Chapter Two
Mina’s pulse thundered in her ears, as she stared up at the most stunning vampire she’d ever seen. Midnight-black hair. One blue, one green eye flaring bright in the shadowy room. His face cut too sharply to mark him as beautiful. Mesmerizing, more like. A memory flitted over her mind, a repetitive dream from her deep slumber. One where a dark prince would one day save her.
But this was no dream. Her skin burned, her muscles ached, her heart raced with his blood coursing through her body. She slid her tongue over her bottom lip, tasting the sweet tang of a drop left behind. His otherworldly eyes followed the movement, sparking with new fire.
“Who are you?” she demanded, voice cracking.
“No time, Your Highness.” He leaned close, and before she knew what he was doing, he lifted her against his broad chest and carried her to the open window. He set her on her feet. “You’ll have to forgive me, but we have approximately twenty seconds.”
“For what?” she asked, her legs trembling as he steadied her with a hand at her waist.
He lifted the end of a rope looped onto her window latch, tied it around her waist, and tightened it into a complex knot with deft fingers. He wrapped his hands around her waist, nearly spanning it completely. She hitched in a breath as he leveled his gaze on hers, lifted her, and slipped her out the open window. She should’ve been afraid, but some new powerful force inside her pushed all her fears away. Had it been him? This dark savior’s blood kiss?
“Hold onto the window ledge for a brief second.”
She gripped the ledge, knowing full well she couldn’t hold her own weight. No matter. As soon as he let her go, he grabbed the rope with a tight grip. “I won’t let you fall. Someone is at the bottom to carry you to safety.”
She felt no dread even as she dangled from the tower while the sound of combat filled the night air. She gave a confident nod. Then she was gliding fast down the side of the outer brick wall. The chilly wind lifted her hair and billowed her skirts around her bare ankles. When she expected to hit the ground with a thud, her descent stopped just short of her feet hitting the ground. A vampire lifted her, a burly beast of a man, while another unfastened the rope around her waist. Then she was passed from the arms of the mountainous one to the other, who smiled at her. Something about the shape of his eyes was familiar. He looked like the one who’d just dropped her out the window.
“Pardon me, Your Highness.” He tucked her tight against his chest. “I am Dmitri. You may want to close your eyes. My speed can be a shock to the system.”
“I am an Arkadian princess.” She heard the words come out husky but with confidence. “I can handle the speed of any vampire.”
His mouth tilted into an infectious grin. “Let’s get you the hell out of here then.”
Three Legionnaires stormed from an archway and rounded toward them. The big vampire engaged all three at once with moves too graceful for a man his size. Mina had one second to recognize the Legionnaires wore the livery of King Dominik of Izeling, not her own colors or the queen’s. Then Dmitri flashed into motion, moving in a head-spinning blur away from Briar Rose. Away from her home. And her prison.
Dmitri was right to warn her. Though all vampires had the ability of supernatural speed, even though she was too weak to do so on her own at the moment, he moved remarkably fast. She gripped around his neck and let her head fall to his shoulder rather than resist the force of the wind, too weak to do anything but allow herself to be taken away. While her body was weak, a vibrant pulse thrummed in her veins, shocking her senses with a potency she’d never felt in all her life.
She hoped these men weren’t brigands, and that she hadn’t exchanged one imprisonment for another. No. She reached out with her other sense, her vampire gift. The man who held her in his arms had no nefarious emotions swarming about him. Though the one who’d awakened her certainly kept company with darkness, he didn’t resonate with ill-intent, either. Not for her, anyway. Of that, she was sure.
She held on tight as he flashed them deeper into the wooded Novak Mountains. The mountains kept some of their foliage, even steeped in winter. For now, the snow only reached the tip-top of the range that swept in a horseshoe around the seat of the Arkadian kingdom, Briar Rose.
The air was crisp, nipping at her ears and nose. When the queen had exacted her punishment, the trees of the Novak region had just begun to turn red and gold. How long had she been under? It seemed like an eternity.
Within an hour, she heard other vampires running parallel to them, but Dmitri didn’t seem alarmed. It must be his brethren. She couldn’t help but wonder who’d hired them. Her first order of business was to discover who’d sent them for her.
