Heart of Thorns: A Dark Vampire Romance (Vampire Royals of New York: Gabriel Book 1)

by Sarah Piper

  Wordlessly he set her back on her feet, one hand still holding the wine, the other gripping her hip. Her dress was slightly askew, and beneath the fabric, her skin radiated warmth. Gabriel didn’t want to release her.

  Jacinda blinked away the shock, her mouth twisting into a scowl as she glared at his hand, still firmly attached to her body.

  “Seriously?” she snapped.

  He set the wine on the shelf behind her. “Not nearly as serious as it would’ve been had I not caught you.”

  “Quit saving me, Prince.” She jerked away from him, smoothing her dress back into place, losing one of her hair clips in the process. A fall of curls tumbled over her bare shoulder.

  Gabriel resisted the urge to bury his face in those locks and breathe her in.

  “Quit needing to be saved, witch.” He shrugged as if he couldn’t care less—as if the loss of contact didn’t bother him. But already his hands itched to touch her again. To feel her softness. Her heat.

  Jacinda’s cheeks darkened, nostrils flaring. Seeing her flustered only made Gabriel want her more, but his little witch looked about five seconds from nuclear meltdown—an explosion he wasn’t sure he’d survive.

  “Every time you help me,” she snapped, “I’m obligated to thank you. But—”

  “There’s no need for—”

  “—clearly that’s the wrong thing to do, lest I offend his royal lordship’s delicate sensibilities with all my messy, complicated emotions.”

  “Jacinda, I—”

  She held up a hand, cutting him off. “Here’s the plan, vampire.”

  “Oh, you have a plan now?” Gabriel’s laughter rang with mockery. “Let’s have it, then. The witch’s master plan. Brilliant, no doubt. Should I find a paper and pen? Wouldn’t want to miss any of the critical details.”

  Jacinda rested a hand on her hip, right over the spot he’d so recently touched. Anger radiated in hot waves from her skin. Even her blood smelled like scorched earth.

  Like hellfire.

  When she spoke again, her words came through gritted teeth. “From now on, we’re going to make things super easy for everyone involved.”

  “How’s that, witch?”

  She pointed to the ceiling, where one story above, Obsidian’s inebriated guests fondled one another on the dance floor. “I’m going to tend that bar and suss out intel on our boy Renault, just as you’ve ordered me to—wait, scratch that. Just as you’ve blackmailed me to do. And you’re—”

  “Blackmailed? I hardly think that’s—”

  “And you’re going to keep right on doing what you do best.”

  “Saving you from a bloody head injury? A demon attack? A brutal mauling by the very grays you—”

  “Brooding in the shadows,” she said. “Criticizing the rest of the staff. Fighting with random demons. And flirting with anyone in a tight skirt until you convince some poor, naive girl to crawl into your bed after last call and warm your cold, dead heart.”

  Her insults echoed across the cellar, full of venom.

  “Jealous, witch?” Gabriel’s lips curved into a smile, and in a flash he grabbed her hand and pressed it to his chest. His heart answered the call of her touch, pounding like the bass of Obsidian’s music. “In two-and-a-half centuries, nothing has warmed this heart. But you’re more than welcome to try.”

  Her own heart thundered in return, that dark, sexy blush spreading from her cheeks to her throat.

  Without breaking their intense gaze, the witch stretched up on her toes. Her lips were close enough to bite.

  Gabriel thought she might kiss him. Hoped for it, despite everything.

  His heart raged beneath her hand, still pressed firmly to his chest.

  Jacinda let out a soft hum. And then, with a twisted smirk, her deadly whisper fell against his lips, cloves and cinnamon, sugar and fire. “I would rather warm my grave.”

  Upstairs, the din of red-hot revelry faded, the DJ switching to a slower track. Quieter. Silence descended, and for several long beats, neither of them said another word. Neither took another breath. The air crackled between them like a flame biting into that first piece of firewood, licking, teasing, desperate to ignite.

  “Stay out of my way, vampire,” the witch finally said. “And no more saving me.” She snatched her hand out from beneath his grasp, grabbed the wine from the shelf, and stalked past him, knocking into his shoulder as she did.

