by Celia Kyle
One by one, the males moved from the space, leaving only him and Carac in the cavernous area.
“Sit, child.”
Liam bit the inside of his cheek at the moniker, but did as he was told. Carac was his sire and deserved his respect.
When they were seated across from each other, the coffee table separating them, Carac continued. “I want the truth now. What is going on with you? What are your feelings for Victoria?”
Liam licked his lips, throat suddenly dry, nervous tension consuming him. “Will you take ‘no comment’ as my answer?”
Fingers of the Master vampire’s power slithered like cold snakes through his mind, poking and prodding at his memories until he broke and revealed all. He spoke of every desperate emotion, hint of desire and fierce protectiveness that consumed him. There’d been a tiny spark upon finding her, but it hadn’t truly come to light until he’d cleaned her up and watched as she slept in his bed. From there, every breath seemed to draw him into her web…
Carac stopped him. “I need you to be prepared, Liam. Victoria is different from others I’ve Changed. Her scent is…” Carac shook his head. “Her lack of Hunger concerns me. Any other baby vampire would have woken with a fierce need for blood. You took her fresh steaks and bagged blood, yet she came down for dinner and had no problem being in Wren’s presence and eating a salad. Plus, the way you’re reacting to her company. There is always that connection between a sire and progeny. Always. But this isn’t something I’m familiar with. You must realize that she’ll need to be watched closely. You’ll both need to be monitored. If she becomes unstable, she may need to be Released. What’s worse, it may have to be both of you if you can’t control yourself when the time comes.”
Released… No, he wouldn’t let Carac kill his not-so-sweet Victoria. Not when he’d just found her.
Liam huffed. He was so, totally fucked.
Now he needed to find the woman who’d made his life heaven and hell at the same time and make sure she didn’t eat her best friend for dinner.
Chapter Three
Later in the day, Tory tried to remember that she couldn’t kill the vamp chicks that worked in the mansion. She wasn’t strong enough. Yet. But if one more woman flitted into the room with their tits hanging out and batting their eyelashes, she was going to inject them with nanos that ate silicone so they’d be flat-chested beyotches. She just had to invent the little buggers first.
They were all flirting and cooing over Liam like he was the only one who’d gotten all bloody. Tory had nearly died, too, damn it. Besides, the itchy scratchy thing inside her did not like other females around Liam. At. All.
“Oh, Liam, you’re so brave…”
“Oh, Liam, you’re so strong…”
“Liam, are you injured? I could kiss it and make it better…”
That last bitch was losing her lips.
With a snarl, she tore her attention from Liam. He wasn’t hers or anything. He could drool all over whoever he wanted and…
Tory settled her hands on the keys of the borrowed laptop, hopping onto the web and snagging bits and pieces of code she’d left scattered across the internet. By the time she was done, the lovely little worm proggie had appeared, and she sent it after the Knight Protector’s compound security system.
It took one point two seconds to gain entry. And that was only because their interwebs connection was slow.
Plus, GOD1234 was not a good password.
First stop was resetting the password and then grabbing whatever info about the mansion she could find. She mined every bit of data the system contained and threw it onto the computer desktop, scanning the images as they popped onto the screen. One after another fluttered across the display. Floor plans. Camera positioning. Motion detectors. All of it.
And if someone with half a brain decided to attack the place, they would be totally fucked.
“What are you doing?” The deep voice intruded on her thoughts, making her jump, and she jerked her attention to the side. Liam. A quick survey of the room revealed that the sharp-toothed skanks had left and they were alone.
“Working.” She bit out the word. She didn’t need him. Didn’t need his hotness or his lickaliciousness or that fucking smile that made her knees weak.
Doing her best to ignore him, she returned her gaze to the screen. She definitely didn’t watch him slump into the chair beside her, legs spread wide and giving her an unobstructed view of his long body. Nope. Not at all.
“So, you ditched the plastic fan club?”
She felt, rather than saw, his smirk, could feel it in the air that separated them, but she didn’t say another word.
