Ruin: A Reverse Harem Dark Fantasy Vampire Romance (Fire & Blood Book 1)

by Alexa B. James

  “Please don’t feel pressured,” I said. “I can pull my dress back up.”

  “No. That’s not what I want, Kori.” His hands went to his buttons, and he worked them down slowly. When his collar pulled apart, tattoos peeked out.

  As he peeled the material away, he studied my face. With his shirt off halfway, he paused, his arms shaking.

  "Do you want me to?" I asked, holding out my hands toward him.

  He closed his eyes and nodded.

  Carefully, I peeled the material down his arms. Detailed skulls covered his skin. A scythe wrapped up one of his sides and around his back. The word “torment” arched along the curved blade. An angel with white hair and black wings looked down at the skulls, his black feathers raining down Death’s back.

  "Can I?" I reached toward Death, and when he nodded shallowly, I trailed my fingers over the inked skulls lightly. “Who did these?”

  “I drew them, and Ruin did the tattoos. He did all of the warriors’ tattoos.”

  I traced my fingers over the lines. “Is there a meaning behind them?”

  Death dropped his head and a muscle ticked in his jaw. "Did someone already tell you what I used to do for the Queen of Seattle?"

  "I never asked, but Ash told me that you were all sent on frequent missions to rescue at-risk humans—like you were doing that night when I snuck out to see you."

  "That was just a very small part of what I used to do, Kori. You might not want to touch me when you know."

  I scooped up his long blond hair and pulled it over one of his shoulders so I could see his back better. Underneath the intricate tattoos, old scars indented his flesh. I thought that I could maybe guess Death's secret. The Queen of Seattle gave him the name Death, and he had drawn himself as the angel of death and torment all over his skin. "Did the queen tell you to do it?"

  "Yes," he whispered as I ran my fingers over his shoulder and down to the tattoos on his back.

  He raked in a harsh breath. "I was her assassin—more like executioner, but vampires don’t go down without a fight."

  "Ash told me that the queen threatened to kill him and Ruin if you didn’t follow her orders?" I pressed a kiss into his shoulder.

  “That threat was to get me to stop killing outside of the targets she gave me, Kori. The queen never forced me. The vampires I went after were rapists and murderers who deserved to die, and someone needed to do it.” He looked back over his shoulder, his dark eyes meeting mine. Anguish fell over his features. "I am a monster—I will always be one."

  I walked around to Death’s front. Reaching up, I took his beautiful face in my hands. "I'm not afraid of you." I ran my thumb over the blond bristles on his chin. "There are no innocent people under Portland Dome. I made mistakes and miscalculations that caused thousands of innocent people to die. I've done terrible things..." I trailed off, "I don’t even know what I’m capable of doing."

  His gaze seemed warier than ever, and he crossed his muscular arms over his chest. "Are you just saying that to make me happy? From what I’ve seen, your training encourages you to overlook your own feelings and only consider mine, and that's not what I want."

  I considered his words carefully before clearing my throat. "I lied to you about this room. I've been here before. Brendan, Genevieve and I were imprisoned here for two weeks, up until the day you arrived. The whole time I was in here, I was panicking about my little brother. He went missing after the battle. I knew that he was alive and trapped in the city, and I was terrified that Duchess Dread’s warriors would find him." I patted my chest with a hand. "My heart was racing as I came in here... there was this panic. I felt like I’d be locked in here again and unable to protect my family."

  Death stepped back. "Let's go."

  "No." I ran my hands up to his shoulders. "I don't feel that way anymore. I want to be here with you. I feel safe. I want to write over that memory with this one forever. I'm just being honest so you'll trust me when I tell you that I'm not afraid of you." I pointed down to the tattoo on my hip, the stylized flame that validated that I was an Ignis blood mage. “I’m not a courtesan anymore, and you’re not an executioner. It was something that we had to be for a time, but it doesn’t define who we are.”

