The King

“Can you … tell?” she asked.

Assail came over to her, walking slowly, as if he knew she was a hairbreadth away from spooking. Lifting his hands, he brushed her hair back over her shoulders. Then he touched the sides of her face.

“No. She will see none of it.”

“Thank God.” Sola exhaled. “She can’t know. Do you understand?”

“Perfectly.”

Turning to face the door out into the corridor, he offered her his elbow … as if he were escorting her to a party.

And Sola took it just because she wanted to feel him against her. Know his warmth. Be close to his size and strength.

It was a different kind of hell to be facing the prospect of meeting her grandmother’s eyes.

“Do not think of it,” he said as he led her down the long hall. “You must remember that. She will see it in your face if you do. None of it happened, Marisol. None of it.”

Sola was dimly aware that the guards that had met them when they’d come to this place had slipped in behind them. But she had so many other things to worry about—and that bunch of men hadn’t pulled any of those triggers as she’d come into the facility. Hard to imagine why they’d bother on the way out.

One of them jumped in front and opened the steel door for them, and the Range Rover was right where it had been parked. Next to it, Assail’s two cousins were standing grimly—watched over by more of those incredibly dangerous-looking guys.

Assail opened the back car door for her and offered her his hand. She needed it. Humping herself up into the SUV caused her thigh to sting until her eyes watered. But as she was shut in, she managed to work the belt herself, pulling it out from her body and clipping it in place.

Sola frowned. Through the tinted glass, she watched as Assail went to each of the men, one after another, and offered them his hand. There were no words spoken, at least not that she saw, but there didn’t need to be.

Grave stares met Assail’s eyes and subtle nods were given with respect as if an accord had been reached among them all.

And then Assail’s cousins hopped in the front, Assail got in the rear with her and they were off.

She had only a vague memory of all the gates and barricades they’d had to go through to get into the place—but she figured the way out would take forever.

At least she wanted it to. She had some hope that if enough time passed, she could convince her inner little girl that she hadn’t broken the main Ten Commandment twice, nearly been raped, and had to deface a body to get herself out of hell.

Unfortunately, they were back on the Northway, heading south toward downtown Caldwell, a heartbeat and a half later. Or it certainly seemed like that.

As they zeroed in on the bridges that would take them over the river and through the woods, to Assail’s fortress they went …

Great. Her brain was non-sequituring it up.

Rubbing her tired eyes, she had to pull things together.

It didn’t happen.

“You know, you may have a point,” she said quietly.

“About what,” Assail asked from beside her.

“Maybe it was all just a dream. A bad, horrible dream…”

The Range Rover mounted the westbound bridge over the Hudson, and with traffic moving smoothly across the span, they were going to be at Assail’s in only five or ten minutes.

Twisting around, she looked at the receding downtown, all those lights like stars having fallen to earth.

“I don’t know if I can see her,” she heard herself say.

“It didn’t happen.”

Watching that cityscape get smaller and smaller, she told her brain to do the same with all the sights and smells and sensations that were so close, too close: Time was a highway and her body and brain were traveling on it. So she needed to hit that f**king gas pedal and get the hell away from the last forty-eight hours.

Before she knew it, they were turning off onto the thin road that went down to the peninsula Assail owned. And then her stomach sank as that glass house came into view, its golden illumination pouring out onto the landscape as if the place were a pot of gold.

They went to the back, the headlights swinging around across the rear of the mansion. And there she was. In the window of the kitchen, head lifting to look out, hands reaching for a dish towel … Sola’s grandmother was watching, waiting—now scrambling for the back door.

Abruptly, everything went out of Sola’s mind as her hand fumbled for the latch.

Assail gripped her arm. “No. Not until we’re in the garage.”

Unlike the rest of the trip, getting undercover took forever, that reinforced door trundling down like it had all the time in the world.

The instant it thumped into place, Sola burst out of that SUV and ran for the door. It was locked, and in her jammed-up mind, the only thing that occurred to her was to grip the handle harder and yank and pull—

Someone unlocked it remotely, because there was a clunk! and then suddenly things sprang open.

Her grandmother was on the far side of a squat anteroom, standing in the center of the kitchen, that white dish towel wadded up to her face, the scents of home cooking like love in the air.

Sola ran forward as her grandmother opened the only arms that had ever been there to hold her.

She had no clear knowledge of what was said in Portuguese, but on both sides, words flowed fast. Until her grandmother pushed her back and captured her face in those weathered hands.

“Why for you this sorry?” the woman demanded, brushing tears away with her thumbs. “No sorry for you. Never.”

Sola got pulled back in hard and held against that generous bosom. Closing her eyes, she sagged and let her brain shut down.

This was all that mattered. They were together. They were safe.

“Thank you, God,” she whispered. “Thank you, dear Lord.”

TWENTY-NINE

Of course it was Selena.

As soon as Trez heard the knock across his bedroom, he took a deep breath … and yup, her scent preceded her, drifting in under the door.

His body hardened instantly, his c*ck extending up his lower belly, pushing against the weight of the duvet.

Send her away, a part of him said. If you have any decency left in you—send her away …

Not exactly the best argument: He was, after all, contemplating putting his parents in a grave—so how much Boy Scout could he possibly have in him—

He stopped that mental wheelspin in its tracks. At this point, he was so blood starved, he wasn’t going to make any sense. Feed first. Then … think.

Right. Back to the Please, God, not Selena.

The problem was … who else was coming here to service him? He hadn’t seen any Chosen in this household except for her and Layla, who was now out of commission. And if he didn’t take the vein about to be offered, his only other option was to head out to the club and work his way through a half dozen human women—which was about as appetizing a prospect as drinking engine sludge.

