Masquerade (Vampires Realm Romance Series Book 10) (26 page)

Vivek.

He worked with his bare back to her, his muscles twisting beneath his pale skin as he fought an invisible foe, blowing off steam just as she had come here to do. Or was he? It seemed like more than that as she watched him. He wasn’t going through the motions of a routine. He was pushing himself, honing his skills for the fight ahead, and she couldn’t help admiring his determination. This was the Vivek she used to know. He wanted to be at the top of his game and ready for anything.

Her gaze worked over his back, following the line of his spine down from his broad shoulders, and stopped on the thick knot of scarring to one side of it. The sight of it still turned her stomach and caused anger to bubble through her, filling her with a dark need to make Izabella pay for what she had done. She would. Izabella and Aleksis would come with the next wave of hunters, she was sure of it, and Sophis would kill her and have her vengeance.

Vivek shifted, turning towards his right before growling and moving left again, and her eyes dropped lower, admiring the lean length of his body. Two dents above his backside signalled a good place to stop but she failed to keep her eyes from continuing downwards to the waist of his pale grey sweats and his bottom.

Sophis dragged her gaze up and it caught on his shoulders. The breadth of them and the power visible in his honed muscles as he continued to fight in the brightly lit pale room held her attention. She had always quietly admired his body whenever they had trained together. He worked hard to maintain his physique and it impressed her, along with the other women in the bloodline. She ground her teeth when she remembered Ella sitting on his lap, flirting with him.

So what if her friend wanted Vivek. She had her own man to worry about now, didn’t she? Her stomach knotted again, an unsettled feeling squeezing it tight until she couldn’t breathe. She stared at Vivek, watching the dragon tattoos on his arms dancing with each swipe and strike he made. He knew she was here but he wasn’t stopping and he wasn’t turning to face her. He was ignoring her, and it hurt. She wanted to step into the room, catch his attention, and apologise.

Why?

She hadn’t done anything wrong tonight by sleeping with the man. He had been a Venia after all. Her guilt certainly had nothing to do with the fact she had forgotten her duty for a few brief moments. It had everything to do with the man training in front of her, pushing himself relentlessly even though she could sense his fatigue. He was hurting himself by training so hard.

Something flashed in his hand as he brought it up, so dazzling that it hurt her eyes, and she flinched away from the light that reflected off it. Vivek was facing her when she opened her eyes again, his hard chest heaving with each breath, muscles straining beneath his pale skin. Dark red marks littered his chest and his arms from the fight earlier tonight.

“What do you want?” he growled the words and her gaze fell away from him, and onto something that sent a chill through her blood and caused an icy lump to form in her chest.

Her limbs trembled and her side burned. She pressed her hand to it, fingers shaking, and fear crawled up her throat as she stared at the dagger in Vivek’s grasp.

“Why?” That word came out in a hoarse quaking whisper. She couldn’t believe that he had kept it. Why would he do such a thing?

Vivek raised the dagger, his hazel eyes dark and deadly, and flexed his fingers around the grip. His gaze shifted from the blade to her, as cold as ice and sending a shiver through her.

“I intend to kill Aleksis with it, and Izabella too. I will have my vengeance.”

Sophis stared into his eyes. The steely look in them and the intense hatred she could sense in him, the fury and hunger, gave her the answer to a question that had plagued her for so long now. She knew why Vivek had changed around her. She wasn’t the only one who was haunted by that night. Vivek had been carrying around this rage inside him for a decade, waiting for his chance to have his bloody vengeance. She was too afraid to let herself believe that it might be because of her and that he wanted revenge for her sake, not his own.

She crossed the room to him, her feet carrying her there without her noticing, and caught his wrist when he went to turn away. His gaze penetrated hers, holding it when she wanted to look away and hide as she spoke to him. The years between that night and this one and everything that had happened between them in that time made it difficult to find her voice. The knowledge that everything might have been different if she had only found the words back then cut her deep inside. If she had gone to him and told him what she was going to now, the apology she wanted to give him would have come a lot easier.

