Crimson Covenant Read online

  “Well, since you haven’t slept in your own bedroom for the last two nights, no, I don’t think it can!” She marched over and waved the crumpled paper in my face.

  Ransom whistled low and headed for the door.

  The rest of the guys cleared the room a breath later.

  “You should go,” I said, managing through the raging inferno of my throat. She was so close, so touchable.

  “My point exactly! I’ve missed three meetings with my thesis advisor!”

  Her pulse hammered. I could fucking hear it. Taste her. “Ransom printed out your emails,” I answered her with a shrug. If the woman knew how close she was to being fucked on the onyx table, she would have run screaming from the room. Instead, she looked at me with fire in her eyes.

  “Printing them out is not the same as having access! I can’t even email her back to let her know I can’t make the meetings! You have to let me go, Alek!” She threw the papers onto the table.

  “I can’t!” The throbbing in my fangs escalated to torture, and I took a step backward for her own safety. “Not only can you trace me, but by our laws, the humans who know about the ancients forfeit their lives, either in blood or servitude. Is that what you want?” I didn’t remind her about Xavier demanding her head. There was no point bringing it up again when Julian was still searching for bloodlines that would determine if she could possibly be a Seer or not.

  “Why would you even care? It’s not like you can even stand to be in the same room as me!”

  “So you’d like to join the Butcher’s Block? Is that what you’re saying?” My vision flickered to thermal and back.

  “Avi told me you haven’t fed. Is that where you’ve spent the last two nights? Feeding on…other women?” She folded her arms across her chest.

  “You sound jealous.” Not going to lie, the thought escalated a different hunger until they blended into one. I wanted her blood, her body. Everything.

  She flushed, her scent changing to...arousal?

  “You know what? You can just go suck on someone else for all I care!” She spun on her little heels, preparing to march away, but I caught her elbow.

  “You don’t mean that.” I pulled her toward me until her back rested against my chest. The contact was electric, jolting through me like lightning. “You care.” My hand slid up the silky skin of her arm, and I took her chin between my thumb and forefinger, turning her face so I could look in her eyes.

  “I shouldn’t,” she snapped, her lips parting as she lowered her gaze to my mouth. Her breasts rose faster as her breaths accelerated. “You feed from people. That’s what you do. I shouldn’t care that you put your…your mouth on someone else. That I’m not good enough—”

  “Good enough?” I gripped her hips and turned her in my arms. “You don’t think I’d kill to get my mouth on you? That I don’t lie awake during the day and stare at you sleeping, wondering if your mouth is just as soft as it looks? Wondering what it would be like to get you under me, crying out for me?” My cock swelled between us, and the way her eyes widened told me she’d felt it.

  “So you go to someone else and move me out of your bed?” she snapped, gripping handfuls of my shirt and tugging.

  “Because I can’t risk anything happening to you!” I lowered my face toward hers. “I’m at the edge, Lyric, and I could kill you! I don’t want anyone else! It’s your scent driving me mad!”

  She lifted her face to mine and kissed me.

  What little was left of my self-control snapped with the simple caress of her mouth.

  A growl ripped free from my throat, and I parted her lips with my tongue, licking into the sweet recess. She tasted like tea and honey, and fuck me, the scent of vanilla and cinnamon wrapped around me, infused my lungs with a kiss of fire and need.

  She moaned softly, melting against me, her hands stroking up my chest and over the straps of my shoulder holster to wrap around my neck.

  My heart slammed, stuttering at the feel of her as I took her ass in my hands and lifted her so I could kiss her deeper, slanting my mouth over hers again and again as I carried her the few steps to the onyx table and perched her on the edge.

  Her legs wrapped around my waist, heat searing me through the fabric of my leathers. They usually gave me added protection and flexibility for fighting, but my cock screamed otherwise.

  “Alek,” she groaned against my lips.

  I tangled a hand into her hair and kissed her harder, longer, channeling my thirst for her into the safer of my hungers—lust. But kissing her felt just as dangerous as putting my mouth to her wrist, her throat. Whatever this pull was, it had the power to incinerate us.

