“Shut up,” I croaked. “Stop this.”
“Don’t you want to know what really happened to him?” he crooned, soft and low. “We could discuss the piece of walking garbage who tried to rob you on the subway platform before falling onto the tracks.”
That surprised me enough to snap me out of the storm he’d flung me into. “What? He was going to rob me?”
“You remember?”
“That’s not the kind of thing you forget. Watching somebody being saved after they fell onto the train tracks.”
“He watched you for several minutes before reaching for the zipper on your backpack. You were unaware with music playing in your ears.”
“They barely got him out of there in time before the train rolled in.”
“Yes, unfortunately. At least you avoided being robbed. You’re welcome.”
I gulped. “You mean you killed that dealer? You threw that guy onto the tracks?”
“Guilty. For you.”
“I don’t know how to feel about that.”
The playful, sensuous expression he was wearing faded into something more serious. “I didn’t tell you that to upset you. I don’t want you to blame yourself or feel strangely about it. Those men got what they deserved, along with others. No, you don’t want me to tell you about it right now,” he added, like he sensed I was about to ask.
Oh, God. Had he killed more people because of me?
“S-so why did you tell me?” Who was I turning into? Some trembling, tears-on-demand weakling? I was tough. I had taken care of myself for years.
Had I, though? How many other close calls and scrapes and near-misses had he orchestrated?
“I wanted to prove myself, since I knew you would demand proof,” he explained in a soft voice. “I was there. Nobody but I would know about that pitiful waste of oxygen who tried to…” His jaw twitched, and for a second I was afraid he’d go full vamp on me.
“I don’t want to talk about that,” I whispered.
“Fair enough. I can’t imagine you would.”
“So you’ve been around all this time? Protecting me?”
“Protecting you.”
“And you told me now because you want me to…”
“Trust me. To come with me.” He touched my cheek again and oh, God, I wanted to lean into that touch. I felt so broken and scattered and confused. His touch was comfort. Sweetness. The promise of rest.
That didn’t keep his words from seeping into my brain, however. “Go with you where?”
“Someplace no one will hurt you. Oh, Sophie, if I could only make you understand all of it. How dangerous your life has always been and how much more dangerous it’s become. How even those who might present themselves as your salvation could harbor ill intent.”
“Like you?”
His face hardened, but only for a second.
Still. It was an important second.
I moved away from him, kicking books aside. “I think you should leave. I need to get changed and get the hell out of here before anybody comes after me.”
“I fully intended to get you out of here.”
“No. I mean, alone. I want to be alone. I want to go home.”
“They’re waiting for you there.”
I almost doubled over when the sensation of being punched in the gut hit me full force. “What? Who?”
“You noticed the smell in this cabin, I would imagine.” His nose wrinkled as his gaze moved around, landing on one thing, then another.
“Dominic asked me about that, too. How do you know?”
“How do you know?” he asked, arching an eyebrow.
“I just do. I smell it.”
“Because you’ve always carried just a bit of us inside you. Which is why you’ve taken so well to physical training. It’s been a pleasure, watching you grow stronger.”
“Enough about that.” I rubbed away the fresh goosebumps on my arms. “It’s creepy.”
“Fair enough. My point stands. You are stronger, quicker, sharper than most humans thanks to the very minuscule amount of vampire blood that’s flowed through your veins your entire life. You are good with your hands, mechanically inclined.”
He nodded toward the door. “Hence your skill at installing those locks, for instance.”
“A lot of good they did me.”
“Yes, well, you didn’t know at the time who you were dealing with.” His smile was sexy, flirtatious, enough to make my heart flutter.
But not for long.
“So you’re saying I’ve always been good at certain things because of my blood,” I shrugged. “What’s that got to do with smelling whatever it is?”
“You can scent a lycan. Humans are incapable of that.”
“Lycan? Wolf?”
He nodded. My stomach flipped. “You’re saying there have been lycans here? In the cabin.”
“Waiting for you. Watching the place. Hoping to catch you unawares once you arrived.” He went to one of the windows and looked out. His wide shoulders just about filled the frame. “You don’t want to be here when Justin and his pack arrive. It’s not only bloodsuckers you have to worry about, Sophie. There are members of every species who would rather not see you ascend to the throne.”
“There’s a throne? An actual throne?”
