by C. D. Gorri
Stupid girl.
My patience snaps. Who does this wretched creature think she is? She knows the rules; no wolf shifters are allowed on vampire land. By breaking the rules, she put herself in danger, and now she’s ours… Or rather, mine. The damn shifters themselves agreed to it when we signed the peace treaties all those many years ago. They keep away from us and we let them be. It’s as simple as that. Hell, if a vampire were found on wolf land, they’d not auction us off; they’d rip us apart. We’re positively civilized compared to them.
Bored of the female’s theatrics, I grab her around the waist, haul her up, and throw her over my shoulder.
Her fists beat down uselessly on my back as she kicks her legs, but I hold her tight. Strolling out of the hall, I grin at my fellow vampire, playing up my part as they cheer me on.
Climbing the stairs rapidly to my rooms with a struggling wolf shifter in my arms, my mind is screaming at me, what have you done? I can’t take a deep breath in because her scent threatens to floor me.
When I reach my doors, I set her down for a moment, and she starts to run at a fast sprint down the hallway. I sigh, calmly open my door, and then in a flash, place myself in front of her.
She screams and backs up, falling on her ass on the stone floor.
“You didn’t know that about us, huh?” I cock my head to one side, observing her. “I can move faster than you can see, little one. In a flash, I can be on the other side of this castle.”
I don’t tell her that to do something like that would take great energy and drain me for hours afterwards. Why give away any weaknesses?
“Please, please, I beg you…let me go. I’m not what you think I am.”
“Oh, and what do I think you are?”
“A normal wolf shifter. Do you think I can change? That I can take the form of my wolf? You’re very wrong.”
I knew there was something off about her, but I still don’t know what it is. I look down at her and consider her words.
“Are you saying you can’t change into your wolf?” I ask.
“I’m saying that I’m not what you think I am, vampire.”
I smile and decide I quite enjoy her sassiness. It’s certainly preferable to her cowering and simpering and trying to get away from us when there is no escape available to her.
“Come. I bought you, and you belong to me now. You can tell me all about yourself once you are cleaned up.”
“You can’t simply buy a person with free will and rights.”
She’s incredulous, and I’m more than a little confused. Wasn’t she told of this? Most shifters are fair warned to stay far away from us. Some young males try to run onto our land at the edges as part of their stupid games of bravado, but we let that go. It’s only if shifters come right into the heart of our land that we take them. To not do so would show weakness.
“There’s been an agreement for the longest time between our peoples, stating if wolves venture onto our land, we can take you. Vice versa. Except you guys killed us when we returned the favor. Although that was many, many decades ago. For a long time, no vampire has set foot on wolf land.”
I laugh to myself. “Why the hell would we? There’s nothing there except for wolves and those stupid rundown houses that you build with mud, stone and straw. There is nothing on your land for us. What I don’t understand is why you ventured onto ours.”
“I didn’t know this rule,” she says. “No one told me that we weren’t allowed on your land. I mean, I know that you have land around here, and I know to avoid vampires all costs - you are dangerous - but I didn’t know about this agreement. I only know that you’re very dangerous to our kind. We are enemies. So, you see, I would never have ventured here on purpose. I was running away. I’m truly sorry, so please would you let me go?”
Running away from what? I wonder if she’s been shunned by her park. I could consider letting her go. As the head of the Legion, I can do almost whatever I want. If I so wished, I could click my fingers and transport her out of here and back onto those godforsaken, rain-soaked hills and let her fend for herself.
I won’t though because I frankly want her far too much to do such a selfless thing. I might seem calm on my surface, but inside there is a powerful need raging within me. I bend down and pick up my bounty once again, except this time I hold her in my arms, the way one might hoist a bride about to be carried over the threshold in those schmaltzy human films.
I walk down the hallway and into my rooms. Placing Lisbeth down on the floor, I hook her chin up with one finger.
“You need to understand only one thing. You’re mine now. Bought and paid for. Claimed and collected. This is your new world. You belong to me, and you will do whatever I say.”
She swallows and stares at me as her face pales.
Welcome to the fortress, baby.
Chapter Three
Lisbeth
I stare at the man in front of me in absolute horror. The things he is saying don’t make any sense. He claims that he owns me now because he paid money for me, but I was never for sale.
“I’m not sure how this works,” he says in his deep, rough voice.
He’s not the only one.
“Normally, when one buys a trespassing wolf shifter it is as a servant. Obviously, I don’t want you to clean for me.” He shrugs.
The thought of what he does want me from me is too terrifying to contemplate.
I always heard vampires could not drink shifter blood because it made them sick, and that’s one of the reasons they hate us. So, if he doesn’t want to drink my blood, and he doesn’t want me to clean for him, then why would he pay so much money for me?
It strikes me… this time I’ve leaped from the frying pan and most definitely into the fire.
This man wants from me exactly what those stupid males from back home wanted from me. I must be cursed. I’m not even beautiful. It’s damn ironic is what it is.
