by K Loraine
I stared hard at Olivia, my hand still outstretched. “Come now, or I’ll carry you out and you won’t like what happens next.”
She slid her palm over mine and stepped out of the cage. I could feel her rapid pulse when my fingers brushed her wrist. She was terrified and there was nothing I could do to make her feel better. Not yet.
“Stand and face them, little bird. I’m going to taste you in front of them.” She flinched at my sharp command, limbs trembling with each brush of my fingers over her skin. “Show them how much you love it.”
I brushed aside a lock of hair that had escaped the intricate style piling it atop her head and bared her beautiful throat, complete with the fucking collar my father put on her. Her scent was driving me wild with need. Everything in me ached to prove she was mine to each vampire in the room. “Cashel,” my father warned. “Don’t take too much. She is, after all, one-of-a-kind.”
My fangs lengthened in my mouth, and I positioned myself directly behind my little bird. One hand on her stomach, the other in her hair, I pulled her head to the side and buried my nose in the soft skin above her collar. I licked a line up her throat until I reached her ear, and then I said, “No one else, Olivia.”
“Only you,” she murmured. I wished it were true.
My teeth sank into her vein, a shockwave of pleasure exploding through me at finally being inside her in some way. Her blood, rich and perfect, hit my tongue and sent stars to my vision, euphoria straight through me. I could have died happily then and there if it hadn’t meant leaving her alone with them.
She moaned, her hand finding mine where it had drifted up between her breasts. She threaded our fingers together and rolled her hips, her perfect ass rubbing across my aching erection. Her hand moved mine over one breast before sliding me down, over the silk of her dress, between the juncture of her thighs. Fuck, I wanted her. I would give anything if I could have her forever.
“Cashel, she’s not a never-ending supply,” my father said, his tone harsh.
I pulled my fangs from her throat and licked my lips as she slumped against me, feigning the effects of too much blood lost. “You wanted a show, Father. I’m not going to fuck her out here for everyone to see. Feeding is the only option.”
The crowd of vampires has changed from interested to frenzied. Those with human pets have taken to openly feeding, some even fucking against the wall. Those here alone were focused intently on Olivia, on the thin line of blood trailing down her neck, and the tight, hard nipples visible under her dress. This could turn into much more than a show. It could become a mutiny of sorts. Olivia slumped in my arms, her body lax and pliant. “I’ll take her to my rooms,” I said as I picked her up, cradling her against my chest.
“No. That won’t do, Cashel. You’ll take her to the King’s quarters, and you won’t leave until the deed is done.” My father’s words were direct and filled with authority. His guards would enforce every last order without question. “Escort the prince and his pet to my private quarters,” he said to the guards. “I’ll be along shortly to let you in.”
The guards flanked me, no words, no glances. They existed to serve the King, and I knew they were armed with deadly silver blades, ready to deliver punishment if any toe was stepped out of line. Olivia stirred in my arms, but I tightened my grip on her, letting her know she needed to continue her act. We stood outside the door waiting for the one person who held the key. My father took his sweet time, eventually sauntering down the hall with a maniacal grin on his usually stoic face. Something was wrong with him. Unease prickled at the back of my mind. “Father, perhaps this is not the time—”
“You won’t leave these rooms until she’s bred, Cashel. We’ll breed this bitch until she’s dead, and then, we’ll have more than her blood. We’ll have an army of vampires who can walk in the sun. An army who can kill every last hunter on the face of this earth. Every fucking vampire who refuses to bend their knee to me. The Blackthorne vampires will have control.”
“You can open your eyes now, pet. Your little charade is over. I know my son barely tasted you.” Elias trailed one long finger over her cheek, then locked gazes with me. “She is yours, Cashel. Yours to do with as you wish, as long as her blood remains pure. Just know, if you bond with her, I will take her head and place it on a pike until it rots to nothing.”
