Blood Vow

by J. R. Ward

  "I like to watch you with him."

  "Why?"

  "Because it hurts. Now, give me what I want," he growled as he closed the distance between their mouths and kissed her hard.

  --

  The bar counter in the club was long, crowded and noisy, and a total waste of time--except for the alcohol. And as Novo motioned for the bartender to bring her another Scotch, she looked down the stretch of men and women, the lot of them crowding in like they were cows at a trough.

  She would have been seriously disdainful of them.

  But for the fact that she was one of the herd.

  "Here," the server said. "On the house."

  The guy was tall, on the thin side for what she liked in males, but the shaved head, tattoos across his chest, and gauges in his ears were right up her alley.

  "Thanks." She saluted him with the squat glass. "What time do you get off?"

  "Four."

  "Good to know."

  She walked off, heading back for a place she didn't want to be and couldn't get away from.

  As usual, Peyton had engineered the meet-up at Ice Blue, a techno club he couldn't seem to live without. And also as usual, he'd gotten them a seating pit in the VIP section, behind a velvet rope that kept out the riffraff.

  As she came up to the bouncer, he let her in. "Back so soon?"

  "Got my drink. I'm good."

  He gave her a confused look, but she left him to chew on the reasons why she might have gone independent, when there was top-shelf bottle service in Peyton's velvet-seated sunken sex pit.

  Not that there was any sex going on.

  Boone was nursing the same Grey Goose and cranberry he'd started the night off with, his eyes scanning the human crowd with a detachment akin to an entomologist in his lab. Paradise and Craeg were relaxed and not in big hurry to come or go--which was what happened when two people were free to bang anytime they wanted. And Peyton? He was hanging with a couple versions of himself, the defensively heterosexual males dressed in expensive, tight-legged suits.

  That collection of arched brows, laconic hand motions, and airs of entitlement were denser than their saturated colognes.

  Definitely not her kind.

  Resettling next to Boone, she crossed her legs and leaned back in the slick, padded wraparound. Why in the hell anyone would put greased-pig fabric on something drunk people were supposed to sit on was a mystery. Then again, like Peyton, this particular club was more about appearances than anything else. The wait line had been like tryouts for The Bachelor--not that they'd had to bother with it thanks to Peyton--and there had been a Manhattan dealership's worth of Mercedes in the lot out back, and if she saw one more Scott Disick wannabe hitting on a fake tan with DDs, she was going to--

  Holy shit.

  She was boring herself with her own internal conversation. So why didn't she leave?

  The answer to that was just across the shallow, carpeted pit. And of course, Peyton wasn't looking at her.

  No, Peyton was leaning forward, and looking around one of his silk-suited buddies--and in spite of the fact that he was wearing his blue-tinted glasses, and even with the laser beams spearing through the fogged-out air, it was obvious who he was staring at.

  Obvious what he wanted.

  Paradise.

  And the longer Novo watched the male look at their fellow trainee, the more Novo had to own up to the fact that that obsession was part of the fucker's appeal. After all, he was everything she didn't find attractive, and yet she always ended up knowing when he came into a room and when he left it. Knew what clothes he was wearing. How he was fighting. What mood he was in, and whether he was eating or drinking, and anytime he was on his phone. She noticed when he'd had his hair cut and when it was getting shaggy. When he was injured, tired, or hadn't slept.

  Knew when he banged human women in the bathroom at the end of a club night.

  It was like he was some kind of homing beacon--except the damn thing kept calling her to a house she didn't want to even enter, much less move in to.

  So, yeah, with him rocking his full-scale addiction to Paradise, his elusiveness had to be the explanation for the attraction.

  Had to be--

  Paradise sat forward and said something to Peyton...and he fucking loved whatever it was, throwing his head back, laughing like the female was a cross between Louis C.K. and a resurrected George Carlin.

  Novo drank half of her Scotch.

  When she brought her head back to level, Peyton was standing in front of her. "Hey, we're gonna go. See you in class tomorrow night."

