Age of Vampires- The Complete Series

by Caroline Peckham

  “I actually did that once,” Callie said and I clapped a hand to my mouth to stifle my laughter.

  Magnar patted her back, sipping on his third – or was it fourth? - glass of wine. “That's my girl.”

  Fabian scowled. “I hope that wasn't one of my men.”

  Callie shrugged innocently. “His name was Benjamin...”

  “Oh hell, I had people searching for him for days,” Fabian huffed.

  “Your turn, Rebel.” Erik nudged me, obviously hoping to move the subject on.

  I bit my lip as I thought on it. “Umm...I'd bake her in a pie. And then not eat it,” I offered with a weak smile.

  “No one would want to eat your cooking anyway, Monty. You'd burn that pie.” Callie fell into giggles, clutching my shoulder.

  Laughter tore from my throat. “You bitch.”

  “To be fair, it's a pretty shit fate to end up in a pie no one eats,” Erik mused.

  “Exactly,” I said, turning to him with a wide smile before rounding on Callie again. “What's yours then?” I demanded, pushing her playfully.

  “Hm...” She brushed her fingers through her hair. “I'd drive Fury up her ass.”

  “Callie!” I squealed, falling into laughter once more which was echoed around the room.

  “My turn,” Magnar announced and I wiped tears from my eyes as I looked over at him. His face fell into a stony expression as he waited for everyone to grow silent. When he had their attention, he drew his shoulders back and said, “I would dash her head on a rock. One thousand, one hundred and thirteen times. One for every year she has tormented me, and a hundred and thirteen more for luck.”

  The frankness of his tone sent me over the edge again and everyone laughed even louder than before.

  “She'd still wanna marry you, Brother,” Julius said and Magnar cracked up.

  “I win,” he insisted when he'd reined in his mirth.

  “I don't know if we're laughing at what you said or if we're all too wasted to stop laughing,” Julius pointed out.

  “Let him win.” Callie waved a hand and Julius shrugged.

  “Who faces the challenge then, Magnar?” Miles asked excitedly.

  “One fucking guess,” Fabian drawled and Magnar nodded at him.

  “On the table, Fabian,” Magnar instructed, plucking a bottle of red from the floor.

  Surprisingly, Fabian didn't fight it as Chickoa cleared the coffee table for him.

  “Thanks,” he said dryly.

  “Oh it's really no bother,” she said airily, watching keenly as he laid down on the table and Magnar plucked the cork from the bottle with his teeth.

  “Drink it or drown in it,” Magnar said.

  “I can't drown,” Fabian said with a smirk.

  “No, but if you spill one drop, I start punching,” Magnar growled.

  “Holy shit, this is a bit much,” I said, moving to the edge of my seat.

  Erik caught my hand with a wild glint in his eye. “It's a Viking game.”

  “You guys are insane,” Clarice groaned. “I always hated this game.”

  Magnar tipped the bottle up and it poured into Fabian's mouth in a furious flow. “Funny, I always loved it.”

  The alcohol set a fire burning in my throat as it went down but I found myself enjoying the fuzzy feeling in my head that accompanied it.

  I couldn’t help but laugh as Fabian valiantly swallowed the entire contents of the bottle of wine as Magnar tipped it down his throat and he smirked in triumph as he sat back up again.

  Miles whooped in celebration and I joined in with the others as Magnar tossed the empty bottle on the floor.

  “You should never underestimate me, slayer,” Fabian said victoriously and Magnar rolled his eyes.

  “Perhaps you’re a bit more of a man than I expected,” he admitted as he landed beside me on the couch once more and pulled me under his arm, his fingertips drawing patterns across my shoulder. I glanced up at him with a smile and he pressed his lips to mine for a moment, surprising me as butterflies writhed in my stomach.

  “Do you have to do that in front of me?” Fabian asked irritably and heat crawled across my skin as everyone in the room looked our way.

  “Do I have to kiss the woman I love?” Magnar asked, cocking an eyebrow at him tauntingly. “Yeah, I’d say I do. But if it makes you uncomfortable then you don’t have to stay.”

