“It’s nothing,” she said.
“Liar,” he said, “but I’m not going to push you to share any more today. What do you do around here for fun?”
“What we did wasn’t fun enough for you?” she asked with a smile.
“Oh, it was fun alright,” Ian said as he squeezed her hip. “In fact, just thinking about how much fun it was makes me want to do it again.”
“Already?” she asked.
He looked down, and she followed his gaze. He was already hard, but that didn’t surprise him.
Obviously, it surprised Kyleigh. “I thought men needed longer to recover.”
“You’ve been with the wrong men,” he said with a lopsided grin.
“No need to tell me that,” she said. “Sex was never like this before. Do you think it’s because I was so angry?”
“That’s probably part of it,” he said. “You weren’t thinking straight at the time, which is a good thing when it comes to sex.”
Kyleigh gave him a half-smile. “I’d think that would be a bad thing when it comes to sex. In fact, it was for me in the past.”
“Maybe I should rephrase that. Thinking before sex is usually a good idea. During sex, you need to let go and feel. If you start worrying about whether it’s the right thing to do, or if the sounds you’re making are ridiculous, things aren’t nearly as much fun. Just a side note, the sounds you make are really fucking sexy.”
Kyleigh blushed, and Ian leaned forward to kiss her nose.
“You have no idea how hot it gets me to see you looking all shy and innocent at the same time as you look all wild and well-fucked.”
“Nothing should embarrass me after the time I’ve spent with the Fae,” she said. “They don’t mind having sex in front of me, which is kind of weird yet fascinating at the same time.”
“Yeah, I imagine it is,” Ian said. “I’m a guy, so I kind of like watching, but it still makes me a little uncomfortable at times.”
“You’ve watched people having sex?” she asked.
“Vampires didn’t have a lot of privacy when I was growing up. Before the rebellions, we lived in barracks with at least twenty other vampires of all ages. Naturally, vampires ended up screwing around, so it was hard to avoid seeing it. After the revolutions started, we had a hard time finding shelter at first. We shared spaces, and people were already used to having sex with others in the room. That didn’t help with the humans’ belief that vampires are naturally sexual creatures.” Personally, he’d always preferred privacy for sex, which is why he was still questioning how excited he’d gotten thinking about Arawn and Oriel watching him with Kyleigh. Ian decided he’d push that thought to the back of his mind, at least for now.
“Were you ever . . .” her voice trailed off, and she looked away. “Sorry, that’s too personal.”
“I’m not sure there are that many taboo subjects when you’re naked in bed with someone,” he said while fighting back his laughter.
“It’s just that I know a lot of vampires were forced to prostitute themselves in the beginning,” she said uncomfortably.
“And you want to know if I learned my bedroom skills from whoring myself for blood?” he asked.
“No!” she said quickly. “I guess I hoped you’d say no because I can’t imagine that happening to you.”
“I was lucky enough to be born in the right area,” he said. “Now, I’m not saying I had an easy childhood. Back then, all born vampires were slaves. We weren’t human, so we had no rights. Sex wasn’t something they used us for where I lived— well, not in the prostitution sense. There was plenty of rape and other types of abuse, but nothing like it was in other areas. Hearing about my friend Simon’s childhood made me appreciate my own, and he didn’t even tell me half of what he went through. Mostly, I worked in factories, but, on occasion, I got transported to nearby farms to help plant and pick crops.”
“That’s a relief,” Kyleigh said. She quickly added, “I don’t mean it’s a relief you were forced to work in factories and on farms, but I’m just glad you weren’t forced to prostitute yourself.”
“Me too,” he said. “Hell, I probably wouldn’t have survived that kind of life.”
“I don’t know how anyone did,” she admitted.
Ian rolled onto his back and pulled Kyleigh on top of him. She put her hands on his chest and looked momentarily startled before she relaxed into him.
“Tell me about your childhood,” he said as he stroked her back.
“You don’t want to hear those boring stories,” she said.
“Come on, Kyleigh. I showed you mine, so now you have to show me yours,” he said and tapped her ass lightly.
She laughed. “As I recall, you’ve seen mine and inspected it rather thoroughly already.”
“You know what I meant,” he said.
“Fine, but my childhood wasn’t all that interesting,” she warned him.
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
“Well, my mum wasn’t married,” she began. “I know that’s pretty common now, and nobody thinks anything of it, but back then, it was a major sin. I mean sin in the literal, damned by the church, sense of the word. My mother was considered a whore, and I was considered the daughter of a whore. We lived on an island, so there wasn’t anywhere for us to go where people wouldn’t know this about us. The funny thing is that my mum moved there to avoid the stigma, but the reputation managed to follow her.”
“So, you had a pretty rough childhood,” Ian said, leaning forward to kiss the top of her head.
“Not as rough as you might imagine, certainly not as rough as I believed when I was growing up,” she admitted. “While some people didn’t want their children playing with me, I was pretty well-liked by children my age. As I got older, I used my title as daughter of a whore to get what I wanted from boys.”
Ian smiled and shook his head. He was having a hard time picturing Kyleigh using sex to get her way. “That I find hard to believe.”