  He clapped her on the shoulder and walked right by, the three look-alike friends in his wake like water-skiers behind a flashy boat.

  Boone got up and stretched. "I better head, too. Have a good night."

  "We're going as well." Paradise smiled as she took Craeg's hand. "Enjoy yourself."

  Annnnnd then there was one.

  One advantage to being totally self-sufficient and independent was you didn't care if you were left alone. But for some reason, tonight, it dawned on her that none of them would have done a toilet flush like that to Paradise.

  Not that Novo resented the female or thought the object of Peyton's affection was weak. It just seemed...weird. Or something.

  Whatever.

  Novo stared past all the empty seats to the humans that mingled on the far side of the sunken area. There were probably three hundred guys she could fuck if she wanted, including Mr. Four A.M., the bartender. Just as many women if she were in that kind of mood, too.

  Too bad not one of them seemed appealing--

  Peyton popped into her line of sight from out of nowhere--to the point where she wondered if he wasn't a hologram created by her brain.

  "Forgot my phone."

  Oh, so this was real--because a hologram wouldn't have to justify its existence.

  But instead of going over to the sofa where he'd been, he stayed where he was.

  "Yes?" Novo drawled.

  "What are you doing?"

  "Taking a load off." She indicated the seating area. "I would think that's self-evident."

  When his stare drifted down her body, she narrowed her eyes. "The question more is...what are you doing here, Peyton?"

  lise had the hard building at her back and Axwelle's even harder body at her front, and there was no place she'd rather be.

  Especially as he started to kiss her.

  He was just as hungry and demanding as she'd fantasized, his mouth crushing hers, his hands rough, his erotic greed the kind of thing she knew would make a meal out of her--and oh, God, she went with it, arching her breasts into his chest, holding on to his shoulders, giving herself up to him.

  The kiss was everything that she'd thought it would be and more, the cold December night disappearing, consumed by the heat between them.

  But what the hell had he said to her? About wanting her to see Troy again?

  She pushed at him until the contact was broken. "I don't understand...."

  Axe cupped her face in his big palms and rolled his hips against her, his massive erection stroking at her belly because he was so much taller than she was. "Why are we stopping to talk here?"

  Good question. If slightly offensive.

  "Why would you want me to go out with Troy again?"

  She had spent the meal forcing herself to focus on the human, follow his conversation, ask the right questions at appropriate moments, laugh when she was supposed to. But the entire time, she had been completely distracted by Axe sitting down in the far corner of the mostly empty steakhouse, his looming presence like the most beautiful thundercloud she'd ever seen off in the distance.

  Heading for her.

  "Why?" she prompted him. "If it pains you so much--"

  "Because it turns me on."

  Axe dropped his head and kissed her again, his lips soft as velvet, his tongue bold and demanding. And holy crap did she want him, her breasts aching for his hands, that mouth of his, her sex lightin
g up between her legs, her--

  Elise forced herself out of his hold. And walked around a little to clear her head. "No. I'm not going to see him again, I'm not going to use him. I want you to want me for myself. If I'm not enough without some kinky, subversive game involved, that's fine--I'm certainly not going to try to entice you by playing hard to get right under your nose."

  As Axe smiled, his fangs were fully descended. "Okay. I'll take you any way you come."

  Well. If that wasn't a double entendre. And dearest Virgin Scribe, the way he was staring at her with those yellow eyes of his.

  She might as well be naked already.

  So how 'bout finishing the job, she decided.

  "Where can we go," she said hoarsely.

  "I have a house not far from here. It's safe and very private."

  As a cell phone started to ring somewhere on him, she cursed at the interruption. Yet when he made no move to do anything, she nodded to his body. "Don't you want to answer that?"

  "No."

  "What if it's an emergency?"

  "I have no one who would call me for one." His eyes locked on her mouth. "So are you coming to my house?"

  "Yes," she whispered. "Except how will I know where it is?"

  "I can take care of that."

