Enslave (4 page)

He turned with a snarl and shoved her off him so viciously that she flew across the expansive room, smacked into the wall near the staircase and crashed to her backside on the floor.

Shock rushed through her, cold, fierce and startling.

What the hell? No man could withstand her kiss. He should be putty in her hands, hands that wanted to touch every delicious inch of him, not standing there pinning her with a thunderous look that warned if she came near him again he would forget what his master had ordered and would kill her instead.

Varya stared at him in silence, her chest heaving in time with his, struggling to catch her breath and make sense of what had just happened. The vampire’s red eyes and black aura gave nothing away, concealing whatever he was feeling as he glared at her, his hands fisted at his sides.

Were they fisted because he wanted to strike her?

Or because he was resisting touching her again?

“Andreu.” The door burst open and the blond bastard entered, jogging to a halt beside her vampire. He turned cold slate-grey eyes on her.

Varya hissed at him and disappeared.

Wind buffeted her as she set down on the rooftop of a building across from the theatre, breathing hard and still reeling. She wrapped her arms around herself, rubbing her bare skin to keep the sudden chill off it. The warmly lit sandstone building of the theatre shone like a beacon in the darkness, the six columns of the facade supporting a triangular carved frieze that lent it a very elegant air. Varya focused beyond the walls even though she knew her senses wouldn’t be able to locate her vampire.

Andreu.

There was no way he should have been able to resist her like that.

There was something different about this vampire.

She wanted to know what it was.

She wanted to know why he was forbidden.

CHAPTER 3

“
I
want to know what the fuck she is!” Andreu snarled and paced the black-walled double-height room, shaking all the way to his bones.

Whatever she had done to him with that kiss, it had been potent and drugging, leaving him all too compliant and hazy. His senses still hadn’t come back to full strength yet and his skin felt too tight and too hot. Not to mention that his cock was on a hair-trigger, eager to get instantly and painfully hard whenever he recalled his moment with her, which was around ten times per second.

Wherever she had touched him burned with blistering heat that had branded her imprint onto his flesh and he couldn’t shake the images of her that rushed through his mind, constant replays of how good it had felt to pin her against that wall and kiss the breath out of her.

Payne stood in the middle of the room, calm and cool, impassive grey gaze following Andreu. Snow had collected Antoine from his room, and Javier had phoned Callum to tell him to stay away from the theatre, just in case things turned violent with their intruder.

“Whatever the creature is, it is gone.” Snow’s words were of little comfort. Andreu hadn’t sensed her fully until she had let him. What if Snow was wrong and she could fool his senses too?

“How do you know that?” Andreu turned on him and the cold edge to the immense ancient male’s icy eyes warned him to back off or face the consequences.

“I know.” The calm reply was one he would be a fool to challenge but he was too fired up, too rattled by how easily she had closed the gap between them and brought him to his knees, to heed any warnings.

Andreu curled his fingers into fists and clenched them so tightly that his bones ached.

“Andreu.” Javier stepped into his path, blocking his way to Snow, and settled his hands on Andreu’s shoulders. He squeezed them, a show of solidarity and comfort that Andreu needed now more than ever. “We will find out what the creature is and how to protect against her.”

“Succubus.”

Everyone turned to stare at Payne.

“She is a succubus. They feed on sexual energy but normally they have more sense than to wander into a vampire’s territory.” Payne shook his head, the motion echoing the disbelief in his tone. “This one is missing a few pieces of her puzzle, if you get what I mean. Not only did she breeze straight in here to catch the show, but she sucked your face.”

Andreu frowned at him, unsure whether Payne was insinuating that she had made a poor choice by kissing him and could have done better or she had been insane to go after a vampire.

“You seem to know a lot about fae.” Antoine stepped away from Snow and towards Payne. Payne shrugged again but a glimmer of discomfort surfaced in his eyes, demolishing the effect of his casual air. He flexed his fingers, causing his forearms to ripple and tighten against the rolled up sleeves of his dark silver shirt. A nervous trait? What did Payne have to be nervous about? “Is she going to prove a problem?”

