by A. S. Green
The others were several paces away from her and Callum, in the midst of a low-key argument over whether to first play a romance, a comedy, or “something to really get her blood pumping.”
Ainsley wasn’t frightened by the insinuation of the comment. She could feel Alex’s eyes on the situation, assessing and vigilant. And she was becoming increasingly comfortable with Callum, too. In fact, she knew deep down that even Knox—the scariest looking one—would never hurt her.
She was, just as Alex had suggested, precious to them.
“I only mean that I would’ve never guessed you’d have something so modern in such an old house.”
She pulled one of the DVDs off the shelf and turned it around to read the back cover. She hadn’t noticed any obvious porn yet, but it had to be in here somewhere; this place was like some kind of eighteenth-century vampire—No. Ba’vonn-shee—frat house.
But even without the obvious Debbie Does Dallas or Deep Throat, the majority of titles were provocative with covers of women bursting out of their clothes while running from exploding buildings, or lounging on race cars. She gave up on selecting a movie, and slid it back on the shelf.
As she turned, Alex’s eyes locked with hers. He hadn’t moved from his spot in the corner, and he still didn’t speak or come any closer. Welcome back, Mr. Hyde.
Irritated, Ainsley dropped onto one of the luxurious leather couches in the front row.
“It’s important to be comfortable when we have down time,” Callum explained as he moved an overflowing basket of remote controls and joy sticks from the floor to a shelf.
“What’s your up time?” she asked. “I haven’t seen any of you at Thorn Enterprises. Do you all have jobs?”
Callum’s eyes darted to his brothers, who were still arguing over the best movie selection, and a tendon in his jaw stretched tight. “Rory is the only one who doesn’t work right now.”
For a second, Ainsley’d forgotten about him. “I can imagine why.”
Callum gave her a grim nod. “I teach history at the university. Finn tends bar. Knox is an artist. He designs custom artwork for collector cars and bikes.”
She’d noticed Knox’s paint-stained fingers before. He looked up just as she glanced over at him, and he winked one crystal blue eye.
Ainsley’s face flushed and she quickly looked away. “And Alastair?”
“During the summer he’s usually a backpacking and canoeing guide. We weren’t sure he was going to be mentally stable enough to safely go back to that this summer, but now that you’re here, that’s back in the cards.”
Ainsley smiled. She could totally see the big bearded giant doing that. His arms bulged with muscles, perfect for carrying a canoe and extra packs when newbie adventurers realized they’d bitten off more than they could chew.
“But,” Callum added, “Alastair’s main job is that of a phlebotomist.”
“Really?” Ainsley couldn’t imagine the temptation a blood drive would pose to a ba’vonn-shee with limited self-control. “Is that smart, given your lack of a queen?”
“We don’t lack a queen.”
Ainsley corrected herself. “Before Alex met me, and you lacked a queen, wouldn’t working around so much blood be a risk for him? Even more so than being a nature guide?”
“Yes, but it was a necessary risk. Alastair has kept us in supply, so we didn’t have to go in search of our own.”
She remembered the bags of blood in Alex’s office mini-fridge. “He steals some of the blood he draws and brings it home.”
Callum sat beside her on the couch. “It’s the lesser of two evils. It’s kept us alive and the human population safe from us losing control of our urges. Now that you’re here, Alastair’s side hustle is no longer necessary for the clan.”
She was again struck by the dilemma—her being here would help stop them from acting like Rory had in the alleyway, but even if her presence made their feedings safer for humans, it didn’t change the fact that they were feeding from people.
Callum smiled at her knowingly. “It’s not just about feeding. Our venom can have amnesic properties, which is very useful when you need to be forgotten. Of course, we also use our teeth as an intimate part of love making. But the rarest purpose for biting is to claim a permanent and lifelong mate. Claiming involves an exchange of blood. It creates an unbreakable bond between a bonded male and his bloodwife.”