“I didn’t sleep with any of them, but they all thought they had a chance and did little favors to get on my good side.”
“Didn’t they get angry when it didn’t pan out for them?” That worried Ian. “No one hurt you, did they?”
“None of them hurt me. Sure, they got a little angry, but they were all foolish boys who came back to try again once they’d cooled down,” she explained with a wicked smile. “In hindsight, I was foolish and selfish, but I enjoyed the power. My mum put a stop to it when she found out. She said I was lucky one of the boys from the village hadn’t hurt me. At the time, I never wondered why I seemed almost charmed.”
“Tell me about your mother,” Ian coaxed. For some reason, he felt a driving need to understand Kyleigh and know everything about her.
“My mum was a powerful woman,” Kyleigh said with a wistful grin. “If she hadn’t been, I’m not sure she would have survived. She knew a lot about healing with plants and such, so people needed her. We didn’t have a doctor most of the time, so when people got sick, they went to my mum. When they didn’t need her, a lot of them would call her a whore or a witch, but as soon as someone got sick, they were at our door, begging my mum for help and calling her an angel. Don’t get me wrong, some people always treated her with respect, including some of the high-ranking women. The rest were judgmental fools. I often wondered why she even bothered helping those who didn’t appreciate her.”
“She must have been a lot like you,” Ian said.
“Why do you say that?” she asked.
“You saved me, and I don’t have that many redeeming qualities,” he said.
“If that were true, I wouldn’t have saved you, no matter what kind of promise I made.”
Ian’s brows scrunched together in confusion. “Promise?”
“That was just a slip of the tongue,” she said and slid off of his chest. When she stood and started to reach for her pants, Ian knew she was withdrawing.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he asked, sna
tching the pants from her hands.
She gave him an adorably annoyed look. “Swimming,” she said. “Although, I suppose I don’t really need pants for that.”
“What do you usually swim in?” he asked, hoping she’d say nothing.
“I usually swim naked and hope no one decides to pop in for an unexpected visit,” she admitted.
He grinned like an idiot. “Then I definitely want to watch you swim, unless you’re doing this to get away from me.”
She looked startled. “I’m not trying to get away from you.”
“No need to get so defensive,” he said. “I was just teasing you, though not about wanting to watch you swim naked. I really do want to see that.”
“I had no idea you had such a dirty mind.” She pretended to be shocked.
“It’s your fault I’m this way,” he said and stood to find his boxers, having no idea where he’d tossed them in his haste to get naked and inside of Kyleigh. That’s when he finally spotted them and slipped them on.
“Sure, blame the woman,” she said.
“Well, you’ve already admitted to teasing boys to get them to do what you want. As I recall, you wanted me to fuck you really hard, and you teased me until I did it.”
“Teased you?” she asked with a raised eyebrow. “As I recall, I fell on you like some crazed wanton woman.”
“My favorite type of woman,” Ian said and reached out to pull her against his body for a long kiss. He was satisfied when he ended the kiss and Kyleigh looked more than a little dazed. “Wanton is a good look for you.”
Kyleigh’s lips pressed into a stern line, but one corner of her mouth twitched. “Yes,” she said, fighting her laughter. “I noticed you enjoy my wanton ways. Now, I’m going swimming so I can clear my head.”
“Kyleigh,” Ian said seriously, and she met his eyes. “Don’t start over-analyzing all of this and worrying. We both like each other, and the sex is amazing. Since we’re stuck together, at least for a little while, why not enjoy it?”
He knew he’d said something stupid when she cringed and pulled away.
“You’re right,” she said. “We should enjoy the sex while we’re stuck together.”
Ian sighed and watched her walk out of the room with a fake smile pasted on her face. Damn, he wished he could stop putting his foot in his mouth with Kyleigh. On a happy note, he now had a great excuse to make up with her on the beach.
Chapter Eighteen
Mind numbingly bored— that was how Arawn felt while watching Roger. He’d checked in several times, and other than building an army of vampires, nothing much was happening. At least today, Roger was meeting with the vampires who’d gone to plead his case to the main council. They’d traveled at a fast pace, getting to Fangri La and back in two days. Arawn had been tempted to go along and watch the meeting, but he figured it would be even more boring than keeping an eye on Roger, if such a thing was even possible.
The petite female vampire, Claire entered with the three males she’d traveled with. All were relatively new vampires, which worried Arawn, but the older ones were too rough for a diplomatic mission. Roger would have had a hard time letting the female pretend to be in charge, so he’d stayed behind. Arawn was reconsidering his decision to keep Roger ignorant of his influence. One thing Arawn hated was allowing others to take credit for his ideas. Witnessing Roger congratulating himself for his own brilliance over and over again was testing Arawn’s patience.
“You’d better have good news,” Roger said by way of greeting.
“It’s a start,” Claire said with a shrug.
“Details?” he asked testily, clearly struggling with the idea that a female held a position of authority.