  Death reached up to cup my cheeks, and he leaned down, slanting his lips over mine in an unexpected kiss. His tongue plunged into my mouth. The kiss was deep and overpowering, and all I could do was grab onto him as his lips and tongue crashed into mine. I felt his kiss through every inch of my body. Lust assaulted me with the same ferocity as his kiss, and wetness dripped between my legs.

  He broke away, breathing hard.

  "You want to feel just how not afraid I am of you?" I wrapped my hand around his and guided him down to my wetness. “Terror doesn’t do it for me, but your kisses do.”

  He made a low growling sound in the back of his throat and turned me so my back was against his front. His palm cupped my wetness and rocked forward over my clit. Pleasure ignited in my core, and I gasped. Death pulled me back into his chest, and I could feel his hard length bulging at his pants and pressing into my ass. His hand came around my front and palmed one of my breasts.

  "Do you want me to release you?" he asked into my ear.

  The way he was holding me pinned my arms to my side, but I felt safe in his embrace, held tight against him.

  "Please don't release me," I said, and then his fingers plunged into my channel, and his palm started to roll over my clit. His fingers curled inside me as his palm pressed down, and waves of pleasure pulsed through my center. It was so intense that my legs started to shake, and I leaned back into Death.

  He whispered, "Let go, I'll hold you."

  Waves of sensation continued to crash into me, and I gave in, going boneless in Death's arms. He gripped me tighter. One of his hands held me at the waist while the other palmed my pussy.

  He arched around me, and his hair fell over my shoulder. "Can I bite you while you come?"

  "Yes."

  Two sharp pricks of pain hit me at the juncture where my neck met my shoulder, and then pain mingled with an explosion of pleasure before I was completely lost to the sensation. The world fell away as euphoria tingled through every inch of my body.

  Death held me to him as I slowly returned to reality. I still felt boneless, and so I depended mostly on his weight. I leaned back into him and reached for his fly, when his arms squeezed around me. "Wait. We can't have sex yet."

  "Sorry." I slipped my hands away. "I didn't mean to rush you."

  "It's not that." He lowered his head. "I need to warn you about something else, Kori. This one is entirely my fault. You shouldn't make the decision of entering into a relationship with me lightly."

  I put my feet on the floor, and when I was sure I could support my own weight, I turned in Death's arms until I could see him fully. "I wouldn't make that decision lightly."

  His hands held me at my lower back. "I'm talking about starting any kind of relationship--even this might be going too far. I can do my best to pretend to be a normal person, but I'm not. I am deadly, violent, and most of all, possessive. I'm so possessive that I have thought of you as mine just from the kisses we shared a year ago. I know that of the three of us, it's unlikely that you'll choose to be with me, and I can keep myself in check. But, I'm not sure if I can do that if we start sleeping together."

  I blinked up at him slowly, trying to process his words. "What do you mean by violent? Would you hurt Ash and Ruin?"

  "Never." He shook his head. "The three of us are bonded for life—it’s not the same as a mate bond, but just as close as one. If you chose me, I would never feel threatened by them--even if you still had feelings between you.”

  “Would you be violent to me?”

  “I’d rather die. But I wouldn't let anything come between us--no person, insecurity, or misunderstanding. You told me that you saw that I wasn't into vanilla sex, well, that isn't exactly true. What I desire over all else is complete and absolute trust and su
bmission during sex. I want to own your body and your mind during the times we're together, just as you'll own mine when we're together and apart."

  "That sounds…intense," I whispered through heaving breaths.

  "Are you scared now?"

  I should have been, but instead, lust was pumping through me and my clit was throbbing again. My body ached for him all the harder, and part of me wanted to tell him that he should take me here and now and that I would pay any price. "I wish I didn't have to choose."

  His brows lifted. "You don’t want to choose?"

  "It's a very selfish thought. Obviously, you'll each want your own bonded mates to yourself."

  "I never wanted a consort until you." He tilted his head. “Too much risk.”

  “Risk of what?”

  “She’d want to be more important to me than Ruin and Ash. She might try to come between us.”

  "Not all consorts would be jealous of your relationship with each other. Some people don't get jealous."

