Ripper

by Lexi Blake

  “I think the king will have a say in that, Councilman.” Sharpe grinned, a ghoulish thing in the low light.

  “You stay away from her or you will deal with me,” Marcus concluded.

  “Of course,” the vampire replied with a deferential nod, but as Marcus solicitously escorted me inside, I could feel Alexander Sharpe’s eyes on me. He wouldn’t give up his game, not when he’d finally found a worthy opponent. He would come after me. Sooner or later, he would come after me.

  * * * *

  Syl pressed a glass of wine in my hand.

  “Here you go, mistress,” the little demon said with great concern in his round black eyes. “Are you warm enough? Do you need me to draw a bath for you?”

  I shook my head and downed the wine without thinking. He quickly moved to refill the glass. “I’m fine. Thank you, Syl.”

  “Well, I am certain my mistress is anything but fine.” Syl’s tongue clucked as he fussed over me. He reached out and drew the blanket up to my chin. “The master will have to learn to take better care of you. Imagine, allowing vampires into the house, much less letting one be alone with my mistress. You could have been bitten.”

  I enjoyed the demon’s fluttering rituals of care and worry. After Marcus got me into the car, he’d been careful not to touch me again, though it had seemed as if his hands kept drifting my way. He’d utterly clammed up and wouldn’t explain anything to me. I’d asked about why the king would have a “say” about me. He’d simply told me not to worry about it. He’d promised to take care of everything, but I wasn’t sure I believed him. His shoulders had been stiff, anger evident in his posture.

  I wasn’t completely certain that anger hadn’t been directed at me. Somehow, I’d been able to feel it. Marcus Vorenus had been one pissed-off vamp, but he gave me nothing more than a tight smile and a promise to fix things.

  I didn’t realize things were broken. Wasn’t everything better now that I’d solved the case? The bad guy was going to jail and I hadn’t separated his head from his body. I had to call that a win.

  Still, something was buzzing in the back of my head. Something about the evening didn’t add up. I shoved it aside, happy to be home.

  This was my home now.

  “Would you like for me to prepare a meal for you, mistress? After all the master has put you through, you should keep your energy up,” Syl advised. “What is the world coming to when my mistress must deal with vampires and serial killers and all on an empty stomach? I can’t imagine that vampire club had a good restaurant in it.” He shook his head. I was beginning to understand Syl would have very old-fashioned notions of how marriage should work. In Syl’s mind, Gray should provide for the household and I should sit around and let Syl take care of everything else.

  “That sounds good, Syl,” I said absently as I stared into the fire. I’d never lived anywhere that had a fireplace before. I’d never lived in anything even vaguely resembling the opulence of Gray’s home.

  Syl walked off into the kitchen, muttering about the plight of good servants, his cloven hooves clicking against the hardwood floors. I settled back further in the comfy chair and sipped the white wine Syl had brought me. It tasted sweet and that faint hint of peppermint that seemed to be in everything the demon served. I didn’t mind. I was getting used to it, and I wondered if I could talk Gray into being a little more tolerant of the butler. He seemed so willing to help that it felt wrong to stop him.

  I tried to concentrate on good things. I tried to think about Gray and what it would be like to marry him. I would have to change my name and that meant changing my business cards and redoing the lettering on my door at the office. It seemed like a lot of work, but I seriously doubted that Gray would be all right with me keeping Atwood. He seemed a possessive sort of man. What would we do now that the case seemed to be over? The way he’d talked earlier made me think he would want me to move in with him.

  Was I ready for that? If I wasn’t then I had better get ready for it because I wasn’t ready to give up Gray and I didn’t think he was going to allow me a whole lot of time to decide. He seemed to be interested in consolidating his victory now that he’d found me.

  Syl served me an excellent meal and three more glasses of wine because he was worried about my nerves. Syl didn’t believe in the newfangled medicines and found a good Sauvignon Blanc cured most things that ailed a person. When my stomach was full and my brain was pleasantly buzzed, he insisted I take myself off to bed. I climbed into a hot shower and when I emerged, Syl had left a T-shirt of Gray’s on the sink and a towel he’d obviously warmed in the dryer. By the time I sank between the sheets, I fell asleep almost immediately.

