Masquerade (Vampires Realm Romance Series Book 10) (19 page)

Had she sent for him?

Had she told her sire about the things he had done to hurt her and her sire had come to see her?

Vivek couldn’t bear it when the dark haired man touched her face, laying a gloved hand on her cheek, and ran it down to caress her jaw and lift her head. She didn’t resist him. She raised her chin and then her eyes, looking straight into the man’s, and Vivek snarled under his breath as the man leaned in and kissed her cheek. Sophis didn’t push him away. She simply closed her eyes and accepted the brief brush of his mouth across her flesh, and remained with her head tilted up to him when he drew back. It took long seconds for her eyes to open again and she glanced away when he spoke, blushing without the flush of colour on her cheeks.

The crystal flute in Vivek’s hand shattered under the pressure of his grip, causing several people nearby to start and turn towards him. He shook his hand, ridding his palm of fragments of glass and the cold blood, and stared at Sophis and her sire. She was smiling at the man, chatting animatedly to him now, but a shy edge still touched her masked face. Vivek clenched his fist again, felt the trickle of his own blood between his fingers, and fought for restraint and failed.

He wasn’t going to stand around and let her sire sweep her away.

He scanned the room, decided that nothing was going to happen in the next ten minutes, and then set off towards the dance floor. He licked his palm to seal the small cuts and clean the blood away, his eyes locked on his target, following her wherever she twirled and turned. His body cried out with need to feel hers against it, to have her hands on him as he had the other night during their fight. He pressed his tongue into his bleeding palm and snarled. Whether she liked it or not, the next time the music signalled a change of partner, she was going to end up in his arms.

The music slowed, the women all spun out of their partners arms, and Vivek stepped up and claimed his prize. Her brown eyes were wide as he pulled her hard against his body, his bloodied hand on the silky curve of her waist and his other hand tightly gripping hers. He resisted his hunger to let his fangs descend and held them at bay, not wanting his eyes to change fully and reveal to her that he was a Venia. If she saw that, she would want to know who he was and then she would want to leave his arms. His irises remained somewhere between their natural colour and that of his bloodline, held there to mask who he was. The smell of human blood on him would conceal his own and she would never recognise him when there were so many vampires close by, his scent and signature mingling with theirs.

He smiled at her and turned, leading her around the dance floor to the soft strings of the orchestra, and held her gaze. Her shock didn’t subside until their third turn and then the barest hint of a smile curved her delicious crimson lips.

He wanted to taste them.

He wanted to go one step further than her sire had and claim her mouth for his own and possess it, make her bend to his will and moan out her breath in a delicious sigh of pleasure.

Instead of surrendering to that crushing need, he held his smile in place and spoke to her, in Russian.

“You did not seem very comfortable with your first partner, and seemed too compliant in the arms of your second. Your lover?” Vivek kept his voice low so only she would hear. When she didn’t respond, he wondered if she was going to play dumb and pretend that she couldn’t speak Russian. He wasn’t going to fall back on speaking English with her. They always spoke English around the mansion at the request of Lord Timur because not everyone in the bloodline could speak Russian. He feared that she would recognise him if he did. He needed to disguise himself long enough for her to be comfortable in his arms and then he would speak to her as planned and tell her everything on his mind.

Sophis shook her head and her denial surprised him. Many vampires had physical relationships with their sires when they were the opposite sex, and sometimes when they were the same sex too. Vivek’s sire hadn’t been interested in that sort of relationship with him, and neither had he. The man had turned him out of kindness. Was Sophis denying her sire was her lover now, even though they had been in the past, or had she never slept with the man?

“I hope I prove to be an adequate partner for you, neither too demanding nor too familiar that you grow bored of me and desire a change before the next dance, which I intend to claim as mine also.”

She blinked up at him. “You seem adequate enough, but I’m not looking for dance partners. In fact, I didn’t intend to dance at all.”