“I doubt it.” Payne ran his fingers over the soft spikes of his blond hair, revealing the elaborate swirling symbols tattooed on the undersides of his forearms. “Succubi know better than to meddle with vampires. We can sense them. She was using a strong glamour tonight, one that would have been draining her fast, and we startled her. She probably kissed Andreu to take some strength, enough for her to zip out of here and away to somewhere safe.”

“So she won’t be coming back?” Andreu frowned at himself. Why the Devil did he sound so disappointed? The succubus had tried to drain him with that kiss. What a kiss it had been though. He couldn’t remember ever sharing a kiss quite like it. His blood heated at just the memory, scorching him with the need for another, and his cock hardened once again.

Dios. He would probably end up dead if she kissed him again. He wasn’t even sure how he had found the strength to push her away. One moment he had been swimming in the kiss, oblivious to anything other than the bliss of her lips on his and wanting it to go on forever, and the next he had come crashing back to the world and realised that she was out to harm him. He had reacted on instinct to protect himself. He hadn’t meant to toss her across the room as he had. He had just wanted her mouth off him.

Was the pleasure he had felt when kissing her the result of her power as a succubus? For some reason, that thought didn’t sit well with him. It had felt real at the time, a natural passion and hunger for her that he hadn’t been able to deny. He didn’t like the idea that it might have all been the product of her tampering with his feelings. That was what succubi did. They toyed with men and made them feel things so they could get off on their aroused state. Andreu growled under his breath. She had played him.

But it had all felt so real at first. He had wanted her and when she had kissed him, he had given in to that need, surrendering to the attraction he felt towards her and his desire. It had been bliss and fire until his senses had sparked and he had suddenly weakened.

Did that switch between pleasure and pain signal the moment she had begun to feed from him?

If it did, then was everything that came before it real and not an illusion caused by her power?

He growled and tunnelled his fingers through his short hair. He would never know without asking her, and even if that happened he probably couldn’t trust a word that left her sultry luscious lips.

His cock hardened again.

Dios. She was going to be the death of him.

He tugged his black suit jacket down to make sure none of the males in the room with him would notice just how much that single mind-blowing kiss had affected him.

It wasn’t just the kiss that had him rock hard for her. She was undeniably beautiful, had dangerous curves designed for his hands to snake over and his lips to explore slowly, and extraordinary eyes that captured his whenever they met. She was bold, tempting and sexy. He had known some firecrackers in his time, but he had a feeling that she would outshine them all.

“I highly doubt she will return,” Payne said and Andreu nodded, and ignored the part of him that clung to the hope that Payne was wrong and she would return so he could kiss her again. Payne shrugged. “You saw how she reacted to me.”

Andreu certainly had. The succubus had stared at Payne as though he was the antichrist and had flashed a sharp set of teeth before disappearing.

“Either way, I want security at the theatre increased. Javier and Andreu, call the firm we use for day security and see about getting us some older vampires to protect the theatre. I want them to be discreet. The last thing we need are the attendees seeing them.” Antoine flicked a glance at him and then his brother. “All clear?”

Andreu nodded at the same time as Javier. It was clear all right. They were going to be on high alert for the next few performances at least. If their uninvited guest decided to return, it could prove to be a problem for the business, and the business was his priority, not pleasure. The older vampires had sensed her tonight. Chances were, they were already talking about what they had felt.

“Payne, I want you to come with me and Snow to my office. You are going to tell us everything you know about her species.” Antoine didn’t wait for the blond elite vampire to acknowledge him. He strode away with Snow stalking along behind him.

Payne muttered a curse under his breath and then followed.

Why had she reacted so violently to Payne?

When Andreu had seen her across the theatre, and when she had revealed herself to him in this room, she hadn’t reacted to him in that way. She had looked shocked, but definitely interested in him. Not scared.

Was she only interested in him as a target or did she desire him because she found him attractive?