After a chilling trip higher into the foothills of the Novaks, Dmitri slowed to a human pace. Barely winded, he walked toward a mound of heavy brush then casually stepped behind it, where the entrance to a cave was hidden.
“Stop.” Mina gripped the rough leather of his coat at the shoulder.
Dmitri stopped suddenly. “What is it, Your Highness?”
“I smell bear.”
“Oh, that.” He continued on, ducking his head at the entrance. The interior was much more spacious than it appeared. “Don’t worry about him.” He set her gently on her feet. “We moved the bear last night.”
“You moved…the bear.”
Two more vampires entered. The hulking one who’d fought the Legionnaires so she and Dmitri could make a quick escape. And another she hadn’t seen yet. Quiet with sharp, watchful eyes.
“Sure,” added Dmitri. “Not much of a chore for us.” He winked. “Eh, Gregoravich?”
“Just a wee cub,” replied the big one, Gregoravich.
“That wee cub nearly snapped off your tree trunk of an arm,” said a fourth vampire who entered the cave. His blond hair gleamed by the moonlight slipping in. He gave her a formal bow with a tilted smile that had most certainly charmed many a lady. “I am Aleksei, Your Highness. At your service.”
“Bah.” Gregoravich waved a beefy hand. “One punch to the jaw and he was out like a baby.”
A fifth vampire moved into the cave on silent feet. The black-haired one who’d awoken her. Even while in the bloodless sleep, she’d heard his velvet voice whisper in her ear. She’d felt his fervent kiss. Her fingers went to her lips, then her legs wobbled. He was at her side, steadying her with a hand wrapped at her elbow.
“Enough,” he ordered over his shoulder. “We’ll rest for three hours. Gavril, you have first watch.”
The quiet one nodded and fled the chamber in a blur. The others moved a little farther into the cave, sitting in the shadows and propping themselves back against the wall before closing their eyes. She couldn’t imagine anyone comfortably sleeping in that position, but she’d never encountered men like these.
She swiveled back to the leader. His full attention rested intently on her face, accelerating her heart rate.
“Who are you?”
“Come,” he commanded gently. “Sit down.”
She didn’t argue. She could barely stand. Even so, she protested. “I don’t need rest.”
“I know what you need, Princess.” The rumble of his melodious voice sparked a warmth in her chest. “Please sit,” he urged more gently, guiding her to a spot near the cavern wall where a circle of kindling was stacked neatly into a tent shape. Larger stones framed it in.
She sat and pulled her knees up, wrapping her arms around herself as the cold settled in. Vampires could easily regulate their body temperature, but only when well-fed. The vicious churning in her gut reminded her she needed blood. Soon.
“What’s your name?” she asked softly, her voice still rough from lack of use.
He knelt and picked up two flint stones, cracking them together three times before a spark popped off onto the kindling. Leaning in, he blew the spark to life. A flame licked up quickly onto the dry tinder. He leaned to his right and lifted a log from a stack. They’d prepared this place for precisely this moment. A stop off in their escape.
He rocked back, crouching on one knee. “My name is Mikhail Romanov. I am Captain of the Bloodguard. We come by request of the Black Lily.”
She sat straighter, still hugging her knees to her chest, quivering. She’d heard rumors of the Bloodguard. A covert and deadly band of mercenaries who didn’t work for the crown or any single aristocrat, but only for men they chose—human and vampire alike. They swore allegiance to themselves alone and no one else. Some nobility snubbed their existence, saying they thought themselves too arrogant to devote their gifts to the kings of the land. Others called them heroic for taking the part of unfortunate humans who could not help themselves.
She wanted to know more about this captain, but her immediate interest was in whom they served now.
“Arabelle and Marius sent you?”
He nodded.
She smiled and exhaled with relief. A sudden wave of tender emotion swept over her, all of what she’d endured bubbling to the surface. In a single act of defiance, she’d broken her engagement to Prince Marius and encouraged him to go after the one he loved and the one who loved him. She’d not known the depths of the queen’s evil. When the queen had discovered the truth, Mina’s fate was sealed. The crown’s Legionnaires had promptly escorted her back to Briar Rose, where she thought she would be on house arrest. She was terribly wrong.
