by Folsom, Tina
Nico shifted restlessly from one foot to the other. “But why attack her if she’s working for them?”
“Maybe she isn’t. Maybe she’s working on her own and will sell the machine to the highest bidder. If the Guardians are aware of that, they’ll want to intervene before somebody else gets hold of it,” Raphael ventured a guess.
Marcello made a hand movement, indicating his impatience. “Be that as it may. It’s clear what we have to do: destroy the machine and erase her memory.”
Nico’s heart began to race, but before he could even protest, Lorenzo rose from his seat and protested, “No!”
All eyes landed on him.
“You know my position on this. Erasing a human’s memory should only be done if it is to erase a single moment in time, not entire weeks or months of a person’s life. It’s too dangerous. You all know what can happen.”
Nico locked eyes with Lorenzo, knowing only too well what lay in his friend’s past. He’d been forced to erase his lover’s memory after she’d tried to stake him. Elle had ended up in an insane asylum, her mind destroyed, because of the amount of memories Lorenzo had erased. Ever since then, Lorenzo had cautioned all of them not to make the same mistake.
“I can’t do this to my wife,” Nico said quietly, reassuring himself that he wasn’t the kind of monster to hurt the woman he loved.
“Then what are you planning to do?” Marcello took a step toward him, poking his index finger into Nico’s chest. “Why do you even care? Weren’t you the one who was planning to send her to the countryside after the wedding? Or have you suddenly changed your mind?”
Surprised that even Marcello knew about his original plan, he glared at Raphael and Dante.
Dante shrugged. “You never said it was a secret.”
“Never mind that now,” Marcello continued. “You know as well as each and every one of us that your wife presents a danger to us. We have to deal with it. Swiftly, before things escalate and the Guardians succeed next time and snatch the machine from her.”
Nico’s anger surged. “There won’t be a next time. I’ll destroy the machine!”
“That won’t be enough!”
It had to be, because the other thing his friends expected him to do, he couldn’t do. “It will have to be enough!”
“And what if they snatch her?” Marcello challenged him. “What if they force her to build a new machine?”
“She won’t.”
While Nico’s voice was strong and filled with determination, his mind was anything but. How would he stop his wife from betraying them? He couldn’t keep her locked up day and night. He would have a mutiny on his hands in short order. A headstrong woman like his wife wouldn’t submit for long. Eventually, she would resent him for curbing her freedom. And she would try to escape.
“There’s no way of making sure of that,” Marcello disagreed.
Lorenzo, leaning casually against the fireplace, cleared his throat. Nico snapped his gaze to him.
“There is one way,” Lorenzo claimed.
Nico raised an interested eyebrow.
“Show her what you are.”
For several seconds nobody spoke. Then Nico shook his head. “It’ll never work. She hates vampires. Why else would she build a machine to be able to identify us? If I reveal what I am . . . ” Nico couldn’t finish his sentence.
Oriana would recoil from him in disgust. Instead of wrapping her legs around him and pulling him closer, she would kick him off her, searching for the nearest weapon to kill him. And then he’d be forced to kill her. And by God, he could never kill the woman he loved.
“Nico.” Lorenzo’s urging voice penetrated his thoughts.
He looked up to meet his friend’s gaze.
“Nobody’s heard from you in the last two days and nights. It leads me to believe that you’ve been . . . shall we say, busy with your wife?”
Nico narrowed his eyes. “What is your point?”
“If she’s invited you to her bed and you stayed there for two days and nights, I can only assume that she enjoyed your company as much as you enjoyed hers.”
Nico clenched his teeth. “Get to the point.”
Lorenzo smiled nonchalantly. “But that is my point.”
“Would you care to elaborate on that?”
His friend laughed. “I didn’t think you needed tutoring lessons in seduction.”
Nico fisted his hands at his hips and widened his stance. “It’s one thing to seduce a woman into your bed, it’s an entirely different one to make her accept me as a vampire. She’ll recoil from me in disgust.”
A soft female chuckle interrupted him. He turned his head to stare at Isabella and Viola.
“For a moment maybe, until she’s overcome the initial shock!” Isabella claimed. Then she let her eyes wander over her husband’s body. “But once she realizes what it means to have a vampire for a husband, she’ll be yours forever.”
Nico looked at her. He couldn’t help but notice how her chest suddenly heaved when Rafael looked at her, his eyes blazing with lust. Would Oriana react the same way once she knew what he was?
Marcello grunted and pointed at his fellow vampires. “If I leave it up to you besotted idiots, our entire race will vanish in no time. I say we destroy the machine and erase her memory now. It’s the only sure way!”
“No!” Nico protested. Marcello’s reaction was forcing him to make a decision. “I’ll follow Lorenzo’s suggestion.”
Marcello glared at him. “Fine. You have twenty-four hours. If you can’t bring your wife in line by then, we’re doing it my way. Any objections?” He looked at the brothers, then at Lorenzo, daring them to protest.
Lorenzo threw up his hands in capitulation and rolled his eyes. “Whatever the big brute says.”
Raphael and Dante exchanged a quick look, then Dante replied, “One day and one night.” He tossed Nico an encouraging look. “I doubt you’ll need that much time.”
