by Marian Tee
As if to prove his words, he tweaked her nipple, and she jerked up, so sensitive that Misty was afraid she was going to come if he touched her nipple another time.
“H-how long?”
He drove in and out of her in a steady pace, torturing her with his leisurely strokes when he knew she wanted him slamming into her again and again. “How long is what?”
“Domenico!”
“Say it,” he urged her huskily.
She whispered awkwardly, “How long…how long do we h-have to fuck each other’s brains out?”
Another wolfish grin slashed his lips. “About ten hours.”
“WHAT?” But she couldn’t say anything else, moaning instead because Domenico had finally quit taking it easy and his cock was again slamming into her, again and again, making her sex ache in the most pleasurable ways.
“Ten fucking hours Misty.” He bit her ear, and her eyes rolled back when his tongue swirled inside her ear. Her body became tense, feeling another orgasm about to come but instead Domenico pulled his cock out and she groaned in protest.
He flipped her around. “This way you’ll come harder.” And then he was thrusting into her from behind, one hand going under her body so he could start playing with her clit at the same time.
Oh.
Domenico was pounding into her more furiously, the erotic sound of the slap of his balls against her sex making her moan. She did her best to shake the pleasure-induced haze from her mind but couldn’t. All she was able to do was moan, urging him to go faster and faster.
Domenico leaned forward, pushing her down until her breasts were squashed against the pillows while her ass was up in the air. Domenico didn’t miss a beat, fucking her so beautifully and so roughly it made her see stars.
“This time you do not need to say we are truly mated, Misty. This time they will know.”
“H-how?” She twisted her head around to look at him as she asked the question.
His grin was unrepentant. “They’re Lyccans, remember? They would have smelled us mating by now.”
Her eyes snapped open when the import of his words sunk in. “DOMENICO!”
He cocked his head to the side. “Oh. Don’t worry, Misty. I can hear our guests having fun. I think they just heard you scream my name.”
She moaned. “Domenico!”
“Sssh, sweetheart, be a good girl and let me fuck your brains out again.”
~~~
Far underneath the roads of the city, in the deepest recesses of dungeons long forgotten by humans, naked women writhed on the ground, uncaring of the dirt that clung to their skins and the wounds that the rough uneven surface wrought on their flesh.
One woman was named Rafaella, the other woman was Ivory, and there were so many others. Only one word emerged from their mouths, and they moaned it over and over.
Master.
A man hidden in the shadows purred, “We will do better next time, won’t we, my lovelies?” He smiled with vicious pleasure at the gagged woman cowering in front him, the one that had to be punished for failing him one last time.
Yes, Master.
He looked at the woman who was about to satisfy his greatest appetite. “Nanette, Nanette,” he crooned, “I gave you so many chances and yet you failed. You let greed get the better of you.”
Nanette Wall desperately shook her head, her eyes bulging with fear.
He slapped her, and even though it wasn’t his full strength it was enough to send her flying to the end of the dungeons. “Didn’t I tell you I despise liars?” he hissed. He looked at the women he had enslaved with promises made in the dark. “You know that, too, lovelies, don’t you? The Master will not tolerate liars.”
Yes, Master.
He held Nanette by the hair, pulling her head back roughly and was rewarded by the tears of pain that glazed her eyes. “We won’t stop until we crush them one by one, won’t we?”
Yes, Master.
“And you would not hesitate to lay down your lives if it would mean finding their weakness, won’t you?”
Yes, Master.
Satisfied, his hand shot out, his fingers easily pushing through the flesh and muscle until he grasped the frantically beating heart of his meal. And as he took his first bite, he sent a bolt of pleasure through their bodies, causing the women to cry out. And so they came and came as Nanette died, the rest of her heart disappearing into his mouth.
If Misty had seen this, she would have only one word to describe it.
Sceleri.
~~~
“Lysander?”
He turned around at the hesitant sounding voice, his eyes narrowing when he saw a familiar figure. He had seen her once in a while at the realm and wondered why the young girl had followed him into another race’s territory. He remembered every woman he had fucked, and someone this young would never have gotten even a kiss from him.
But still, her face nagged at him.
And finally he remembered who she was. “Star,” he murmured, real pleasure underlining his voice. She was a sweet kid, quiet but cheerful, and he had spent quite some time with her during the summer of the past year, during those days that she had caught him in his garden.
“I heard…you’re looking for a Lyccan princess to be betrothed to?”
He raised a brow. “And?”
“Is it true?” she insisted.
He sighed. “And if it is?”
“What kind of princess are you looking for?”
“Anyone who could help protect my race.”
“But what about what you want?”
“That is what I want.”
“Ah.” She smiled at him bravely. “Then you’d want me. Because I’m a Lyccan princess and my name isn’t really…well it’s Star but not in English.” She took a deep breath. “My real name is Estrella Moretti, and I’m the younger sister of the heir apparent Domenico Moretti.”
