by Eve Newton
He snorts in amusement. “If only it were that simple.”
“Ah, another woman perhaps?” she asks with a raised eyebrow.
“Not exactly.”
“Another man then?” she asks.
“Closer,” Devon retorts, giving her a wicked grin that he knows will melt her panties.
He isn’t wrong. She leans closer, pulling her top a little lower as she does.
“Do tell.” She drums her fingers on the table as he stays silent. “Do you love both of them?”
“Her, yes. Him, that’s the burning question.”
“Are they together?” she asks an insightful question.
What is with the twenty questions? Nosey bitch. But he answers her anyway.
“They are married,” Devon states.
“Oh,” she says. “Doesn’t that make it easier?” she frowns. “Cake and eat it?”
“You’d think, wouldn’t you,” Devon snorts. “But no, she is, uhm, engaged to someone else as well. Someone that I loathe beyond anything in this realm.”
The woman spits out the beer she had just taken a gulp of.
“Christ,” she says. “Love…square?” She wrinkles up her nose.
“Nope. She also has another lover. One I don’t mind.”
“Fucking Hell. This bitch has it made.” She looks mighty impressed and it makes Devon laugh.
“Yeah, she does. She also has someone else who I’m not sure of, but not threatened by and someone who I am sure of and threatened by. It’s complicated.”
“No fucking kidding,” she says, with a laugh. “She must be pretty special to have all of these men so eager to be with her.”
“Oh, she is,” Devon says, knowing he has an adoring gaze on his face.
She gives him a searching look and then says, “This woman is your sire, isn’t she?”
Devon’s eyes find hers again. “Excuse me?” he asks innocently.
“You don’t have to pretend with me. We have our fair share of Vampires,” she whispers the word, “around here.”
“I have no idea what you are talking about,” he says haughtily.
“Sure you do,” she prods. “I can tell a Vamp from a human. Like I said, we have our fair share coming through here. It’s all to do with the legend.”
“Legend?” he asks her, confused.
She leans forward conspiratorially. “You know the legend. Isn’t that why you are passing through?”
“No, I was born here,” he says, and then curses himself for his slip-up.
“I’d remember you if you had been,” she says with narrowed eyes. “Unless it was before my time?” she adds with a wink.
“What legend?” he asks then, curious despite himself. He has never heard of any legend surrounding this area.
“The legend of the powerful Vampiress,” she begins, and he rolls his eyes at the cheesy term, but she ignores him and continues, “Who came to this village centuries ago heartbroken from a lost love. She roamed the streets in despair, feeding from the weak and needy, until a human found her and fell in love with her as she did him.” She pauses and takes a sip of his Guinness. He is staring at her with a look on his face that can only be described as disbelief. This tale is starting to sound extremely familiar. “They made plans to be together, to share blood and have eternal life together under the full moon, but they were thwarted by the human’s parents. His mother killed her own son so that the Vampiress couldn’t take him and change him into a night-walking monster, but it didn’t work. The man was still alive as the Vampiress dropped her blood into his mouth to save him, dooming him to a life of darkness and blood drinking.”
Devon gulps and downs the remains of his pint in his astonishment.
“The evil Vampiress took the man away after killing his parents, slaughtering them in their own home, never to return here again.”
He stares at her as she finishes her story with a flourish. “And that my friend, is the legend that brings creatures from far and wide to see if they can catch a sight of the Vampire who has remained elusive for five hundred years, staying away from his village in his torment and grief over his murdered parents and lost chance at the bonding ritual that would have tied him to his sire for all eternity. He’s kind of like the Loch Ness Monster. A few have sworn they have seen him return and roam the hill at midnight, but I can’t say that I ever have.”
Devon bursts out laughing, and she smirks at him. “Are you fucking serious?” he asks. He cannot believe there is a tale about him and Liz. Who on Earth even knew what happened? Sure, some of the details are incorrect, but the basic gist is definitely their story. Oh, man, Lizzie is going to get a kick out of this when he tells her. Evil Vampiress! That’s fucking hysterical. And he can honestly say that he has never roamed a hill in torment at midnight in his entire supernatural life. Over his slaughtered parents or not.
“Quite serious,” she says. “A non-believer. You should beware. He might come for you.” She laughs.
“Doubtful,” he says and pockets the ring box he had been twirling in his hands. “But thank you. I needed a good laugh.”
“Anytime, blue eyes,” she says as they both stand. “Tell your evil Vampiress of a sire that she is one lucky chick having so many men who love her.” She laughs as he gapes at her. How did she know it was him? “Your secret is safe with me, but you had better get out of here before someone else figures it out.”
He nods, dumbstruck, and beats it back to the car in a hurry. Still shaking his head as he pulls back out onto the road, he calls Jess and tells her he’ll be three hours tops.
Chapter 9
Buckinghamshire, England, March 2013 - Devon
Devon strides into his bedroom, exactly three hours later and he feels himself go hard again. He can’t help it. Jess is waiting for him, naked and he is a man, a stupid, stupid man, that has denied himself not once today, but twice. This time he gets to come, and no one is stopping him, even if the Earth threatens to swallow him up.