Vivek smiled as she searched his eyes. She was trying to figure out who he was and the look in her eyes said that she was tempted to ask about his bloodline. She would never go through with it. It was taboo to ask such a question at a Creator Day masquerade. They were all vampires tonight, none of them allied to a bloodline.

“Then I am very lucky to have claimed this brief moment with you in my arms, and I sincerely hope you will reconsider and consent to be my partner for the next dance. You see, now that I have danced with you, I do not wish to dance with another.” He flashed a charming grin and her gaze fell to his chest, her eyes closing as though she was hiding from him to escape having to respond. She was beautiful up close, her cheeks coloured rosy pink and her lips tinted red. Her brown eyes were beguiling, even more so than usual, the rich darkness of the make-up surrounding them bringing out every fleck of bronze and black in her irises. He wanted her to look into his again, needed to see her pupils widen with desire as they had done many times when she had been looking at him. Was her desire always because of blood or fighting, or was it because of him? He couldn’t resist lowering his head and whispering close to her ear. “Give me your word that you will dance with me.”

She drew back, eyes wide again, a spark of panic in them. “Why?”

He exhaled, released her hand and brushed his bare knuckles across her face. Her skin was satin beneath his caress, a touch warmer than his own, and he wanted to open his palm and hold her cheek to savour how she felt under his fingers. “Because I have never seen anything as beautiful as you, and I do not want another man to lay a single finger on you. If I could, I would keep you in my arms all night... or perhaps for the rest of my life.”

Her gaze zipped down to his chest again and her teeth nibbled her lower lip, wearing away some of the dark red and leaving soft tempting pink behind. He would kiss her until that patch was red again, flushed and full from the hard force of his lips on hers.

“I cannot admire your beauty when you cannot find the courage to look at me. It is not possible that a man has never spoken such honest words to you before, so you cannot feign innocence... unless your shyness is in fact truthful and a man has never told you that you are a goddess?” Was that even possible? The way her sire had behaved when he’d had her in his arms and her shyness around him had given Vivek the impression that the man had said something about her appearance. The man was a fool if he hadn’t. Sophis was the most beautiful woman at the ball.

Her eyes slowly rose, trailing fire up his chest and then his throat to his jaw. They settled briefly on his mouth, searing it, and then continued upwards, her pupils dilating as they traversed his mask to his eyes. She blinked slowly, deliberately, and a touch of a smile curved her sensual red lips. His own lips parted, anticipation blazing through him, and he breathed hard, unable to catch his breath when she was staring into his eyes with her own full of dark desire.

“I have been watching you all night. There is no woman in this room who rivals your beauty.” When she went to dip her head again, Vivek caught her jaw and raised it, forcing her eyes to remain on his. His breath trembled as he smoothed his palm across her cheek, running his fingers into her tousled dark hair. It was silk against his fingertips, overloading his senses and causing his steps to falter.

Her eyes widened when he ran his hand back towards her jaw and then brushed the pad of his thumb across her lower lip. Her mouth parted under the silent command and her eyelids dropped, her pupils swamping the colour in her irises as her gaze remained fixed on his. The faltering softness of her breath against his thumb signalled her rising desire as much as her scent on his senses.

Vivek reminded himself that he was supposed to be talking to her about his behaviour towards her and promising that he would change his ways, but the intense need pounding in his veins overruled taking any step towards revealing himself just yet. Sophis was responding so beautifully to him, allowing him to touch her, letting him speak openly and honestly to her, and he wanted to hide behind his mask a little longer and continue. He would reveal himself before things went too far.

He would.

“I want to kiss these lips,” he murmured and her eyes closed, her breath leaving her on a sigh, luring him into lowering his mouth close to hers. Sense made him pull back the moment he was near enough to feel the cool puff of air leaving her lips and caressing his, and he took hold of her hand again and continued to dance with her, spinning her in circles on the dance floor.

He could feel her disappointment. It flowed into him through their joined hands and laced her scent.