He glanced back at me with a smirk. “That’s what you’re taking from this? I told you there are werewolves looking to tear you to pieces and bathe in your blood, and you’re concerned with the existence of a throne?”
“I figured everybody was being hyperbolic.” Who didn’t like the idea of sitting on a throne?
“They were. I was. There hasn’t been an actual, true throne in centuries. Burned during one of many needless wars.” He sighed and oh, it was the saddest sound I’d ever heard. Lonely. Tired. “Regardless, they don’t want you to take your place.”
“What do you want?”
There wasn’t much of a question of what he wanted when he turned to me wearing the same look he’d worn the first time I set eyes on him in Miller’s, in front of the grocery store. The sort of look that could make a girl forget all her principles.
If she had any to begin with.
“I want what I’ve always wanted. Your safety. For you to have a choice, above all. And if you choose to take your rightful place, I want that to be your choice. Because you want to, because whatever is inside you that links you to us compelled you to. Not because I did, or because Dominic or Kristoff or Lucian did.”
“Why aren’t you with them anymore?”
His eyes widened a fraction, like he hadn’t expected that question. “It’s a long story, and I’m afraid we don’t have much time before we need to leave this place. Others are coming. I feel them.”
“Great. Once again, I have to get out of here, but you won’t tell me where I’m supposed to go.”
“I can take you to safety, Sophie. That was why I needed you to trust me, why I shared those terrible memories with you.” He crossed the room in a few long strides, then placed his hands on my shoulders.
Big hands. Powerful. They could’ve broken me.
Instead, his touch brought up all those dark, sensuous images that had run through my head when we set eyes on each other outside the grocery store.
Holding him between my thighs.
Tasting his sweat as I ran my tongue over his throat and shoulder while he worked over me. Inside me. Moving in and out, rocking us both. Scratching his back, the muscles moving under my hands.
Losing myself to abandon, to exquisite pleasure. His mouth on me, his hands, lighting me up. Making me scream.
The scruff on his cheeks chafing the insides of my thighs.
His arms holding me down, keeping me still. Forcing me to take as much as he could give, beyond the point of what I thought my body could stand. Because he knew I could take it. He knew how far I could go.
“Trust me.” His whisper cut through the haze of desire and brought me back to reality.
Which
was almost a shame, since damn. My pulse raced out of control. My lady bits were in absolute turmoil, throbbing and aching. My skin tingled, my head buzzed.
I shook his hands off. Here I was, in the presence of a vampire, and I was more afraid of how horny he made me than of him drinking my blood.
“It’s easy for you to tell me to trust you. You know who else wants me to trust them? Dominic. Kristoff. The family you left. According to them, you’re the bad guy. The black sheep.”
“They would see me that way.”
“Can you see why it’s hard for me to take you at your word?”
“After I’ve protected you? Saved your life?”
“They saved my life, too. Remember? Your car, supposedly driven by somebody who wasn’t you? They want me to survive just like you do.”
“So why were you planning on never going back?”
This dickhead. “Because I don’t want this.”
“Which is why you want to come with me, because they’ll force you into it. That’s always been their plan, ever since—”
He blinked hard. His face went slack for a split second.
Needless to say, I jumped on this. “What? Since what? What were you about to say?”
His head snapped around. His body went completely still. “They’re coming. We have little time.”
“Who?”
“Wolves.” He gripped my wrist hard enough to grind the bones together. “Come. We have to go now.”
“Not until you tell me what I want to know!”
His eyes were red and wild when he turned on me. “Sophie—”
I planted my feet. “Tell me. I’ll leave on my own if I have to.” When he snarled, I held my ground. “If you want me to come with you, I need to know. Ever since what? How long have Dominic and the others been planning to force me into being Blood Queen?”
His face worked. A growl rumbled in his chest.
His lips pulled back from shining fangs.
“Ever since they murdered your parents.”
***
Want more of Sophie’s story?
CLICK HERE for Book Two of the Blood Queen series,
BAD BLOOD.
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About the Author
Faith Everly is an author of reverse harem romance and has published the three-book Handymen Series. Her current series, Blood Queen, is her first foray into paranormal romance. She asks that you judge her kindly, since her husband and faithful Morkie think she’s the best writer in town and she wouldn’t want to disappoint them.
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