He had seen the hunger in her incredible eyes. He had never seen eyes like hers. Deep brown edged them but in the centre, around the black chasms of her pupils, they were blue and flecked with gold. Maybe Payne was wrong and she was a siren rather than a succubus. She could lure a man with those eyes. Had lured him in with them more than once.

He frowned.

“It wasn’t chance that she kissed me,” he whispered and Javier looked over at him. “It wasn’t random. She didn’t just come across me and see a chance to feed so she could disappear.”

“What makes you say that?”

Andreu lifted his head and met Javier’s deep brown gaze. “I saw her in the theatre, when you went down to speak to Antoine and Snow. She saw me. She looked right at me and I felt pulled to her, and then she disappeared and the spell snapped. She was still there though, Javier. Watching me as I watched the spot where she had been.”

“What do you think it means?”

“I think it means that I need to take a shower and get my head straight.” Andreu pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes.

He was reading into things again and he only had to look at his brother to know where that sort of behaviour led when it came to females. He wasn’t about to become the victim of a woman’s charms. She was beautiful, but he refused to fall for her tricks. Nothing he felt for her was real. It was a fabrication created by her so he would go along with everything she did and she could feed on him. It was the same trick a vampire used on a human, putting them in thrall and making them feel pleasure so feeding from them was easy.

“She probably just chose me as a target because I saw her,” Andreu said, trying to convince himself as well as his brother. “If I hadn’t stopped her, she could have killed me. Maybe that’s what she wanted from me. I saw her and she wanted me dead. What other reason could she have for remaining at the theatre?”

“Payne said she needed more energy.” Javier ran a hand over his short sandy hair and settled it around the back of his neck, an action he often did when thinking or concerned. It was a wonder his brother had any hair left. “Do you think that wasn’t the case?”

Andreu nodded. “She had enough power to disappear. She could have used it to get out of the theatre, or could have slipped out with the crowd. Why stay if not to kill me?”

“I don’t want you sleeping in your temporary quarters today.” Javier frowned and touched his arm, his eyes warm with worry. “Stay in Callum’s quarters across from mine. I will keep an eye on you.”

Andreu covered his brother’s hand on his arm and tried to take comfort from it, and from the promise in Javier’s dark eyes. Neither gesture reassured him though. If the succubus wanted him dead, what was to stop her from feeding to regain her strength and then teleporting straight into his room? Would he be strong enough to fend her off again or would she get her wish this time?

Death by sex.

What a way to go.

He was too damn young to die though. At barely five hundred years old, he was in his prime and had centuries if not millennia ahead of him, and he wasn’t about to let a succubus take those from him.

She could come after him if she wanted but he wasn’t going to take it lying down. Andreu raised an eyebrow. He wasn’t going to take anything at all, and certainly not lying down.

He had fought fae in the past, had warred with werewolves and even vampires in his time as a warrior when he was younger and the world had been a place where battles were frequent and swords were more than ornaments.

In those days, he had spent more time bloodied than clean.

She had chosen the wrong vampire to target.

A shower would help him steel his mind against her beauty and those eyes, blood would replenish his strength and bring his senses back to their full power, and time would lure her into his trap.

If the succubus wanted a fight, then she had got herself one.

This was war.

And he would be the victor.

CHAPTER 4

V
arya cursed herself and the gods for the thousandth time and teleported herself into the theatre, back to the spot that she had disappeared from barely a few hours ago. The black double-height room was thankfully empty and she couldn’t feel anyone nearby. People moved at the periphery of her senses. They were human for the most part, probably employees, but there were vampires too. They felt old so she moved quickly, heading up the stairs. She wasn’t sure where the sleeping quarters were. Casing the theatre from the outside hadn’t given her any clues and after over an hour of scouring every window with her senses, she had concluded that such powerful vampires wouldn’t sleep in a room with a security hazard like a window. The entire top floor of the elegant old sandstone building had no windows, so she was heading there. Vampires shared the same instinct as humans. Sleep high up. In the case of vampires, she discovered it was more like sleep high up and with plenty of other lower-ranking vampires between your intruder and you.