“I won’t fail you, Father,” I said through gritted teeth. “She fooled me once, but I understand exactly what she’s worth now. I only wish you’d decided she needed to be bred sooner.”
His lips turned up in a sick smile before he lifted his palm and pricked his forefinger, the drop of dark blood welling at the surface of his skin. He pressed it to the door, the drop spreading through the intricately carved tree. Then, when the door slid open, I carried Olivia as though she were my bride over the threshold. Except we weren’t walking into a future of happiness. Tonight we walked into the chamber which would eventually mean her death.
Olivia
“Cash, I—” I began, but he held up a hand and shook his head.
“Stop. You don’t have to say anything. I won’t take you by force, Olivia. I’m not that much of a monster.”
He strode to the window and placed his palms on either side of the frame. Those big shoulders moved with such fluid grace as he stared through the glass. Then he dropped his head and his fingers dug into the wood. “Was it all just a ploy to get me to bond with you?” The words were almost too quiet for me to hear.
“No,” I whispered.
“But you love him?”
I wanted to tell him the truth. I needed to. But the words wouldn’t come, instead they sat in my throat, thick and unmoving. If I told him, that would mean the end of his life. As soon as Elias found out, he’d rip out Cashel’s heart. “Does it matter?”
“Yes, it fucking matters!” His voice ricocheted off the gleaming wood-paneled walls and made me flinch. “I was a fool. I thought…you made me feel things I’ve never felt before. I thought it was real between us.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say.”
He turned to face me, eyes burning with anger and hurt. “Don’t say anything.”
I shut my mouth, not taking my gaze from his. My heart hammered against my ribcage, fast and hard, but not with fear. Anticipation burned through me. We hadn’t been alone together in weeks. Hadn’t spoken more than a few words to each other. Now we were locked together in the private rooms of the King, meant to spend as much time as we need together until Cashel finally fucks me. I stepped closer, breaths coming in shallow, tense drags. I couldn’t keep myself calm when he was so close.
“Olivia, stop.”
I reached for him and he didn’t move away. My fingers brushed his chest, the fabric of his finely tailored suit keeping me from my goal of touching his skin. I trailed my touch up his body until I’m cupping his jaw and my breath catches when he closes his eyes and leans into my palm before turning away.
“Dangerous beauty,” he murmured.
“We can’t love each other, but we can make each other feel good,” I said, hating that I want more than physical passion between us.
“No. I won’t take you and ruin your life. That’s not why I brought you to our estate in the first place. You were here to donate your blood, help us find a cure, give us what we need to save our people. Not as leverage to dominate every vampire in the world. Not to be a breeding bitch who’ll be used until you die.”
“If you don’t do it, he will.”
Cash’s eyes flick to mine. He knows exactly who I was talking about.
“No. My father won’t. He can’t.”
I frowned. “What?”
“He has sun sickness. He’s in the early stages, but he won’t be able to breed you. Thank fuck.”
“Then Lucas.”
He gritted his teeth and a low growl rumbled in his chest. “He’ll keep his hands off you if he knows what’s good for him. He’s not good enough for you.”
“Really?” I cock
my hip. “He is the reason I got out of that well. I would have starved to death if it weren’t for your brother. And where were you? Fucking other women. Feeding on them every night. How many bastard children have you already got out there?”
His eyes went wide. “The well? You were in the well?”
My heart leaped at the knowledge that he’d had no clue I was in the well. He hadn’t left me there on purpose. But he’d still made the choice to leave me with his father and seek comfort in other women. “Yes. I spent a week trapped at the bottom of the well courtesy of your father. Lucas pulled me out.”
“You spent all that time in there. Alone.”
“No thanks to you. Did you even look for me? Did you care?”
“I cared. I fucking cared that you lied to me. I cared that Brenna died, that you almost died. For God’s sake, I took a bullet to the chest for you. Then you shattered me with the truth.”