Wishing he could display the same confidence his friend possessed, Nico turned on his heels and left the house. He would have to conjure up all sensitivity and tact he possessed to aid him in the most difficult mission of his life. To convince his wife that he wasn’t a monster.
15
“The signora is awake,” the maid informed Nico the moment he entered his home.
With a curt nod, he acknowledged her words. “My wife won’t need you any longer tonight. You may go to bed.”
She curtsied and withdrew.
Taking a deep breath, Nico headed for his wife’s bedchamber. When he reached it, he hesitated for a moment. He would have to be as calm as possible to achieve his goal.
He opened the door and entered, finding that the maid had added more wood to the fire to warm the room. An oil lamp was lit next to the bed and threw an orange glow over Oriana, who sat up in bed, wearing a virginal nightdress that reached almost all the way to her neck.
She turned her head when she heard him enter and looked at him, then quickly averted her eyes.
“How are you feeling?” he asked politely.
“Perfectly well.”
Nico approached the bed and sat on its edge. “Good. Then maybe you’d like to explain to me what you think you were doing out there.” His words came out a little harsher than he’d intended, but he couldn’t take them back now.
Oriana sucked in a quick breath, her chest rising under the white fabric. “I was merely taking an evening stroll when those men attacked the footman and me.”
“A stroll?” He narrowed his eyes, anger boiling up at the fact that his wife was blatantly lying to him. “I would advise you to tell me the truth!”
She straightened her back. “Are you insinuating that I’m lying?” Outrage colored her voice.
Oh, what a magnificent actress his wife was!
Nico leaned in, making her shrink back into the pillows. “I’m doing more than that. I’m also telling you that from now on you won’t go out at night unless it’s in my company. You won’t pu
t yourself in danger like this anymore. Do we understand each other?”
She huffed angrily. “If you think that simply because I submit to you in the marriage bed, I shall allow you to curb my freedom, let me make one thing clear, signore! I am not your property!”
Her cheeks were aflame, and her lips trembled.
“Ah, my dear wife, that’s where you’re wrong! You’re my responsibility now. You might have fooled your father, but don’t think you can play the same games with me. I’ve found you out! I’ve seen your so-called laboratory!”
She shrieked, her eyes widening in shock.
“Oh yes! I know what you’re up to and I’m telling you it’ll stop this instant!”
“You can’t do this!” she cried out. “My work! My research!”
“Research?! Do you have any idea what you’re getting into?”
“But I have to continue. I’m at a breakthrough. I’m certain I can make my machine work. Don’t you see? With it I can detect vampires.”
He glared at her, grunting low and dark.
“You might not believe it, but they exist. And I can make others aware of the danger they present. Venice will be safer for it!”
“There’ll be a bloodbath if you continue!” Because once he and his friends were exposed, they would be forced to defend themselves. It meant killing those humans who attacked them. Venice wouldn’t be safer.
“No, you don’t understand! Please, Nico, you have to let me continue,” she begged.
“No!”
She raised her chin and set her jaw. “If you don’t, you won’t be welcome in my bed any longer.”
At her threat, his mood darkened even further. She was going to deny him her body? The beast inside him growled, roaring its disapproval. “Careful with your threats!”
“I mean it!” she bit out. “Either you let me continue with my work, or you’ll be banned from my chamber!”
Furious at her mutinous behavior, he gripped her shoulders and pressed her against the headboard. “If I let you continue, you’ll be putting me in danger. Is that what you want? To hurt your husband?”
“How would that hurt you? By not having a submissive wife? Yes, surely that will hurt your ego!” she mocked.
Nico felt his fangs lengthen. “You might as well paint a target on my chest! Because everybody will know what I am.” He stared right at her and allowed his fangs to descend fully, opening his mouth in the process so she could get a good look at them.
Slowly, her eyes widened, and her breath rushed from her lungs. Her pulse instantly tripled, and she tried to escape from his grip. But he was infinitely stronger than she and didn’t release her from his hold.
“Yes, look at me! I am what you seek. I am a vampire, the very creature you wish to expose with your machine. I shall destroy your machine, but what happens to you is up to you.”
She squeezed her eyes shut for an instant, then opened them again. “Oh God, oh no! Please don’t kill me!”
Fear surged through her. How could this have happened? How was it possible that her husband was a vampire? Nico, the man who’d so passionately made love to her for the last two days and nights. Her short moments of bliss were at an end. Not only that: her life would end tonight. He would bite her and drain her.
Frantically, she shook her head, trying to wake up from this nightmare. Against all odds, she hoped that she was dreaming, even though she knew she wasn’t.
“Please have mercy!”
Nico tilted his head to the side. “Mercy? Why? You were going to sell the machine to my enemies so that they could eradicate my friends and me.”
“Who? What enemies? I wasn’t going to sell the machine.”
He gave a bitter laugh, ignoring her question. “Why do you hate vampires so much? What have they done to you?”
“They hurt people.”
“How would you know that? Has any of them hurt you?”
She glanced to his hands that clamped around her upper arms, holding her in a vice grip. “I saw one of them feeding from a human. Biting. Hurting.”
