, he eased away and pressed his forehead to hers.
“We will talk about this more later. When we have time.” He pressed a gentler kiss to her brow. “But now it’s time for my lady to put on her gown and play her part.”
“Right,” she breathed out heavily with a nod. “Lady Brennalyn Silverton.”
“Lady Brennalyn Silverton,” he murmured against her lips, nibbling with luxuriating slowness as if he couldn’t quite convince himself to let her go. “Mistress of my heart.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Friedrich escorted Brennalyn into the ball, the room already whirling with waltzing dancers, the atmosphere still light and jovial this early in the evening. He didn’t miss the oversized red velvet sofas and black brocade chaises spread along the wall. In any other ballroom, it would’ve been an innocuous addition to offer extra seating to such a lavish room—brim with decorous tables on one side near the long, black-clothed tables bearing tray after tray of roasted meats and richly scented foods. But to Friedrich, who’d experienced his uncle’s parties and balls as a younger man, he knew the velvet seating was for later, when the wine had loosened inhibitions and the human nobility present offered their bodies and their blood to any royal or noble vampire they desired.
King Dominik’s soirées tended to transform as the night wore on. Beginning as a proper ball with blithe melodies and dancing, it would slowly morph into a hedonistic feast of flesh and lust. Unlike at the Glass Tower, King Dominik didn’t form a receiving line for all the royals to greet his guests. Instead, he sat upon his black throne on the dais on the far side of the gargantuan ballroom, awaiting guests to pay him homage at his feet. And so they did.
Friedrich wended their way around the dance floor, crossing between them and the full orchestra of strings on a second dais to the left. The quickening thump of Brennalyn’s pulse drew his gaze down to her as she drank in the sight of the place. He knew what she would see.
The grandeur of the ballroom with its ebony marble floor shining like a sheet of flat lake water and the giant chandeliers, dangling black glass and ruby crystals interspersed to create an ethereal effect on the white walls and columns. Likewise, there were stained-glass windows with a myriad of colors, lit by braziers on the outside of the castle, adding their own rainbow of color to the room.
The ballroom was unique in that there were tree-trunk sized columns crisscrossing the entire room with the exception of the space before the throne dais. Dancers whirled in, out, and around the columns crowned with grotesque gargoyles squatting near, clutching onto, and even fornicating with fair, nude maidens. His uncle was more than eccentric in his architectural desires. He was perverse, intertwining devils with angels at every turn.
He glanced toward the balcony where Dominik’s Blood Harem lounged, sipped wine, and watched the festivities. Clad in obscenely revealing gossamer gowns of red, black, and white, Dominik liked to have them on display, exerting his prowess and power, dangling the beautiful, fresh bleeders he owned. And Friedrich did not doubt he owned them—bodies and souls—poor women.
Friedrich pulled Brennalyn closer against him. With a furtive glance, he still thought it best to drape her in his uncle’s royal colors, especially since they were his own colors. It was a common enough custom. However, he didn’t know the powerful effect this gown would have on her beauty. The deep red gave her skin a luminescent quality, as if she needed help revealing the radiant luxury of her complexion. It would be a blazing fire to draw the most indifferent of vampires.
If that wasn’t enough, the gown’s inlaid bodice scooped below her breasts so that her decorative black corset displayed her perfect, plump breasts. Though the gown was quite proper for such an occasion and she revealed even less skin than some noblewomen there tonight, the effect of the bodice accentuating her perfection beneath would give many a man dark ideas.
He felt their eyes on her now. And while his instinct was to snarl and warn them off, he kept his focus straight ahead toward the dais, allowing them to drink in her beauty and imagine what it would be like to drink in her blood. It wasn’t lost in him that having had sex less than an hour earlier would mark his scent fresh on her skin. And elsewhere. To vampires, this was like a beacon, not a deterrent. Of course, that had not been his original intention. He simply couldn’t keep his hands off her.
Alphas in the wild would mark their mates and keep other predatory males at bay. But this wasn’t so for vampires. Quite the opposite. A casualty of being more monster than man. A perversion of their DNA, making them to want to claim and take what others have, what was not their own. Of course, vampires had full capability to master their darker urges, to suppress what was considered uncivil. But at a place like this, in the heady atmosphere of Dominik’s ominously enticing ballroom, passions flared hot. And the beasts came out to play.
They were nearly to the front of the dais when a flash of memory of an hour before and her breathy, heartfelt yes buckled his knees. He loved this woman so entirely that it punched the air out of his lungs. He’d do anything for her. Even dangle her in front of lecherous, lascivious men to gape at and covet. Because it was a means to an end, the only way to get her Helena back.
