Evading (Regent Vampire Lords Book 4) (9 page)

“I love you, too, Mike,” she choked. So much it hurt.

“Now tell me you love my cock.”

The ridiculousness of his untimely demand broke her in the very best possible way. She laughed but the sounds were swallowed by his kiss of passion and possession. His demand to obey.

“I love your cock,” she whispered against his hot, sinful mouth.

“I knew it.” The smirk in his tone should annoy her. It would have in the past. But all it did now was make her giddy. Fucking giddy, like a hormone-ravaged teenage girl. Like…like
Kate
, Dev’s mate.
Christ almighty
.
Really?
“Now come on it,” he demanded smoothly. “And come hard. I want your pussy strangling me.”

She didn’t think she was close enough, but when he sank his teeth into the crease where neck met shoulder, she detonated. All she could think of was his mouth sucking at her vein with the sharp incisors he would grow upon their bonding. The thought of him taking her nourishment into his body caused her to come harder than she ever had before.

“That’s it, baby. Fuck, yes, give it to me.”

His body stiffened behind her and with a low growl in her ear, not only did she feel his release deep within her soul, she felt her soul release into him.

“Am I crushing you?” he asked a few seconds later on a short pant. He’d gone completely lax on top of her. He was heavy, but oh so right.

“No. You feel good.”

“You know you’re mine.” His broken breath scattered along her cooling flesh, pebbling every inch of her.

“Yes,” she agreed.

“Forever, Giselle. No more fighting against this.” She sighed as he peppered her with kisses from the back of her neck across her bare shoulder. Every one was a promise she knew he would keep.

“Okay.”

“Good. It’s about fucking time.”

She grinned. Her detective was brash and vulgar and as hot as the sun at noon on a cloudless summer day. He had a way with words that both infuriated and ignited her.

But he was hers and she was his.

Yeah. It was about fucking time.

“
M
ighty
dangerous to be wandering around a house full of blood drinkers all by your lonesome, human.”

With some fancy imported Belgian beer dangling from his fingers, Mike turned from the fridge to face Ren. He’d much rather take a plain old Bud any day than this expensive, albeit tasty brew, but this would have to do. Hell, this one beer alone probably cost more than a case of his rather trailer-park drink.

“What can I say? I’m a born risk-taker.”

“Or just fucking stupid. Little early for that, isn’t it?” Ren’s raised, condescending brows cut under his skin.

“Well, in the infamous words of good ol’ Jimmy,” he replied before taking a long swig, “it’s five o’clock somewhere.”

Ren grabbed a matching beer. While he popped the top, he eyed Mike with an
I-dare-you-to-say-something
cocky-ass grin on his face. Mike just smirked and shook his head.

The fucker was starting to grow on him.

“See you found our seductress, huh?”

“I told you before, bleeder, she’s mine. Not yours.” His voice held the blue edge of a flame. He knew Ren was simply trying to poke the bear. This time, it wouldn’t work.

“Does she know that?”

His spine straightened. “Know what?”

“That you think she’s yours.”

“There’s no
thinking
about it.”

Ren’s bottom lip poked out briefly, the corners of his mouth fighting a smile. “I see.”

“Glad you got your vision issues worked through.”

Ren’s rich, deep laugh carried through the entire kitchen before coming to a slow stop. His knowing gaze infiltrated Mike’s and they stood in some sort of quiet, weird…what? Camaraderie, maybe? Yeah, definitely weird, but if Giselle was going to be part of his life—and there was no
if
about it—he’d have to come to some sort of truce with the males in it. Like it or not.

Besides, there was something he needed to know and didn’t have anyone else he could ask besides the hulk in front of him.

“Where is she then?” Ren asked, glancing around briefly.

Giselle was giving all the information they’d pulled together on Sarah’s biological family to Sarah right now, but since he didn’t know if their project was common knowledge he kept his mouth zipped shut.

“Around.” He settled for protecting her privacy.

“Maybe she brought you into the lion’s den as some sort of fucked-up test.”

Mike’s lips quirked in amusement. He had a feeling the shit throwing would always be like this with Ren, who had obviously become like an overprotective older brother. It was clear Ren cared deeply about Giselle. Before these last few days, that irked Mike, but now…now he had a feeling he wouldn’t even have this woman at all without this male’s help. So, yeah, he’d play along. He’d take Ren’s little “test,” since that’s what this really was.

Finishing half his beer in one large swallow, he set his empty on the counter, wiping a stray drop dangling from his lip. “Yeah? What sort of test we talking about?”

“Let’s call it a…ballbreaker experiment. See how big and tough your nuts really are. An assessment of your manhood, your survival skills, your cunning, your worthiness as a mate. See how long you can last in a house full of blood drinkers who don’t care if you live or die.”