Ainsley arched a cynical brow at the word “rarest.” Apparently her father wasn’t the only ba’vonn-shee male who was commitment adverse. “And that's bad?” she asked bitterly. “Committing to someone?”
“For us, it can be. If your mate dies, the loss can be unbearable. Many ba’vonn-shees lose their minds after the death of a mate. That’s why so few of us take such a precarious step.”
“You took that step,” she said, reading the sadness in his face. Callum was obviously one of the good guys.
“Yes. With Ellen. Unfortunately, without a queen to stable our minds, the risk of losing control and killing her became too great. After Orla died and I no longer had that stability, I had to leave Ellen behind.”
For a second, Ainsley wondered if her father had left her mother for this same reason. But she discarded the thought. Nothing her mother had told her suggested he’d been motivated by selflessness. Quite the opposite.
“Okay, but now that I’m here… You should find her and bring her home.”
Callum blinked and Ainsley thought she saw the hint of tears, old tears that hadn’t been shed in a long time.
“Ellen was human, Ainsely—as all our mates are. I was able to extend her youth through the exchange of blood between us, but when that was cut off…the years rushed in. Imagine a cave-in of time. It completely crushed her.”
Ainsley’s chest tightened with the weight of his description. So much so, she barely had enough air to rise above a whisper. “Did you know that would happen?”
“Yes.”
“But…if you knew that, how could you ever leave her?”
“Because letting Ellen die a natural death was better than the guilt of going mad and killing her myself.”
“Did she get any say in that?” Ainsley asked, thinking of her mother again. She’d had no say, not even a forewarning, when her lover up and left.
Callum leaned back and smiled—an incongruous reaction to her question. But then she realized he was reacting to the chemical signal she was unintentionally sending.
“She did,” Callum said, touching the black ribbon pinned on his lapel. “It was her choice. Ellen didn’t want me to suffer that pain. Not that it hasn’t been unbearably painful without her.”
Ainsley nodded at the ribbon. “You wear that for her?”
Callum clasped his hands. “It’s a traditional mourning ribbon. I went through some rough patches in the beginning. Even begged McKee to kill me a few times. He refused, of course.”
The door opened behind them, then closed with a soft click. Ainsley didn’t have to turn around to know that Alex had left. She felt his absence like a pill she’d choked down one too many times before.
Nothing Callum said made her want Alex any less. What she felt went beyond good sense and reason. She felt it in her bones, in her cells. But he didn’t feel the same. That was just as clear. Maybe, like Callum, he was still mourning the loss of his bloodwife, the last queen, Orla.
But when she said as much out loud, Callum drew his eyebrows together as if she’d said something strange. “Orla wasn’t his bloodwife.”
“She wasn’t?”
“McKee’s had plenty of mistresses in his lifetime, but that’s not the same thing as a bloodwife. There’s no blood bond with a mistress, so it doesn’t carry the same ramifications. McKee has never committed to anyone like that.”
“Really?” she asked, intrigued by the possibility that maybe, someday she could be Alex’s first—just like he, in a slightly different way, might someday be hers.
Callum didn’t answer right away. She could te
ll there was something he didn’t want to divulge. “McKee has his own way of doing things. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t hurting. He’s lost more than most.”
“I got it!” Alastair exclaimed, causing Ainsley to jump. The bearded giant was holding a DVD high in the air. The cover image was of a woman bent over, so all you could see was her round rear end in a very short business skirt. The seams of her black stockings ran from the tops of her thighs into her high heels; her legs were crossed at the knees, and her fingers were wrapped around her ankles.
The vulnerable and suggestive position brought a rush of heat to Ainsley’s face, because that was the pose she’d been in when Alex had walked into his office and caught her messing with the knick-knacks on his shelf.
“Seriously?” Callum asked. “That’s what you’re going with?”
“What?” Alastair asked, defending his choice. “It’s a comedy.”