“They agreed to hold a special session to consider whether we should be protected by the council,” Claire said, standing at attention like a good soldier. “They’re calling the leaders from this area down there to answer questions about our claims that they’re trying to destroy us. Apparently, things move very slowly with the main vampire council, and the meeting won’t be for at least two months. They’ll contact us with the details. In the meantime, the council said they would issue a warning to the local vampires, so we’re safe from attack, at least for now.”
“So, the council sympathizes with our plight?” Roger asked, obviously comforted by that news.
She nodded. “They seemed suspicious at first because of what the local vampires have been telling them.”
“Yeah, they seemed pretty pissed about us kidnapping humans and infecting them with the new form of the Moon virus,” one of the males said. The young vampire looked indignant at the suggestion, and Arawn had to agree that Roger’s idea to send vampires who were ignorant of the darker aspects of his plans was a smart move. They didn’t have to pretend to be shocked by accusations like that one.
“That could look bad for us,” Roger said thoughtfully.
“Not to worry,” Claire said, still standing at attention. “I assured them that we only infect humans who want to become vampires. I even pointed out that I’d been among those humans who wanted to receive the new virus. Then I explained to them how the local vampires killed my parents in retaliation.”
Arawn chuckled softly at the woman’s brilliance. Little Claire managed to weave truth and fiction into a believable story. Well, she didn’t know any of it was fiction.
“Good.” Roger nodded his approval.
“Explaining the vampires they claim we held captive was more difficult,” she said.
“I imagine it was,” Roger muttered, probably annoyed with himself for not coming up with answers to those accusations.
“The first one I blamed on Graham, explaining that he was unstable and you had been working to remove him from power at that time.”
Roger laughed. “Brilliant tactic! What did you tell them about the other vampire?”
“I told them he killed several of our people, but that it had been our intention to release him to his leadership. I also told them the allegations of torture were ridiculous.”
“You are quite impressive,” Roger said, and Arawn didn’t miss the way Roger’s eyes traveled across the length of the female’s slender body.
Claire’s eyes narrowed, obviously noticing Roger’s perusal and not appreciating it. “I’m doing what it takes to destroy those killers,” she said bitterly.
“Of course you are,” Roger said in a silky voice. “That’s what we all want most.”
Her eyes narrowed. “If there’s nothing more, I’d like permission to rest,” she said. “It was a long trip, and I haven’t slept more than three hours in the last two days.”
“Of course,” Roger said in a light voice that didn’t match the irritation in his eyes.
Arawn didn’t like the way Roger eyed the female. While Roger didn’t seem to care too much about sex, he got off on power and hurting people. That was something Arawn could appreciate, but this female was too important to be played with. Arawn cursed his luck, realizing that he’d have to stick around even longer to make sure the idiot didn’t do anything to damage the female or lose her loyalty.
With a sigh of resignation, Arawn prepared himself for more boredom. It would all be worth it when he destroyed the people who mattered most to Kyleigh’s mate.
Chapter Nineteen
Danny had just survived one of the worst days on patrol in his life. If he’d had any doubt about the mysterious redhead’s warnings before, they were long gone. In the last few days, they’d learned that people from several nearby human settlements had recently disappeared. People disappearing wasn’t uncommon; the world was a dangerous place and turned vampire attacks happened. Sometimes, humans decided to move to another settlement. With the lack of technology in most human settlements, a person could move five miles away and never be seen again. They didn’t have phones or computers like the vampire settlements. Still, the number of disappearances was too high to ignore.
Today, they’d gone out to check some of the sma
ller human settlements further inland. These were the times when Danny and his human friends were the biggest help, because many of those humans didn’t trust vampires. None were quite as aggressively anti-vampire as the settlement Danny had grown up at, but they were still overly cautious and responded better when approached by humans. He and Mark had gone out with Norah because she was one of the least threatening looking vampires on the rotation schedule. Yeah, the woman was tough, but with her petite frame and nondescript features, she looked kind of helpless.
The first places they’d checked had all reported having a few people disappear in the last couple of months. While that was bad, it wasn’t enough to set off any alarms. The real concern was the third settlement. The place was deserted; not a single human was left in sight. All the food had been raided, the crops dug up. Houses had been torn apart looking for anything useful.
They’d known right away the people at that settlement hadn’t moved on to a new territory. They’d lived there too long, and their departure was too sudden. That’s when they found children hidden in some of the homes. Children as young as three had been stuffed in crawl spaces or hidden areas under floorboards. The kids had listened while their parents and older siblings were dragged away.
Thinking about what those kids had gone through made Danny sick. What he’d really wanted to do when he got back was head over to the training center and spar with Mark until neither of them could stand. Mark had been totally down with that. Unfortunately, Mitchell was stopping by to pick up the medication for Faith.
When Danny finally made it back home, Mitchell and Faith were waiting for him. Both were about an hour early, but he figured it wouldn’t take long to pass off the meds and give Faith instructions on dosage. Then he’d head into the kitchen and dig for leftovers in his fridge.
Mitchell and Faith were lurking in the shadows of the carport, obviously trying to avoid being seen, so he ushered them in before he spoke.
Neither sat down, and both were fidgeting.
“I got the medicine,” Danny said. “Give me a minute to go grab it for you.”
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