He couldn’t concentrate on any other bait the bloodsucker sneered except
mate
.

Mate
.

So Ren
had
known about him and Giselle. Interesting. He wondered how. Somehow he didn’t think Ren and Giselle had had a heart-to-heart because she’d spent all her energy over the last year denying what they were to each other. As had he. But if he’d wondered about her friend’s approval, he didn’t need to anymore. This conversation would be going in a whole different direction if Ren would rather slit his throat.

With everything in him, he stomped on the grin that tickled his lips. Shrugging nonchalantly, he tossed out, “All right. I’ll bite. So what do I need to do to pass this so-called ‘test’?”
Test
was in air quotes.

Ren closed the distance between them in three long, powerful strides. Standing toe-to-toe, the commanding and intimidating vamp let his hot breath wash over Mike with each purposeful exhale. Ren’s eyes narrowed, his pupils dilated, glowed, and with his mouth open in a jeer, the fucker let his deadly teeth elongate in slow motion right before his very eyes. It was an obvious demonstration of how
he
controlled the speed of Mike’s death or the length of his life.

Too bad for him Mike was motivated. And prepared.

“I suggest you get the fuck out of my face if you want to keep that black heart pounding inside your chest cavity.”

Pressed between them at just the precise angle with the honed tip digging into the thin shirt Ren wore, Mike now held his SOG SEAL Strike blade. The beauty was crafted with AUS-8 stainless steel and held a lethal partially serrated edge on either side, close to the handle. The salient teeth would tear flesh from bone with ease.

Even a vamp’s.

Ren’s smirk morphed into a mischievous grin, but he didn’t move an inch. In fact, he pressed in closer. So close, Mike knew he had to be drawing blood by now. “Next time you pull a knife on me, you’d better be prepared to use it, human.”

“Don’t fool yourself for a fucking second. I was more than prepared, vampire. Admit it. I caught you off guard, didn’t I?”

Ren’s grin widened. “I think you and I will get along just fine, human.”

That nonanswer was all the validation he needed.

“Did I pass your fucking test?”

He nodded sharply and took a step back, dropping his gaze to the knife Mike held steady. Several drops of bright red were streaking downward, coating the once-unblemished silver. “Impressive.”

“I’m glad you approve,” he replied snidely. Wiping the blood on his denim-covered thighs, he easily sheathed the blade in the carrying case clipped to the back of his jeans. Ren wasn’t the first vamp he’d had to defend himself against. He sure as fuck wouldn’t be the last. Mike was so mired in their world, it was as if he’d always been a part of it. Like it was always his destiny.

Now, he knew it was.

“I want to marry Giselle,” he blurted as Ren dropped onto a stool at the island.
Not smooth, Thatcher. Not fucking smooth at all.

Ren didn’t say a thing, his face remaining unusually impassive. “Vampires don’t marry, human. They bond.”

“And what’s the difference? It’s still forever, right?”

The tilt of Ren’s lips was a mock if he ever saw one. He didn’t like it. “The difference, detective, is vampire bonding is forever. Literally death until you do part. It’s a lifetime commitment you’d better be sure you’re ready for, because once you exchange that all-important bodily fluid, your life will depend on hers. Your life will be tied to hers. Your life will be as long as hers.”

Mike’s brows scrunched together.

“Yeah. You heard me right.” Ren threw a look toward the kitchen entryway. Mike’s followed. There was no one there. “Would you like me to explain?”

His head bobbed up and down. “Go on.”

Ren spent the next few minutes telling him the ins and outs of vampire bonding. He dumbed it down into simplistic terms, even though Mike understood the dynamics behind it were much more complicated.

It was an innocuous act, really. The sharing of blood.

“I don’t understand. If it’s as simple as exchanging blood, wouldn’t vamps just take any human they wanted to mate with and force them to drink? Agreeable or not?”

Ren scowled. “You really don’t think much of us, do you? You do realize the female you’re talking about ‘marrying’ is vampire. A blood drinker. Not of the human species.” Each clipped word dripped with disdain.

For the first time—ever—Mike was ashamed at his closed mind. If he accepted Giselle, he had to accept all of her. Love all parts of who she was. Put his hatred for
what
she was away for good. He’d done that…he’d thought. But he realized he’d only done it for her and it needed to extend well beyond her if he was going to become part of her world.

“I’m sorry,” he said contritely.

Mike rose and walked to the bay of windows overlooking the winding blacktop driveway lined thickly with evergreens, trying to collect his thoughts into something that would make sense to this vamp. He’d carried this hatred around for so many years, it was more than just a growth. It was a veiny cancer twined throughout his body. He wanted Ren to understand why.