  But Gabriel was faster. Gabriel would always be faster.

  His hand shot out and grabbed her wrist. With a swift, single jerk he yanked her right back into his orbit.

  Bodies collided.

  The bottle of rare Bordeaux crashed to the floor.

  Gabriel wrapped an arm around her and fisted her hair. Took one step, then another, backing her toward the wooden rack. Glass crunched under his boots, and the pungent scent of the ruined wine filled the air. Her shoulders hit the mahogany. A hundred bottles clattered.

  “What… what the hell are you doing?” she gasped.

  He slid his other hand up around her throat. Fucking reveled in the fevered pulse thrumming against his palm. “The opposite of saving you.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Fangs descended like hot iron, a rush of raw hunger flooding his body. The demon he’d drained earlier had done little to sustain him, and now his primal need surged, mixing with other, baser needs until everything in him ached to sink deep inside her—his cock. His bite. His tongue.

  Jacinda shoved against his chest, but Gabriel wouldn’t budge.

  “I told you, Prince,” she hissed. “I’m no one’s butterfly.”

  A dark chuckle rumbled through his chest. “Not even mine?”

  “Especially not yours.” Hatred filled her voice, her eyes glittering with malice.

  It only turned him on more.

  “Despite what you think,” he said softly, “I’ve never harmed a butterfly. But demons?” His gaze swept down to her mouth, then back to her eyes, where he nearly drowned. “I’ve bled and burned them. Vampires? Staked and incinerated them. Shifters? Starved them, poisoned them with molten silver, broken the wild beast that raged inside until there was nothing left of it but memory and shame.”

  Her eyes widened, but the witch offered no reply.

  “I’ve carved my name into the flesh of my enemies,” he continued. “Watched them bleed, rubbed salt into the wounds, and waited for them to heal—all so I could do it again. I’ve tortured without mercy, murdered without regret, sent more monsters to hell than there are bottles in this cellar and trust me when I tell you that nothing pleases me more than the sound of a fallen immortal begging for death.”

  Gabriel shared all of this, his dark résumé, his private shame, his quiet threats, as if he’d ever carry them out against her. As if his soul was so far beyond repair it would allow him to mar so much as an inch of her smooth, perfect skin.

  No, he didn’t want to mar her. Only to frighten her off. To force her to say the words that would stop this inevitable train wreck, because he sure as fuck couldn’t do it.

  Yet there she remained. Silent. Pulsating beneath his grip. Clove and cinnamon on her breath, eyeliner smudged beneath those bewitching blue eyes, glossy mouth parted in a bated breath held only for him.

  He buried his face in the curls draped over her shoulder, nosed the soft skin behind her ear. Her raw-earth scent was intoxicating. Dizzying.

  In his firm hold, Jacinda’s body heated, her heartbeat a frantic thing that seemed to know instinctively what the rest of her did not.

  The witch was in serious trouble.

  In a low growl, he issued his command.

  One he needed her to obey… for both their sakes.

  “Tell me to stop, Jacinda Colburn.”

  He released her throat, his hand already sliding down her ribcage, down to her hip, then lower still, down past the hem of her dress where satin and lace gave way to those sheer black stockings. He gripped her thigh, held tight. Squeezed when all he really wanted
to do was bite.

  “I’ve a black soul and an even blacker heart,” he whispered, his warning as dark and deadly as the broken-glass wine. “The things I could do to you…” He nearly shuddered at his own depraved thoughts. “Tell me to stop.”

  Still, the witch said nothing.

  “Say it,” he ordered again, hitching her leg up around his hip and reaching beneath her dress. His fingers crept past the top edge of her stocking, trailing along the garters and brushing the bare skin at the back of her thigh, all the way up to the silky mound of her arse, barely contained by a lace thong. Goosebumps pebbled in the wake of his touch. His cock ached.

  A gasp escaped Jacinda’s lips, but the word he so desperately needed to hear did not.

  Dipping between her thighs, he traced the thong’s path with one finger, barely brushing the scrap of lace over her clit. Heat radiated from her core, and when he pressed against that inviting warmth, she shivered.

