His eyes popped open and he frowned. “What?”
“I’m going to have another baby.”
His expression was completely unreadable. Was he angry? Upset?
“But…how…?” He sat up and scrubbed a hand over his face. “I mean, I know how, but…”
Her hands began to shake. He wasn’t excited. “You’re upset. I’m—”
In a flash, he dropped to his knees on floor beside the bed and took her hands in his as if he were praying to her.
“Upset? Zara, the Fates have given me the most perfect woman in two worlds to love and cherish. I’m consumed by you. Hell. I’d spend twenty-four seven in this bed with you if I could. How could I be upset that you’re pregnant when I find you utterly impossible to resist? Holy Fates! I’m going to be a father again! A father!”
She felt as if her heart would burst.
Lifting her into his arms, he spun her around and they laughed. Tears stung the backs of her eyes. She’d read him wrong. He wasn’t upset—he was ecstatic.
When he stopped, his eyes sparkled with emotion. “I love you, Zara. With all my heart and soul, I love you.”
She wrapped her arms tighter around his neck and pressed her lips to his. “And you, my warrior, I love you, too.”
The End
Thank you!
Thank you for reading WARRIOR'S HEART and I hope you enjoyed it.
When you've finished reading Bad Boys of the Night, please consider leaving a review for the boxed set. Reviews help other readers make decisions about books and I really appreciate every review my books receive.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Laurie London is the NY Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Sweetblood and Iron Portal series—dark, sexy paranormal romance, set primarily in the Pacific Northwest. Publisher’s Weekly has called her work “sexy” and “sizzling.”
She lives on a small farm outside of Seattle with her husband, two children and a variety of animals. After graduating from college, she worked for a Fortune 500 company as a programmer/tester and an underwriter. Her other jobs included cocktail waitress, hotel maid, candy store manager and bridal gown sales.
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BOOKS BY LAURIE LONDON
Iron Portal Series
Book 1: Assassin’s Touch
Book 2: Rogue’s Passion
Book 3: Warrior’s Heart
Book 4: Rebel’s Desire
The Vampire Voss
by Colleen Gleason
In 19th Century London, vampires live alongside the uppercrust members of Society...
Even after centuries of lust, hedonism, and women, Voss rarely finds himself bored. He is a rogue of the first order who loves nothing more than a warm woman, excellent vintage, and even a puzzling challenge to keep his mind active.
But when one of his seemingly harmless manipulations sets him on the path to seduce the beautiful Miss Angelica Woodmore, things become a little less simple…a lot more passionate…and definitely more complicated.
Table of Contents for THE VAMPIRE VOSS
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Epilogue
About the Author
Other Books by Colleen Gleason
PROLOGUE
IN WHICH AN UNEXPECTED ARRIVAL PUTS A CRIMP IN HAZARD
London, 1804
“What in the dark hell is he doing here?”
Dimitri, the Earl of Corvindale, set his glass precisely on the table, then adjusted it with great deliberation. He still held his cards but was no longer looking at them.
The man in question—the term “man” being a loose one, of course—had walked through the hidden door of the apartments at White’s. These rooms were reserved for Dimitri and those of his ilk, and could only be accessed by someone who knew the right thing to say.
It was more than unfortunate the man in question knew what to say to gain entrance.
It was damned annoying.
The newcomer strode into the chamber and scanned the space, which hosted fewer than a dozen occupants on a good night. He was average in height, with thick hair the color of molasses and a square, dimpled chin—both characteristics which made him very popular with the females. More than a bit of swagger colored his step, causing Dimitri to itch to adjust his glass again. Bloody nuisance.
“I haven’t any idea what he’s doing here,” replied his companion, Giordan Cale. He looked up from his cards. His eyes had narrowed as well, and Dimitri saw the hint of a red glow emanating from their pupils. He presumed it was due to the new arrival rather than a particularly bad hand—for Cale didn’t have that large pile of pound notes and coins in front of him simply due to luck. “The last time I saw Voss was…hell. Must have been in Prague—sixty, seventy years ago.” Cale’s eyes crinkled at the corners. “How time flies when you live forever.”
Dimitri didn’t respond. There were days when forever was interminable. And days when he found it convenient to know he’d live forever.
Or, at least, for a very long time.
To his great disgust, at that moment Voss made eye contact with him. Dimitri allowed a warning to flare in his own eyes then banked the glow. The man wasn’t worth the effort.
“I don’t believe I’ve seen the man for years m’self,” commented the third at their game of hazard.
“Consider yourself fortunate,” Dimitri murmured to Lord Eddersley as the newcomer made his way toward them.
Voss moved with what could only be described as flair and confidence. Despite his long absence, he did have the right to be here, in the private, subterranean apartments at the famous White’s men’s club. The place Dimitri and his ilk considered their own…the place where it didn’t matter what they drank or how they found their pleasure.
A place where they didn’t have to pretend.
Voss lifted an insouciant finger toward the footman in the corner and gestured for his drink to be brought to their table.