Sophis held his wrist, her trembling fingers locked tightly around it, and fought against her rising panic and desire to leave without speaking. She had to tell him. He deserved to hear it and things were never going to change between them if she didn’t face what she had done and apologise.

“Vivek...” Sophis stared deep into his hazel eyes and tried to hold the tremble from her voice. She sucked in a deep breath and slowly exhaled, trying to release all her tension with it. “I’m sorry... I’m so sorry about what happened that night and that my weakness was the reason you were so badly injured, that you were almost—it wasn’t how you taught me to fight. You trained me to be stronger than that and I let you down, and you risked everything for me... and I’m sorry you were hurt and... I’m sorry.”

He stood there, his eyes locked on hers, and she fought her need to look away and hide the tears stinging her eyes from him. She was being weak again but whenever she thought about that night and what Seth had told her or saw the scar on Vivek’s back, she felt ill and wanted to cry. Vivek had been so good to her, had trained her so well, spending so much time with her and teaching her everything he knew so she would be a good soldier, and she had let him down. She had repaid his kindness by almost getting him killed.

Vivek continued to stare at her as though he wasn’t sure what to say and Sophis had the feeling he was going to shirk her grip and leave without saying anything.

She jumped when he dropped the dagger, curled his hand around her back, dragged her hard against his body and kissed her.

Sophis’s eyes widened at the first brush of his lips against hers and then her eyelids fell when he slanted his mouth over hers and she found herself responding. It felt so good. So familiar. She frowned and it dawned on her. These strong arms around her and this soft but demanding mouth stealing her heart with such fierce passion were the same as those that had carried her to Heaven at the masquerade.

It had been Vivek.

She broke away from him, confused and her mind reeling, and touched the bite mark on her throat.

Vivek didn’t release her and didn’t take his eyes away from hers. She searched them, trying to see if it really was him, unsure of herself as she struggled to comprehend it all. Her eyes dropped to his chest and the new cuts there, and she placed her fingertips against them, matching them against each long red line. She traced them downwards over his hard pectorals and his sharp intake of breath and the way his pupils dilated and his grip on her waist tightened told her everything she needed to know.

She had made those marks.

She had slept with Vivek.

Sophis couldn’t believe it but it made a terrible kind of sense as she stared into his eyes, her mind replaying every moment that had passed between them from his claiming her as his dance partner to her fleeing from him in the maze when he had asked her to remove her mask.

Her stomach warmed and heart clenched. She had felt instantly attracted to him and he had seemed familiar to her at first. Had she known on some instinctive level that it was Vivek behind the mask? She looked at him, taking in the cut of his jaw and his sensual mouth, and she couldn’t deny they were the same as the man’s, or that he was beautiful and as alluring as he had been last night.

And she wanted him.

“Did you know it was me?” she whispered, afraid of his answer and what it would mean.

He nodded slowly. “I would know you anywhere, Sophis.”

She wasn’t sure how to feel as she looked at him, torn inside between feeling relieved that she had slept with the man now holding her close to him and being angry that he had taken things that far with her without mentioning who he was, deceiving her.

She opened her mouth to speak again but he pressed his finger to her lips, his cool touch sending them tingling.

“I did not mean for things to happen this way. I only meant to speak with you and make you cast aside your current opinion of me... and to tell you that I never meant to hurt you. I only wanted to protect you, Sophis... I know I went about it the wrong way... and that I was cruel and made you suffer... I know that. I hate myself for it. Forgive me?”

A darker part of her heart said not to, said to throw it back in his face and make him suffer as she had, but she couldn’t go through with it when he was looking at her so beautifully and with so much warmth and hope in his eyes.

Her anger faded as she recalled that he had tried to talk to her several times. She was the one who had refused to listen and had goaded him into it. She had seen the desire in his eyes and had let it sweep her along. She had lured him into wanting her, and then when he had taken her out onto the balcony, probably to talk to her, she had triggered his hunger again by making him chase her. The hunt had excited both of them to the point of no return.