He doesn’t bother with a greeting, or a kiss, as he sheds his clothes and climbs onto the bed with her. He laces their fingers together and pushes her hands above her head. He lets go of her hands, not even looking her in the eyes. He kneels back and pushes her legs up and over so that her feet are touching the headboard. Fuck, he enjoys her flexibility. He sinks into her and pounds her so that she comes quickly. She opens her legs wide, so wide that she is doing a split before she wraps them around him. He drives into her now with his mouth on hers, his hands on her huge tits, her nipples taut under his palms and she moans as he tugs on them. He flips her over, so she is riding him, and he does what he has always wanted to do to Elizabeth, but she has never let him. He drops his fangs and bites into her nipple, suckling from her as her orgasm rips through her. He knows Liz keeps this for her sire only and it only just occurred to him, that he can do the same.
“Fuck,” she breathes. “I love you.”
“I love it when you come all over my cock,” he murmurs as he pulls on her hips to ride him faster. Her tits are bouncing in his face and he wants his dick in between them. They are big enough to push together and slide in between and it feels like heaven. He pulls out of her and inserts his fingers, wiggling them around. He removes his fingers and slides them in between her breasts and over her nipples, as her eyes go dark with hunger. She knows what he wants to do to her, and she is all for it. She is a saucy little thing and it attracted him far more than it should have all those months ago. She pushes her breasts together as he looms over her and pushes himself in between the mounds of flesh. She sticks her tongue out and as he thrusts; she catches the tip as it darts in and out of her wet mouth. Devon groans as he looks down at her and he can’t hold back as she opens her mouth to catch the cum as it spurts out of him. She wipes at the bits that missed and licks it off her fingers. He slides back into her, needing another release. He bites into her neck slowly, savoring the taste, when that thought pops in again: He wants to know what Cole tastes like. He has
been with guys before, who hasn’t when you’ve been around the block several hundred times with women? You get bored and curious. The orgies in the old days were prime spots for trying out new things, when the sexual energy rolling off that many Vampires was enough to drive you so wild that you fucked the nearest thing to you whether it be woman or man. But he has never sought out male company before and nor would he ever have thought he would. Breathing deeply, he shoots his load into her and rolls off. He stares at the ceiling as she snuggles into him. There is no way Cole is ready to take that next step with him though. It will be several decades, if not longer, before he even thinks about it, let alone acts on it, but when he does, Devon will be there. With that thought making him hard all over again, with his eyes closed, he pulls Jess onto him and she rides him slowly and sensually as she knows he likes after they have fucked hard. She is always eager to please him, but his thoughts aren’t on her as she makes him come again. No, they are only on his sire and his sibling.
Chapter 10
Buckinghamshire, England, March 2013 – Lincoln
He likes it here. He would like to stay. He wonders if Liv would stay? It raises a Pack problem though. He wonders if they would move here? Seems a bit too much to ask of them. But he likes it here. The grounds are extensive, and the woods are ideal. Lincoln has been jogging around the estate for over an hour now. He likes taking the time to exercise. It’s great thinking time. He stops outside the terrace and bends over, hands on his knees as his breathing slows. He wants to stay here; he thinks again as he drops to the floor. Two hundred push-ups followed by two hundred sit-ups. And he’s done. He knows she is watching him from inside the house. She always watches him. It’s a little unnerving, but flattering, he supposes. She’s a pretty enough girl, but she is just a girl. And she is no Liv. Lincoln never thought he had a type before, but he does now, and busty, blue-eyed brunette, newbie Vampires is not it. He flops back to the damp grass and squints up at the weak early morning sun.
He hopes that Liv is okay. She said she would be back tomorrow, but he is worried about her being somewhere where he can’t get to her. He only sided with her sire because he knew it is what she would have wanted him to do: to trust her. She relies on him to be supportive of her crazy ideas and he will always support her no matter what. All the others treat her like a little China doll, and it is doing her no favors.
He knows her sire only agreed to her request, much as he did, because she asked him to and not because he wanted to. Is it the same thing? Lincoln doesn’t really know.
He doesn’t get Vampire relationships for the most part and most especially theirs. It is all a bit too weird for his liking, but he goes along with it because if he doesn’t, then basically he doesn’t get to be with her and that is unacceptable. He does try to make her life easier. She has so many people demanding so much of her.
He has every right to make the same demands, maybe even more so, and yet he never does. He never throws his weight around because it would just cause her problems. It has worked nicely in his favor though, he must admit, as she sees him as the reasonable one. The one that she can rely on and trust with everything. There are things that she has told only him, and he likes that. He loves it, in fact, that she can be completely open with him and she knows he won’t judge her or get mad at her or be disappointed in her like the others would. He’d like to take credit for having set it up this way, but he can’t. The cards just fell that way and now he wouldn’t change it for the world. Her secret-keeper, she calls him. It makes him feel special and loved.
She makes him feel special and loved in a way that no one else has or ever will. Even though he doesn’t get her full time, the time they share more than makes up for it, quality over quantity in a big way.