###
SUIT and FANGS
Fall is the time when Caro’s emerge from the darkness, with leaves turning red as blood and the nights are longer and colder. I was eighteen when my father took me with him to attend my first Caro ball. And this was no ordinary ball for it was the First Night. This is a special occasion for their kind, one that had every beautiful being of their race making their way to the Brethren, where the Season of Crimson Fetes will formally begin.
Caro parties are not like any human or even non-human eyes would ever see. They party hard…harder even than the dying breeds of fauns and nymphs who answer to Dionysius’ call. In these parties, everything is brighter and louder, more colorful, more dazzling, and more glamorous. There seems no end to them: as the memories of one ball fades away, another one emerges, noble Caro families trying to outdo each other with gloriously decadent fetes that only the most privileged can enjoy.
Everything is opulent without being gaudy. You can say anything you want about Caros, but one thing they’ll always be is tasteful. Everything about them—the way they speak, dress, even the way they kill—everything is done with such impeccable grace.
The Season of Crimson Fetes is meant to celebrate the race’s ascendancy. Caros are infamous for being haughty and cruel, indifferent and insensitive to the plight of other races. You will never hear a Caro beg. You won’t ever catch a Caro lying or cheating out of some base emotion like greed or envy. If ever a Caro is guilty of a sharp word, a careless gesture, a merciless slaying—all these things are only to prove their superiority over others.
Selfishness is inherent in every Caro, reinforced by The Brethren’s doctrine, one that even the youngest of its kind learn to recite alongside the Lord’s Prayer. We are the brightest among the children of the Night, and forever we must shine. Not will. Not may. But must—because failure is unforgivable.
And yet…they are not evil. But they are often perceived to be so, the misconception rooted in this race’s uncompromising determination to act with cold-blooded precision. Never do they also let themselves forget that in the darkest days of their
race they had only been able to turn to each other for aid. Duty to the Brethren must therefore supersede everything else—their thirst for power, their desires, even their love. For once their race was known to love, and that time had devastated the world, vampires desecrating life.
Legends say that there were once twin princes who fell in love with the same woman, whose heart could only beat for one of them. The spurned twin, unable to bear the thought of sharing the woman with any other, lost his soul to the throes of unrequited love and murdered her. If he couldn’t have her, no one else could.
When she died, the first vampire was born, followed by his twin, whose grief was said to have made him go insane and turn vampire, too. Millions of innocent lives were wasted in those never-forgotten days, the rampage only ending when the sun burned the twins to ashes. Since then, the Caros swore never ever again should they let such a tragedy repeat itself—even at the expense of themselves, even if it meant denying the reason for their existence.
And so came the one and only inviolable rule for Caros: Let the blood flow, the flesh burn, but never let the heart decide.
An excerpt taken from An Introduction to Caros: The Cold Race; Those that Live Among Us Unseen—An Advanced History Textbook for Viver
Prologue
The First Night Ball of the Crimson Fetes
The Brethren
31 Months Ago
The ball was in full swing, with every Caro in attendance looking more glamorous than any Hollywood star. After all, it was in their nature to glitter and they loved doing so. Tonight’s theme was Narnia, an ironic choice for their race could relate more to the Snow Queen than the benevolent lion Aslan. They simply could not conceive how anyone could be so ridiculously, foolishly, embarrassingly…selfless.
Could not the lion have saved all four human children without being sacrificed on the Round Table? Certainly if one of them was the Great Lion, they would have figured out a plan. Unlike Lyccans, a race that prided itself on its strength, Caros believed that their minds were sharper than their fangs.
“Look, Jocelyn,” a woman in an emerald-green gown whispered, yanking her friend to her side. “It’s Luka Georgiades!”
Her friend gasped, craning her neck in an effort to see one of their kind’s most famously eligible males. “Where? I can’t—oh.” She sighed, and her friend sighed, too.
Luka was dressed all in white—his version of the Snow King, and he had never looked more coldly beautiful. His piercing violet eyes glowed like amethysts, his hard-jawed face inscrutable as he scanned the crowd.
One of the matrons approached him, and Luka’s almost cruelly thin lips curved into a charming but still aloof smile, his voice soft and courteous as he greeted the woman in their own language. He then bowed afterwards and walked further into the ballroom, a striking, tall figure that every woman in the area couldn’t but help feel irresistibly attracted to.
For a Caro woman, there was nothing more attractive than a man so in control of himself, and Luka was legendary for exactly that.
He was only seventeen and yet, after his parents’ death last year, Luka had lost everything boyish about him. He was a man through and through, towering already over many other Caros, his presence quietly authoritative. His body was both elegant and muscular, a combination that had the women around him wetting their lips constantly and thinking about licking him to test if he really was as cold as he seemed.