“They were just worried about me. You know, going up against the Pixie King and a demi-god to save you and all,” he drawled. He flicked one of the scrolls, fingering the Ancient text.
Tory snorted and reached for a sheet of paper and a pen, scratching out a grocery list of their needs with one hand while tweaking the system’s settings with the other. “You do that stuff in your sleep.”
“Hmm…” He leaned toward her, his breath fanning her cheek and the scent of him cloaked her in his flavors. “No, love, I don’t think I’ve ever had the pleasure of you in my dreams. Saving or otherwise. That, I would remember.”
Another snort. “Yeah, right.”
“Oh, without a doubt.” He eased his body closer, the heat of him seeping into her. “Why would I ever awaken if I had you with me? Your blood calls to me, your body with its curves, tempts me and your wicked tongue…”
She turned her head and glared at him, doing her best to ignore his closeness, the nearness of his enticing lips.
“… That tongue just makes me want to turn you over my knee and spank your ass until it’s glowing pink.” A smirk graced his lips.
“Asshole.” She yanked her attention from him and back to the task at hand. As if someone like him would be all about her.
She redirected security cameras, made motion detectors more sensitive, and optimized the program’s responses. The internal breach-to-software-reaction time was cut in half. Not much when it came down to fractions of a second, but a bullet traveled hella fast, right? Hopefully those bits added up enough to save someone’s ass someday.
She added heat sensors to her list along with a note to add them to the system’s programming. If she could find out the heat signature for the various paranormal species, she could create an algorithm that told the Protectors what they were dealing with during an attack. Yeah, and then she could…
“Victoria?”
Tory blinked and shook her head, pulling her focus from the computer and back into “real” life. Sometimes she got lost in her own mind, tied up with how to turn her concepts into reality.
When she turned to Liam and saw his amused smirk, she hissed at him, baring her fangs. If the ass had distracted her simply to be all asshole-y, she’d bite him. Of course, that thought had certain bits of her tingling, but she pushed the feelings back. “What?”
“You’re writing on an Ancient scroll.”
“I’m what?” She blinked and turned her attention to the note pad beside her computer, mind still shifting from geek-speak to English.
He was right. It wasn’t a note pad. It was a very, very old looking piece of paper.
Oops.
“Brom is going to kick your ass.” Liam shouldn’t have sounded so happy about the prospect. And he shouldn’t have looked so hot sitting there either.
“It’s fine. I can fix this.” She hoped.
“You’re suddenly fae and can remove ink from scrolls that are thousands of years old? Impressive. I could save you from Brom, you know. All it’d take is one little kis—”
“Bite me.”
“With pleasure.” He purred and leaned forward.
Squeaking, she pushed away from the table and made a cross with her fingers. “Stay back you undead creature of the night!”
Liam chuckled and slumped into his chair. “You’re too easy,
Victoria.”
“Tory.”
“Hmm… How are you going to fix your little problem? I don’t think Kinkos does ancient text restoration.”
She glared at him, another “bite me” lurking on her lips, but she kept quiet. She didn’t have time to play. At least, not yet.
Tory placed her pen on the table and turned over the page, careful not to harm it any further.
Laying the scroll on the table, she took a look at what she’d damaged and sighed in relief. Sumerian, and there was only a teeny, tiny bit of bleed through from her pen.
But, the good news was, she knew the language. She could totally translate and pop that bad boy into the computer, and they’d be golden.
Booyeah.
“I’ve totally got this. I’m seriously fluent in Sumerian. I can translate it and I know enough to infer the handful of glyphs that are inky. No ass saving is necessary.” She stuck out her tongue, but pulled it back just as fast when Liam’s eyes flashed red.
“How fluent?” Liam eased toward her once again, and she tried to put distance between them. Unfortunately, the vamp grabbed the arm of her chair, keeping her immobile.
“Both speaking and writing. I can have it done in fifteen minutes.”