He worried for the young woman, but trusted in his instincts that they’d keep her alive. Any prisoner related to the resistance would be fully interrogated by the king himself. And since the king had been entertaining royalty and nobility from across the north and even gentry he recognized from the southern provinces of Arkadia—for he’d noticed the Steward of Arkadia, Thorwald, conversing with a group of other southern gentry—there wasn’t time to question Helena yet. Also, he’d bet his life that if the huntsmen Dominik had employed were as dense and impulsive as the creature that had died in his dungeon at Winter Hill, then they’d be packing dozens of girls back for the king’s inquisition. Helena was still alive. And this was their chance at finding her before the king could get to her.
Friedrich sauntered toward the dais, noting the queen sat upon King Dominik’s dead wife’s throne. The proper etiquette would’ve been to cover it in mourning cloth and add another suitable seat for Queen Morgrid to greet guests with her son. The wicked reminder that if the queen was here to reveal and celebrate a royal declaration, then something nefarious indeed was afoot. What could she possibly be announcing? Again, he wondered where King Grindal was.
Why had he suddenly withdrawn into the Glass Tower in a way that he wasn’t even mentioned or seen outside the grounds. Friedrich knew his grandfather to be an avid hunter. Marius noted in recent posts that he’d not been seen for some time. They all feared the worst, though no one spoke of it. Marius still wasn’t sure how much his father was privy to in regards to his mother’s spread of sanguine furorem and her outright declaration of war against the peasantry by breaking her own laws of protection for humanity.
Friedrich drew them both to a stop before his uncle and released Brennalyn’s arm, though the loss pricked at his anxiety.
“Your Majesty.” He bowed regally. “May I present my companion, Lady Brennalyn Silverton. Daughter of Robert Silverton, Baron of Dover in Korinth.”
She curtsied with perfect reverence. “Your Majesty.”
“Well, well, Nephew. And I thought you didn’t care for close companionship.” His heavy gaze—startlingly brilliant and menacing while at the same time civil and indifferent. “But I can see why you’ve laid your claim on this one.”
Brennalyn dipped her chin, gaze downward, as a familiar pink flush dappled her chest. This was her first time meeting his uncle and no doubt the effect was palpable. A shocking sting, much like when one slices a cut with parchment in the tender flesh between thumb and finger. The wound smarts before you can even see a thin line of blood has been drawn.
“Yes. Her father is organizing the trade of imports and exports with his steward and my manager. He has allowed me her company for your illustrious event.”
He swiveled his attention to the queen, her condescending gaze sharp and assessing. “Your Majesty. It is lovely to see you.” He bowed before his grandmother, feeling no familial affection at all.
“Friedrich, it is pleasant to see you again so soon.”
He couldn’t miss the reminder that they’d last seen one another on Marius’s one hundredth birthday, the day his uncle was meant to be married to Mina. And the day Friedrich was informed by Nikolai, Marius’s lieutenant, that the queen had been killing humans indiscriminately for her own pleasure. Friedrich had left the palace without proper farewells, but he wasn’t the only one. With the sudden cancellation of the royal wedding, the vampire nobility slipped out of the palace as quietly as possible, knowing the notorious temper of Queen Morgrid. He simply pretended to be escaping her wrath like the others.
“Yes, Your Majesty. That was an unfortunate business.” He wore his look of casual concern.
“Lady Brennalyn, how are you liking your visit to Izeling thus far?” King Dominik’s attention had never wavered from her. Friedrich refrained from showing any discomfort. His uncle thrilled in causing any kind of distress or pain to others. Sadistic took on new meaning with the bastard.
Brenna swept her eyes up and around the room before returning with a true expression of wonder. “It is absolutely magnificent, Your Majesty. I didn’t know such splendor existed in all the kingdoms,” she gushed like a proper sycophant.
His wide mouth cracked into a brutal crescent that should’ve been a smile but looked more like a tiger bearing his teeth at his dinner.
“I am so pleased you think so. You are welcome here as long as you like.” One brow arched suggestively.
“Thank you, Your Majesty.” She dipped a curtsy and, thankfully, another couple maneuvered in place to greet the king.
Friedrich took her arm after a smooth bow and whisked her away toward the feasting tables. As soon as he’d corralled her onto the far side, plucking two glasses of wine from a passing footman, he pushed the stem into her hand.
“Drink.”
“Good heavens above.” She tilted the glass back and guzzled half its contents in one swoop. “I’ve never been so terrified in all my life. They are both so…so—”
“Yes. I know, kitten. But you did well. I loathe the way he stared at you as if you were the juiciest morsel he’d ever seen.”
“Calm, Friedrich. In this dress, I’ll be getting that look a lot tonight, I’m afraid.”
He glared at the sandy-haired vampire sauntering by, his gaze fixed on her breasts. “You already are.”
At that moment, Mikhail appeared at Friedrich’s side, dressed in full formalwear. Though he looked like a vampire at leisure, his focus was sharp, his posture tense, his gaze assessing the room as he spoke.
“I’ve found some likely prospects.” He shifted his body to face them fully. “If you’ll follow a line directly behind me, you’ll see a gathering of men standing alongside Steward Thorwald of Arkadia.”