Slowly he shook his head. “From that you think we hurt humans? You have no idea what a bite does. How much pleasure it can give.” His gaze drifted to her neck, and his nostrils flared. “How much sexual pleasure I could give you with a single bite while I make love to you. More pleasure than you’ve experienced in the last two days combined.”
Her breath hitched. Farther South, her womb clenched at the thought of feeling him inside her again. No! She couldn’t allow that! He was a vampire, a vile creature, a monster. Why was he talking about making love? Was he trying to trick her into feeling safe?
“Never!” she vowed. “I’d rather die!”
“Die?”
He suddenly chuckled, making his features instantly much softer, despite the sharp fangs that were protruding from his mouth. Suddenly they didn’t look as scary anymore.
“Before you make a monumental decision like that, I would like you to understand all options. As we both know, the last time you made a decision without knowing the other side, you very quickly changed your mind when I showed you what options you were dismissing so casually.”
She gasped. How dare he remind her of the words she’d hurled at him during their wedding night? She’d told him that she wasn’t interested in sharing his bed because it led only to shame and pain. Of course, he’d convinced her otherwise. But this didn’t mean he could convince her again. Accepting marital congress was different from accepting a vampire as one’s husband.
“Do not even attempt such a thing!” she cried out, her fear turning into outrage. How dare he treat her like this?
“Are you challenging me?”
She noticed amusement in his eyes. Angry that he was clearly not taking her seriously, she raised her chin in defiance. “It is not a challenge. It’s a command! I command you to unhand me and leave.”
He grinned and appeared as sinful as if he were introducing her to a new way of making love. How could this be? How could she still see him as the lover he’d been, when now he was different, when now he was a vampire?
“Ah, but my sweet wife, I’m afraid you still haven’t learned that I don’t take commands from you. They only inflame me even more. And right now I’m in the right mood to bend you over my knees and spank your bottom for your insolent behavior toward me.”
Enraged by his suggestion, she tried to twist from his grip. “How dare you?!” She was no child that needed a spanking.
“Wrong answer, my sweet!”
16
With one move, Nico flipped his wife onto her stomach and jumped behind her on the bed. Then he grabbed her virginal nightgown and ripped it all the way to the bottom, exposing the creamy skin on her back and ass.
Oriana tried to escape him, but he pinned her down with his knees over her thighs.
“You’ve been bad, disobeying your husband.”
He stroked his hand over her firm cheeks, eliciting an outraged grunt from her.
“Lay one finger on me, and you’ll pay for it!” she threatened.
“One finger?” he asked, his mind already forming an idea.
Painstakingly slowly, he ran his hand over her bottom, then slipped it between her thighs. Oriana tried to squeeze them together to deny him access, but her legs were spread wide enough for him to dip his finger to her female folds. To his delight, she was wet there.
“This finger?” he asked and probed at her slit, slowly thrusting inside her.
She moaned into the pillow. Satisfied at her reaction, Nico withdrew his hand. “Now that we know that your body is still welcoming me, let’s commence your punishment.”
“Why don’t you just kill me now? Do you have to humiliate me too?”
He gently stroked over her beautiful flesh. “Kill you? My love, I have no intention of killing you now or later. Nor humiliate you. All I want is for you to accept me for what I am. Your vampire husband. And we’re not going to leave this room until you do.”
> He punctuated his words by delivering the first slap on her ass.
She cried out, sounding more outraged than in pain. “I’ll never accept a vampire as my husband!”
He smiled to himself, noticing that even though she was verbally still sparring with him, she wasn’t trying to twist away from him.
“That’s too bad, considering we’re already married.”
“I’ll get an annulment!” Oriana claimed.
He answered her with a second slap. “Out of the question!”
Then he gripped her hips and pulled her onto her knees, so her bottom was in the air. He slipped one hand between her legs, cupping her sex, then slapped her ass cheek with the other.
She moaned, panting heavily, and he felt her cunny quiver under his touch. Moisture trickled onto his fingers, and he slid them along her warm flesh, pushing upwards to find her pearl.
His next slap coincided with the pad of his finger pressing onto her pleasure button, and an uncontrolled cry came from her throat.
“See, my love, how pleasurable punishment can be?”
“Stop,” she begged, but her sex gyrated against his hand, asking for more friction.
“No,” he answered. “Let your body do your thinking for you.” He rubbed his finger over her swollen pearl, the juices that were oozing from her making the movement smooth and gentle.
“There,” he coaxed and slapped her once more. “That’s what you need. A good spanking from your vampire husband, so you’ll behave.” He deliberately reminded her of what he was, wanting her to hear it while she was experiencing pleasure so she would associate the word vampire with passion and pleasure.
Nico slipped one finger into her warm channel, while continuing to stroke her. “Do you want to come for your vampire husband?” He pinched her clitoris and delivered another slap on her bottom at the same time.
Oriana panted, her hips moving frantically to rub herself against his hand. He could feel how close she was. Over the last two days he’d learned to recognize her body’s signs. And he wanted to join her.
With his free hand, he opened the buttons of his flap and pushed his trousers and smalls past his groin, enough to free his cock. He was as hard as he’d ever been.