Vivek cursed under his breath when the tempo of the waltz slowed and Sophis moved closer to him, her body brushing his with each step. The feel of her against him drove all reason from his mind and he couldn’t resist the urges flooding him. It was too exciting to be hidden behind a mask, free of the rules and his duty, and have Sophis in his arms, her eyes so full of passion and desire. He wanted to tell her and reveal himself, to see her surprise, but he feared that all he would see was horror instead, and he wanted this to last a little longer. It was selfish of him, cruel to use her desire against her. He kept telling himself it but each brush of her body against his, each meeting of their hips, weakened his resistance.

He stared into her eyes, aware that his own were dark with desire, full of the hunger reflected in hers. He wasn’t the only one this dance was affecting. She wanted him too.

Her gloved hands left his arm and his own. They glided up his arms and he shivered with the first brush of the scarlet satin over his throat and let his eyelids fall, absorbing the silken and sensual feel of them against his skin. She swept her fingertips over his neck to the nape and then up into his hair, ratcheting his hunger up another notch. Devil, he wanted her. She was driving him crazy.

Duty. He was here to guard not dance. She had said that herself. It was only supposed to be one dance in which he told her everything he had rehearsed in his room and made things right between them.

The voice at the back of his mind said that things were looking just fine between them at the moment.

She didn’t know it was him. If she did, she wouldn’t be stroking the back of his head with those damned satin gloves and giving him a look that said if he wanted that kiss, he could take it and she wouldn’t resist him. Devil, he wanted it. He wanted to drop his mouth to hers and ruin her to all other men, including her sire. He wanted to kiss her breathless in front of everyone and have them all see that this stunning woman belonged to him.

He was here to work. It was one dance. That was all it could be. It would end soon and he would confess that it was him and convince her that he had meant every word he had said to her during their dance.

His heart wasn’t listening, and if he was feeling honest with himself, his head wasn’t either. They were both full of her, drowning in the dark depths of her wide pupils and the thought of kissing her.

The music began to fade.

He couldn’t resist.

He had to have her.

The Chosen Son of the Nocens bloodline tried to reclaim her but Vivek locked his hand around her wrist and dragged her through the crowd towards the open doors that led onto the patio and balcony that overlooked the garden.

He was determined to be alone with her so they could talk.

The trouble was he didn’t think they would end up doing much talking.

S
ophis wasn’t quite able to believe what she was doing. Standing outside in the crisp night air under a full moon and a sky full of diamonds, she trembled on the brink of doing something insane. The man she had danced with stood just a short distance away, his eyes on her, heating her with their constant touch. She wanted to say a thousand things to him, to tell him that the dance and the moment had gone to her head. It was only his kind words and the temptation to embrace the full meaning of the Creator Day masquerade by casting aside her bloodline and the laws that had caused the flush of desire in her veins. She had so many lies on the tip of her tongue but just a glance at him would shatter them and reveal the truth beyond.

She desired him.

The attraction beat deep within her, irresistible and undeniable, and terrifying in its strength.

Sophis turned her face away from him, unable to find the courage to look him in the eye and fearing that if she did, she would want to kiss him again. He had disappointed her when they had danced, luring her into believing that his mouth would claim hers and seal the perfect moment with a kiss, only to pull away and leave her breathless instead. The ferocity of her need in the wake of that near-kiss, the desire that had thrummed in every fibre of her being, was like nothing she had ever felt before. She didn’t know this man, but she needed him more than air and more than blood.

Her eyes narrowed with her frown when she spotted the Validus guard who had been speaking to Lord Hyperion. He stood off to one side with a petite unmasked woman with long blonde hair who was dressed in dark trousers and a thick roll-neck jumper. A werewolf. The woman talked animatedly to the Watchman, her eyes bright with excitement. The indulgent smile that curved his lips surprised Sophis. She had seen enough couples in love tonight to recognise the signs but she hadn’t expected to see it between two separate species. Were they lovers? Did Lord Hyperion know that he was harbouring a mixed species couple?