  She speared her hands into my hair, holding me to her as I kissed her over and over, driving every breathless sigh I could from her lungs with swirls and slides of my tongue.

  Don’t go any lower. Stay away from her throat. I repeated the mantra, keeping my mouth on hers, but it didn’t stop my fangs from lengthening.

  When her hips rocked into mine, I slid my hand under her dress and up her thigh. No stockings. Just warm, soft, fragrant skin greeted my fingers.

  “Lyric,” I groaned, tugging her closer, grinding my cock against the soft heat between her thighs. She’s a virgin. The thought should have given me pause, held me back, but instead it triggered some undeniable, primal possessiveness. No one had ever been inside her. I would be the first—and the last.

  “We have to stop.” My vision flickered into thermals again, and I pulled back from the kiss so I wouldn’t slice open her delicate lips with my teeth.

  “I can feel how hungry you are,” she whispered, chasing my lips with her own.

  “I can’t exactly hide it.” I rolled my hips against hers again, wishing the layers of fabric between us would simply disappear.

  “Not that hunger.” She pulled back slightly, her jewel-toned eyes locked with mine, her lips parted and swollen from my kisses. She tilted her head to the side, exposing the long line of her throat.

  “Fuck.” My grip tightened on her thigh, my thumb traveling to graze the edge of what felt like lace. “You can’t…I can’t.” She smelled so fucking good, and I was starving.

  “I can feel it, Alek. I don’t know how, but I can. It’s this throbbing need that keeps me from sleeping because I know you hurt. I can’t explain it, but I can feel it, just like I feel you.” She reached behind her neck and dragged her hair to one side.

  “God. Lyric.” Her pulse called to me like no other. You’ll kill her. Avi’s words came back to me. I was too far past the edge to guarantee her safety, and the fact that she was offering nearly took me out at the fucking knees. “It’s too dangerous.”

  “I trust you.” She palmed the back of my head and drew me down, but we both knew I wouldn’t have gone with her if I hadn’t wanted to.

  My mouth watered.

  “I can’t glamour you. You’ll remember every second.” My lips brushed her skin, and I kissed her gently as the need roared within me.

  “Good. Now feed.” Her heartbeat quickened, but her grip only tightened. Still, I held back, knowing that the first drop that hit my tongue, I’d be lost. “Please, Alek, let me take care of you. Please.”

  I struck, clean and hard, my fangs sinking into her neck and piercing her vein. Holy fucking perfect. Honey and almonds, spiced with cinnamon and that warm, sugared vanilla. Her blood filled my mouth and slid down my throat easier than wine. I’d never tasted anything like her.

  “Alek,” she moaned, and her hips undulated against mine. My cock strained against the leather of my pants. I wanted to consume her in every way, to bury myself deep inside her as I fed. But somehow, she’d made it to the age of twenty-four without sharing her body, and I wasn’t going to fuck her on a table for her first time.

  I couldn’t glamour her—couldn’t make her forget, but I could make it just as good for her. I drank deep, feeling the strength rush back into me with every pull at her throat, and my hand slid between her thighs, and she parted them
wider, urging me closer.

  My thumb pressed into her cleft, and I growled without breaking my bite, the sound low and deep in my chest. She wasn’t just wet, she was soaked through the fabric of her panties. I pushed the lace against her clit, and she gasped.

  Her flavor changed, turning even sweeter and more addictive—she wanted me. I moved my thumb in the same rhythm as the pulls at her throat, using the lace for delicate friction. The feeding had her almost there, her thighs tightening around my hips.

  “Alek…oh my God.” She ran her hand under my shirt, her fingers stroking up over my abs to my chest and the inked skin that bore my family’s crest right above my heart. “Alek, Alek, Alek.” She chanted my name, but I couldn’t reply. Couldn’t lift my mouth. Didn’t dare mar her skin by striking again and wasn’t even sure I had the willpower to release her.

  If I couldn’t take her fully like every cell in my body demanded, then I would at least taste her orgasm singing through her blood.

  I supported her back, then scraped my nail across the lace covering her clit, and she gasped.

