ROMANCE: PARANORMAL ROMANCE: The Vampire´s Bride Awakening (Alpha Male Shifter Kidnapping BBW Romance) (Paranormal Young Adult Protector Romance)
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She waited expectantly, not really sure what sort of answer she hoped for. Had he come on official Arkos business? An attempt to make contact with what was left of the Terzi line—or was it something more?
The muscles in his neck flexed along with his jawline. He was struggling with something.
“Are you still under oath not to freak out?”
Ember didn’t answer, just raised an eyebrow.
Kai started to answer, stopped, then blew out a long breath. He looked to Ember and frowned.
“Are you the sort of woman who prefers the no-bullshit approach to something, or do you need your truth doled out in increments?” He asked, leaning forward on his knees. “Because I can give you every other truth I’m holding right now and let you sort it out, or I can try to help you come to an understanding of the scope of everything piece by piece. It’s your choice, Ember. I’m at a loss for the first time in my life as to how to proceed.”
The small admission at the end almost made Ember smile. Kai, this hulking Adonis of an immortal vampire, was at a loss and it concerned her. She was very nearly flattered.
“I just downed two servings of rot-gut whiskey before 10 a.m.,” she said. “Obviously I prefer truth undiluted and complete. I’ll freak out if I need to freak out, but that’s my choice—not yours.”
Ember managed to sound a lot braver than she felt. At least she hoped she did. The look in Kai’s eyes was unnerving her. His gaze raked over her as his internal struggle raged on and she felt every single second of his assessment like they were actual caresses. Something was going on between them and she was just happy that he wasn’t immune to it.
“Our race…we’re all given soulmates,” he said, his voice low and raspy. He wasn’t bothering to hide the fire in his eyes now, and he wasn’t looking away. Ember’s pulse raced again for what felt like the 90th time that morning. “I knew the moment you were born. I felt it in the center of my body, the second you took your first breath half a world away. You were created for me and me alone. And I for you. But your father had his reasons for taking his family out of the madness that had descended on our homeland and I wanted to respect that as long as I could.”
Ember was holding her breath at his words. Her mind screamed that the entire thing was ridiculous, that her initial attraction to him was swaying the facts in her head in his favor—that she was forcing her memories of her father to fit the mold that Kai Arkos was providing.
But she also knew that her heart told a different story. That her initial reaction to him had been about more than just a physical attraction—that she had stopped her truck and saved him because her heart, and her body, had simply reacted to the man and left her no choice.
She wasn’t exactly ready to admit that she was all in for this soulmate deal, but she couldn’t deny the possibility in his words. She’d felt the electric pull herself.
“I didn’t mean to lead them here,” he continued, scrubbing his face with a massive hand. “I wanted to see you, even just once. The pull was strong and driving me mad with worry and fear for your safety all the way across the world by yourself with your sister. I convinced myself that I’d be able to sneak into town, make sure you were safe, and leave. But New Dawn found me before I realized it and now here we are.”
Ember exhaled slowly.
“Here we are,” she repeated softly, her mind going a thousand miles a second.
Her stomach swam as she formed the next question, but she couldn’t help it. She wanted to know everything.
“What happens between mates?”
His heated gaze flicked to hers in an instant and she didn’t miss the slight flare of his nostrils. She’d sparked something inside him with her questions.
Kai chuckled then, a beautiful, deep rumble.
“Do you really need me to answer that?”
Heat flushed her cheeks and she furiously shook her head.
“No, no…not that,” she said hastily. “I mean, is there a ceremony? Some sort of contract?”
Kai rolled his neck from side to side, obviously buying time to answer.
“Blood,” he said quietly. “In your case, you’d be accepting your ancestry and birthright by my bite and the exchange would bond us for eternity.”
Chapter Six
The look in Ember’s eyes when he explained their bonding had nearly undone him. Had she panicked, cried, or freaked out, he could have handled it. He could have backed off and given it some time. But Ember’s heart raced and the pheromones she put off were intoxicating.