“The week after Jamie vanished, I marched into my advisor’s office and changed my major to criminal justice. I had planned to be an accountant if you can believe that. I became a detective because of what happened to Jamie. Because I naively thought I could make a difference. Maybe save others from her fate if only I had training, more experience. Six months after she went missing, two detectives showed up at her parents’ house and informed them they weren’t officially closing the case, but it had gone cold. She was gone. Vanished. It was as if she’d never existed at all.”

He paused wanting to make sure his voice didn’t crack. Even though Jamie was not really dead, as they’d thought for the last eleven years, she wasn’t the woman he once knew and was in love with. It was still hard to talk about. Think about. He would always feel as if he’d failed her. Was the cause of her years and years of torment and torture at that evil fuck’s merciless hands. If there was one thing he was really fucking good at, it was carrying around unfounded guilt.

“For two years, Glenn and Elisa Hallow stoically waited. Cried. Hoped. Bargained. Prayed that their oldest child would walk through their front door, alive and well. They truly believed she wasn’t dead. So even though there was no confirmed death, no body to identify, they bought a cemetery plot and erected a headstone so they’d have someplace to visit the memory of her. They left the deceased date blank. It was morbid, I thought at the time, the whole headstone thing, but now I think I understand.”

And he’d been secretly grateful. He’d visited Jamie’s memorial every year on the anniversary of her “death” with a fistful of marigolds before he got rip-roaring drunk and tried to drink himself into a death coma.

“Pissed me the fuck off that the cops just gave up. I
swore
I would never do that when I became a detective. I would hunt for the lost until they were found. I would fight for the stolen until I thieved them back. I would bring the broken home to their loved ones, even if it was in a pine box because everyone deserves to mourn their loved ones the right way. Then I would mow down the sadistic fucks who thought it was their God-given right to take others. I became an unfeeling terminator of injustice.”

The air was deathly still as if even it was waiting with bated breath for what he would say next. Mike had to assume Ren hadn’t left, so he continued. Even if he had left, he didn’t care. He needed to vomit this burden that he carried so long and so hard. He’d never spoken these words aloud to anyone, and for some strange reason, it felt right to tell them to the male closest to his love. The woman all this hatred and heartache had led to.

“The first time I learned vampires were not just something made up by Hollywood screenwriters was after I’d graduated academy and hired by the Milwaukee PD. I was on beat with my partner. Since I was a newbie, I was stuck with the night shift, of course. It was a fairly uneventful night. We’d had a handful of domestic disturbance calls and a couple of bar brawls. About six hours into our shift, we were called to this one shithole in particular. There was an incident or two there every single week. Their liquor license had been revoked twice already and nothing but losers, hookers, and degenerates hung out there. Anyway, we show up and stroll into the place.

“I don’t know how to explain what I felt walking through those doors. It was as if this vile evil hung in the air so thick you could taste it, feel it coating your skin. It took me weeks to wash it off. Sometimes, I feel like I still haven’t gotten rid of it all. Anyway, we walk in and broken glass littered the floors. Spilled alcohol ran free under our shoes. Chairs and tables were tossed and splintered like a fucking bomb had gone off. The place was a ghost town except for two assholes taunting a woman who looked worked over and scared as shit.”

Mike looked over his shoulder to see if Ren was still there. He was, watching him raptly. Once again, his face was blank, unreadable. He went back to staring out the window.

That night haunted him. Still to this day. What those animals did to that young girl was unspeakable and what’s worse…he let them. He had to sit there and watch them tear her apart like two hungry lions going at a gazelle.

When he finished telling the rest of his story, he was sucked back in time, watching it all unfold again in live stream.

“
W
ell
, well, well, what have we here?” A broad giant of about six eight taunted. Grabbing the screaming girl by the throat, he spun her around and held her tight to his chest. Her clothes were ripped and smattered with blood that had clearly come from where they were using her face as a punching bag. With the other hand, tall and lethal ripped the low halter she wore and fondled her bare tit like he was in some fucking snuff film performing for the cameras. He had the most wicked, evil grin smearing his face that Mike had ever seen.

Deadly power radiated from these two like a nuclear power plant. He knew—
knew
—these were no ordinary men. His instincts were on red fucking alert. His heart was doing a five-minute mile and he was about to piss his pants right there. He was scared shitless.

The girl’s petrified, watery eyes bugged and her fingernails scratched and mauled at the hand that held her, desperate for freedom. Her mouth opened and closed in what Mike could only deduce was a scream, a plea for help, but nothing came out because her vocal cords were being crushed as this sick fuck got off on manhandling what wasn’t his. Her face was turning progressively darker shades of red with every passing second. If she didn’t get air soon she’d pass out.