by Laura Kaye
In front of a mirror, Kael carefully fingered the red smears coloring the knot over his heart. He twisted his torso to see the marks on his arm and back, too.
Liam appeared in the mirror behind him. “Dry?”
Kael nodded, simply mesmerized by a sight he thought he’d never see again—the ancient symbols for fidelity, fertility, protection and eternity painted over his skin in his own royal blood.
They would serve as Shayla’s first tastes of him and fuel the blood hunger her mating mark would already have unleashed within her. A growl rumbled low in his chest at the thought.
Liam laid a hand on his shoulder, careful to avoid any of the marks, and squeezed. “I believe it is time, my brother. You don’t want to be late to your own mating.”
Kael nodded, emotion tightening his throat. He turned and faced Liam, whose eyes were alive with happiness and pride. “Thank you, old friend.”
“You deserve this, Kael. It has been far too long since I’ve last felt joy flowing through your blood. I am honored to stand up for you this night.”
Unable to respond, Kael clasped his grip around Liam’s forearm, who returned the ancient warrior handshake. “You are a good man, Liam.”
“Come. Let me help you with the cloak.” He released Kael’s arm and gestured to the bed.
Kael turned away and awaited the heavy fabric to fall upon his shoulders. Warmth surrounded him. He slipped his arms into the long, loose sleeves. The fine velvet was soft and thick, of the same deep crimson as his pants. Using the mirror again, Kael fastened the three ornate gold clips that held the cloak together over his chest.
Liam crossed the room to Kael’s dressing table, and eased open the lid on an antique carved wooden box sitting there. Liam lifted the crown, encrusted with the same jewels Kael wore in his hair, and returned to stand before him.
“Your crown, Your Highness.” Liam bowed his head and held the golden circle up in both hands.
Like the blood adorning his body, Kael had not expected to wear one of these again. As the sovereign, he had several crowns for different occasions. This mating crown had been made new, completed just a few hours before by the Warrior Ronan, who was also a skilled goldsmith. Kael settled the metal atop his head and adjusted it. “The hood, please,” Kael managed in a raspy voice.
“Yes.” Liam lifted the wide hood over Kael’s head, careful not to snag the pointed ornaments on his headdress or the jewels in his braid.
Now he was ready.
Together, the men made their way through the manor house to an older part of the underground compound. Once again, the halls were empty and candlelit. It seemed to take forever to arrive at their destination, but finally Liam was opening the arched doors to the Hall of the Chieftains, where the mating ritual took place for all who lived herein.
All eyes turned to Kael as he entered the room. Six clan warriors formed a circle around the center of the room, each standing at a marked symbol tiled into the floor—symbols that represented elements of the heraldic badge of Clan MacQuillan. The vampires present were his senior clan warriors, his oldest compatriots, the closest thing he had to a blood family. Indeed, he was tied to each of them by a blood connection.
Kael watched as Liam crossed to the far side of the room and disappeared through a similarly arched door.
Then Kael took his place at the center of the circle, dropped to one knee, and waited.
“I do believe it is time for you to be mated,” Ciara announced.
Shayla nodded and accepted the woman’s hand. With assistance, she rose from the seat in front of the ornate vanity where she had been readied for the ceremony. Nervous energy gripped her, but so too did something else. An urge she’d never before felt, and somehow knew would only be eased by Kael’s presence, flowed through her, held her muscles taut, resonated in an empty ache in her gut. She clenched and released her left hand.
“Thank you,” she said, smiling at Ciara and Maeve.
The women had spent the day with her while the men assisted Kael, or at least that’s what she’d been told. Ciara and Maeve were warriors’ mates and great sources of information and reassurance for Shayla. Ciara was the mate of a warrior named Marcas, and though she appeared Shayla’s age, she’d been born in 1922. Even more stunning was Maeve, who was mated to Ronan and had been alive for three hundred years.
Shayla had taken an immediate liking to both of them. They’d helped prepare her for the mating ritual and surrounded her with friendship and sisterhood, easing the pang in her heart that no one from her family could share in the ceremony. Kael had explained the previous night that they would be notified and invited for a special wedding dinner soon.
She was the only human who could attend the mating ritual.
Ciara helped her put on the velvet cloak over the rich silk gown she wore. With its plunging V neck and thin lace straps, it was more lingerie than gown, but it was gorgeous, bejeweled with glittering beads along the neckline, empire waist and bottom hem.
“Lower your head,” Maeve said. Shayla stooped down and bowed her head. Maeve and Ciara lifted the cloak’s hood over the bridal circlet, careful not to muss the intricate braiding and bejeweling of her hair.
“Now, remember,” Ciara said with warm smile, “that should be the last time you bow your head to anyone, save your king. In an hour’s time, you will be queen.”
The very idea made Shayla’s head spin. Flustered, she tried to speak but no words came out. She didn’t know what to say. All three women fell together, laughing.
Finally, she calmed herself. “Well, my new friends, my future husband does not strike me as the most patient man. So, should we go?”