The thought of him biting her actually turned her on. He was beside himself. How would she react if he…
The buzz of his phone in his back pocket broke the spell.
“I’m about an hour away, Kai.”
It was Aksel, his second in command. Earlier during their conversation, Kai had sent a text message explaining the entire situation while Ember busied herself with the whiskey. The situation was serious and with whatever drugs New Dawn had stuck him with yesterday, he wasn’t in any position to protect himself, let alone his mate, until the drugs wore off.
He needed help.
Aksel gave a quick report and hung up. Ember waited for Kai to finish.
“Bad news,” Kai said as he tossed the phone on the table. “Scala’s basically taken over Devil’s Folly since last night. He’s got agents everywhere.”
She worried her beautiful lower lip between pearly teeth.
“Do you think they know about me?”
“Likely,” Kai answered honestly.
Ember folded her arms across her chest.
“Answer me one more thing before the whole world catches on fire, Malakai Arkos,” she said in a near-whisper. The sultry tone of her voice caught his attention immediately. She was frowning.
“What is this sensation between us? I can’t turn it off—this magnetic pull that makes me look at you, smell you, hear you—every second you’re near me? It started when I pulled over to help you on the highway and it hasn’t let up. Is it vampire magic?”
His gut tightened at the thought of Ember feeling the same manic need that he felt.
“It’s the bond,” he replied quietly. “It’s not fully awake, but it’s there. It will get stronger and stronger until it’s made. I’ve heard that it can drive a person mad.”
Ember let out a dramatic sigh.
“Fantastic,” she whispered.
Kai bristled at that. Did she not like the connection between them? Sure, it was a bit distracting, but it lit every single one of his nerves on fire when she was near.
“I’m sorry,” he said simply. “It wasn’t my choice, either. This kind of thing couldn’t have happened at a worse time.”
He tried not to let the frustration on Ember’s face bother him. It was a lot to take in. He’d make her understand it all—to accept him—later, when she and her sister were safe.
“Where is your sister? She should be here when Aksel arrives,” Kai said, pushing himself to stand. The room swam and he sat back down quickly, hoping Ember hadn’t noticed. She had.
“Okay,” she said slowly. “So, one, she’s probably sleeping off a hangover at one of her friend’s house…and two, you need to settle down. Whatever they slipped you is a strong one.”
She was right. Something was off.
“New Dawn has a pharmaceutical company it funds. There are rumors that they are hunting vampires down to mimic certain genetic features we have and turn them into a perfect fountain of youth—in pill form,” Kai explained. “It wouldn’t surprise me that they’ve figured out a sedative to counteract all of our defense mechanisms.”
Kai picked up his phone and dialed Aksel, explaining the situation to him and giving him the best guess they had as to Melody’s current location, given Ember’s far-fetched guesses. Aksel wasn’t happy about hunting down this younger sister, but if it was important to Ember, it was important to Kai. And Aksel knew better than to question Kai’s leadership.
Almost two hou
rs later, after Ember had fallen asleep on the couch and Kai had showered and checked in with a few e-mails on Ember’s computer, tires squealed and crunched to a stop outside in the driveway. A car door opened, then a second, and then there was the sound of a serious scuffle.
Kai reached for the pistol he’d kept on him and slowly crept toward the front door, ready to attach whatever crossed the threshold.
It didn’t come to that, though.
Seconds later, the door burst open and Aksel charged through with the slim outline of a woman slung over his shoulders. And she was putting up a fight.
“Somebody get this hell cat off of me,” he snarled, dropping the woman to the floor so she landed on her backside. She let out an oomph and then proceeded to kick at his shins with the bottom of her foot.
“You stupid bastard!” She shrieked at him. Aksel stared at her in disbelief and Kai couldn’t help but attempt to hide a smile at his friend’s reaction. Women typically didn’t object to being manhandled by Aksel Halkias, but this one certainly had a problem with his hands on her.
Over on the couch, Ember sat up and rubbed her eyes, groggy from the sleep.