  I pinched, and she groaned, her thighs trembling.

  I pressed and rubbed, and she came apart, screaming my name and going limp under me. Sweet, addictive, nectar rushed over my tongue, and I drank and drank as she shuddered again and again each pull of my mouth brought another wave until we were both lost.

  Her heartbeat stopped pounding and…stuttered.

  I broke my bite, swiping my tongue over the small puncture marks to seal them shut and kick-start her own healing process, then jerked my head back to look in her eyes.

  They were hazy with satisfaction, but her cheeks had paled. Her breathing slowed.

  “I took too much.” Fear chilled my lust in less time than it took to blink.

  “I’m okay,” she insisted, her words slurring.

  “You’re not. Fuck, Lyric, I’m so sorry.” I couldn’t remember the last time I’d apologized to anyone, but I’d spend the rest of my life pleading for her forgiveness. Her head rolled against me as I gathered her in my arms, carrying her limp frame over to the couch and settling her in my lap.

  Slow. Her heartbeat was too slow. I hadn’t just taken too much, I’d nearly drained her.

  Her beautiful eyes fluttered shut.

  “Damn it. Lyric, open your eyes.” I held her head upright. “You’re dying. I took too much. You have to drink.” It was the only chance she had.

  Her eyes flared open, but only for a second. “I’m not drinking blood again. Yuck.”

  “Look at me.”

  She forced her eyes open, meeting my gaze.

  “You have to feed, Lyric. I can’t lose you.” Panic formed a pit in my stomach. “It doesn’t…” I battled my own instincts, my fangs descending even though I’d just fed. “It doesn’t have to be me. I can get you someone else, but you have to feed.” I’d simply kill the other vampire directly after. No one else would be allowed to live after being inside Lyric in any way. Ever.

  “I’ll die?” Her brow furrowed as if she finally understood the gravity of our situation.

  I nodded, my lips pressing into a firm line. Even now her heart was slowing, the euphoria from the bite and her orgasm fading.

  “Only you,” she whispered.

  Thank fuck. She was going to feed. I scored my wrist with a fang and pressed the small cut to her lips. She’d been nearly unconscious the last time I’d done this.

  She swallowed once, then locked eyes with me and didn’t look away as her mouth opened against my wrist. Then she drank, her eyes flaring at the first sip.

  “You’re doing great.” My dick surged as I watched her lips on my skin, felt her soft, drawing sucks. I listened to the rhythm of her heart steady, then grow stronger. “Just a little more, baby.” Where the fuck did that endearment come from?

  Her skin flushed with health, and I sighed in relief. “That’s enough. You can sleep off the rest.”

  She broke the suction at my wrist, and I quickly ran my tongue over the cut to seal it shut.

  “Are you okay?” I asked, cradling her against my chest. It had been so close, and I’d been so utterly fucking stupid to lose myself and endanger her like that.

  She nodded, touching her lips with her fingers. “Is it weird if I say that you taste really good?” Her forehead scrunched.

  I laughed. “I’ll take it as a compliment because you taste fucking incredible.” I already felt stronger, my powers flexing and expanding to fill the room, the house, the estate. I knew instantly where every vampire was and who they were with. I was back.

  “As good as the humans you keep over in the other house?” She arched a brow and licked her lower lip.

  I cradled her face and stroked her cheek with my thumb. “You taste better than anyone I’ve ever come across.” My brow furrowed. “It’s why I took too much.”

  She lifted her hand and smoothed the skin between my eyebrows. “Don’t worry so much. I’m fine. I’m better than fine.” She grinned.

  I caught her hand and pressed a kiss to her palm.

  That’s when I saw it.

  Gravity shifted again, but this time I wasn’t floating away, wasn’t lost. I was tethered to her—to Lyric.

  The cravings. The need. The possessive, primal feelings. It all made perfect sense, and there was no denying it anymore, not now that she’d even opened the door to the battle room. “I know why the door let you in,” I muttered, studying the circular tattoo that consumed the inches beneath her wrist.