If she had let him say what he had wanted to everything would have been different, and in her heart, she knew that she wouldn’t have stopped him from making love to her.

Her eyes went round as the moon again when she remembered what else he had said to her. It made sense now. He hadn’t been talking about staying with him in that moment and not leaving him alone, he had been talking about her being with him in life. He wanted to be with her.

She wanted that too.

“Here you are,” a deep gravelly voice said from the doorway and she leapt out of Vivek’s arms and turned her wide eyes on her sire. He scrubbed a hand through his hair and yawned. “You left my room and I woke alone. Why?”

Vivek’s gaze burned into the side of her face and she sharply turned to face him. The pain in his eyes expressed what he was thinking but he was wrong. He was the one misjudging her now. She didn’t get a chance to explain. Before she could grab his wrist and make him see that he was jumping to conclusions and she hadn’t been sleeping with her sire, he had turned away from her, picked up the dagger from the floor and pushed past her sire.

Her shoulders sagged and she stared at her sire. He turned back to face her and frowned.

“Someone you know?” he said and Sophis cursed under her breath. Her sire knew all about Vivek and not just from her letters. When she had decided to enter the guard, her sire had often come to watch her train with Vivek, or had lounged around the guards’ rooms with them and others. She frowned at him. He probably also knew that Vivek was the one who had danced with her. He was old enough to be able to distinguish familiar vampires by scent alone even when there were a hundred other vampires in the room. Why hadn’t he told her earlier tonight that Vivek was the man she had slept with? “Have you made your decision yet?”

Sophis closed her eyes and exhaled slowly. So this was why he hadn’t told her? When she had been talking about Vivek with her sire this morning, he had asked her to leave the mansion behind and come with him. He had made it sound so enticing, promising her that she would see some of the most beautiful cities and landscapes in Europe, and would be free of the hurt others were causing her. She had considered it then, back when she had thought Vivek hated her. She wasn’t sure what to do now.

“I met your commander in the hall when looking for you. We spoke and he informed me that he is happy to sign you off duty if you want to come with me, although he would be sorry to lose you.”

Sophis glared at him, mortified that he had taken things so far without her consent.

His words had the desired effect. They forced her to make up her mind.

She pushed past him and raced along the hall, fear closing her throat.

Her sire had told Tynan that she was leaving.

Tynan would tell Vivek.

Stay with me. Don’t leave me alone here.

She had just found someone to love, and someone who loved her in return and looked at her with so much need and desire. She wasn’t going to throw that away. She wasn’t going to give up on Vivek.

She would find him and they would start over.

They would do things right this time around.

V
ivek’s first instinct had been to escape Sophis and her damned sire by getting as far away from them as he could but that had proven impossible. Filtered sunlight flooded in through the banks of anti-UV windows that covered one wall of the entrance hall, mocking him. He would have nowhere to hide and lick his wounds after all. Sophis knew where his room was and therefore she knew where to find him, if she bothered to come after him at all.

He had run into Tynan in the corridor outside the armoury and his commander had rubbed salt into his wounds by mentioning that Sophis’s sire had requested to have her removed from the guard because she wanted to go travelling with him.

He had only himself to blame. He had driven her to this and her sire had swept in at precisely the wrong moment and was going to steal her away. She was going to leave him.

Vivek cursed her for that and doubly cursed himself. As if it wasn’t bad enough that he was already drawing some attention because he was half-dressed and carrying a dagger whilst broadcasting anger to all around him, he drew all eyes in the entrance hall to him when he let slip a low growl.

Several dozen heavily armoured Watchmen turned his way, their eyes switching to vivid purple in reaction to his threatening snarl and their fingers flexing around the long bladed staffs they carried. Vivek kept his head down and sped past Commander Winter, heading for the stairs to the first floor. The eyes of all present tracked him, the intensity of all their senses focused on him almost overwhelming him and driving him to flee. He didn’t need to pick a fight right now, certainly not with that many powerful vampires. Every one of them was twice his age or more. He wouldn’t be able to defeat one in a fight, let alone all of them at once.