Ciara and Maeve led her through stone hallways where priceless art decorated the walls and sat atop pedestals. But Shayla’s need to see Kael was intense and she could not pay the pieces the attention they deserved. Forever seemed to pass in the time it took to arrive at the arched wooden door of the room they’d shown her earlier in the day.
The Hall of the Chieftains.
Liam waited next to the door and offered her a warm smile when their eyes met.
“Liam will take you from here,” Ciara said, her expression affectionate.
Shayla nodded at her new friend and exchanged hugs with both women before they departed.
Liam turned to her and held out his left arm. “It would be my honor to escort you to your mate.”
Trembling, not out of fear but out of an urgency she could not fully explain, Shayla grasped Liam’s forearm with her unmarked hand. He opened the door and guided her forward.
In an instant, Shayla’s gaze fell on Kael’s kneeling form and he was all she could see.
The desire to run to him made it feel as if her insides were vibrating. She licked her lips and released a shaky breath. Her left hand tingled and she fisted against the maddening, arousing sensation.
Kael’s eyes glowed the brightest she’d ever seen. He was magnificent, regal, and more beautiful than she’d remembered after just a day’s painful separation. A fierce masculinity rolled off him and curled around her until she swore she could smell him, taste him, feel his touch on her skin.
Liam paused at the outside of the circle and dropped his arm.
And then Shayla stood before the man, the vampire, the king she knew without question owned her, heart and body.
They joined marked hands and she barely resisted crying out. She sucked in a sharp breath as the most wondrous current of belonging shot through her—she simply didn’t know how else to describe it. By the trembling of his hand in hers, she knew Kael felt it, too.
On instinct, she sank to her knees. They were so close her chest nearly touched his. Only their clasped hands separated them.
Then Kael began to speak. She didn’t know the ancient language, but she understood perfectly well the emotion behind the words. Her heart swelled at the passion with which he spoke. Tears bloomed in her eyes at the glassiness she saw in his. Their hands clutched tighter and the f
eeling was simply, fundamentally right.
She was so focused on Kael she didn’t even react when he paused and the warriors chanted in a fierce yell and fell to one knee around them.
After a moment, Kael’s deep, fervent voice continued. “I am on my knees before you because we will always be equals, partners in all things. I hold your hand in mine, because we will always be together. I look into your eyes to see into the real you, and let you see into the real me. I pledge to take care of you, protect you, and cherish you for all time.” Shayla’s heart thundered in her chest. A single tear quietly rolled down her cheek. He raised their hands to his mouth and kissed her fingers.
Her lips dropped open and her mouth salivated at the picture of his mouth tasting her. That foreign urge flared within her, stronger now, more demanding.
“The ancient blood magic has deemed us a good match. I agree with all my heart. Shayla McKinnon, will you be my mate?”
She swallowed hard and smiled. “Kael the Fair, Son of Iain, Warrior King of the Vampires and Chieftain of Clan MacQuillan, I will be your mate. I, in turn, pledge to take care of you, protect you, and cherish you for all time.”
Intense heat flared between their palms, stung and burned, and then the pain disappeared completely. Kael flipped their hands over and pulled his wrist back enough to reveal new identical knot-shaped marks covering their palms. Unlike the rest of the mating mark, the knot was colored in greens and reds and blues. It was stunning.
Another roaring cheer rose up around them. The warriors bowed their heads.
Shayla was overwhelmed as her whole world changed around her, but above it all was her need for him. For Kael. She was dying to kiss him. It was almost painful to keep her mouth away. She bit down on her lip, hard, and chewed. With her eyes, she pleaded with him.
His gaze narrowed. “I understand, dearheart. Soon.”
She undid the fastenings on her robe as he undid his. She exaggerated the lift of her hood, not wanting to catch the jewels in the circlet of her hair. Kael did the same, revealing a magnificent crown that made her hands itch with a need to bury themselves in his glorious hair. They both dropped their cloaks behind them.
Then Shayla gasped. Her gaze trailed down to the golden skin of his chest, painted with red markings. She breathed deeply and exhaled a needy moan she couldn’t restrain. “My lord?” she whimpered, completely overwhelmed by his scent. It was him, only magnified by a million, and it drove her crazy. She shook and panted, was on the verge of begging for…she didn’t know.
“What do you want to do, Shayla? What urge are you fighting? Give in to it.”
Her gaze cut from the red to his flaring eyes.
“Give in. Do it. Now.”
Chapter 10
Shayla licked her lips as she gazed at the red-painted knot over Kael’s heart. She wanted to…to…
She sprang at him and opened her mouth over the red. The moment her tongue touched his skin, she groaned, a nearly strangled sound from deep in her throat. This was the urge she’d been feeling all day. She licked and sucked at the spot over his heart until only his clean tattoo remained. She drew back, whimpering.
Not enough. It wasn’t enough.
“Here,” he rasped. He pointed to another symbol painted on the bulge of his bicep.
Needy sounds spilled from her as she pulled his arm to her mouth. She feasted on the mark, but it, too, was gone too soon.
He held his hair away from the left side of his throat. “Again.”
She moaned and climbed up him. His other arm strapped her against him, held her in place while she sucked and licked the red away. Kael grunted and shook under her frenzied attention and it drove her on.