The vamp narrowed his eyes, skepticism in every line. “You’re that confident?”
She scoffed. “Of course.”
“A wager, then.”
That drew her up short. “What?”
Inches separated them now. “If you manage to translate the work in fifteen minutes, you’ll get the prize of your choice. Anything within my power to give you—”
“Like, a supercomputer that’s faster than the US’s Titan in Tennessee?”
Liam’s agreement was instantaneous. “Of course. But if you fail…”
Tory’s mind whirled. She could do anything with a computer like that. True, it’d need its own building, but she could totally have one built.
“Whatever. Okay, it’s on like Donkey Kong.” Tory bent over the table, and this time she actually grabbed a note pad to write on.
“You don’t know what I want.”
“Dude,” she snorted. “It doesn’t even matter. I got this.”
“Hmm…”
The guy did a lot of “hmm-ing”. Weird. Hot, but weird. Super hot, actually. Like, do me baby one more time kind of gorgeousness.
She scanned the first few lines, getting the gist of what she was reading. Jeez, if they were going to make her do this much, they needed to put her on the payroll. Then again, she remembered that she was getting a supercomputer out of the deal. Totally better than payroll. “It’s a story…of a lovely lady…”
Liam snorted. Only, that sound seemed closer than before. A quick glance revealed that his face was an inch from hers and, this close, she could see a darkening ring of red around his irises.
She gulped and forced her attention back to the scroll.
Red meant smexy times.
No smexy times, Tory. No!
Tory got back to reading.
Warm, moist air fanned her cheek and she shivered, the feeling of having him so close wreaking havoc over her body. Her nipples hardened within her top, scraping against the delicate lace of her bra. She squeezed her eyes shut and then opened them wide, forcing herself to focus on the scroll.
That worked for all of two seconds. Right until Liam’s tongue traced the shell of her ear and nibbled on the lobe, sending a spear of pleasure right to her pussy. “That’s cheating.”
“Hmm?”
See? With the “hmm-ing” again.
Tory cleared her throat, but didn’t jerk away. Not when it felt so good. One of his fangs scraped over her skin and she had to bite back the sound that built in her chest.
“I’m gonna win, damn it.” She couldn’t suppress the needy whine that filled her words.
Okay, focus.
Blah, blah, blah… Chick got drained by vamp guy.
Liam sucked on her earlobe and Tory’s pussy ached, her clit throbbing with desire. This went beyond sexual attraction. Way beyond. Her body practically demanded she succumb to the vampire’s seduction. A glance at the computer’s clock showed she only had a few minutes left.
Fuckity-fuck.
More blah… Peeps had the hots for each other.
Oh, she knew all about having the hots for someone. Especially when Liam scraped his cheek against the sensitive skin of her neck, his five-o’clock shadow wreaking havoc on her senses. Her sheath clenched, aching to be filled by him.
More blah… Pre-marital bow chicka bow bow which hadn’t gone over well with the stuck-up assholes.
Oh, she was all for pre-marital monkey business. Really. All it’d take was a single word, hell syllable, from Liam and she’d give it up. Maybe.
A few additional stupid words. These guys were verra long winded.
Liam dragged his fangs along her jawline, mouth inching closer to hers and she wanted to lean into him, seal her lips to his and explore his mouth. But she wasn’t done translating… She had, like, all of thirty seconds. Damn, where had the time gone?
Some hypothesis as to why this chick’s Change was so jacked. Which sorta reminded Tory of what was happening to her. Huh.
And the final conclusion after much debate by old people says…
Right then she felt like a contestant on “Family Feud”. Survey says…
“Time’s up.” Liam’s voice cut through the silence in the room.
Tory opened her mouth to yell at him, reveal what she’d read, but then he stole every thought from her mind.
Liam kissed her.
No, it wasn’t a kiss, not at all. The vampire conquered. He captured her mouth in a fierce possession and battered his way past her lips, sinking into her and stroking every surface. She was left to simply follow his lead, riding in his wake while he took everything he wanted.