Tears burned my eyes, tightened my throat. I couldn’t continue this charade. He deserved the truth from me after risking himself for me. “Cash, I wish I could explain.”
“How long?”
“What?”
“How long were you going to lie to me?”
“I never wanted this.”
Some of the light left his eyes at my statement. “Right. You’re a captive, not a willing participant in any of this. I seem to have forgotten that detail.”
“That’s true. I don’t want to be here, constantly afraid I’ll be killed on purpose or by accident. Left to rot alone in either a dank cell or a beautiful estate, or a literal cage. I don’t want to have magic sunshine blood or be bred to make an army of hybrid vampires. I want to live my life without all of that, but I can’t. I can’t change what my blood can do any more than you can change being a vampire.”
“But I can.” My confusion must have been obvious, because he looked at me sadly and continued. “I can change your blood. If I really cared for you, I would have done it long ago. I would have given you the blood bond you were trying to trick me into. I would have made you mine and left the rest to deal with the fall out of the sun sickness.”
“But they’re your family. Your brother is sick. Your father too.”
“And he’s so twisted now, he likely wouldn’t accept a cure. He won’t acknowledge that he’s sick even though all of his children know.”
My heart flipped at the possibility of him giving me my freedom. “Do you have enough of my blood? For Callie to keep working with?”
“It doesn’t matter now. We need a hybrid, but I won’t be the monster you think I am. I won’t force you to have a child just to serve our purposes. What I will do is get you out of here and bond with you somewhere safe so you won’t be a target any longer. I owe you that much.”
If he gave me what I wanted, Elias would kill him. “No. I don’t want your bond. I don’t want your blood.”
The sharp inhalation of his breath sounds pained. He didn’t expect that from me. “If you stay, you’ll die. Don’t you understand that? He’ll throw you in the well just to fuck with you. He won’t stop until you’ve given us as many hybrids as we need.”
My brain lit up with unwanted arousal at the idea of Cashel being the one to help me achieve that goal. Damn, but I wanted to feel him touch me like he did in the library. “What if you turn me?”
20
Olivia
“First you say you don’t want my blood, but now you ask me to turn you?” Cash’s eyes narrowed as he stared at me. “I don’t understand you, little bird.”
“If you turned me, wouldn’t that make me a hybrid?”
“No. It would kill you.”
My stomach clenched at his statement. “What?”
“The moment you turned, my father would see you dead. Our blood doesn’t mix with human blood. It replaces it. You’d become a made vampire, with no remaining trace of what makes you special to them.”
To them. Not to him. I paced the floor, disappointment curling in my chest. “God, you’re so frustrating.”
“Why do you say that?”
“First you want me, then you hate me, then you want me again. I can’t keep up.”
“I want you. Fucking hell, I want you more than anything, little bird.”
“You’ve literally just been given me. Your father locked us in here with the order for you to fuck me.”
His eyes widened and darkened with carnal need. “Don’t remind me. It’s the worst punishment he could’ve doled out. Give me what I crave the most after she’s stopped craving me.”
“I haven’t stopped,” I said, crossing the floor and placing myself directly in front of him.
“Olivia.” A low growl rumbled in his chest as I rested my palm on his shoulder.
“Cashel.” I grabbed the nape of his neck before leaning in and brushing my lips to his.
“I won’t be able to stop once you let me inside you.”
“I don’t want you to stop.”
His cool breath ghosted over my ear as he dipped his head down toward the very place he’d fed from me. “But I want you to want me for more than my cock, little bird. If I am with you, I want to be with you forever.”
“Forever doesn’t exist.”
Those eyes I’ve tried to forget, tried to stop dreaming about, stared deep into mine. The truth of my words hit him with so much longing, I could see it in his dark irises. He knew it was as hopeless as I said.
I flicked my gaze away from him, not willing to let myself fall under his spell again. “Let’s just get this over with. Do what you have to do and get us out of here. We’ll deal with whatever happens.”