  Fabian scowled at him and I shifted my hand onto Magnar’s thigh, squeezing it gently in an attempt to get him to back off.

  “Cut my brother a little slack,” Miles said placatingly. “He didn’t ask Idun to give him that mark.”

  “I’m blocking the bond right now,” I muttered. “So it’s not that.”

  “No it’s not the bond,” Fabian agreed, stumbling a little as he pushed himself to his feet. “It’s this whole screwed up situation that’s got me on edge. And the rest of you are just acting like it’s normal. Like we aren’t are sitting in a room with the very men who made our lives hell-”

  “Enough,” Erik said firmly. “We all know what we were. It’s what we are now that matters. Why don’t you suggest the next game as you lost the last one? You need to lighten up a little.”

  Fabian scanned the room as if he were looking for an ally but didn’t find one. He sighed in defeat as he moved to sit against the wall again, slumping down heavily.

  “Let’s try a more modern game then,” he said. “Spin the bottle?”

  “As half of the members of this room are related to you in some way and most of the other half hate you, I’d suggest that’s not the best game to attempt,” Miles said.

  “You have a point there I suppose,” Fabian muttered, glancing at Chickoa. “How about never have I ever then?”

  “What are the rules?” Julius asked from the couch opposite. Clarice was beside him and as he leant forward, his leg pushed against hers but she didn’t move away.

  “We take it in turns to say something we’ve never done. But if anyone in the room has done it then they have to drink,” Fabian explained.

  “Got it,” Julius said, raising a glass in anticipation. “But I’ll do a practice round to make sure: I’ve never had a threesome with two men involved.” His eyes stayed fixed on Clarice and she rolled her eyes as she drained her glass. “Yeah I thought so,” Julius said with a smirk.

  “Well it takes a lot to handle me in the bedroom. There aren’t many men who can satisfy me alone,” she replied suggestively and Julius smiled widely in response.

  Miles and Warren drained their glasses and Chickoa did too, shrugging dismissively as Fabian stared at her in shock.

  Erik looked towards Magnar, half raising his glass to his mouth.

  “That doesn’t count,” Magnar growled irritably and Erik nodded in agreement as he set his glass back down on the table.

  Miles noticed their interaction and his eyes lit with excitement. “Did Valentina make the two of you-”

  “No,” Magnar snapped as Erik said, “It was really just kissing-”

  “Which we agreed never to mention again,” Magnar added firmly.

  Clarice bit her lip in amusement and I decided to move the game along before anything else was said on the subject.

  “I’ve never seen a sandy beach,” I said, thinking of one of the things my dad had told us about. “I don’t even know what sand is, really.”

  Everyone but Montana drank and the Belvederes exchanged guilty looks as I felt Magnar’s posture stiffening beside me instead of relaxing. I’d only been trying to think of something random but it seemed like my confession had just reminded everyone of the things the vampires had done to the humans and none of them were entirely happy about that.

  “I’ve never wrestled a wolf with my bare hands and survived,” Julius said loudly, cutting the tension as Magnar released a chuckle and emptied his glass.

  “I have to hear that story!” Miles said enthusiastically.

  “It’s not as glamorous as my brother makes it sound,” Magnar said dismis
sively. “It just thought it’d found an easy meal when we were camping in the wilderness one night.” He brushed his fingers over the line of scars on his bicep and I looked up at him in surprise.

  “I thought they were fingernail marks from a vampire,” I said.

  “Well there are still a few things you don’t know about me,” he replied teasingly.

  “I woke up to the sound of a wolf howling in panic as it was launched over my head,” Julius said, snorting a laugh.

  “I only kicked it off of me. Besides, you had fallen asleep on watch,” Magnar accused.

  “Fabian had a run-in with a bear once, didn’t you?” Clarice said, looking at her brother.

  “Yes,” Fabian replied without elaborating.

  “Tell us,” I begged and his eyes softened a little as they fell on me.