Knox snorted. “If you like doms, subs, and a whole lot of spanking.” Then he nudged Alastair with his elbow as he walked by. “And you do, don’t you, mo bhràthair?”
Alastair threw a punch, just barely missing Knox’s shoulder. Knox smirked and took his seat on one of the couches in the back row.
“We’ll start with this,” Finn said, holding up a more classic romance.
Ainsley didn’t mention that she’d seen it at least ten times. Right now, familiarity was just what she needed.
“I’ll put your choice in second position, Ally.” Finn took the DVD from a frowning Alastair, then slipped both movies into the projector’s queue.
Alastair took a seat next to Ainsley, while Finn sat in one of the other front-row couches. The lights went out. Alastair slumped low and closed his eyes.
“After all that, you aren’t going to watch the movies?” Ainsley asked.
“Seen them both,” he said. “Now shhh. I’m concentrating.”
“On what?” she asked.
His eyebrows rose, but he kept his eyes shut. “I haven’t decided what I like best, my queen. Your nerves are nice, and I like it when you laugh, but I’m looking forward to sampling some of your other moods. Hopefully we’ve set you up for the gamut.”
Ainsley looked at Callum for explanation. He only chuckled. “Don’t mind us, Ainsley. It’s all good. Just sit back and enjoy the show.”
19
Alex charged down the hall to his room, his body tight and his heart pounding. He told himself he wouldn’t stick around for the movies because it was only fair to allow his brothers more quality time with Ainsley. After all, she was their queen as much as she was his, and he’d had her to himself for the last two days.
But that wasn’t the real reason he’d left, and he knew it. The fact was, the idea of sitting in a dark room with her, so close, her scent on his tongue, while romantic scenes played out on the big screen… He didn’t trust himself not to buckle under that kind of torture.
His feet came to an abrupt stop in the middle of the long hallway, his instincts pushing him to turn around and go back.
No. Don’t do it. Stay strong.
He ground his teeth together, looking for more reasons to walk away. He probably had emails to answer, bills to pay, clothes to fold, fucking socks to darn.
He let out a loud groan, startling himself, before finally reaching the safety of his private quarters. He closed the door and leaned back against it, closing his eyes.
God, he was so fucking weak. He was no match against nature. If he wasn’t careful, the instinctive desire to claim her would make them all vulnerable.
He paced to the windows and cranked them open, letting the spring air flood his senses. The coolness of the breeze made him notice that his bottom lip was wet. He touched his finger to it and saw that he was bleeding.
“Christ.” In his effort to maintain control, he'd cut himself on his own damn teeth.
Alex strode into his private bathroom and turned on the sink. Then he bent low and drank directly from the tap. He swished the water around and spit pink into the basin.
He groaned hungrily. Even the sight of his own blood was enough to make his stomach clench with need. How long had it been since he’d tapped a warm source? Seventeen years? Eighteen?
While the date eluded him, he could resurrect the memory of the taste—warm, fresh, rich, life-giving—and yet a pallid sampling compared to what he knew Ainsley would provide.
When he moved her desk into his office, he’d done so to reap the mental benefits of her energy. He hadn't been prepared for his physical reaction—the fucking desperate need to sink his teeth into her neck, to exchange her blood for his, and bond her as his queen and bloodwife.
He’d been surprised to hear Callum telling Ainsley about his bloodwife, Ellen. It was a subject they all avoided because it caused Callum such unfathomable pain.
Was that what held him back from bonding Ainsley? Was he simply too much of a coward to risk that kind of personal anguish should she die?
No. No, that wasn’t it at all. He braced his hands on the windowsill and took a deep cleansing breath.
This was all about her safety, and that anonymous note. Looking for a queen? What had motivated such a question? A friend would have taken credit for showing him the way to their salvation.
Alex’s head jerked around as the scent of pheromones slipped under his door, light and tantalizing, teasing his tongue with notes of love and sentimentality. God damn she was powerful.
