Something audibly snaps in my mind, something I won’t come to terms with until later, and I dematerialize in their direction, my only thought one that’ll haunt me for eons to come.
No one touches what’s mine. No. One.
seven
N either female sees me approach.
How can they? I’ve got millennia on them, each moment spent honing my strength. My powers.
Blinded by this unholy feeling, I rip Calamity away from the other female and send us spiraling out of the room. We regain form in one of the hallways. Vision pounding red, I slam her into the wall in front of me, scarcely aware of the cooling blood against my palm as I squeeze down around her neck.
Stop. Think. I jerk my head.
The throat beneath my palm begins jumping. The sound of my heart is once again dominating my hearing, yet it only takes a few seconds for me to pick up on the other sound.
The one leaving the pinned, bloody, gorgeously-dressed female in my grasp.
She’s laughing, sharp teeth still pink from her lover’s blood.
“You’re the heir to the throne and this is how you fucking behave?” Baring my teeth, I growl at her, squeezing down hard enough to cut off her air supply. “What is wrong with you, little girl?”
She arches along the black wall, her crown clattering to the marble at our feet. The corset of her gown is as indecent as everything else she loves to wear, and those large breasts, also covered in her lover’s lifeforce, press into my chest. “What’s wrong with you, Uncle?”
The choked, forced question hits me like a mace to the face; my hand squeezes down around her throat harder. My dick, needy and desperate for her, somehow finds its way closer, pressing into the folds of her skirt. “You take female lovers as well as males?”
A second, strained laugh. Another shift, bringing those hips closer to my pulsing groin. “Should I ask the same of you? Or do you believe the rumors about you never leave the harems?”
My hand jerks her off the wall, but only long enough to slam her back into it; bits of black paint and stone rain down around us, yet she merely stares at me unfazed. Challenging me. “You’re the heir to this throne. A young, unmarried female. You shall start behaving as befitting your gods damned station—”
I’m cut off by her third laugh.
And the sensation of her leg wrapping around my hips, flexing . . . I’m jerked fully into her before I realize what’s happening, our bodies straining on a hungry glide. “Times are changing, Uncle Obsidian. Get with the pro—”
I cut her off with another squeeze. “Stop. Calling. Me. That.”
“Why?” she breathes, fighting my hold, leaning close enough to run those blood-stained lips along my beard. “Because you want to fu—”
Lifting my free hand, I press my thumb against her lips, stopping her before she finishes that sentence. Before she finishes condemning us both.
Undeterred, she parts those lips and sucks me into her, sending a streak of hellish need straight to the tip of my throbbing erection.
Awestruck, I can do nothing but feel her, the sinewy stokes of that sexy tongue I just saw pleasing another. The black tattoos on the back of my hand and fingers are even starker against her pale skin.
Those dark red lips.
She rips a moan out of me with her next suck, and those black eyes roll back in her head.
“Fuck. Come here.” I yank her away from the wall once more, bringing her mouth to mine.
Lips meet lips.
The stark bite of her lover’s blood enters my mouth.
All I register is the taste of her, the volcanic arousal that almost makes me come in my slacks.
Small, feminine claws sink into the back of my neck, securing me, and the last coherent thought in my head is that there’s cameras in this hallway, too.
Someone is going to see me mauling my brother’s adopted daughter.
Whimpering, she slides her tongue past my lips, making me jerk with another shock of pleasure.
Everything’s forgotten. Everything.
My hands shove layers of lace and silk out of the way, searching, searching . . .
Calamity laps at my tongue, teasing and licking, her lost little mewls a world’s away from the controlled lust she exhibited with that female.
A snarl’s ripped from me. My hands make contract with her taut, silky thighs, and I have her off the ground in an instant. She curls around me as if on instinct, her small body trying to trap me.
I’m going nowhere.
My hands slide up the sides of her thighs, around her hips. Her ass is larger than I can fit my hands around, two perfect globes of flesh, and I jerk into her at the feel of them.
Her hips move in sensuous circles, the heat of her pussy teasing my dick. I thrust into her, our fangs colliding on our next kiss. Without realizing it, I dematerialize us back to the wall, pressing her to it.
Destroying more of its surface.
We’re both oblivious to that new round of crumbling stone. Her claws dig into my skin and hot trails of blood leak down the back of my neck. She cries out at the scent of it, fangs beginning to sink into my lip.
Aiming to take me into her.
A nearly lost voice grabs hold in the back of my head. Last second, before she can pierce me, I rip my lips away from hers, struggling to catch my breath. “No . . . we can’t.”
“It’s too late.” Her warm, sinful body rocks into me, short breaths hitting the side of my face. “We already are.”
“Not like that.” I’m barely coherent, especially as she begins trailing those lips down my jaw, towards the pounding artery in my neck, but self-preservation demands I stop her. That I prevent us from becoming connected on such a level.
With everyone else, it’s just feeding.
With her, it would be my demise.
“So you’ll feed off others but you won’t feed off me?” Calamity growls into my ear, her tone growing huskier. More dangerous.