  She went for her purse. "I know this sounds weird, but I have a little laminated map of Caldwell in here and I--"

  "Elise." When she looked up, he smiled again with those huge fangs of his. "Watch me."

  With that, he pulled up the sleeve of his black leather jacket, exposing the inside of his wrist. And then he lifted his forearm to his mouth...with a hiss, he bit himself, driving his sharp canines deep into his flesh.

  Elise parted her lips on a shocked gasp...and then licked at them as the heady, wine-like scent of his blood rose between them.

  When he extended his arm toward her, he said in a low voice, "This should help you find me--wherever I am. Take from me, Elise. Let me watch you drink. Now."

  Her own fangs tingled as they dropped down, and she didn't even think for a second about the twelve different protocols she was breaking if she did this: commoner!, out in public!, unwitnessed!, arousal on both sides!

  Fuck it. She refused to be derailed as she grabbed his muscled forearm and dragged his wrist right to her mouth. Forming a seal with her lips, she sucked on him, his taste the strongest intoxicant she'd ever known, the rush going through her making her dizzy.

  "Oh...yeah," he groaned. "Shit...yeah."

  Abruptly, there was an unexpected shift in the power dynamic--him collapsing against the building, his knees seeming to buckle, as she became the aggressor and he her prey.

  And the entire time she took from him, she stared at the straining length behind his fly.

  That was what she wanted, she decided as she looked at his erection.

  And he was not going to deny her.

  --

  "I came back for my phone."

  As Peyton repeated the very words he'd spoken to her, Novo smiled a little. "You said that already. So why aren't you looking for it."

  He made a show of patting his suit jacket. "Oh. It's here after all. Go figure."

  "Yeah." She nursed what was left of her Scotch. "Where are your three friends?"

  "I don't know. I don't care."

  "Selfish." She deliberately recrossed her leather-clad legs and rubbed her thighs, one atop the other. She hated the way her core warmed for him. "You're a real shit, Peyton, you know that."

  "Yes, I do."

  "So?" she prompted.

  "You want to get a drink?"

  "I have one."

  "How about going to my place."

  Novo cocked a brow. "Your father's mansion, you mean."

  "No, I gotta place. It's a suite at the Sterling. I crash there sometimes."

  "I should have known," she said dryly. "No Super Eight for the likes of you. And tell me, if I go back to this suite with you, what are we going to do there?"

  His eyes went from her mouth to her breasts to her thighs...and then took their sweet time returning to her face. "Whatever we want."

  "Are you fucking me right now in your mind, Peyton?"

  "Yes," he growled.

  "Back in that fancy hotel room of yours?"

  "It's a suite, not a room. And no. I'm picturing you bent over that sofa right now, your leathers off, my tongue in your sex as you come against my face. Then I fuck you with my cock."

  The bolt of electricity that went through her was the good news and the bad news: The last thing she wanted was to feel that way anywhere around someone like him.

  Nature didn't care about that shit, though, did it.

  "Does that turn you on," he drawled.

  "Maybe." She finished her Scotch, put it aside, and slowly got to her feet. Meeting him right in the eye, because she was as tall as he was, she said, "But I have an even better idea."

  "What's that."

  Tilting toward him, she put her hand between his legs and relished the way he sucked in a hard breath as if she'd surprised the fuck out of him. Stroking him through his fine, perfectly tailored slacks, she was of half a mind to make him come for her in the midst of the crowd.

  But no, he didn't deserve the release. Not after he'd spent all night staring at someone else. Wanting someone else. Wishing he were with...somebody else.

  Running a fang up the side of his neck, she whispered in his ear, "I think you should go to that suite of yours, take off all your clothes...and imagine Paradise like that as you squeeze a couple off." She dropped her hold on him and stepped back, narrowing her eyes. "I'll be damned if I ever play substitute for another female. You want that, there's two hundred human women in here who'll take your sperm donation."

  With that, she walked away. And didn't look back.

  Part of that was because she didn't want to give him the satisfaction. But mostly it was because she would die before she let him know how much he'd hurt her just now.