  For the first time in a long time, I had the dream. This was the dream from my childhood, the one I never, ever talked about around my father.

  I am running, but on four legs instead of two. The moon is full and silvery on the sky. It hangs there, dominating the landscape and my life. I move to it and hear its call.

  The forest is my home and I am the queen of it. It is simple to live here. I sleep. I hunt. I feed. I do each thing when I want and where I want. The world is suited to my needs. I stare at myself for a long time in the crystal water of the stream. I am brown and beautiful. My father runs beside me, showing me how to hunt and thrive. He is brown like me and he protects me in a way my human father never did. Large, he is the largest wolf I’ve ever seen, but he’s so gentle.

  I know that other wolves run in packs, but it has always been just me and my father. We like it this way.

  Yes, this is my dream. The one that sustained me when I was young. And then it changes for the first time I can remember.

  I stop when I feel eyes on me, and when I turn he is there in the dewy morning light. He isn’t like me, but I know in an instant that he’s mine. His deep blue eyes are kind as they look down on me and he holds out his hand and asks me to change so we can be together.

  He is more than a friend or a lover or a husband.

  He is Gray. He is my mate.

  I love him with everything I have inside me. I change and walk toward him on two human feet, never forgetting the wolf inside me. She is a part of me, sometimes the better part. Gray is two natured as well, though not the same. He will accept my wolf and I will accept his second self. I walk to him and his arms go around me.

  His lips meet mine and I am complete.

  The world and everything in it is perfect until I hear a low growl. My father stands waiting. He peers at us, and I know that he will not allow this. He will never allow this. The enormous brown wolf that represented everything I wanted in a father shifts and suddenly he is a child. A black haired, brown-eyed child I had seen before.

  “No,” Lee Quinn says. “It’s no good.”

  I woke up with a start. Fear hadn’t been a part of the dream, but I had to force myself to breathe. It had been so real. I could practically still feel the ground under my feet, the air on my skin.

  Why would I dream of Lee Quinn? In the dream he’d spoken with a deeper voice, the voice of an adult. It had rumbled out of his child’s body.

  “Hello, baby,” Gray said lazily in my ear as he pushed up the bottom of the shirt I was wearing. “I’m making a new rule. No clothes in our bed. It’s inconvenient.”

  With my pulse pounding, I turned toward him. He could banish the dream and the jittery feeling it gave me. I would stay away from wine from now on. It gave me weird dreams.

  “Is it?” I lifted up for him to pull the bothersome shirt off my body.

  His hands trailed up and tugged gently on my nipples. I sighed and he chuckled against my neck, trailing kisses even as his hands cupped my breast.

  “Yes, it is. It is horribly inconvenient.” He didn’t bother to keep his weight off me. He pinned me down and took up all the space. “I might keep you naked all the time, Kelsey mine. If we’re alone, I want you naked. When we eat dinner, I want you naked. When we sit and watch TV, I want you cuddling against me naked.”

 
; His fully clothed body rested against mine. I could feel the hard ridge of his erection against my thigh. He pumped softly in a preview of what he wanted to do to my pussy. “That’s an awful lot of nudity for poor Syl to endure.”

  Gray’s face hardened. His hands smoothed back my hair. “He won’t be in our lives much longer. We’ll have to get along without a butler. I want to be alone with you, Kelsey. I want it to be you and me. They’re going to leave us alone.”

  I felt the intensity of his will and found I couldn’t argue with him. “Did everything go all right at the station?”

  A quick glance at the clock let me know Gray had been gone for hours.

  He leaned down and kissed the bridge of my nose and then feathered kisses all over my face as he talked. “He needed some attention, but everything’s handled.”

  Attention? “You had to take him to the hospital.”

  I’d put a man in the hospital. I’d held his neck in my hands and squeezed.