  “I was looking for a new hiding place from your friends,” he said, eyeing Magnar and Julius. “And I tried to take shelter in a cave. I was tired and more than a little thirsty and I failed to note the odour of the beast before I stumbled upon it. It tore my arm from my body before I managed to escape. That was the first time I ever had a limb detached.”

  I smiled at his story and Magnar shifted uncomfortably beside me. I glanced between them, wondering if they’d ever figure out a way to get along but it seemed like a fairly tall order. It might have been because of my involvement but I wondered if it was also because they were just too different. It seemed to me like their personalities just grated against each other’s regardless of the history they shared.

  “Well, I’ve never forgotten a lover’s name by the next morning,” Clarice said, raising an eyebrow at Julius, her intention clearly to get revenge for his dig at her.

  “Does it still count if I didn’t know her name in the first place?” Julius clarified.

  “Ew,” Montana said, scrunching her nose and Julius laughed as he swallowed his drink.

  Magnar, Warren, Fabian and Chickoa followed suit and I glanced at Fabian’s ex-fiancée in surprise.

  “Before I met Terry, I was always afraid of forming close connections with humans,” she explained. “So I went for meaningless physical interactions instead.”

  I nodded in understanding. In the Realm I’d never wanted to form any close connections either. The lovers I’d taken had always been kept at a distance and I’d ended things with them if they’d seemed too keen for anything more emotional from me. I’d been afraid to love anyone outside of my family in case they’d ended up getting taken away to the blood bank. And I’d never been very tempted to change my mind on that decision until I met Magnar.

  “Never have I ever screwed Valentina,” Fabian said, smirking at Magnar as he tipped his own drink down his throat.

  I raised an eyebrow as Erik, Warren, Miles and even Clarice followed suit.

  “Seriously?” Montana asked Clarice in surprise.

  Clarice shrugged. “I’m a thousand years old, I like to enjoy women for a change every now and then and she was always very...”

  “Available,” Miles supplied with a snigger.

  “You didn’t drink,” Fabian said, pointing at Magnar. “You can’t seriously expect us to believe you never had her; she was your fiancée!”

  “I had plenty of opportunity and no motivation to take her up on it.” Magnar shrugged and I couldn’t keep the smile off of my face in response. I was just glad that Odin had come through for him before she’d managed to change his answer.

  “Oh shit, I love this song!” Miles announced loudly, jumping out of his seat and speeding across the room to up the volume on the stereo.

  He sped to the other side of the room and dimmed the overhead lights so that we were left in the orange glow of several lamps and then leapt up onto the coffee table. He started dancing without any care for the fact that he was the only one in the room doing it and I giggled as I watched him gyrating for us like we were his own personal audience.

  He turned towards Warren, smiling widely as he beckoned him up too and they started grinding against each other to the beat of the music.

  “Come on!” Miles shouted, trying to urge everyone into joining them and I bit my lip as I was tempted. But we’d never really done anything like that in the Realm and I wasn’t entirely sure I would have known where to begin.

  Clarice laughed as she got to her feet and she kicked off her shoes before climbing up on to the table too. She was wearing one of Chickoa’s long dresses and she accidentally stood on the hem of it as she moved, tearing it straight up the back.

  “Sorry,” she giggled before ripping the rest of the skirt off so that she could move more freely. The result was that her ass was half hanging out of the bottom of it but she didn’t seem to care about that. “I’ll pay for a new one!”

  Chickoa waved off her apology as she started dancing too and I noticed Fabian’s eyes following her as she moved.

  Miles jumped from the table and landed right in front of me, reaching for my hand with a devilish smile.

  “Come on,” he begged as he tried to pull me out of my chair. “I’ve never danced with a slayer before.”

  I glanced at Magnar and he shrugged, clearly not intending to join me but voicing no protest at the idea of me getting up.

  “Okay,” I said with a grin, draining my glass and placing it on the floor. Miles hoisted me to my feet so quickly that my head spun.

  As I tried to right myself, Miles caught the edge of my dress and tore the skirt from it just as Clarice had done to her own though thankfully my ass was still covered by mine. I squealed in surprise and he laughed as he dragged me against him, holding my back to his chest as he started moving to the music.