He knew it was a risky move making her his Alpha, but there was this driving force behind the split-second decision that they made. Well, that he made, and she accepted. He thinks it was fate, or destiny or some other such thing. All he knows is that she was there in that forest because of him. All the other reasons aside, it was because she was meant to be with him. Be with him. He wishes she was with him all of the time.
The other days in the clearing in the woods with her were probably about the best days of his life. He never wanted them to end. When he walked her back to the house on Saturday night, he knew that everyone was inside the billiards room, which leads out to the terrace. He noticed, but she was preoccupied. He wanted the others to see them together. He knows it caused her a problem with her husband when he kissed her and suckled her on the terrace, but he doesn’t care.
They needed to see them together as he always seems to get dismissed, which is only because it comes back to the fact that he doesn’t throw his weight around. He is caught up in a never-ending fight with himself over whether he should remain as he is, with her trusting him and being able to be herself or step up and take what is rightfully his. There isn’t a Shifter in the world that would deny him his true place by her side. Her Vampire relationships don’t mean anything to them. There is no claim. He knows they speak about their ‘bonds’ but there is nothing to prove it. As far as he can tell, it is just heightened emotions.
But the two of them have a proper connection. He knows it was all her when she contacted Cole that way before. It had nothing to do with them as a couple or as a Vampire thing. It was her and her magick, which is probably heavily influenced by the bond she has with him. He closes his eyes and concentrates. He wants to speak to her now, make sure she is okay.
“Liv?” he calls softly in his head. He can see her, in this really dark room, asleep in a big bed, thankfully alone. That makes him smile. Of course, she would be sleeping. That woman would sleep all day if she could. “Livvie?” he says a bit louder.
Her eyes pop open and she asks, “Linc?”
“Yes, my love, it’s me.”
She sits up suddenly, pushing her hair out of her eyes. Wait, her dark hair out of her purple eyes? How come he only just noticed that? He must have just sensed her essence. “Is everything all right?” she asks him quickly.
“Yes, just fine. I wanted to talk to you, make sure you were all right.” He is quick to reassure her.
She flops back to the bed, relieved. “Yes, I am fine, sweetie. Bloody hungry though,” she grouses.
“You’re hungry? Liv, you must remember to feed,” Lincoln scolds her gently.
“I can’t. There are no humans here and even though I have a little Fae feeder, it is forbidden, and I can’t take too much anyway, it’s too strong,” she complains.
“Oh, Liv. Why did you say you would stay then if you knew you couldn’t feed?” He sighs.
“I didn’t think about it until afterwards,” she admits, and he has to say, that sounds like her.
“When are you coming home?” he asks.
“Tomorrow. I have the Coronation today and then I promise I will be back tomorrow. Have you found out anything about that crazy Wolf-Demon thingy?”
“Don’t worry about that, just save your strength to get you through the next day. I like your look by the way,” he says as a way of distraction, not wanting her worrying about anything but herself.
She crumples up her face and says, “You can see me?”
“Oh, yes.” He chuckles. “Close your eyes.” She does. “Can you see me?”
“Yes, you are lying on the grass outside the terrace,” she says with delight,
“I am. Can I ask you something and you promise not to be offended?” he asks her.
“Well the odds of that happening sound slim to none, but go ahead,” she says warily, and he smiles.
“When you come back home, I want to take you on a date, in public, looking like that,” he says.
“A date?” she asks in surprise.
“Yes. I miss spending time with you. Now that we are no longer in New York, it seems I hardly ever get to see you alone. I miss our movie nights,” he says.
“I do too. But why looking like this?”
“Well, I can hardly take you out looking like yourself. I wouldn’t be able to hold your hand or kiss you. That’s what I want to do, in public, where people can see us, and you look beautiful,” he says.
“Okay,” she says, sounding excited. “That sounds like a lot of fun.”
“Good,” he says, smug to have gotten her to agree. “By the way, why do you look like that?”
“It’s good P.R.,” she says with a wry grin. “At least I look like I belong.”
“Ah, I see. I miss you,” he says suddenly.
“I miss you too, sweetie. Is everyone playing nice?”
“By everyone do you mean your husband and your sire?” he asks with a small smile.
“Well, yes,” she says, clearing her throat.
“On the outside, yes. But you do know there is a seething resentment on both sides underneath, right?” He is a petty, petty man, but he just couldn’t resist.
“What?” she asks, perplexed.
“Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that,” he mumbles, now feeling bad.
“Oh no, you don’t get to back out of a comment like that,” she says, getting her mad on.
“Livvie, you must know that they don’t like each other,” he says, putting it mildly. If either one of them thought they could get away with it, it would be a fight to the death.
“Well, I know there is some jealousy but…really? They hate each other?” She sounds upset and he could curse himself. He tries to backtrack a little bit.
“No, I wouldn’t say that. Just as you say, jealousy,” he says quickly.
She sighs and he knows she doesn’t believe him but drops it. He thought a bit of shit-stirring might make him feel better, but it doesn’t.
“I will have more to tell you about the Wolf-Demon thingy when you get back. Can I use Cade for a bit of legwork?” he asks now as a complete distraction.
“Cade? Sure, if he doesn’t mind. He is quite hell bent on doing things his way.”