My cousin Rozzella is stunningly beautiful, and all the men look at her with covetous eyes. But me? I’m quite ordinary. I suppose my hair is nice. Everything else though is very much boring. I have medium height. My build is average. I’m not skinny, and I’m not fat, but I don’t have curves to die for either. My face is heart-shaped and pretty in a kind of bland way. So why, oh why, am I trapped with all this unwanted male attention.
I’m almost tempted to smell my armpit to see if I’m giving off some sort of strangely seductive pheromones. If I do that though, this vampire will think I’m crazy.
“Listen, Mister,” I try to sound firm. “You won’t be getting any of that from me. I will die before I let anyone touch me against my will.”
I expect anger, but instead he smiles. It’s a sexy smile, one-sided, and surrounded with a flash of dimple. My captor really is an astonishingly handsome man. He’s virile, tall, dark and handsome - a walking, talking cliche of male hotness. It doesn’t matter though; I still hate him.
I do hate him, don’t I? I mean, yeah, I want to go to him and let him hold me for some godsforsaken reason. I might want him to praise me and be pleased by me, but I’ll never let those strange emotional urges win out.
“Baby, when I take you, you’ll be begging me for it.”
Baby? I don’t know what to laugh at more, that he is using the term baby, which is entirely not in keeping with him being an ancient vampire of the Scottish Highlands, or his deluded belief I’ll beg him for it.
He steps close, into my space, and brushes my hair back from my face. I suck in air, about to yell at him to go fuck himself, when his scent hits me. My legs actually wobble. If I were in a Victorian novel, I’d be swooning about now and needing the smelling salts.
He smells incredible. There’s an almost oceanic surface, with a rich woodsy depth. It’s not the actual various chemicals that make up the smell of him though that has my heart beating so fast. No, it’s entirely the fact that his scent is like coming home. All I want to do is throw myself into his arms and bury my face in his chest where
his shirt is open. That’s a smattering of dark hair there, and I want to rest my cheek against it, feeling his warm skin.
And there my crazy fantasy thankfully comes to a screeching halt. He won’t have warm skin, stupid girl, I tell myself, because he is the undead. His skin will be as cold as marble. His heart will be even icier than the depths of the Antarctic winter. His soul is a non-existent entity. This creature in front of me is not a man, and he’s not a warm-blooded, preternatural being like myself. No, instead he is a walking, talking abomination.
The man is death animated.
He reaches out and trails a finger down my cheek. I should try to pull away. I don’t. Curious, I let his warmer-than-I’d-imagine fingers explore. Down my chin. Along my jaw. Onto my neck.
His hand grasps my throat, then slips around to the back, holding me at my nape as pulls me in close. Warm breath brushes over my ear.
“You’re scared, little one, but there’s no need to be. I can make you feel things you won’t believe. I can give you ecstasy of a kind you’ll never have experienced before and will never experience after. I can make you fly away until you drift high on a cloud of nothing more than exquisite, never-ending, feel-good hormones.”
Maybe he can do those things, but it would be nothing more than a lie, a mirage, like this castle.
I wonder then, which version is real.
I automatically assumed that the rundown, tattered stone building was the fake. What if all this opulence is the fakery. What if we are standing in a desolate windswept room, and only magic makes me believe it’s anything else. If that is so, this creature opposite me might not even look the way he does. In reality, he might be a horrific thing - parchment-thin skin stretched over bones, with no muscle, no virility - nothing but death and decay.
I’m going to be sick.
I need to find a bathroom because my stomach is about to lose every single last part of its contents.
“What’s wrong?” He asks.
I start to laugh, and once I start, I can’t stop. It’s bordering on hysterical when he shakes me roughly by the shoulders.
“What’s brought this on?” He demands.
“Oh, you mean other than being bought by a vampire as his… sex concubine?” I snarl sarcastically.
“Yes, other than that. Something happened. I saw it as it came over you… a real terror.”
I could lie, but I’m curious to find out the truth. Curious to see if he’ll answer me and if it seems like he’s being honest with me.
“I was just thinking that when I saw your fortress for the first time, it was nothing but a rundown pile of stones with the wind howling around it. Then it became this gloriously beautiful castle. I automatically assumed that the rubble was the mirage, but the castle could just as easily be the mirage. How do I know that you really look this way? How do I know this room is real? The Fae folk can make someone believe that the bottom of the lake is a grand and opulent palace. They can keep prisoners in their watery grave for centuries, thinking that they’re actually playing amongst the royalties of Europe in days gone by. You clearly possess magic, so how do I know that any of this is real?”
“Let me assure you that this is real. The image you saw of the rundown, empty castle is created by the Queen’s mage. It’s his magic that projects that image, not mine, and not the vampire peoples’. We do have certain abilities, but we can’t create magic like that. The mage does it for us to deter humans. In return, he expects blood and a long life.”
So, this is real? All this opulence and wonder and beautiful food that I saw in the feast hall, it’s all real. Wow, the vampires live a much better life than we wolves do. Maybe he thinks that will impress me and buy me?
“I won’t be your whore!” I tell him firmly.
“Whores gets paid, and I’m not paying you.” He stares at me, his dark eyes flashing.