“Em, what the hell?” Melody tossed over her shoulder at her sister. “I know you didn’t like Mikey, but what’s with the goon squad?”
Ember blinked those gorgeous grey eyes at her younger sister a few times, trying to orient herself.
“It’s a long story, Melody,” she croaked. “Grab a drink and I’ll explain everything.”
Chapter Seven
Melody had taken the tidal wave of vampires and mates and New Dawn even worse than Ember had. For the first day and a half at the cabin, she’d simply refused to believe a word of it and went so far as to call Kai and his second Aksel frauds.
“Rat bastards,” she’d seethed. “I don’t know what you did to dupe my sister but I’m not believing your bullshit for a minute.”
Still, Melody hadn’t exactly tried to leave, either, so Ember held out hope that at least the threat of danger that New Dawn posed kept her at the cabin just a little longer.
By night four, both women had serious cases of cabin fever and Kai begrudgingly agreed to let Melody accompany Aksel into a nearby town for groceries, only as long as she swore to not do anything stupid.
“I hate to say it, but stupid can be her middle name somedays,” Ember said to Kai as they loaded into a Land Rover Kai had rented and sent Aksel to retrieve the day before. “And what’s with this car? You don’t think a luxury SUV isn’t going to stand out a little in a place like Devil’s Folly?”
Kai raised his eyebrows as he buckled himself in. She’d grown used to his mannerisms after being locked in a small cabin with him for almost a week. To keep her from going insane, he’d played numerous rounds of poker (none strip, unfortunately), WAR, rummy, and even Go Fish when Aksel wouldn’t share the television and put on something other than the soccer world cup. They’d also killed her entire bottle of whiskey during those games and told enough dirty jokes to keep Ember blushing (and fantasizing) for a week straight.
He’d been reluctant to let her leave the house at all today, but he’d had no option. Kai needed to check out the situation in town and meet up with a couple of his men that had arrived overnight. He’d refused to let Ember stay in the cabin alone and he’d refused to let her just tag along with Aksel and Melody, either.
“You come with me.”
It hadn’t been a question and Ember really wasn’t ever one to be bossed around, but hell, she got butterflies in the center of her belly when he made bold declarations like that.
With Aksel and Melody on their food-retrieval mission, Kai pulled the SUV out onto the rough road that led down Ember’s mountain.
Without saying anything, he put his large hand over hers and she startled at the warmth and the familiar electricity that jolted between them. He’d been bolder each day with touching her in seemingly innocuous places like the small of her back or the side of her leg, but each encounter had been electrifying and by the second day, she found herself actually leaning into him when he touched her. Maybe it was the bond, maybe it wasn’t—but the more Ember was around Kai, the more she wanted to be close to him.
Kai held her hand all the way down Bald Mountain Road and into town. He was careful about his route and constantly checking the rearview mirror.
“Do you miss blood?”
Ember blurted the question out before she had a chance to stop it. Where the hell had that come from? Maybe part of her still hadn’t reconciled that Kai (and Ember herself) were descendants from a race of predators.
“No,” he said simply. “Before modern science, the thirst was unbearable and drove many good men to do unthinkable acts. I’m guilty of a few myself. The medicine we have now, it makes me feel almost human—if memory serves me correct, anyway. It’s been a long time since I was a human.”
“Do you miss sunlight?”
“Sunlight doesn’t burn our skin like the movies would have you believe,” he said. “But our eyes are very sensitive to it, so even with our advances, we still tend to prefer the night. Maybe one day our pills can cure that, too. But not yet.”
“So no coffins?”
She got another sexy rumbling laugh out him.
“No, sweet Ember,” he said, bringing her hand to his lips and pressing a chaste, warm kiss to them. “I promise you that I’ve never slept in a coffin. I’m also not afraid of garlic.”
“So much to learn,” Ember sighed into the darkness beside her. Sure, it might be a lot to take in, but as they drove toward the small village center of Devil’s Folly, Ember was actually a little grateful for the adventure, and the serious attraction, that Kai had brought into her life. Before him, she’d almost been resigned to a life of keeping Melody as sober as she could manage to get her through college, staying one step ahead of the Erebus mortgage that never seemed to shrink, and flipping off Lane and his new girlfriends every time he brought one around.