  “Hey.” Gray stared down at me. “Don’t go there. He tried to kill you. You defended yourself. He’s under guard and he won’t ever hurt you again. How’s your arm?”

  “It was a scratch. I’m fine.” I wondered if he would even notice I no longer had any kind of wound.

  “I’m glad.” He sighed and let his head sink to my shoulder, nuzzling my neck. “I was so terrified when I realized I wouldn’t get to you in time. He could have killed you. I wanted to strangle the bastard, too.”

  “But you didn’t. I did.”

  “Hush about that. There’s no reason for you to feel guilty. You did a good job, baby. I’m proud of you. I’m happy that my woman can handle herself. Now look at me and get that guilt out of your eyes. There’s no place for it here.”

  Not in our bed. I let it go because I wanted him and I didn’t want to think anymore. Thinking got me in trouble. Being with Gray made me happy. “Yes, Gray.”

  The bathroom door was partially open, sending slivers of golden light into the room. I’d learned Gray didn’t make love in the dark. He liked to see what he was doing. “I like the sound of that, sweetheart.” His fingers toyed with my upright nipples. He rolled them back and forth between his thumbs and forefingers. “You’ll go to the courthouse with me tomorrow and sign for our marriage license.”

  It wasn’t a question. I was getting used to his bossy ways. I’d learned I could hold my own with him when I needed to, so it was fine to give him his way. “Yes, Gray.”

  “We’ll get anything you need from your house and move you in tomorrow night,” he explained. “You can do whatever you want, redecorate, repaint, I don’t care, but you live here. This is your home. Our home. We’re going to be here for a long time.”

  “Yes, Gray.” I stretched my arms out. I was ready to move on to the “feeling really good” portion of my evening. I needed him. I needed him more than I wanted to admit. “Now, are you going to tie me up or what?”

  Gray went still. “Are you sure you want that, baby? I don’t have to. I love you. I’ll make love to you any way you want.”

  “I want you. I want every perverted, kinky inch of you,” I replied with a seductive smile. “Tie me up. Hands and feet. Make me completely vulnerable to you. Anything you want is yours. I love you.” I’d never loved anyone the way I loved Gray. I would have given him my life much less my body.

  He smiled as his hands went immediately to the nightstand. He came back with a couple of lengths of rope. “You amaze me.”

  “How?” I have to admit, I was ready to hear something good about myself. Something that didn’t include how well I managed to bust a dude’s windpipe.

  “You should have worried.” He ran the thin rope over my torso, teasing my skin with it. It was silky against my flesh, and he was already making me squirm. “Damn, baby, we were looking for a killer who was into bondage and had a beef with the Council. I should have been a suspect. You shouldn’t have trusted me.”

  He caught my hand in his and started to tie me to the bed. I gripped the cool metal of the headboard. “I love you. You would never lie to me.”

  At the time, I didn’t think about how out of character that statement was. I’d never once given it a second thought. What Gray did wasn’t violent. It was consensual and loving and real for me.

  Gray went silent and I thought he was processing what I’d said. He lowered his head for a moment and when he looked back at me, all the love he had was in his eyes. “I love you so much. You’re everything I want, everything I need. I would do anything for you, Kelsey mine. Remember that always.”

  He was quiet as he finished tying my hands and then moved down. He slid his hand down my body as though I was a canvas and his touch the paint. He kissed my feet before tying them loosely. He explained about something called a spreader bar and how he would buy one and how he couldn’t wait to get started on a playroom that would be only for our exploration.

  I was completely open and vulnerable to him and I felt no fear or apprehension. He was my mate. Husband, lover, these were simple, small words to explain what I felt for him. He was…right. It was simple to give myself to him. It was natural.

  Gray tossed off his shirt and ran his hand along his tattoo, as though placating the thing.

  “You can still feel it?” My eyes were drawn there.

  He nodded. “It hums around you. It didn’t until you touched it. I’ve had it since I was thirteen and it’s grown with me, but I never felt it like a presence on my body. I think you woke it up, but I don’t feel anything more than the physical. It felt like it was trying to come off my damn body when you were in danger tonight. It knew before I did. It burned hot when you were in danger. I had to get to you.”