“We can’t—”
Fisting my hair, she yanks my head back hard enough to cause a sharp sting in my spine and runs her canines up the side of my neck.
My voice breaks on a groan.
“Understand me, Obsidian. For everyone else you feed on, I’m going to continue doing the same.”
Jealousy is a vicious, inconvenient thrum in me. Near mindless, I thread my thumbs into the thin string of her underwear—her fucking thong, I realize—and rock my hips into the heat between her thighs. “No feeding off each other,” I manage to grit out, although my balls are fucking tight with the need to feel her incisors in me.
She makes another sound, a cross between a growl and a whimper, and suddenly my arms are empty.
She’s flashed away from me again.
Shaking, disoriented, I lean my hands against the damaged wall before me, head hanging heavy.
Her crown remains inches from my leather dress shoe, reflecting the candlelight from the sconces along the walls.
The fucking cameras. Hurry before someone sees. If they haven’t already.
The taste of her continues to flood my senses, even in her absence, and it takes me another few moments to gain my bearings enough to move. Picking the crown off the floor, I head straight to my chambers, fighting this savage need to hunt her down the entire way.
Ecstatic shrieks ring in my ears. Slick skin slides along slick skin.
The vampiress beneath me has long given up on participating, her body malleable and conquered beneath mine.
I raise her leg over my shoulder, plowing deeper into her. Her large breasts, covered in my bite marks and blood, bounce with each thrust.
I barely see her. Barely feel her cunt wrapped around my cock.
Barely taste her in my mouth.
All I’ve tasted for over twelve hours now is Calamity.
Simply thinking her name makes me twitch, cock almost going off right there.
Gritting my teeth, I slam her back into the void of my mind . . .
“Unde
rstand me, Obsidian. For everyone else you feed on, I’m going to continue doing the same.”
My eyes fall on the female’s breasts, on her neck, bared by her thrown-back head. On the bite marks I left all over her that will be healed and gone tomorrow.
Is Calamity currently feeding off someone else?
Fucking them?
It’s clear that’s another norm she’s shattered—a female of the aristocracy, nonetheless the female heir to the throne, is expected to remain untouched until marriage.
Instead, Calamity is free with herself, taking whomever she sees fit.
I remember the sight of how she kissed that female, dominating her, and then how she did the same to me. Sweat slicking down my back, I thrust faster, the pleasure of that memory searing me.
The vampiress beneath me cries my name, yet another orgasm leaving her limp beneath me.
I squeeze my eyes shut, blocking the image of her out, and cover her mouth with my hand, trying to smother her cries . . . until my own orgasm breaks loose, nearly forcing Calamity’s name from my damned throat.
Damned is putting it lightly.
Fucked. So fucked.
I flash away from the female on the velvet platform, ignoring how she weakly tries to reach out for me, dread replacing whatever momentary euphoria that empty orgasm gave me.
I almost screamed Calamity’s name right now.
Almost screamed what this kingdom believes to be my niece’s name while fucking another female.
I managed to erase the video evidence of what happened between us last night before anyone else got to it, yet what good does it do?
If I don’t purge her out of my system somehow, I’m going to slip up soon.
I’m going to give myself away.
“Obsidian, come. I can handle more.”
Ignoring those still-needy, glassy-with-pleasure eyes, I grab my clothes off the floor where I dropped them in my hurry. “I’ve had enough for one night. Thank you.” The door closes behind me.
eight
“I
’m locked out of the princess’ medical files.”
Sandor, my third-in-command, falls into step next to me, his ebony skin almost blending with his dark, military uniform. His sharp brows twitch. Other than that, he evinces no other reaction—as I would expect him to. The hallway leading to the council chamber is mostly empty since we’re running behind schedule, but his discretion is appreciated regardless. “Do you think the attack our cyber team thwarted is the reason?”
No questioning why I’m attempting to access Calamity’s medical records.
This is why I appreciate him. Dregan is like family, but his curiosity is an inconvenient pain in the ass. “I’m looking into it.” The correct thing to do would be to let the cyber arm of our military handle it. They would probably ask the questions Sandor is withholding, however, and I’m not in the mood to make up lies.
Sandor doesn’t ask me why I’m handling it personally, simply continues ahead, baring straight, arms crossed behind his back. “It would make sense. Whoever is responsible for trying to infiltrate our systems tried hitting us with malware and MiTM attacks. Clearly they were seeking information from our databases.”
Cyber-attacks.
Systems.
Malware.
Man-in-the-middle attacks.
All terms I never had to worry about until the last thirty-years or so. I encouraged my brother to withhold from entering our civilization into the digital age for as long as I could. Yet it was inevitable. At the end of 1989, I had no choice but to oversee the first transfer of our systems to the digitized world.
I know enough to hold my own. Battling our rivals from within the human cities they infest isn’t always about face-to-face combat. Everything is digital nowadays. Everything. However, I left the defenses of this city to Commander Aurel, a male that rose in our ranks not because of his might in battle, but his might when it came to tactics.