  No one, male or female, was going to see that.

  Ever.

  h...my God...how exquisite is this?"

  As Axe shut the back door of the cottage, he gritted his teeth. He should have brought Elise in through the front door so she didn't see the kitchen in the moonlight.

  Too late. And clearly she wasn't going to be satisfied with a quick walk-through.

  Nope. Instead of following his lead directly to the archway, she went across to the carved patterns of leaves around the windows and trailed her fingertips over the wood that his father had spent hours and hours whittling and smoothing and finishing.

  "Who did this?" she breathed. "This is incredible....I've never seen anything like it."

  In the silvery blue illumination, her hair shimmered like an aura as if she were an angel fallen to earth.

  Too bad all the things he wanted to do to her body were right out of a demon's playbook.

  And shit, he could sense his blood in her--and he fucking loved it.

  As she linked her arms and shivered, he said gruffly, "The furnace is broken. I'm getting it fixed next week. Come this way to the fireplace."

  She still didn't follow him. "Seriously, who did all this woodworking?"

  She went over to the wooden table with its pine-backed chairs that had ivy leaves for slats.

  "My father."

  "Really? Your sire did this? Oh, my God, he was an artist."

  "Come this way."

  She pivoted and went to the cabinetry. "How long did it take him?"

  "You're cold. I'm going to go build a fire for us."

  Walking out of the kitchen, he yanked his leather jacket off and tossed it on a random chair. And yeah, the dilapidated state of everything weighed on him--that and the fact that there was no heat, no lighting, no food in the place. Where he lived wasn't just a far cry from the palace she crashed in--this hovel wasn't even on the level of an ordinary house for your average commoner.

  Crouching down by the fireplace, he grabbed the poker th
at he'd propped up on the brick and shoved the ashes out of the way. Then he crushed up some newspaper, put some sticks that he'd collected from the yard the night before over it, and laid a single hardwood log on top.

  He'd sold one of his father's carved figurines on eBay for four hundred bucks back in the fall, and he'd used the money to buy a cord of mixed hardwood that was enough to get him well into the winter. And yeah, maybe he could have pawned a couple more of the woodland animals and birds in the cellar to get the lights on, but he couldn't bring himself to part with any of them.

  Even though he despised each and every one.

  The box of matches was kept in a metal container, and he popped the lid, snagged a stick, and flicked the head into flame with his thumbnail.

  The newspaper curled away from the heat before allowing itself to be consumed, and then snapping and cracking escorted waves of chalky smoke up the flue.

  He knew the instant she appeared in the room.

  "This is--"

  "A dump. I know."

  "No, I was going to say it's homey." As he barked out a laugh, she walked around, touching the stuffed chair and the padded sofa, the faded material on both making him cringe. "Maybe it could use a brooming, but this is a perfect little nest of a house. It's kind of a surprise."

  He turned back to the fire, nursing it, encouraging it.

  Just like he was going to do to her sex in a matter of minutes.

  "I hate the place."

  Axe got to his feet, his knees cracking, the erection raging in his pants getting squeezed. He didn't rearrange the thing. He wanted her to be the one to do that.

  Oh, yeah...the firelight on her was even better than the moonlight had been.

  She frowned as she looked at the pallet in front of the flames.

  "No," he said. "I didn't think you were coming here. This is where I have to sleep to keep warm."

  Her face relaxed. "You better get that furnace fixed so you can go back to your bed."

  "Yeah." Axe pointed to the floor right at his feet. "Come here."

  She moved across the shallow, glowing space like a dream, the flickering orange light making her beauty mysterious and inaccessible even as she got so close he could count her eyelashes.

  Reaching out, he brushed her hair back, tilted her head...and covered her mouth with his. Licking into her, he swept a palm down her shoulder and onto the small of her back--before bringing her into him with a hard jerk.

  Greedy, he was so goddamn greedy...and he'd intended to start slow.

  But that went out the fucking window quick.