I make it to where they’ve gathered. So many voices yelling.
“Murderer.”
“You will pay for this.”
“I command you to let me go.” It’s my general, the head of my army whose voice rises above the others. He’s thrashing, and I can see his arms flailing while a group of women and Marcia in her cobra form hover in a protective stance. “I did this for the crown!”
“What the fuck is going on here?” I say, the booming tone causing everyone to drop and kneel. Even my general whose arms are pulled out to his side by two soldiers, is forced to his knees.
The women, though, stay around a body who I now recognize as mine. My wife.
There’s blood on the ground. Her blood, and my legs feel weak. My stomach rolls.
Every muscle in my body seizes and the world shifts, shaking beneath my frozen form.
“Who?” This doesn’t come from me; I’m already looking at the culprit. Tero’s animal is coming forth, pushing against its owner, and the skin of his python begins to rise on his arms and face. He walks toward Veltross. “What the hell happened here?”
“Stop.” He does at my command, changing his course toward Gabriella. He kneels beside her; his body shudders and I steel myself for the worst. “Bring him to me.” The guards stand and drag a kicking, screaming Veltross to me. They toss him at my feet and step back.
“My King, I—”
“Stand up, General.”
“Please, listen to me.” When I don’t reply, he shifts a bit, looking for an out. To his bad luck, he’s being blocked by the same men he’s trained and led into battle. They are an impenetrable wall. “I did what I did for you. Our people deserve—”
He’s cut off by my hand on this throat, lifting him off the ground. He thrashes, tries to remove my hand, but I walk us to where Gabriella lies, her back supported by Tero. And my wife, she’s pale and her chest is red, a large gash crossing from side to side. It’s deep. She’s lost too much blood for me to seal the wound. He bled her. “I will never marry your daughter.”
“She’s better—”
“You and your offspring will die by my hand, no matter how long it takes.” My hand squeezes, and for each staggered breath my wife takes, I tighten my hold. With my other, though, I puncture his abdomen with the use of my nails, tearing out chunks at a time. His side. His dead organs. His bones.
I don’t stop until the bottom half of his body is on the floor, and his chest with the head attached is all that’s left.
“Dad!” Elise screams suddenly, rushing to where we are, but Meera flings her back and across the yard. She lands awkwardly and is knocked unconscious, yet no one checks on her. I also didn’t realize Meera’s set up to work. She has herbs and crystals surrounding Gabriella.
Did Tero call her?
Or Gabriella?
“We need to bind her soul, Theo,” Meera says from beside me, her hand on my shoulder. “We don’t have a lot of time. End him now, and I’ll do everything in my power to bring her back.”
Her pleading gives me breath, but the pain I’m experiencing intensifies when her eyes close. My wife’s chest still rises and falls, but those gems I love no longer have the energy to meet mine.
“You will never be a part of the royal family,” I snarl, holding him at eye level.
“Please stop. You will be so much—”
“Your children will never amount to anything, Veltross. Nothing but be outcasts in my kingdom.” With that, I rip his head off and toss it aside, leaving it for the guards to clean while I rush to my wife. Her body’s shaking as I pull her gently against my chest, tears running down from closed lids, and I’ve never felt more useless in my life.
I’m the king, and yet I can’t save the one person in this world I breathe for.
Meera whispers something in her ear, and the only sign of life is the small squeeze of my hand that’s barely perceptible. And I hold on to that moment, close my eyes, and control my body as a sob rocks me, my body covering hers as the last breath leaves her small frame.
Those around me weep. The sorrowful cries of every vampire can be heard for miles as they feel her connection wane, and then nothing. She’s gone. My love is not here.
Throwing my head back, I let out a deafening roar that shakes the ground we stand on. A few windows shatter, and those around me whimper and cower in fear while I crumble as her man.
“Is there anything we can do?” I ask Meera, the sound of my voice sounding foreign. Lifeless.
“I can bind her here; she showed me how to in the past.”