He took to the inventions of the twentieth century with absolute zeal. Was one of the most brilliant minds among us.
Until a few months ago, when reports arrived at my base in Bercini, located in what the Romanians call Sector 4.
One morning, Aurel woke up and wandered out into the red forest at ten in the morning. Thanks to the mystical protection of the forest, he should’ve been fine in the blazing sunlight.
Except, he continued walking until he reached the invisible barrier where the red side of our land becomes the regular Băneasa and the trees return to their usual shades of green and brown.
In other words: the mortal side of the forest. Where there’s no longer any mystical protection against the UV rays.
All that was left of him was his military uniform and boots. He decided to wear both while meeting his end.
The most disturbing part is that there were no signs. A nearly two-thousand-year-old life extinguished, just like that, of his own volition, and none of us know why.
“Who’s head of our cyber unit now?”
Sandor blinks at me, dark brown eyes widening. “Wait. You do not know?”
“I haven’t had time to touch base with them.” Because of my search for Calamity, my combing through all reports from the council for the last five years, my avoiding her even as I make sure to always know where she is.
“Sir, the unit is being led by—”
Before he can finish, a female appears in front of the gilded doors to the council chambers, her back facing us.
Millions of our females have long black hair and lithe, curvy bodies, yet I almost trip over my own feet as that never-ending arousal ramps back up in my system.
Gorgeous lips, tasting of another’s blood, frantic over mine. Tongue lewd, possessive, battling my own for control. Round hips flexing, wet heat caressing my cock as we kissed like frantic animals . . .
She turns to stare over her black-clad shoulder—she’s wearing a short-sleeved, black BDU standard to the higher ups in our army—and that black eye fringed by her thick black lashes robs me of speech.
I don’t know what finally breaks her hold on me. Most likely the dark lines along her bared arms that register in my peripheral. My eyes drop to better take them in and I slam to a halt at what I’m seeing.
Tribal tattoos. The kind given to our warriors after each successful battle. One on each arm and the beginnings of small designs on the backs of her hands.
Her pale, flawless flesh . . . marked.
And not just marked, but with some of our most revered symbols, dwindled down to nothing but trivial decoration.
“Yet another tradition you must destroy?” I snap at her once I’m close enough, seething.
Calamity rolls her eyes at us. With a simple spin, she leaves me standing here, choking on my indignation. The doors open to the cavernous council chambers as she saunters inside, hips swaying in those form-fitting BDU pants.
I’m following right after her, forgetting that there’s a hundred council members, her parents, and at least twenty of our military leaders present. Slamming past the doors, I’m barely aware of Sandor rushing to catch up to me.
“Sir, you need to know,” he murmurs for my ears only. “That’s who’s been leading our cyber unit since Aurel’s death.”
I jerk to another stop in the middle of the chamber, feet from the dais set before the seats of the council.
One hundred of them, set in tiers, all leading up from the small platform where the king and queen sit, looking down at their daughter. The one in the military uniform, sporting battle triumph tattoos, and sliding a USB into the port on the dais.
The one Sandor just claimed is leading our cyber arm.
My third-in-command eases by me, arm brushing along mine, and it isn’t lost on me that it’s intentional.
His way of getting me moving.
Eyes on Calamity, on how her hair and skin almost sparkles beneath the beam of light aimed at the dais, I head over to my customary seat. The heads of the military always sit on ground level
, behind the dais, facing the five levels of council members on the other side of the chamber.
Dregan’s already there, eyeing me with curiosity and what seems like concern.
Most likely the latter. I’m ready to skin someone all over again.
How many more secrets? How much more missing information?
I know Calamity is a genius, even among our intellectually advanced species, but how the bloody hell has she amassed this kind of power?
No. Not amassed. My eyes cut up to my brother and his wife. They’re sitting in the replicas of their black thrones, in typical royal regalia for these times. The monarch’s chain around his neck glints with the lights as does his queen’s gold crown.
They’ve given her this power, and my brother has yet to tell me why.
“As you’ll see on the monitors,” Calamity begins, voice ringing out loud and clear. “We managed to stop five directed attacks on our databases. Most of them were aimed at stealing our information, but a few were also attempting to shut us down entirely.” On the projection screens on the right side of the room, breakdown after breakdown of information is displayed.
“Have you been able to pinpoint who sent it?”
“From what we’ve been able to trace so far, the hacks came from the Vlaqin.”
Excited murmurs ring out, filling the chamber.
My own frustration mounts, because although I was right to assume that they wouldn’t be able to regroup fast enough to send more troops into battle with us, it never occurred to me they’d settle for attacking us on the cyber front instead.
Another oversight. Another failure among many the last month.
I want to blame my sick obsession with the young vampiress at the dais before me, but a part of me can’t help but wonder: Have I really fallen this far behind in the times? Yes, I’ve lived in modern, human cities for years while battling other factions. Have had no choice but to immerse myself in parts of their rapidly-changing culture.
But not by choice. Something that might have been a grievous mistake, I realize.
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