Friedrich drained his glass while surreptitiously observing them over Mikhail’s shoulder. He recognized them at once, keenly listening to Lord Hamley, a human earl who lived in his own region of the dukedom, his three pretty yet frivolous daughters at his side in vibrant shades of red and white. Lord Hamley had tried to pawn off his daughters on Friedrich a number of times, seeking a more titled match and loftier alliance. He appeared to be doing the same, seeking favor with the southern aristocrats.
Mikhail went on. “You’ll notice the two tallest of the group on either side of Thorwald. That’s Lord Maxim, Marquess of Saxony, and Lord Rathbone, Earl of Devonshire.”
“Yes. I know them,” said Friedrich, having met them on occasion at the Glass Tower.
“Then you’ll know that they are the two wealthiest and most influential men of the southern kingdom, next to Thorwald. According to my sources, they have been seen making frequent visits to Izeling Tower. My sources further say they’ve been holding more intense arms training with their Legionnaires. Even growing in numbers.”
Friedrich shifted closer to Brennalyn, an automatic response with the mere mention of arms and potential battle. “So now we know the crown has allied with the southern kingdom of Arkadia.”
“And,” Mikhail added, “you now know who Lady Brennalyn might lure information from.” He gave her a polite nod.
“Well done, Captain. Might I ask who your sources are?” For Mikhail had never mentioned having allies in the south.
He paused with a pensive crease pinching his brow. “The Bloodguard extends farther than one might think,” was his cryptic response.
Mikhail and his men were completely loyal to Friedrich, but they kept their own secrets. While they were mercenaries for hire, the Bloodguard worked by their own code and with their own agenda. He was only glad that it seemed to include allying with the Black Lily. Their chances of success increased exponentially with the Bloodguard on their side, especially now that he knew the south had fallen to ally with the crown.
“On that note, I believe it is time you and I dance, Lady Brennalyn.” He removed her empty glass from her hand and set both of theirs aside on a table.
“Dance? Are you sure we have time for such pleasantries? Shouldn’t you take me over for an introduction to the gentlemen from the south?”
“No, kitten. I’ll flaunt you first.” He offered her his arm. “Then they’ll come to us.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Brennalyn had never been in a room filled with more beautiful men in all her life. Nor more deadly ones. A heady concoction of lust and elation and desire swirled in the room much like the reeling dancers. It was dizzying and unsettling, yet she managed to hold her chin high and smile up at Friedrich when he took her in his arms for their waltz.
At once, her nerves settled. His embrace engulfed her in his warmth and protection. She armored herself against what was coming when she would need to flirt and beguile to gain what she needed. With each twirl in his arms, she sensed her shield growing stronger, her courage sticking harder. Friedrich said nothing, simply held her firm against him and led her in a whirling waltz around the circumference of the dancers, his focus on her gaze saying enough with numerous emotions flitting across his granite expression. Adoration, longing, protectiveness, fear.
As the orchestra drew the somber melody to a close, Brennalyn realized he’d managed to maneuver them directly in front of the throng of southern gentlemen.
The music stopped, but he kept her in his arms, his hand on her waist sliding to the small of her back as his head drifted lower, his mouth close to her ear.
“These men can look all they want, but one thing is for certain. They’ll never know the intoxicating pleasure of being buried inside your sweet body.”
She hitched in a breath as he finally eased his tight hold. “Why do you say such things at a time like this?” For desire raced through her blood, humming a beacon of need along her skin.
“First, because it’s true.” He released her from his embrace and offered his arm, tilting his head toward her. “And second, because now you have that pretty pink blush flushing your fair chest and cheeks. These men will be lost with the thought of tasting you.”
She couldn’t ignore the way his jaw clenched though he kept his voice and gaze relaxed. He drew her close with a hand spanning her waist as he lifted her chin with a forefinger. She lay her hands lightly on his chest. He said nothing, holding her gaze and offering an encouraging smile. Her reaction was immediate, a warm smile spreading her own lips.
“Your Grace,” came a smooth, deep voice behind them.
They both looked to the man who’d spoken. One of the tall vampires Mikhail had pointed out to them.
“Won’t you join us and introduce your lovely lady?”
Friedrich swept up her arm and placed it in the crook of his, leading them over.
“Lord Rathbone.” Friedrich greeted as the circle parted for them. “I must admit I’d considered keeping her all to myself.” A weighty chuckle rippled among the men of the group. “Lady Brennalyn Silverton, this is Lord Rathbone, Lord Maxim, and Steward Thorwald of Arkadia. And this is Lord Hamley and his daughters, Lady Ashlyn, Lady Augusta, and Lady Annika.”
Brenna curtsied, as did the other ladies, while the gentlemen gave slight bows.
Lord Hamley squinted beady eyes at Brenna for the attention of the noblemen had swiveled from his tittering daughters to her. “Pleasure to meet you, Lady Brennalyn. Your home is here in Izeling?”
The White Lily (Vampire Blood series) Page 24