  “I’m fine. You can tell my dragon that.” I longed to touch him, but I contented myself with the fact that I would get my turn. Tonight was about Gray. He’d been forced to watch as I fought. It went counter to who he was. He wanted to protect me. He was a possessive man, but he’d put it aside and supported me when I’d walked into that club as another man’s mistress. He accepted me for whatever the hell I was. He was willing to make me his wife even though he knew there were many unanswered questions. We would face them all together, so I sighed and gave myself over to him.

  He stood over me, a sexy smile on his face. “Your dragon?”

  “Definitely mine. Everything about you is mine.” I was possessive, too.

  His hand rubbed against the dragon. “Even the demon parts?”

  I nodded. I wanted all of him. “Even those.”

  He shucked off his pants. He was a gorgeous beast, every inch of his body covered in muscle. All mine. I was greedy and I wanted every piece of him, including the kinky parts, the demonic parts, the sweet parts, the frustrating ones. All of Gray. He leaned over and reverently kissed my navel.

  “One day,” he whispered, “I’m going to plant our baby right there.”

  “One day.” In the future, I vowed, because I wasn’t ready for that and I wanted some time with him before we even thought about having babies. There was so much we needed to figure out before we could consider it.

  “But for tonight, I’m going to take out all of my frustration on your sweet body,” Gray promised.

  He tweaked a nipple and I just about came off the bed. Well, I would have if I hadn’t been tied down. There was something about being completely at his mercy that made my heart race in a good way. Those ropes wouldn’t hold me if I really wanted to get out, but they were a reminder that I didn’t have to think about anything but him. I didn’t have to do anything but let him please me.

  “Do you have any idea how scared I was?” he asked, his voice thick with emotion.

  I did. I know how I would have felt. “I’m sorry, baby.”

  His hands had sprouted neat claws. With infinite care and precision, he dragged them over my skin. Everywhere they touched I felt a spark. “I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t handle it if something happened to you. You have no idea how important you are to me, ho
w alone I was before I found you.”

  Oh, I did, but this was his moment and I let him have it.

  Gray reached over to the nightstand and brought back a brown paper bag. He smiled down at me, a sexy, sensual expression. “I went shopping on my way home.”

  It was two in the morning. “What kind of store was open on your way home?”

  He shoved his hand into the bag and came out with a small, oval-shaped object. It was a pretty pink color and had what looked like wings on either side. He laid it right over my clitoris and grinned as he turned it on.

  “Oh,” I sighed as the vibrator went to work. I tried to squirm, but Gray had been very efficient.

  “Feel good, baby? I thought you would like it,” he drawled as he looked down on me. “It has a remote, you know, and straps to hold it on while you walk around. I’ll put this on you when we go to a party or out to dinner and you’ll come for me. I’m going to train you properly. I’m going to top you, sweetheart. You’re going to be my sweet little bottom.” His eyes were dark with arousal as he looked over my body, and I was surprised as his fangs had come out. I noticed in some ways his fangs seemed to be on the same wavelength as his cock. When his cock got hard, really hard, it was almost impossible for him to keep the curved fangs in check.

  I hoped he understood just how hot those fangs were. They reminded me that no matter how nicely he dressed, there was a beast inside my man. My beast.

  He moved to the side, his hands cupping my breasts as he leaned in.

  “Kiss me,” he ordered as he leaned over, and I didn’t hesitate.

  I’d realized that there was nothing at all truly violent about what Gray wanted from me sexually. He wasn’t playing out rape fantasies. If I refused, he would untie me and turn over and go to sleep. What Gray got off on was my enthusiastic compliance. I opened my mouth under his and let my tongue play around those magnificent fangs of his. They were like Gray himself—dangerous if wielded improperly, but this man would never hurt me. I let my head fall back as he nuzzled my neck. He was my knight in shining armor and I wasn’t a girl who believed in them. I did now. I believed everything he was offering me.