  It was identical to the mark above my heart—the heart that now lurched at my ribs like it was the only barrier to get to her.

  “Because I’m human so it didn’t know what to do with me?” she teased.

  I shook my head slowly, and turned her hand so she could see her wrist.

  She gasped.

  “Because it recognized you as a member of the royal family. You’re my mate.”

  6

  Lyric

  Mate.

  The word clanged through me as if Alek had snapped a missing piece of my soul together. The logical side of my mind battled his words, analyzed and picked them apart with their absurdity.

  You’re my mate.

  But my heart? It practically purred at the declaration. Sighed the heavy breath of contentment at finally being justified. All those feelings—the longing, the hunger, the irrational jealousy when I had no claim on the man? Those three little words he’d uttered made everything make sense just as much as it made my world spiral out of control.

  And the tattoo now on my wrist? The same spot that had tingled for days? It was beautiful and dark, just like him. My heart hiccupped, threatening to rise to a panic, but the other side of me, that uncontrollable portion of my soul that blazed hushed the hysteria. I’d seen many things that shouldn’t be possible since coming here, what was one more thing?

  “Alek—”

  The door to the dark clubhouse burst open, and I jolted from Alek’s lap to stand next to him. I’d barely thought the motion before my body reacted, my head spinning with clarity and chaos and…power. I could feel the extent of Alek’s power roiling through my blood.

  “We’re needed,” Hawke—my appointed babysitter—said, his cunning eyes darting between Alek and me. “Your Highness,” he added.

  Lachlan, the giant Scotsman, stood at Hawke’s right, not bothering to cast a glance my way. Instead he arched an eyebrow at Alek, the ghost of a smirk on his lips. The other two of his crew—Ransom and Benedict—seemed content to hang back near the opened doorway and brood.

  Alek stared them all down, his eyes sharper than they had been in days, his skin looking less sallow. Pride and warmth and contentment swelled inside me at the sight of him. Restored—I’d done that. His mate.

  The silence in the room was taut as the five incredibly powerful vampires held a conversation with mere looks and small gestures. Alek finally nodded, then subtly—so much so not even Hawke tracked the movement—he grazed his thumb over the n
ew ink on my wrist.

  A warm shiver raced down my spine as he quickly led me from his midnight clubhouse.

  “I can make it back,” I said when he looked ready to walk me all the way back to his chambers.

  “I…” His voice trailed off, words failing him as his eyes scanned every inch of my face. He didn’t want to go. The pull of what had just happened, whatever we’d just realized, had that much of a hold on him.

  I’d be lying if I said it didn’t send a rush of heat straight through my soul.

  “Go,” I said, already backing down the stone corridor that would lead me to his room.

  He gave me a firm nod, something shifting in those eyes. One second they were warm and open, excited and curious, and the next? Cold, stone, and death.

  “Alek!” I called when he’d nearly made it out of sight.

  He paused, but didn’t turn. Nothing but a simple, predatory tilt of his head.

  “Be careful,” I said, the words clawing up my throat before I could stop them. God, how stupid did I sound? Be careful? He was an ancient vampire king with the power of mind control.

  And yet, he’d been weakened when he didn’t feed.

  I’d healed him.

  The power pulsed and spun in my head.

  Alek dipped his head and disappeared from sight.

  I hurried back to his room, shocked at how alive I felt when he’d nearly drained every last drop from my body. My mouth watered at the memory of his blood filling my mouth, the way he tasted—like dark chocolate and cayenne and something earthy I couldn’t place. Ancient, an endless well of power that now sparked every nerve ending in my body.

  I fell on my back, his black silk sheets cool against my flushed skin. Holding up my wrist, I smoothed my fingers over the dark whorls of ink now decorating the space. Electricity crackled under my skin, my blood rushing, my breath catching. Touching it, studying it felt like studying a piece of myself I’d never seen but always possessed.

  I blew out a breath, closing my eyes as my muscles uncoiled, the memory of Alek’s hands on my skin enough to send my heart racing. Was it always like that? Or was it because he was a vampire? Or was it because he was my mate? What did that really mean?