As they’d crossed the threshold into Mina’s own palace, Queen Morgrid’s Legionnaires had slashed open her lady-in-waiting, Kathleen’s, throat. Mina watched her one lifelong friend die before her eyes while she screamed in protest, in agony and heartbreak. To no avail. The officers promptly dragged Mina to the eastern tower and locked her inside. Not a soul returned until after she slipped into a coma from starvation three weeks later. The bloodless sleep.
She shivered. Mikhail stood and moved behind her, wedging himself in a sitting position between her and the cavern wall.
“What are you doing?” She’d never had a man so intimately close.
He stretched out his legs, bracketing her body. “Straighten your legs.”
Though this man was a stranger, she found herself oddly compelled to obey him.
“Now lean back.”
“What?”
He didn’t wait for her to comply. Gripping her upper arms with firm hands, he pulled her back against his chest and wrapped his arms around her, pressing his legs closer to hers. Instantly, she was enveloped in steamy heat. His temperature was up from the exercise of combat. She closed her eyes, unable to withhold the slight sound of pleasure at the tactile heat of his body.
“Better?” His husky whisper was at her ear.
She stiffened. He gave her a light squeeze, one arm banding her waist, the other across her chest, where his hand gripped her opposite shoulder.
“Relax. Do not fear me. I’m only trying to get you warm.”
“I don’t fear you,” she snapped, though the tenor of her voice sounded high and strained.
He chuckled, his broad chest rumbling against her back. “Defiant, aren’t you?”
She didn’t answer. “Why are we stopping so soon? So close to Briar Rose?”
“They’ll be floundering for hours, trying to reorganize. We killed all of the officers in command. That’s the downside to Legionnaires. They’re a well-disciplined machine, which means the soldiers are completely lost without someone giving them orders.”
He was right. “How do you know you killed all the officers?”
“They wear their pretty little bars on their lapels.”
“Yes, but how do you know you got them all?” Her chin stopped quivering, but her body continued to shake.
“Standard Legionnaire operations. When a threat presents itself, the commanding officers meet the threat first, assess, and determine the best strategy to extinguish said threat. After Dmitri spirited you away, we waited to be sure we’d taken care of the officers so there would be no one left in command. For Legionnaires, it’s much like cutting the head off the snake. The body will writhe uselessly, trying to find a direction to no avail.”
“I see,” she said, teeth chattering.
“You need to feed and rest before we move on. My blood will be enough to regulate your body temperature and give you strength till our next stop, where we’ll get you a human bleeder for real sustenance.”
His reminder drew awareness to her parched throat and the agonizing churn in her belly. Loosening his hold, he uncuffed one of his sleeves and rolled it up past his forearm. When she realized he planned to feed her directly from his arm, her pulse lurched into a gallop.
“I—I can’t feed that way.”
“What do you mean?” He finished rolling up his sleeve, baring a well-muscled forearm, a thick vein prominent. Her mouth watered.
“I don’t feed from the flesh.” She squeezed her eyes shut, his heat and heady scent pulling her canines from their rest, thickening her mouth.
“What other way is there?”
“I usually—that is, I mean, I’ve always had my host fill a cup for me.”
Silence. Stillness.
“I’ve never…actually fed directly from a host.”
Statue still for a moment more, he finally shifted behind her. He tilted her chin to face him as he leaned to one side. “I am not going to fill a cup for you, Princess. If you want to live, you’ll drink from me. A natural practice for all vampires. No matter how low or high born the bloodline.”
A challenge.
His unearthly eyes bore into her own, the firelight dancing on his sharp features, making him even more severe. He waited patiently. Unmoving. A steadfast wall of male vampire awaiting her decision. She became peculiarly aware that he was a man accustomed to giving commands and having them obeyed. But that wasn’t what made her want to sink her fangs into his masculine arm. It was some primal need that sparked to life the second she awoke with the taste of his blood in her mouth. She wanted to taste more of him.