Near downtown, Kai pulled into a small convenience store parking lot. Seconds later, another vehicle parked beside them and rolled down the window. They began speaking a language she couldn’t follow. It wasn’t Greek. It sounded more Eastern. Russian, maybe? Slavic? Just how many languages did this man know?
Seemingly satisfied, Kai fired off a few more instructions, nodded and rolled the window back up. The lines on his face were taut. The atmosphere in the Land Rover had shifted. Something was wrong.
“What?” She asked. By the way he didn’t immediately respond, it had to be bad news. “Just give me the straight shot, Kai.”
At the sound of his name, he looked over at Ember and grasped her hand again.
“It’s the tavern,” the way he said the word tavern in his Greek accent, it took her a second to realize he was talking about her father’s bar, Erebus.
“What is it? Did someone rob it again?”
Kai threw the vehicle into reverse and sped out of the parking lot toward the bar. Within minutes they were there, but Ember had seen the smoke from a few blocks away and the wave of nausea hit her hard. She struggled to keep herself under control and had to force herself to breathe as she stared at the crimson and orange flames that licked the building’s exterior from the inside—all the windows had been blown out.
Kai parked a few lots away at a liquor store and put the Land Rover in park. Ember never took her eyes off the flames that were consuming every dream her father had in America.
She took a shuddering breath as the first few tears spilled out.
“Was anybody inside?” Her voice squeaked the words but she tried to remain focused. Buildings could be rebuilt. The regulars that had been friends of Phaedro Terzi couldn’t be replaced.
“No,” Kai said, snaking an arm around her shoulder and squeezing her gently. “I’m sorry, Ember.”
She fought against the tears as hard as she could. She couldn’t help but feel like part of her father’s memories were trailing to sky along with the smoke.
My breath. Maybe he didn’t realize she spoke Greek thanks to a traditional mother and father who wanted to keep their heritage alive, even on the other side of the globe. Or maybe he did know that she could understand. Her head was swimming. She was confused.
“Can we go home?” She finally asked, tearing her eyes away. “It’s probably not safe here and there’s nothing I can do.”
Wordlessly, Kai drove them back to Ember’s cabin. Aksel was watching soccer and Melody was painting her nails at the kitchen table. Looking at her younger sister so carefree in her thoughts, Ember couldn’t bear to tell her about the bar yet. Hell, she was sure her friends would text her the message as soon as they heard. Ember would give her little sister a few hours more of peace.
She needed sleep. She needed other things, too, as messed up as her head felt right now—but mostly sleep. Glancing down, Ember realized she hadn’t let go of Kai’s hand. Chewing her lip, she nervously shot a glance up at him.
“Would you sleep next to me tonight?” She whispered, careful not to let Melody hear. Not that she wouldn’t put two and two together when Ember and Kai went to the only bedroom upstairs together. “I don’t want to be alone with my thoughts.”
He didn’t react. He only gave a curt nod to Aksel and allowed Ember to lead him away. Her cheeks burned as she felt two pairs of eyes on their backs, but suddenly she didn’t care. It was sleep, not sex. He was better than a melanin tablet.
Using her bathroom, she brushed her teeth and changed into more suitable sleeping attire—soccer shorts and tank top.
Ember turned the lights off and crawled underneath her covers. She held her breath as she felt the mattress dip with Kai’s weight as he laid down.
Did vampires even sleep? Was he just going through the motions to comfort her?
Without overthinking her life, she closed her eyes and rolled toward Kai, draping an arm across his rock-hard chest. She felt his breathing hitch as her arm met bare skin. He’d taken his shirt off. The warm sensation in her core heated quickly and spread all through her body. Emboldened by the fact that he’d removed at least some of his clothing, she drew her leg up along his and in the darkness, her eyes widened when she felt bare skin there, too.