It was blood. His blood. It sang to her, beckoned her.
She needed more. So much more.
Kael couldn’t decide which ached worse, his throbbing fangs, elongated in preparation for the blood exchange, or his cock, which had hardened when Shayla walked into the room and approximated something like steel the moment her eyes discovered his blood.
She was so magnificent in her bloodlust that he reveled in every wanton lick and rough suck of her mouth on his skin. Her need and enthusiasm was more than he had hoped, and so sexy he feared he wouldn’t be able to restrain himself from burying his shaft in the wet heat he could already smell right here in the Great Hall.
There were too many eyes here for that, though.
The witnesses were there to affirm the worthiness of the chosen, testify to the strength of the blood match and communicate to the human mate her acceptance into their community. In his case, the warriors’ presence also assured the acceptance of whatever newling heirs he and Shayla might have—having witnessed the match, his brethren would be able to defend the child’s birthright if ever challenged. Beyond what was required for the ceremony, though, Kael would never share her naked body with another male, not even just to watch.
The very thought made him prone to violence.
Shayla whimpered and panted against Kael’s left ear. “More? Please?”
“My back,” he said, his voice a raw scrape.
She spun around him and pressed up tight against him as she feasted on the large mark that spanned his shoulder blades. Her arms wrapped around him and her fingernails dug into his chest muscles.
Nearly three hundred years had passed since a female had fed from his veins, since he’d had the deep satisfaction of nourishing a woman from the fruit of his body. His soul nearly sang for the return of such raw, primal pleasure.
Shayla’s arms circled his throat. “Oh, my God, Kael, what’s happening to me? I…I…”
“One more, Shayla. You’re doing so well.” He hauled her body around his and laid her head in his lap. He took a deep breath that failed to calm, then stuck his thumb under the buttons of his leathers and pulled down, opening his fly on one side to expose the flat expanse of his lower abdominals.
Fingernails dug into his clothed ass as her mouth latched onto the fertility symbol. She sucked so hard he was sure she would leave a bruise, and he relished the idea of her marking his body, claiming him in every and any physical way.
She whined, and he knew the blood was gone. Triumph surged through him.
Nearly frantic to have her, he threaded his hands under her arms and drew them both into a standing position. She swayed at the sudden movement, but he easily steadied her. For the first time, he had a full view of the incredible silk gown that skimmed over her luscious feminine curves. Her eyes refocused and raked his flesh, and he felt it as an almost physical caress.
It was time.
He was so hungry for companionship. For love. He had no doubts now, none at all, about what he felt for the woman before him.
Kael reached up to his crown and grasped the central ornamental spike. Pushing a concealed release on the back, it clicked free and became the handle to a small hidden dagger. Shayla gasped when she saw it, then her face went pale when he placed the glinting blade to the taut base of his neck and sliced into his carotid artery.
Blood flowed freely in a dark, pulsing stream over his collarbone to his sternum.
And Kael just smiled.
Shayla’s thoughts had completely devolved to animalistic urges and she reveled in it. The heady spice of his blood—its taste and scent—unleashed an erotic euphoria within her that she didn’t think she would ever be able to give up or live without.
So as the thick red spilled down his chest, Shayla’s whole body ached to have it.
Her gaze flashed from the blood to Kael’s face, and what she saw there lanced heat and need through her body—pride, encouragement, desire.
He gave her a single nod.
She hesitated only a second more before gripping the corded muscles of his lats and curling her tongue around the heavy bead of blood running downward. The life-giving nectar exploded in her mouth, tasted about a thousand times more powerful directly from the source.
The source.
Her gaze fixed on the wo
und. Licking fast and greedily up his chest, Shayla arrived at his collarbone, swallowed the savory fluid coating her mouth, and latched her lips and teeth around the cut.
Shayla was utterly unprepared for the ecstasy of drinking directly from him. On the first full pull of his blood, she came so hard she went blind for the full duration of her orgasm. Brilliant light filled her entire visual field as every nerve and muscle in her body seized and jerked. Her juices trickled from her and slicked up her thighs.
Kael’s tight embrace supported her and he cried out a victorious roar that echoed through the hall.
Her entire physiology seemed to explode and remake itself as his blood completed the alterations she now knew the mating mark had begun. Almost instantly, she felt lighter, healthier, stronger, invincible.
And then his fangs punctured the tender spot at the base of her throat, and Kael began to feed from her as she fed from him.
An approving shout rose up from the surrounding men at his actions.
Her embrace with Kael was every bit as intimate as having sex. Maybe more. Because blood was central to sustaining his life…
And, now, hers too.
She drank and drank until she felt glutinous, but could not pull herself away. He devoured her in the same uncontrolled, needful way, setting off a deep satisfaction within her chest, between her legs. The longer it went on, the more attuned to the blood’s movement she became, and she realized they were literally exchanging blood.
She flowed into him. He flowed into her.
Her heart felt as if it might rupture. Surely, such a small organ could not contain emotions this intense.
I love him. Oh, God, I truly love him. Kael. My Kael.
As I love you, my dearest heart.