She perused his features again, noting his own fangs were long and sharp beyond his parted lips. Her gaze slid back to those piercing eyes, seeing the same emotion of desire shining back at her.
“Yes,” she whispered. Not because she was unsure, but because there was an intimacy formed between them when he awoke her with his blood kiss. She whispered like a lover would to her paramour. “I will drink from you.”
Pausing for only a second longer, he maneuvered back into position. With gentle fingers, she wrapped them around his arm and brought the fleshy part of his forearm to her lips. A gurgling rumbled in her belly as her vampire senses heightened, the scent of warm, sweet blood filling her nostrils. How could she explain to him that the idea of feeding directly from the flesh had once repulsed her?
Her wet nurse had said she’d never fed properly from her. When the nurse would offer her arm or neck, she would turn her face away, refusing to puncture with her infant fangs. It was her nurse who first drained her own blood into a cup so that the toddler princess could get the nutrition she needed. Ever since then, she’d fed the same way.
She’d never allowed her animal nature to come too close to the surface. But now, her primal urges took hold without her consent. The sensation new and wonderful and profoundly right.
Brushing her nose along his warm skin, she inhaled deep. The earthy scent of mulled spice and wood smoke and leather filled her nostrils. She had to open her mouth to keep her fangs from embedding into her own tongue. A slight sound of pleasure escaped as she latched her lips against his skin and slid her sharp canines into his skin, the sensation foreign but dizzyingly euphoric. His warm lifeblood spilled into her mouth, wetting her tongue and dry throat, sliding to all the parts of her that thirsted, that yearned, that longed for succor. Pleasure, pure and strong, shot through her body.
His muscles bunched beneath her suctioning mouth. She clenched her nails to keep him still, a predatory sense spiking in her body, urging her to keep hold of her prey. It frightened her—and aroused her. His arm that was looped around her waist tightened as he dropped his forehead to her shoulder, cursing with sudden sharpness. His masculine groan urged her on. She moaned, sucking him deep.
He murmured so low she might not have heard, “Fuck, that feels like heaven.”
His blood replenished her body lightning fast, amplifying her senses to brilliant vibrancy. The potency she experienced when her eyes shot awake was nothing like this. His blood was like a honey of the gods, sweeping her into a place of ecstasy. The heat of him—body and blood—wrapped her in a sensual embrace, making her want even more. The sudden thought of what he’d feel like on top of her, inside her, snapped her back to the here and now.
She broke her bite, crimson blood trailing down his forearm, a few drops falling into her lap. She quickly licked his wound; the healing component in her saliva would seal it.
He wrenched his arm away with a firm tug. She let go. He lurched to his feet, facing away from her while swiftly rolling down his sleeve and buttoning the cuff.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “Did I take too much? Did I hurt you?”
He scoffed, still facing away. “No, Princess. You didn’t hurt me.” With a fierce glance over his shoulder, his gaze roved her face, her throat, and fixed on her mouth. “Get some rest. We leave soon enough.”
He left, heading into the night. She stared, wondering if he sensed her heightened desire during the act of drinking from him. Once more, she thought this sudden change in her should provoke some sense of unease or fear. It didn’t. Rather, a swelling of confidence poured through her being. A sense of rightness she couldn’t explain, even to herself.
Soon, the hypnotic pull of satiation and the heat of the fire on her skin made her drowsy. She tried to fight it, staring into the crackling flames, but eventually lay on her side, pillowing her hands beneath her cheek.
So that was what it was like. Now she knew, understood on a primitive level why so many vampires lost their humanity and gave into the beast to bleed a host dry. Not that she believed she could ever do such a thing, but someone without conscience and with less willpower might easily be lured to commit such a crime. To experience such pleasure.
She touched her fingertips to her lips, relishing the strength of her body from his virile blood. What a wonder. Was it the fact she extracted the blood directly from the source? Or was it him? The answer swirled and mixed with the heady concoction pouring power into every artery of her body. Her empathic sense felt the trembling residue of desire flowing in the blood that was in his veins moments before. She wasn’t sure where this path would lead, taking her back to the Black Lily. But she knew for certain her fate was now inextricably bound to the vampire named Mikhail.