  "I wouldn't want to be with someone who wasn't as possessive of me as I was over her." He squeezed me tighter. "Would you be possessive of me?"

  “I’m not sure what answer you’re hoping for.” I shook my head. "But I can never afford to be possessive of anyone."

  "What if you knew that your lovers would belong to you just as you belonged to them, eternally?"

  I laid a hand on Death’s chest. "You don't understand how dangerous that is for someone like me. Maybe it's your kink to be possessive, but if I had let myself become attached a single time that a vampire patron confessed his unending love to me, I would have broken a long time ago."

  "What if we earned your trust?" he asked as his hands wrapped around my hips.

  "We?" A laugh escaped my lips. "What are you even suggesting?"

  "I’m not sure yet." He nodded. "But I do know that the only way I could make you my consort is if you were willing to trust me."

  I nodded. My mind screamed that could never, ever happen, but my heart lurched and eyes felt hot at the thought. My siblings and I had never had the time or energy for fairytales. We were practical. We saw things as they were, and in our world, affection faded in the crimson light of morning. "I owe you complete honesty on this, and I don't know."

  He made a quiet humming sound. "All right. I have to leave first thing tomorrow for Nightendale. Can we talk when I return?"

  My breath hitched at the kingdom’s name. "Ash said you were going there. That's tomorrow?"

  Death released me slowly. His hands went to my arms to make sure I was stable, and then he stepped away.

  "Ash said that you were hinting that you wanted to go with me, but I can’t do that."

  “Why not?”

  “It’s hard to explain, but I can’t, Kori.” He rubbed his chin, and then his hands went to his fly, and he stripped off his pants. He left a pair of red silk boxers on as he slipped into the water.

  I followed him into the steaming pool. “Usually, I like how mysterious you are, Death. Right now, not so much.”

  The vampires had clearly begun heating the royal pool again, and I sunk into the warm water. I crossed the pool to where Death sat and climbed onto his lap, and Death's hands immediately went to my hips.

  "Can I switch us?" he asked. Steam rolled off Death's features as his white hair undulated under water.

  When I agreed, he set me on the seat and pressed up between my legs. The silken boxers did little to conceal his hardening erection. His hands gripped my thighs, and he leaned down to look at me.

  "I don’t mean to be mysterious. This might sound strange, but I have this thought that keeps coming up, and it says that there's a plot to kill me." His gaze traveled far away. "And—I have this thought that someone will consume you in Nightendale."

  “Consume me?” My heart sunk into my stomach, and a queasy feeling filled me. Clearly, Death's prophecies didn't go away. And when I thought about it, so far it had only been Death prophesying. “What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know. Ash thinks that it

  might mean drinking your blood.”

  Leaning in, I hugged my hands around his shoulders. "Somebody probably is plotting to kill you on this trip. That's just common sense. You're a king. But, no one will try to feed from me if I’m with you. It’s probably just a worried thought." Guilt filled me the moment I spoke the lie, especially as he just told me that he valued trust and honesty above everything else. So, unwise as it might be, I decided to tell him part of the truth. "Remember that first meeting when you guys asked why I wanted to be your consort. Obviously, I have a lot of reasons. But, one of the core reasons remains the same. I want to be there when the important decisions are made so I can give a human perspective. I can figure out that you’re going there to make some sort of alliance with King Ravage, and I need to be there for that."

  Death turned his head and stared off at the crackling hearth. "We haven't involved you. That's inexcusable."

  "This is all very new, and you don't trust me yet. I get that. But, I'm smart, too, and I really think you guys need my opinion to make the right decision."

  He rubbed his forehead. "I don't know why these thoughts are so strong. But, I know you're right."

  I wasn’t. He truly had a prophecy that someone would try to consume me in Nightendale castle, but I was going anyway. If I didn’t settle my debt with the Tree of Life, the creature that took the form of Mira would keep coming for my siblings and me. I could handle vampire royals wanting to drink my blood, but I had no defense against insidious wraiths that entered dreams and pulled my siblings into another dimension.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  DEATH

  He will take her.