“But…” I pull Gabriella a little tighter against me, my face buried against my mark on her neck. Kissing it with reverence because she’ll always be my gift. Mine.
“I can’t predict when she’d be back. Her soul will belong to this world, but not her body until death decides otherwise.” I can smell Meera’s tears, and if I could, I’d be bawling like a child myself. My heart feels broken, although it doesn’t beat. My soul feels ruptured, and existing in a world where she no longer exists isn’t something I can do. We either walk side by side, or leave together. My life has been in her pretty little hands since the day we met. “I’m so sorry, My King. Only she can take and give life.”
My face snaps to hers, my chest heaving harshly as the beast within rattles the cage and thirst for vengeance. To kill. “Do it.” Standing from the ground, I lay my beauty down and then place a tiny kiss across the cupid’s bow of her lips. “Do whatever you must. No matter the cost.”
“We don’t know when she'll be back and in what form, Theodore. The payment will be steep.”
She’s not trying to put me off, I know, but I react and grab her by the throat. “Do it, Meera. Fuck the consequences.”
“Yes, My King.” She doesn’t fight me, and her husband watches calmly. They know I won’t hurt her—that if alive, Gabriella would kill me if I did. Moreover, it’s someone else I’m aiming for. The blonde cunt that took off like the roach she is—like father, like daughter. “This is the one thing Gabriella taught me before she brought me here as her assistant. Before I met my Tero.”
“Go on.” I can barely get the words out. My chest is tight, and limbs feel heavy: dead.
“The price is something you both coveted. Something personal.”
“I’ll pay with my life if it brings her back.” I can live without offspring, but not without her. “She’s all I need.”
“We all want her back.”
“I know.” Gently, I let Meera go and then kiss her forehead. It’s the most I can offer as an apology right now. “And I don’t care what it takes. I’d wait a lifetime for her.
39
Theodore Astor
Vampire King
Her eyes flutter open five hours later.
Five agonizing hours after I reclaimed her and she fell into a peaceful sleep, her body frozen—unmoving—while I brought her home. To the house I bought for her when she aged out of the system and had nowhere to go. Those years waiting for her were hell. The memory of watching her grow and struggle still eats me alive because my hands were tied.
To bring her back, I couldn’t interfere.
Meera couldn’t adopt her.
I couldn’t mess with her fate until the night of her twenty-first birthday: a condition signed in her blood and my name to satisfy the God of Death amongst his other requests. I gave up something we both wanted. I would’ve given everything to be with her.
“Open those eyes for me, pretty girl.”
The last word hasn’t passed my lips when her eyes snap open, meeting mine. They’re a bit darker than her natural green eyes, the outside of the iris a blood red, and I’ve never seen a more beautiful thing.
My pretty girl is now a vampire.
Mine.
“Theo.” My name on her lips is a soft caress. So lovely. So sweet. “My King.”
“Happy real birthday, pretty girl.” That spark I’ve missed is in her eyes, the one she got every time I used
my name for her. Because she will always be that: my pretty girl. “I’ve missed you.”
“And I love you.” She’s in front of me in an instant, a little surprised by her speed, yet I’m her focus. Her hand comes to my cheek, cupping the side of my face. “Thank you.”
“I’d do anything for you. Even if it means breaking you, to bring you back to me.”
They stripped her of everything. Her emotions. Her memories. My pretty girl was left naked and vulnerable which others took advantage of, while my hands were bound by blood to not interfere. Because doing so could mean losing her all over again.
This was her journey—her fight back to me—and I had to hurt her to bring those repressed feelings to the surface. Gabriella’s emotions and powers go hand in hand.
“I know.” Her nostrils flare a bit, scenting me. I’ll smell a little different to her. My scent is stronger than her witch senses remember. “I’d never be angry over what you did to bring me back. Never judge you, because I’d do worse if it meant being in your arms again.” Gabriella’s eyes leave mine for a second to survey the room. She’s still as adorable as ever. Still as nosy. “Why are we here, though?”