Clearly they were watching something sweet and romantic. Ainsley was moved by the story. Alex could taste her emotions… Not sadness, per se, more like longing with a tinge of abandonment.
Was she thinking of her parents’ romance, and how her father had left them?
He sat at his desk and opened his laptop, remembering his promise to find more information about this Ian Fitzpatrick. Where had he come from? And more importantly for Ainsley’s sake, where had he gone?
The north shore fae kept an online log of all business transactions between the various races, including marriages, births, and deaths. Even though Alex had been unaware of another of his kind living here in the states, it was possible an individual or maybe even a few had emigrated from Scotland on their own.
Maybe they married a fae from another race and assimilated into their community. The north shore had plenty to choose from: seelies, hell hounds, dryads, kelpies, and a myriad of others.
The succubi, distant cousins of the ba'vonn-shees, would be the most likely. But their recent attempt to overthrow the council had made them the center of scandal and suspicion. If a ba'vonn-shee male had been found among them, Alex was sure he would have heard about it.
He dug into the marriage records, scanning names, mostly unfamiliar, though a few he’d heard of. Cormac MacConnall, a hell hound from Martin’s Landing, had married a halfling named Meghan Walsh. And his two brothers had found their mates, as well.
He’d made it nearly to the end of the alphabet when he looked up quickly. Had he heard something? His eyes landed on his clock and was surprised to see that three hours had passed.
His head jerked toward his door. There it was again. It was almost as if someone had called his name. But it wasn't a voice. It was something else, like a fist wrapped around his heart, tugging.
Then he smelled it. Arousal. Desire. Desperation. Ainsley. They’d obviously moved on to a more salacious movie choice.
God, what was happening to him? Everything about this was wrong. He closed his eyes, summoning a martyr’s restraint. When that wasn’t enough, he wrapped his hands around the edge of his desk, and he held on for dear life.
20
Alastair’s raunchy movie selection had started out pretty sad, but the campy bondage scenes soon had Ainsley smiling, and the office spanking scene had her rubbing her thighs together in restless anticipation.
Alastair’s head fell heavily against her shoulder. It seemed the two movies had stirred her chemical cocktail—as Alex put it. She was having the same effect on the brothers as a bott
le of tequila. Callum too had slipped sideways into a stupor.
She looked over at Alastair and considered checking him for a pulse, but there was a small smile on his lips so she thought he was okay and refocused her attention on the movie.
The secretary character was now in the office bathroom, her back against the stall wall, her hand up her tight skirt then slipping into her panties, all while moaning her boss’s name.
Ainsley’s clit gave a sympathetic pulse of eagerness and her stomach muscles clenched as she imagined Alex bending her over his desk at Thorn Enterprises.
A dull thud—the sound of Knox rolling off the couch and landing on the floor behind her—startled Ainsley out of her fantasy, but she wasn’t ready to abandon it. Not yet. Her body was humming with arousal, and her fingers itched to release the tension in her core. But it wasn’t like she could take care of it here.
Carefully, she extricated herself from between Alastair and Callum, and made her way out of the room and onto the landing at the top of the wide curving staircase.
There were closed doors up and down the hallway to her left and right. She made a guess—guessed right—and ducked into a small powder room.
She locked the door, braced herself with one hand against the pedestal sink, and pushed her skirt up over her hips. Closing her eyes, she slipped her hand inside her panties and circled her clit in small, practiced movements. She was already well primed from the movie’s titillating scenes, and when she imagined Alex’s face—his green eyes and strong jaw, not to mention the feel of his lips moving urgently against hers—it didn’t take long for the build to take hold.
She was nearly… she was nearly there, and…
Ainsley froze, sensing a presence behind her. She opened her eyes and her heart lodged in her throat, seeing Alex reflected in the oval mirror over the sink. “What are you doing in here?”
“Surrendering.” His green eyes burned into hers; his body was rigid and the front of his pants bulged obscenely. “Don’t let me stop you, gorgeous.”