There was also the issue that he was so far down into an energy wormhole that he wasn’t sure whether even that would be enough. Another fun fact? He didn’t think he could stand up to pull a pair of jeans on. So how in the hell was he going to go to the Iron Mask and—

The soft knock was repeated.

Pushing his hand under the covers, he shoved his erection around so that it would lie as flat as possible—and the contact made him grit his teeth.

You’ve got to do this with her, he told himself. Once and never again.

“Selena…” Shit, the sound of her name leaving his lips made him feel like his hand was back on his cock.

Oh, wait, he hadn’t taken the damn thing off.

As she opened the door, he whipped his arm out from under—and glared at it to stay put.

Sweet Mary, Mother of God … to quote that Boston cop.

She looked as beautiful as always in that white robing with her hair up, but his starvation turned her into a transcendental vision—that went right to his hips. His pelvis immediately started curling, his c*ck begging for something, anything from her.

This was a bad idea, he thought.

And sure enough, Selena hesitated in the doorway, glancing around as if she recognized the charge in the air.

It was his last chance to send her away.

He didn’t take it.

“Close the door,” he said in a voice so deep it warped.

“You suffer.”

“Close it.”

Click.

There was only a single lamp on, that one by the chaise longue, and the butter-yellow light seemed to act as a sound buffer, everything inside the room amplified, everything outside silenced.

Then again, maybe it was the color of her eyes doing that.

As she approached, she pulled up her sleeve, exposing her pale wrist. And in response, his fangs didn’t descend so much as punch out from his upper jaw—and shit, he didn’t want what she was going to offer. He wanted at her throat … he wanted her na**d and underneath his body, his canines in her neck as his cock—

Moaning, he kicked his head back and gripped the duvet in his fists.

“Worry not,” she said in a rush. “Here, take of me.”

In spite of all the air in the room, his lungs began to starve for oxygen, shallow breaths pumping in and out of his open mouth.

And then her hand brushed his arm, and he moaned again, trying to twist away. Gritting his teeth, he knew this was a very bad thing.

“Selena, I can’t … I can’t do this…”

“I don’t understand.”

“You should leave…” Fuck, he could barely get the words out. “Leave or I’m going to…”

“Feed,” she cut in sharply. “You need to feed—”

“Selena…”

“You must take my vein—”

“—you’d better go…”

They were talking over each other, getting nowhere, when she took charge of the situation. At first, he thought his brain was playing tricks on him—but no, that was the scent of fresh blood in the room. Hers.

She’d scored her wrist.

Big mistake.

With a roar, he went for her—and not her wrist. His hands unlatched from the wadded sheeting and he grabbed her, taking her by the shoulders and flipping her across his lap to lay her out flat on the mattress.

He mounted her a split second later, the duvet folding up between them, his hands pinning her wrists up on the pillows by her head.

One look in her shocked eyes stopped him dead. And yet he couldn’t get off her.

Screw panting; he was breathing like a freight train, his body hard all over, his muscles twitching. “Shit…” he moaned as he dropped his head.

Get off of her, he ordered his body. Get the f**k off of—

The undulation beneath him took a moment to register. And then he realized it was her. She was … moving against him, and not as in she wanted to get free. Her eyes, once alarmed, were now glazing over, her lips parting as she arched into him.

She wanted him. Fucking hell, her scent was flaring into his nose, her blood running fast and hot as his own.

“Selena,” he groaned. “I’m sorry…”

“For what,” she said roughly.

“This.”

He struck her throat, fangs sinking deep, blood rushing onto his tongue, down his throat. And as he nursed at her, his body pumped against the wadded duvet, desperately trying to find her core through the layers of sheeting, his c*ck throbbing, the friction making everything worse.

As he drank hard, a growl reverberated out of his chest, filling the air with the sound of a male animal getting what he needed—or at least, part of what he needed. And in a way, maybe it was good that he was so blood starved. Otherwise, the sexual urge would have taken precedence.

As long as all he did was feed? They could come back from that.

Anything further, and they were—

Mine, a voice deep inside of him announced.

Mine.

Selena had thought she was prepared for this. She’d thought she was ready to come up here to this room, to find Trez in this bed, to have him at her wrist. She’d assumed she was ready to do her duty and keep the secret of wanting him to herself.

Instead, she was blown away. By the power of him unleashed, by the strike at her neck … by the sexual desperation with which she needed him. And there was more. Crushed under his great weight, feeling his h*ps surge and retreat on top of her, knowing that he was drinking of her vein, she was at least momentarily unafraid of the statues in the cemetery up above. How could she fear them now? Not with her body like this, with her arms and legs, her very sex, loose and hot and desperate to receive him.

Opening her eyes, she looked up at the ceiling beyond his dark shoulders. “Take me,” she breathed into his growl. “Take me…”

In response, his fingers slid up to her palms and steepled in between, holding instead of trapping as he nuzzled at her vein, his cheek stubbly against her skin. She had an instinct to part her legs, and as soon as she did, the pressure of his pumping torso zeroed in on that aching heart of her, pushing, rubbing—but it was too indistinct. She wanted it focused.

She wanted them both na**d as he did that.

There was no moving, however. Trez had her pinned and the frustration she felt amplified the hunger that had taken root, the denial of what she wanted ratcheting up the need. Pushing against his palms, she got nowhere, her strength nothing compared to his.

“More,” she moaned as she curled her spine upward, her br**sts tightening painfully, her heart thumping under her ribs.

Each pull against her throat, every draw on her vein, all the suction he brought upon her, took her closer to some kind of precipice—and she’d never wanted to fall so badly before. Even though she didn’t know where the landing would take her, she couldn’t imagine that she could rise any higher without splintering apart.