“Because I’ve hidden two gifts in this house.”
“Two gifts?” Her lips curl into a smirk, her left hand—her ring finger twitching. “Is one of them the heartbeat, I hear?”
“Possibly, but not until after.”
“After...?”
At that moment, everything hits me. Slams into her. The years apart. The loneliness.
Our needs explode. It’s violent, a palpable volcanic rush that consumes and breaks and when my arms encircle her back, I breathe for the very first time in a hundred years.
My lungs expand, and she’s all I see.
All I hear. All I feel.
I'm home.
Our mouths clash, the taste of her lips making me growl as I pull her against me. My hunger is demonic, and I don't hold back, slamming her against the wall where the painting of our bedroom in Italy hangs, her sweet little tongue caressing mine. Moreover, she's just as desperate.
Just as needy, clinging to me as though afraid I'll disappear.
“Fuck, I've missed you. Hungered for you.” My words incense her, those lithe thighs encircling my waist and she grinds, desperate to feel me. Her body was made for me. She’s a gift I’ll always treasure. “Tell me what you want, needy girl, and it's yours.”
“You. Always you.”
“Then have me.” I croon against her lips, tasting the natural sweetness that’s always been a weakness. Embedding my fingers in her hair, I tilt her head back and rake my teeth down her lips and chin, not pausing until I reach the hollow of her throat. My mark is on the right; the imprint of my teeth forever brands her as mine.
Scraps of her shirt fall to the floor; the lace of her bra is next, and her heaving chest beacons me. To taste. To worship. “Motherfuck, beautiful.”
An intricate tattoo similar to the one on my back, but on a smaller scale, now adorns her flesh. It’s the mark of the royal family and appears on its own; a pair of dark wings stretched out—open—with beads of crystals and pearls. There’s a longer strand, though, that I can’t see because it disappears under her bottoms.
“Let me see you, too,” she pleads. Her eyes roll back when I cup her tit, pinching the tight little tip between two fingers. “Please, Theo. I need my King.”
“You want me, Mia Regina?”
“To worship every solid inch.” God, I’ve missed her mouth. The way she’s always spoken her mind, never holding back her emotions.
Her love. Her anger. Her wrath.
Slanting my mouth over hers, I take it in a quick yet brutal kiss. I’m re-familiarizing myself with her plump mouth and eager tongue—hearing her moan in pleasure as I nibble and then lick her lips. And it’s like the first time all over again.
“I love you so much, Gabriella.” My tongue intertwines with hers, fighting for a dominance she succumbs to and then lets me take. To possess her like she owns me. “I’ve needed you so much all these years.”
“I love you, too,” she says, her fangs descending. And fuck me if the sight of her like this isn’t delicious. My beautiful little demon. I also do something I’ve dreamed of for over a hundred years, licking each between harsh nips of her bottom lip. “Fuck me.”
“I will.” Another bite, this time to her jaw. “You have ten minutes to do your worst, pretty girl. Anything you please.”
“Just ten?”
“Ten. Not a second more.” Placing her back on the ground, I tear her bottoms and panties off with one hand while tracing a finger from her right nipple to the left, leaving the sting behind of a smack to each hard tip. “I’m counting.”
She’s bare before me, standing like a goddess with a curvaceous figure and perky breasts. Her thick hips and the wet juncture of her thighs makes my mouth water, but I stand firm.
I’ll give her this. Just these next minutes, because when I take her again—fuck my wife—she won’t get a second to think or do or feel anything but my cock stretching her wide.
Gabriella takes the two steps between us, stopping when our bare chests meet again; she rises onto the tips of her small toes. It’s sexy how she can’t reach me even like this.
So tiny. So delicate. So mine.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers against my throat, sweeping her lips back and forth while her hands wander down my chest. Her touch is gentle, with reverence, and I hiss out in pain. My cock throbs while my chest expands with a rough breath.