Tory’s body hummed in satisfaction, savoring each touch, stroke and bit of teasing he gifted her. She tangled her tongue with his, fighting back against his dominance. The creature beneath her skin refused to be subjugated. She was just as strong and fierce, darn it.
So she tasted and teased, licked and lapped, stroked and seduced with every movement. Her subtle advance and retreat was followed by a rhythmic suckling of his tongue until Liam’s moans mingled with hers, filling the room.
Then she was in Liam’s lap, thighs straddling his hips, and his hands cupped her ass, kneading her flesh.
Those lips still worked hers, that flexible muscle delving into her mouth, each stroke sending pleasure straight to her pussy…
Oh, she could totally do this until the end of time.
Wait.
The words she’d just translated flitted across her mind and she stilled. That fucker.
Wrenching her mouth from his, she reared back, hand making a fist, and punched him in the arm. “You asshole!”
A lazy grin graced his lips.
The jerk couldn’t have just Changed her. No, that would have been too easy. Based on what she read, she was, allegedly, his Fire. Which was why she was only a kinda-sorta vamp.
Tory did not recall signing up to be some mystical wife to Liam for all eternity.
Crawling from the vampire’s lap, she scrambled into her chair, nudging it back to put more space between them. “You are a Grade-A, butt-tastic, fucktacious shit-head!”
“But I won. And I want you.”
Tory growled and the louder she became, the quicker his self-satisfaction left his features. A look of trepidation filled his face. She’d hoped for fear, but she’d take what she could get.
“You may have won, but I’m not fucking you.” She busted out with sign language on the off chance he wasn’t doing well with English. She’d try French next. Latin maybe. “Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth? How about my hands? Nooo. Fuuucking.”
His face went blank. “You yelled loud enough, I believe the entire manse heard you, Victoria.”
“We
ll, if they didn’t, I could install a PA system. You know, like in school? Today’s lunch will be lima beans with a side of Type A.”
“Thank you for the offer, but no.” The guy looked amused now.
“Well, lemme know if you change your mind. Now, back to the lack of fucking. Do you know what you did to me? Like, at all?”
“I know what I’m gonna do to you. I won, after all.”
Liam reached for her, but she swatted his hands away, the urge to kill the man growing by the second. And how whack was that? This was so not her. Sure, she’d thought about killing people. Like the clown from Stephen King’s It. That guy was freaky scary. And she’d been afraid to take a shower for years after watching that movie. That dude deserved to die.
Wait, focus. “Liam, can you listen for a minute?”
“After you admit that I won.”
“You didn’t win, I just hadn’t gotten the words out yet. They were in my head and—”
“And I won.” He leaned close, his inherent seductive scent wrapping around her once again.
She growled. “Fine. You won. Can we get to the point now?”
He flashed a bone-melting smile. “After.”
Tory furrowed her brow. “After what?”
“After I claim my prize.” The vampire invaded her space and she shoved away from him, racing around the table and putting the solid piece of wood between them.
“Listen, damn it. The Change didn’t take because I was never supposed to be a vamp. I’m your Fire, asshole.”
Well, that brought him up short. He stilled, fire-red eyes on her.
“The vamp mutation thingie is fighting against the genetic code that makes me your Fire. I’ve got the whole possessive thing going on and I’m jonesing for you like a starving vegan wants some tofu. And the vamp bitch is making everything worse.”
Liam placed his palms on the table top, leaning toward her. “You’re possessive, love?”
She hissed at him. “Those bitches were fawning over you and— Anyway. You essentially didn’t ease me into our bonding, but hit me with it like a Mack truck. That’s why it hurt hella bad when I woke up.” Tory looked at him, saw the sexy red eyes, his chiseled jaw and muscled body. Everything in her wanted to rub against him, wrap around him and revel in his embrace. But she would have liked the choice. “And there’s only one way to keep me from killing every chick that comes within fifty feet of you.”