  The cursed words whispered through my mind again — these damned paranoid thoughts. I wished there was a werewolf that I could ask if these fears in my head were normal. Did all werewolves’ minds spin out of control with paranoid delusions that someone was stalking their mate, reeling her into a trap, and planning to consume her?

  Kori wasn’t even my mate yet—not in the outer world. I curled my hands around her thighs in the warm water and pressed up against her front. She wasn’t my mate on the outside—but as I looked down into her amber eyes, I knew that werewolf part of me residing deep in my chest had claimed her as my mate long ago. I could hold back and respect her choice—but there would always be a part of me that knew she was mine.

  Kori’s hands cupped my bristly cheeks, thumbs brushing over my jawline. Her golden-brown eyes warmed as they met mine. “I have to say, Death, I am a big fan of your kink.” She fought a smile. “Much more enticing than you wanting me to pee on you.”

  I slid my hands up her thighs, around her hips, and to her waist. “You’re funny.”

  “If I’m so funny…” She bit her lower lip, and her knees squeezed against my hips. “How come you never laugh?” she asked on a breath. “Or smile.”

  “Not sure I still know how. You make me want to remember though.” I leaned down, pressing my forehead against hers. “There’s more I have to tell you about my past—about the kind of vampire I am. Before I was a vampire, I was a werewolf. I can’t change into a wolf, but inside, I’m the same. I don’t think like a human—or a vampire. I think like a wolf. Does that frighten you?”

  “No.” She brushed her lips over mine. “It fills me with about a thousand questions, but you can’t scare me away, Death… even if you try.”

  “I am trying, but I like failing too.” I took her lips with mine, pushing my tongue inside her delicious mouth just as I wanted to thrust my cock fully inside her. She moaned and molded her soft body around me. I cupped the back of her head and kissed her with long, punishing strokes. Part of me screamed that I should take her… right here, right now, just in case she picked Ruin or Ash, and this was my only chance to be with my mate.

  Another part of me knew that if I took her and she chose Ash or Ruin, I wouldn’t be able to pretend that she wasn’t mine afterward. If we never
crossed that threshold, I might be able to fake that I was moving on.

  Her legs tightened around my waist, and she broke off our kiss and panted onto my lips. “No one has ever kissed me so… intensely.”

  “Let me show you this then.” I pressed my fingers into her hips and scooped under her ass. Water rained down her naked form as I set her on the side of the pool. Kori let out a yelp of surprise before breathing a laugh. Her laugh cut off as I wrapped my hands around her thighs.

  I stared up into her tawny eyes, giving her three seconds if she wanted to tell me no. Three… two… one.

  I closed my lips over her clit, sucking her soft flesh into my mouth. Her lips parted, and she made the sexiest fucking whimper I’d ever heard. I didn’t go slow or easy on her cunt, I sucked and licked until she screamed. Her legs squeezed around my head as wetness spilled out of her pussy, tasting like caramel, and I lapped her up.

  My dick ached, straining against my boxers and filling with pressure, but I put it out of my mind as I pushed two fingers into her soft, warm channel. Her muscles clenched around my fingers like a fist. I curled my fingers up, pumping into her.

  Kori cried out, and her legs squeezed even tighter around my head as she collapsed against the side of the pool. Her moans and cries echoed around the spa as her center gripped my fingers and liquid poured out of her pussy. As I felt her first pulsing orgasm clench her center, I sucked harder, taking her exactly where I wanted her—I knew from her gasping cries and the pressure of her legs on the side of my head that she had lost all control—and it was so fucking beautiful.

  Kori gasped, and her legs fell from the sides of my head. She went limp, and her eyes slipped closed.

  I rose, looking up the length of her body. “Kori?”

  She opened her eyes halfway and mumbled something I couldn’t understand.

  I did feel like smiling then. “Are you okay?”

  “Am I?” She whispered. “Oh, no… Did I squeeze your head with my legs?”

  “Yes.”

  She covered her face. “I am so sorry. I’ve never done anything like that before. Did I hurt you?”