I swear to myself there and then that if he tries to take me against my will, I’ll kill myself.
Why do I feel such a strong pull towards this man? I hate him, and yet all I want to do is step into his arms and let him wrap them around me, keeping me safe and warm. It’s a base, elemental longing, like a baby that needs milk, or when you’re so thirsty on a hot day and you see a glass of iced water. It’s beyond mere craving and is almost a biological need.
Yet, the tragedy of my situation is…the only person I can ask stands in front of me, the very last person I’d ever request explain this all to me.
As if he can read my mind, Dragan starts speaking. “You feel a pull towards me that you resent,” he says, scarily accurate. “It’s natural, and I don’t judge you for it. The thing is, little one, you aren’t fighting me; you’re fighting biology and destiny. When it comes to a battle between biology and our higher functions, biology always wins. You are meant to be mine. It makes no sense, and I’m not exactly happy about it either. It is what it is though. Soon, you will stop fighting it.”
Why is he unhappy about it too? I shouldn’t care, but I do. I thought he wanted me. Now, he’s hinting that perhaps he doesn’t desire this either.
“If you’re so unhappy about it, why did you buy me?”
“Because I’m not naive enough, or young enough, or stupid enough, to believe I can fight this. It makes no sense though. Vampires and wolf shifters are enemies. You and me, we shouldn’t be something. Yet we are very much a thing.”
“What are we?” I ask, finally giving in.
“If I told you, I’m afraid it would frighten you even more. And truth be told, I’m not one hundred percent sure myself. I need to speak to my Queen. In the meantime, you will be safe here.”
I bark a laugh at his words. Safe when he wants to strip me of my clothing and do all those things to me that I can see in his fiery gaze?
He steps towards me once more, and I take a step back automatically. I hit the wall behind me, and my heart rate kicks up. Nowhere else to go this time.
“Calm yourself. I’m going to make you a promise now. I won’t touch you, in that sense, until you ask me for it. I do need to feed though, just a taste, to ensure that I have all the information I need when I go to speak to my Queen. Will you let me?”
His words fill me with horror. How can he even ask such a thing? Of course I won’t let him. Won’t it kill me? It could kill him from what I’ve heard, which might be a good thing.
“A tiny taste is all I ask. A mere sip. It won’t harm you; I promise. It might give us some answers though, both of us.”
“I’d rather not have any answers, and I’d rather just leave, thank you very much.”
I hold my breath, and we stare at one another, a silent battle of wills taking place. To my surprise, he storms to the door and flings it open.
“Be my guest.” He grins at me, then sobers. “Of course, your pack will be looking for you and from what I can gather, they weren’t too friendly towards you. Now, bearing in mind that I believe you have run away, their attitude will probably have worsened.”
I see my opportunity and grab it.
“That’s just it. They do hate me because I’m not a full wolf shifter. I’m useless. Latent. Do you know what that means?”
His brows shoot up, and he cocks his head to one side in a gesture that is already becoming familiar as he watches me.
“I thought that latents were a myth. Not so, it seems. Interesting. Well, so far as I understand it, you cannot change, so I was correct in my earlier assumption. Do you even have a wolf inside you?”
His question is hurtful, and my inner wolf mourns at yet another blow against her identity and sense of self.
“Yes, I have an inner wolf, but I can’t change form. It means that my wolf senses are muted somewhat compared to my compatriots. It also means something else, something that makes me useless to you.” I send up a small prayer to the gods that what I’m about to tell this man will make him set me free. “I’m barren. I can’t produce young. I am worthless to you.”
“No, you are not, and vampires do
n’t have children, anyway.”
“What? How do you… I mean… How come more of you appear if you can’t create children?”
“We create new vampires by turning humans. There are some who are ancient, who can procreate in the way you mean, but they are… how do I explain? They are the true-bloods. Our Queen is one, but her fated mate passed from this world a long time ago, and so have her children. The king and queen of Estonia for example, however, have three living offspring. They grow until they reach the age of around twenty-one, and then they stay around that age, looks-wise and health-wise at least, until at some point they become so old the madness descends.”
Wow. So, vampires increase their numbers by turning humans into vampires, except for a very few who are their royalty. It’s not what I expected. It’s creepy as hell and cold just like they are.
“Anyway, enough of the chit-chat. What are you waiting for?” He gestures at the open door. “Feel free. Take your chance. Maybe you’ll avoid those of your pack looking for you. You might even avoid the Fae that are out on the hills at night. If you’re really lucky, you might discover a human settlement and find that you can fit in there, for the time being at least. You might not be long lived the way that we are, but you don’t age the same as humans. How long is it most shifters live? A few hundred years? They’re going to notice something strange about you after not too long. And what if you need a medical treatment? You can’t let them take your blood. So, let’s say you decide to live all alone out in the wilderness. You won’t last long. If you can’t change form, how will you hunt? Without human currency, how would you buy food or even seeds to plant to grow your own? I suppose you could try and steal some, but then what if you were caught? Yes, feel free, my little one, to take your chance out there if you so wish. I’m offering you safety, warmth, food, companionship and something I think you’ve never been given in your life.”