  “Say it,” he ground out, his control slipping, his mind spinning with lust and fury in equal measure.

  And oh, he was furious. Furious that she’d tempted him. Furious that she’d haunted his fantasies. Furious that of all the witches he’d encountered and despised and feared in this long immortal dance, this one—this prisoner, this enemy, this conspirator had thoroughly entranced him.

  Jacinda closed her eyes. Bit her plump lower lip. Drew a deep, shuddering breath.

  And then, finally, firmly, she spoke.

  “No, dickhead.”

  Gabriel stilled. His fangs receded.

  Frustration and disappointment battled in his chest. Relief followed. Acceptance came in dead last, but there it was.

  Disaster fucking averted.

  “Good girl.” He exhaled into her hair and unhanded that silky-smooth thigh, but her leg tightened around his hip, drawing him closer.

  A fresh blaze ignited in her eyes, and she fisted his shirt with both hands.

  “I meant no, dickhead. I won’t tell you to stop.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Fucking hell.

  Gabriel’s hand found its way back to her thigh, fingers digging into the soft flesh as he ground against her center, his rock-hard cock unable to ignore the call of her wet heat. “You know better than to disobey me, witch.”

  Jacinda shrugged. “Ask nicely next time. I’m not good with demands.”

  “I’ll destroy you.” Gabriel’s grip on her thigh tightened. His heartbeat clamored as if it was trying to warn them both. “Tell me to bloody well stop before—”

  “I don’t want you to stop, Prince.”

  The fiery admission shattered the last of his resistance. He felt it crack and fall, a thousand shards crunching beneath his boot like the bottle.

  “Then what is it you want from me, little moonflower?” he breathed, bringing his lips to the dark hollow of her throat, his own breath ragged as he moved up to her jaw, her chin. Then, hovering just before her mouth, “A kiss?”

  Jacinda’s eyes widened with raw, honest fear—the first he’d ever found there—and she snapped her mouth shut and turned away, giving him her cheek.

  Curious…

  “Hmm. Not a kiss, then.” He stashed the thought away for later examination and reached for the black ribbon that secured the front of her dress. It was laced up tightly, rounding the tops of her breasts in a way that damn near made him forget his name. “A touch, perhaps?”

  His fingertips brushed the soft skin behind the ribbon, and Jacinda turned her face toward his again and sighed, her warm cloves-and-cinnamon breath ghosting over his lips.

  “Oh, yes,” he said softly. “I think we’re getting warmer.” He untied the ribbon and pulled open the corset, revealing the marvel of her breasts—soft, no bra, fucking perfect.

  Gabriel groaned at the sight.

  At the barest caress of his thumbs, her dark pink nipples rose, beautiful and tempting, begging to be sucked. Savored. He wanted them in his mouth, hardening with every swirl of his tongue. Wondered if he could make her come like that, kissing and biting, tongue and teeth and hot, heavy breath alone. But he forced himself to hold back, palming her breasts instead, his fangs descending again, throbbing with the need to bite that tender pink flesh. To taste her.

  All of her.

  “Tell me to stop,” he warned once more, voice trembling with the effort of his restraint. Fucking monumental, that restraint. He’d never had to use it before. When it came to Gabriel and his women, they either said yes, and he bedded them, or no, and he didn’t. In a centuries-long life fraught with more shades of gray than a storm, that was the only clear line he’d ever drawn. Black and white. Yes or no, stay or go.

  But this? This sorcery, this devilry, this dark pleasure had swept him away like a wild, restless sea, no light to guide him home but the stars in her eyes and the moonlight shimmering in her silvery hair.

  Even with his fangs bared, Jacinda shook her head—another order disobeyed, another frantic refusal to head off this epic fucking disaster.

  So instead, Gabriel embraced it, welcoming the crash and its inevitable ruin.

  He lowered his mouth to a dusky rose peak, brushing his lips across her flesh. Her bare skin was hot to the touch, just like everything else about her, making his mouth water. He sucked one nipple, then the other, savoring her creamy skin as much as he savored the soft, decadent moans his tongue was unleashing. Every teasing, tantalizing lick made her shudder and gasp, all for him.