I slid the straps of my dress off my shoulders. The fabric pooled at my feet, leaving me clad in nothing but the air around us, my nipples pebbling under the weight of his attention. I could feel him even though he wasn’t touching me. “What are you doing?” he asked, his voice so rough it was more of a rasp.
“I’m giving myself to you. I’m giving in to what’s going to be the eventual end of this.”
The back of his fingers brushed my arm, gently, slowly, trailing down my pebbled skin. “I’m not going to breed you tonight, little bird. I won’t give him what he wants. When we join, it will be under no pressure from anyone else. You’ll welcome me into your body because you want me, nothing else. Do you understand?”
“If we don’t…how will we get out of here?”
He stepped closer to me, his fingers trailing up my arm and over my collarbone. Then after his fingertips danced over my throat, he tenderly tipped my chin up so I had to face him. “Trust me.”
I nodded, breath caught in my chest. The feel of him so close, but barely touching me was excruciating. He leaned in and gathered my hair in one hand, his large palm cupping the back of my head. “I trust you,” I whispered, even though I didn’t need to.
His lips collided with mine, what started as a tender brush of lips turning rapidly into a burning and passionate kiss. My heart stuttered and began racing as arousal coursed through me. Without thinking, I grabbed his jacket and shoved it off him, letting the fine fabric fall to the floor in a crumpled heap. He groaned and released me, backing away. Disappointment curled in my chest, but he smirked. “Trust, remember?” Then he unbuttoned his shirt and slipped it free of his torso.
The man reminded me of a picture I once saw of a statue carved of marble depicting Lucifer. Perfection, beauty, danger, and temptation all rolled into one creature. He unfastened his black trousers but didn’t remove them, instead, he walked across the room and slowly lit every candle in each of the candelabras placed about the room. Then he turned off the lights, leaving the two of us bathed in the glow from the multitude of candles. The heating beeswax filled the room with a warm, earthy scent that soothed me even as it added to the tension in the room.
Shadows danced over Cashel’s toned torso as he moved toward me. “Let me touch you,” I said, reaching for him.
“Yes.” Each step brought him closer, until I finally was able
to rest my palm on his chest. He was tense, every muscle pulled taut with restraint, and when my nails gently scraped down his toned abdomen, he shivered. “Keep doing that,” he murmured.
I did. I worked my way down past his navel and to the open top of his pants. I wanted to touch all of him, to take his length into my hand and stroke until he came apart. I wanted to bring this vampire to his knees for me.
“Close your eyes,” I whispered.
“Olivia.” My name was just a breath on his lips, but he did what I asked.
Leaning in, I pressed a kiss to his right shoulder, then his throat, then down his body until I was on my knees before him. Still he kept his eyes shut. His hands were balled into tight fists, and I wanted so badly to make him lose control. If I was going to be a breeder for him, I’d make sure I enjoyed the process.
My hands shook as I worked open the fly of his pants. Lips pressed to the line of muscle at his hip, I grazed my teeth over his skin and a thrill ran through me at the groan that fell from him. Then I shoved his pants down, my palm running up his thigh as soon as it was bared, only stopping when I cupped him over his boxer briefs. He was heavy, thick, and long even hidden by his boxers.
When I looked up his body, I was met with a gaze filled with burning lust. His eyes found mine with nothing but desire. Right now, we weren’t two people being forced into an impossible situation. We were a pair of beings who wanted each other, who needed a connection to make everything else disappear.
I freed him from his boxers and dragged my hand over the smooth length of him. He sucked in a sharp breath and his hips bucked forward just enough to be begging me for more. So I gave it to him. I remembered in the library when he teased and tasted me, when he made me cry out with pleasure while taking none for himself.
My hand worked over him, and when a bead of clear liquid appeared at the crown of his cock, I licked it off. He shuddered and threaded his fingers in my hair. “Olivia, don’t tease me.”