  I laughed as I tried to follow what he was doing, finding it surprisingly easy with him guiding me.

  Warren had dragged Montana up too and I noticed Erik watching her hungrily.

  Julius grabbed two bottles of wine from the floor and moved to take my seat beside Magnar as he handed him one. The two of them started talking in low voices as they drank but Magnar’s eyes kept travelling to my bare legs and the heat in his gaze made warmth pool in my core.

  Miles twisted me in his arms, laughing as he pulled me closer before lifting me up.

  I squealed as he spun me around and some of the others had to scramble aside to avoid us colliding with them.

  He placed me back on my feet and I staggered forward as my head swam. Warren wrapped his arms around Miles and drew him away again and I stumbled back towards Magnar.

  He looked up at me with a dark smile as I approached and I dropped onto the arm of the couch beside him with a sigh.

  “You’re drunk,” he noted as he looked up at me and I swivelled my legs to place them in his lap.

  “You’ve had four times as much as I have,” I protested, bopping him on the nose with my finger.

  “Mmm, but I think I can handle my alcohol better than you can.” He placed one hand on my knee and caught my ankle in the other, his thumb skimming up and down my skin.

  “I dunno, you don’t look like you’re having much fun here in the corner,” I teased.

  “We’re just enjoying the show,” Julius piped up and I followed his gaze back to where the others continued to dance.

  Clarice was moving in a way that was so sexual I wasn’t actually sure if I was doing something wrong by looking at her. Julius had definitely noticed too and I couldn’t help but smirk as his eyes followed every move she made.

  “You look like you’re really enjoying some parts of it,” I teased.

  Magnar chuckled and he shifted his hand from my ankle up to my thigh, slowly inching it towards the hem of my now-ruined dress.

  “You might want to watch yourself around that parasite, Brother,” Magnar teased. “I think she’s working damn hard to get your attention.”

  “Pfft. I’d never be interested in a woman whose blood runs cold,” Julius said dismissively and he tore his eyes away from Clarice as he pushed himself to his feet. “I’m hungry. Do either of y
ou want anything?”

  “Nothing you can give me,” Magnar replied, his eyes falling on me again as his hand shifted beneath the hem of my dress and my heart leapt excitedly.

  Julius rolled his eyes and headed out of the room and Magnar tugged me down into his lap so that I was straddling him. His hands moved to my waist, skimming lower until they found their place above my hips. I dipped my mouth towards his and he drew me in, kissing me passionately as I pressed myself onto his lap, feeling his arousal beneath me with a sigh of longing.

  “By the gods, I love you, Callie,” he growled, his grip on me tightening and he pushed me down more firmly, making my body ache with desire.

  I caught his bottom lip between my teeth, biting down just enough to make him squirm beneath me.

  Magnar groaned with desire and pushed me upright, snaring my hand in his as he dragged me from the room.

  As soon as we made it beyond the door he propelled me around, slamming my back against the wall as he took my lips hostage once again.

  He pressed his tongue into my mouth and I shook with the need to feel it on the rest of my body too.

  His hand moved to my thigh, pushing beneath the material of my ruined dress until his thumb found the edge of my underwear. My breathing turned ragged as I willed him on, not caring that we hadn’t even made it upstairs.

  I gripped the material of the flannel shirt which hung open over his chest, dragging him closer to me as his thumb pushed my underwear aside and my heart juddered with anticipation.

  “Oops, sorry,” Clarice gasped as she stumbled out into the corridor. “I’m just looking for the kitchen. I saw nothing.”

  I laughed breathily as Magnar withdrew his hand from beneath my skirt.

  “Come on,” he said. “Let’s find somewhere more private.”

  He stepped back and I made a move to follow him but he grabbed me instead, tossing me over his shoulder as I squealed with excited laughter and he carried me further into the house.

  “Callie?” Montana called and Magnar stilled with his hand on a door at the end of the corridor.

  He dropped me to my feet with a sigh of disappointment as my sister spilled out of the front room, stumbling towards us in a very un-vampire like way.