  Jacinda’s hands slid into his hair, and her grip tightened, her back arching, pressing her flesh harder against his eager mouth.

  “One time,” she breathed. “Just once. Yes?”

  Gabriel kissed his way up her chest to her throat, blazing a hot path to her ear.

  “One time, what?” he asked, though he’d be a fool not to see where this was headed. Where they were headed. They’d been on the collision course ever since he’d taken her prisoner and she’d threatened to grind his bones into dust, her stubborn fire turning him on beyond all reason.

  “Don’t play games,” she said hotly, still panting as his fangs grazed her earlobe. “God, you’re infuriating!”

  “And you’re… Hmm, let’s assess, shall we?” He slid his fingers between her thighs again, grazing the damp fabric of her panties, letting her desire speak for itself. “The sooner you tell me what you want, witch, the sooner I can make you come.”

  Another breathy moan. Another tug on his hair.

  “One and done,” she said. “A quickie. Take me to bed for a polite little roll in the sheets, then we never mention it again and I… Oh, fuck…”

  His fingers were past the panties now, gliding over hot, silky skin as his own desire roiled, his cock more than eager to replace his touch.

  But annoyance buzzed through his chest like an angry hornet.

  Why the fuck had her words bothered him so much? One and done, whispered on a breathy moan? Never mention it again? It was practically Gabriel’s mating call.

  But something about Jacinda was spreading through his veins like the very poison she’d mastered in her craft, and he no longer cared if it killed him. Whether his death came as a slow, plodding torture or in a brutal flash of violence, it mattered not—so long as he could first take his time claiming this infernal witch in all the dark, wicked ways he wanted her.

  Death whispered against the back of his neck. Taunted him.

  He thought of his brother Malcolm. Blood and ash. Thought of his father, the fallen king. Thought of his nightmares, his memories, his victims, his ghosts.

  A growl vibrated through his chest, and he spun her around and pushed her face-forward against the wine rack, flipping up the bottom of her dress and shoving aside the thong. He slid two fingers inside, damn near moaning at the feel of her, wet and willing, the molten fire of her body an inferno that promised a deeply satisfying end to his eternal suffering.

  “If I ever invite you into my bed,” he whispered, “the things I’ll do to you there will not be quick
. They’ll not be polite. And you can call it a one-and-done deal all you’d like, but I promise you, witch. The only word you’ll be uttering when I’m through with you is more.”

  He thrust in deeper, making her whimper. A slow tremor began in her thighs, and she gripped the shelving for balance as Gabriel stroked and teased, wine bottles clinking above and below.

  “Damn, you’re… That’s just… Wow,” she breathed, and he grinned, knowing he was weaving his own sort of spell. With every teasing thrust, every deep slide, he enticed her closer to the edge, ready to shatter at his command.

  He slid his other hand around the front, grazing her clit.

  Jacinda gasped. “Oh, God. I’m… I’m going to—”

  “No, you’re not.” He licked the shell of her ear and stilled his fingers, the warning in his tone as dark and deadly as the broken-glass wine. “I own this body now, little moonflower. I own the breath in your lungs, the beat of your heart, the quake in your thighs. Every cry of pleasure, every desperate moan, every gasp of exquisite torment belongs to me, and you’ll come only when I bloody well command you to come. Is that understood?”

  Shivering in his hands, panting, Jacinda turned her head to glare at him over her shoulder.

  The witch did not understand—that much was clear. Her eyes blazed with that familiar blue fury, her brow furrowed, her mouth parting to tell him exactly what she thought of his so-called commands.

  Gabriel could hardly wait for the fight.

  He feathered across her clit once more, and again, the witch lost all her words.

  She turned away from him on a soft sigh, her body surrendering even as her mind railed against it.

  Gabriel stifled a laugh.

  “I see,” he said, slowly working her again. She melted into his touch, riding him, taking him in deeper, wanting more, desperately chasing that elusive release. He knew when she was close again—her blood sang with it, the telltale tremor rolling through her thighs in earnest, her breath ragged, her soft little moans growing louder.

  Gabriel slowed his thrusts, dragging out her pleasure as well as his own.