His arrogance made Dimitri’s grip tighten around the heavy glass, but he kept his expression passive as Voss pulled a chair over to join them.
“Corvindale.” Voss greeted Dimitri by his title with a nod, then turned to his companion. “Eddersley.”
“Cale, surely you know Voss. Dewhurst’s heir.” Dimitri kept his tone bored. “Voss, Giordan Cale.”
“Of course Cale and I have met,” said Voss as he nodded toward the third man at the table. A curl tumbled artfully over one brow and Dimitri’s lip curled. “And, incidentally, I’m now Lord Dewhurst. Father passed on a year ago. Or so the story goes.” He gave an arch laugh and even Dimitri couldn’t resist a wry smile then.
Such was the sort of artifice to which the immortal of the Draculia were consigned. Constant lies, subterfuge
and half-truths.
And, naturally, much relocating. One couldn’t stay in one place for more than three decades without facing awkward questions.
Voss gave Dimitri a half-smile along with a flash of eye-glow as if to let him know he was fully aware how annoyed he was. “Deal me in,” he said, dropping a stack of notes onto the table.
Satan’s stones. Dimitri was about to rise and toss his own cards onto the table when Voss looked at him.
His face had lost that languid expression, and the deviltry that so beguiled the ladies—and that got him into so many difficult circumstances—had dissolved.
“Sit down, Corvindale,” Voss said. This time, he showed a tip of fang. “I’ve news for you. Consider it a gift.”
Dimitri’s own fangs extended in automatic reaction to the show of provocation. “The last time you brought me a gift, you did nothing but irritate me and cost me a generation’s worth of property, not to mention my heart nearly on a stake.” And helped cause the death of a woman.
The other man smiled, still showing just the tips of both pointed incisors. “But I thought for certain you would have forgotten that by now. It’s been nearly a hundred years since Vienna—two generations past, Corvindale. Surely you haven’t been stewing about it for all this time.”
Light, light words. But the reality was much darker. And though it had been decades, and Dimitri had come to terms with the fact that it mostly had been an accident, he still wished Voss to hell on a more than occasional basis. Nevertheless, Dimitri didn’t rise to the bait. He sheathed his fangs and hooded his eyes, although he wasn’t able to resist letting his annoyance glow from them.
“Then shall we dispense with hazard and discuss your tidings?” The bored tone had returned to his voice. “Why waste a perfectly good card game.”
Voss bowed his head in supercilious acquiescence. “Your command, my lord.” He lifted the drink that had appeared a moment earlier and sipped, then nodded at the glass as if in agreement with it. “French. Been running the lines, have you, Corvindale? Or is this not from your private stock?”
The Treaty of Amiens had dissolved more than a year ago and war between England and France had flared again, making it impossible to fill one’s cellar with any French vintage or fashion. Unless one had special arrangements.
Dimitri gave him an arch glance that answered the newcomer’s question. Naturally it was from his private stock, acquired through illegal means. Neither legalities nor governing bodies affected the Draculia.
“I approve, for I drink only for pleasure tonight, Corvindale,” Voss was saying. “I fed yesterday. A lovely, very promiscuous young woman and her two best friends. A plump and generous threesome tasting of a hint of rose and coriander.” He lifted his square, cleft chin and smiled knowingly. “Warm and delightful. And fresh.”
“Country girls, I presume?” Dimitri said coolly, though his fangs threatened to shoot to full extension. Bastard. “What a shame the bourgeois aren’t foolish enough to lift their skirts for you. All those lovely white thighs and blue blood.”
Pure red burned in Voss’s eyes, making even his dark irises glow. “I can’t imagine what it would be like to deny oneself the pleasure of a real feeding for decades. To be resigned only to a bottle of pig’s blood, or worse. It would certainly make one cold and empty. Unpleasant, to say the least. Slow. And repulsive.”
Dimitri accepted the slur; it was nothing new. The others feared him, keeping their distance, interacting with him only when necessary, pretending to be his comrade whilst whispering behind his back. Within the Draculia—those who bore Lucifer’s Mark identifying the crack in their souls—it was common knowledge that Dimitri hadn’t fed on a living human for more than two generations. He’d taken up that abstinence not long after the events in Vienna.
The exception to the divide between himself and the wary deference of the others was Voss, who had only this sort of insolence to show, and Cale, whom Dimitri considered his only true friend.
Unlike Dimitri, Voss wore his dissociation from the other Dracule like a mantle of pride—mainly because it was of his own making. Voss, now the very wealthy Viscount Dewhurst, amused himself by seeking and collecting information that could be sold or bartered and, Dimitri suspected, he did so also in order to insulate himself from the others.
Dimitri, on the other hand, didn’t care what anyone thought of him and did nothing to challenge long-held perceptions. He simply wanted to be left alone with his studies and occasionally emerge to the gentlemen’s clubs for a game of chance or a midnight horse race. Or perhaps a bout of pugilism at Gentleman Jackson’s.