If the rumors were true, even at his young age he was said to be beyond masterful in bed, able to do such unquenchably hot things with his hands and mouth to have a woman screaming for hours in ecstasy. Then and only then would he let go—and the women who had supposedly bed him said it was such a sight, to see Luka’s beautiful angelic face as he came—
The two women unconsciously sighed in synchrony as Luka walked past them, lust digging its claws into their hearts as they felt his tightly leashed strength. Oh, oh, to imagine…the famously polite Luka…driven to say ‘fuck’ in the throes of the wildest orgasm—
“Caylie,” they heard Luka murmur, his coldly sensual voice like ice caressing a woman’s skin, making even those merely listening shiver in fear and desire.
For a moment, both women’s eyes flashed crimson red, unable to rein back their jealousy as they saw where Luka’s attention was completely focused.
The younger girl laughed, a tinkling, melodious sound that grated on their nerves for both women knew they could never sound so carefree. It was like a memory of sunlight when every being here—even Luka—was of the darkness.
“Who is that?” Jocelyn hissed, unable to keep her voice from getting shrill. What did that little girl have that could make Luka Georgiades seem so…alive? Luka Georgiades’ refined manners were the envy of many, his urbane style and polished ways capable of making even human princes and dukes appear appallingly coarse. His lips were never without a smile, but it was one that never reached his eyes—or at least it had not until now.
The way Luka Georgiades stared at the younger girl was practically indecent—scandalous in fact for a race that looked upon indifference as a virtue. He gazed at the girl as if he wanted to undress her on the spot, ripping away her short forest green dress with his fangs before taking her then and there.
“The Sonora heiress,” her friend spat out in recognition of the young waif on Luka’s arms, adding in disgust, “She hasn’t even come out yet.”
Jocelyn’s eyebrows shot up, her head snapping back to study the girl. She had known the girl was young but if she hadn’t come out yet—then she was not even sixteen years old? Her eyes narrowed. What could the little brat have that someone as impossibly unattainable as Luka Georgiades would look at her like she was the hottest lay in town?
* * * *
Half-blood usurper…
The Delicazzi lapdog…
Dog fucker…
Luka Georgiades did not even have to shrug the words away. He was immune to such terms by now, and they hurt him as much as ashes falling on his suit could make him bleed.
“You look so hot,” the girl of his fucking dreams—literally, figuratively—whispered.
Luka froze. Shit. He had always been proud with his ability to remain untouched by other people. Nothing could ever rile his blood—or at least nothing had until he discovered what Caylie Sonora’s lips tasted like.
Now, just the mere scent of her was enough to have Luka hard. Caylie knew it—and liked tormenting him for it. Worse, she was doing it here and now, torturing him with the heated promise in her lovely dark blue eyes in the middle of a fucking Brethren Ball. And not just any ball but the fucking First Night ball!
Her sapphire eyes laughed at him. “I can hear you cursing in your mind.”
His upper lip curled in response.
She laughed out loud this time. “Oh yes, you are, don’t bother pretending.”
Luka allowed his exasperation to show for a moment, which got Caylie laughing even more. “It’s that or kill every man who dares ogle you, mi vavli.” It meant ‘my bauble’ in their language, one of the most tender terms of endearment that a Caro could use toward another being he or she felt possessive about.
Caylie giggled, and he relished listening to the sound even as heads snapped towards them because of it. Caros did not giggle after all. Most times, Luka preferred to play by the rules but for now, he didn’t give a fuck.
He loved the sound of Caylie’s giggles. It was so fearlessly innocent, lacking the calculated sophistication that most Caro girls inherently possessed. She was like no other girl of their kind he had ever known. Perhaps that was what drew him to Caylie, for Luka had always known he was like no other boy of his kind either.
Everyone here was pure of blood—everyone except him, the offspring of a human female and a Caro noble.
The music changed, and Caylie’s eyes brightened with it. Tossing her long curly blond hair over one shoulder, she asked, “Let’s dance?” But she was already pulling him to the dance floor, the only one in the entire worl
d able to do as she wanted with Luka.
He pulled her close, loving the way her tall, slim, and long-legged figure fit his perfectly. The slightest tremor went through his body as their skin came into contact, sparking a sensual fire Luka struggled to deny.
Ever since that one accidental kiss—
Luka’s arm around Caylie’s tiny waist tightened imperceptibly as they swayed and swirled around the dance floor, one in white, the other in green, the White King with a not-so-innocent Lucy Pevensie, both dazzling in their own ways, two exquisite creatures locked in their own world.
If not for that kiss, everything would have been fine between them.
If not for that kiss, he wouldn’t be lying awake at night just thinking…just imagining how it would feel to finally take Caylie and make her his.