I haven’t felt the touch of a woman since her death. I’d never cheat on her. Never so much as look, because there’s no comparing and lowering my standards was a crime against her memory.
Our union.
“I’ve never blamed you, pretty girl. Not once.”
Her head shakes, and a tender kiss is placed where my heart once beat. “Please forgive me for taking so long to come back. For leaving you alone.” Another kiss, this one on my stomach just above my belly button. “For forgetting who I am.” Her knees meet the ground, and her sharp nail rips the jeans I’m wearing from waistband to ankle on each side, the denim material falling to the ground. “But more than anything, I forgot who we are to each other, and I’ll never be able to forgive myself for that.”
I swallow hard, cock throbbing. “The moment you took your first breath, nothing else mattered to me.” A bead of come pearls at the tip, and the little she-devil watches it. Licks her lips as it slides down the engorged head and toward the underside.
She stops the drop with her hand, gripping me tight. “You took care of me.” She pumps me once, twisting her hand on the upward stroke. “You killed for me.”
“No one will ever hurt you again,” I groan. Her lips are wrapped around the head, tongue flicking the slit. “Not even me.”
“I know, and I forgive you. You broke my mind but set me free.” Then she’s taking me in her mouth, not stopping until her lips kiss the base. Then she swallows, hollowing those cheeks while her tongue licks the underside.
“Motherfuck,” I snarl, almost angry at how easily she pulls me to the edge with a few flicks of her tongue. My hands caress her head before gripping the long tresses, holding her there while those hungry eyes watch me. “I’m going to fuck that pretty little mouth before I destroy your pussy, Gabriella. And I’m one lucky son of a bitch because you’ll let me. Won’t you, pretty girl?”
Her lips stretch into a grin around my girth; the sight is obscene. Filthy. So beautiful.
“That’s not ten minutes.”
“I know.” Then I pull out just enough to leave the head sitting on her tongue, rubbing it, before slamming back into the hilt. Her throat expands with each thrust, and had my wife still been human, she would’ve been dead.
My strokes are punishing, almost a blur, yet I pet her hair reverently.
And with each swallow around me, she says I love you in return.
I take my pleasure from her and she
lets me, sucking a little harder while I throw my head back and revel in the warmth of her mouth. With the way her nimble fingers tug on my balls, causing a deep rumble to build in my chest and shake the windows around us.
I don’t care who hears me.
I’d gladly expose my kind for the honor to fuck her mouth.
Pleasure licks up my spine; a fiery trail spreads through every nerve ending. I’m shaking, my balls so fucking heavy, but before I come, I pull out. A string of her saliva connects us, her pouty lips so shiny with it and I hate to break the connection, but I do.
“I’m not coming in your mouth.”
Her tongue traces her bottom lip, catching the drop of spit and my pre-come combined. “I want it.”
“You’ll have an eternity to taste me…” I yank her to her feet and into my chest, my hands encircling her waist “…but I need to feel you wrapped around me. I need to feel your walls clench—squeeze me until I bathe you in my come.”
“Please.” It’s a moan. A desperate plea.
Before she can beg again, I have us on her bed with her thighs cradling my hips. My cock, still wet from her mouth, is at her entrance while her small hole flutters against the head. It’s trying to pull me in deeper; the sensation fucking drives me insane.
“I love you,” I say against her mouth, my body covering hers—skin on skin. “Always and forever.”
“Always and forever.” Our vows. The same words we said the day we married in front of her people and mine, uniting two species through our bond. “Thank you for giving me my life back. For coming back for me.”
My response to those perfect words is to snap my hips forward, burying myself to the hilt. And then, I’m home. The one place in the universe that’s solely mine. My resting place.
I don’t pause for her to adjust. I stole her innocence once before, but this is more.
My chest rumbles, the beast inside me satiated for the first time in a hundred years, and I fuck her like the animal I am. My hands skim her sides from hip to chest and then find their anchor on her shoulders, using them to keep her in place while I drive in and out, riding her hard.
Little Lies Page 25