“If you have news, I suggest you share it. Sooner rather than later,” Dimitri said at last.
Voss’s contemptuousness evaporated as he leaned toward him, as did the anger in his eyes. For a moment, Dimitri sensed hesitation from the younger man—at least, younger in years on the earth, but not in physical appearance. To an ignorant mortal, both men would appear to be in their thirties instead of well over one century old.
Voss’s fingers traced idly over the sides of his cognac glass, giving him the appearance of being relaxed. But his face was intense and his voice pitched low enough for only Dimitri to hear.
“Narcise Moldavi has disappeared.”
Next to him, Cale stilled, and Dimitri flickered a glance at his companion. The man’s face was passive, his eyes flat and dark as he lifted his glass of wine. Yet, oh so tellingly, his friend remained silent.
“Cezar Moldavi can’t keep control of his own sister. Why is that such great news?” Dimitri’s tone was flat and bored. Yet his attention sharpened. He had a bad feeling about this.
Voss sipped then returned his drink to the table. “You’re not a fool. You know Moldavi will blame you for her disappearance. Regardless of any evidence—or the lack thereof.”
“Again, you bring me no information that I don’t already possess,” Dimitri replied, annoyed at the reminder that Cezar Moldavi continued to disfigure the face of the earth after two centuries. He forced his fingers to release the glass, slowly and deliberately. “You’ve interrupted my game for naught.”
“From the looks of it, Cale is the one with the largest pot. Perhaps you ought to thank me.” Voss settled back in his chair, once again looking like the rogue he was well known for being: heavy-eyed, half smiling, relaxed. “But here is the information you likely don’t possess.”
Dimitri didn’t care for the smile twitching the corners of the man’s mouth. What the hell had brought Voss back to London anyway? Surely not this sort of dancing, parleying conversation.
Probably the women. It had always been the women, the pleasure, the hedonism for Voss and others of the Dracule. And for a time, Dimitri had tried to enjoy it as well, and had even promoted it through his establishment in Vienna. A renewal of annoyance flushed through him, and he pushed it away. It wasn’t worth the effort.
Standing, he swiped up the handful of notes and coins he’d won in the game and folded them neatly. “I find myself bored with the company and conversation. Carry on.”
As he turned, shoving the winnings into his coat pocket, Voss’s parting words came to settle on the back of his neck, as if burned there. “Chas Woodmore was last seen in Paris, with Narcise. He’s gone missing as well.”
Woodmore was gone? With Narcise? Bloody damned bones of Satan. Woodmore was supposed to kill Moldavi, not run off with his sister. Dimitri didn’t pause, but his gut tightened. That pronouncement meant a variety of things, but by his personal estimation the worst was what it meant to Dimitri himself.
It meant that his well-ordered, if monotonous, life was about to turn upside down. It meant that his solitude, his studies, his very existence was about to be invaded by the trio of silly, giggling, frippery-happy Woodmore sisters.
Including Miss Maia Woodmore.
Why in the name of the Fates had he ever promised Chas Woodmore he’d watch over them? Why did Woodmore have to do something so blasted foolish? He should
have left Cezar Moldavi to Dimitri to handle.
Damn it all to Lucifer.
Dimitri curled his lips and darkly considered his predicament. He had a few days to put things in order before the girls would invade his home. They couldn’t stay at their residence, not with Cezar Moldavi coming after their brother. But Dimitri wasn’t about to have them under the Corvindale roof until he was prepared to be overrun.
Damn and blast and burning bones.
He’d have to set some guards to watch over the girls until he was ready to have them to Blackmont Hall. Damn the Fates.
What the hell was it going to be like with three young, mortal women in his house? Hell, he’d probably have to have Mirabella come in from the country. And a chaperone to keep it proper.
Grinding his teeth, Dimitri poured another glass of whiskey, then tossed it back with a big swallow. When he glanced up, Voss, the bastard, was watching him with a smirk.
He knew exactly how annoyed Dimitri was. And the man was enjoying every moment of it.
Damn it to Lucifer.
CHAPTER 1
WHEREIN MISS WOODMORE’S SERVICES ARE ENGAGED
Voss adjusted the shoulders of his coat, aligning the seams, then smoothed the lapels and hem. Having been alive for more than 140 years, he’d seen his share of fashions come and go—and some of them had been horrific. Thank the Fates the wigs and long, swinging coats that had been in fashion during all of the upheaval around Charles II had given way to shirts and neckcloths and pantaloons. The tailoring was much more attractive, and showing one’s own hair was much preferred after decades of wigs and powder.
But Voss’s mind wasn’t, for once, wholly on his appearance or how he was going to find a nice plump thigh or two to sample…along with, of course, a good fuck. Instead he was still mulling over the expression on the Earl of Corvindale’s face two nights ago in the back rooms at White’s.
Bad Boys of the Night: Eight Sizzling Paranormal Romances: Paranormal Romance Boxed Set Page 67