Tempting Gray - Untouchables 02

TEMPTING GRAY

The Untouchables

T. A. GREY

WARNING:
The story in this book contains explicit sexual content. This book is intended
for mature audiences only. It contains sexually explicit scenes that may be
offensive. Please keep your file in a safe area on your computer and away from
minors.

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This
book is a work of fiction. All characters, names, places, and scenarios are
solely the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, though
references to actual events or locations may be real.

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Cover Design
by: Hallie Chandler

Edited by: Lea
Ellen Borg/
Night Owl Editing Services

Tempting Gray (The
Untouchables #2)

Copyright © November
2013 Grey Ink Press LLC

www.tagrey.com

All Rights
Reserved

ALSO BY T. A. GREY

THE KATEGAN ALPHAS

Breeding
Cycle

Dark
Awakening

Wicked
Surrender

Eternal
Temptation

Dark
Seduction

Tempting
Whispers

THE BELLUM SISTERS SERIES

Chains of
Frost

Bonds of
Fire

Ties That
Bind

The Fallen
King

THE UNTOUCHABLES

Take Me

Tempting
Gray

THE MacKELLEN ALPHAS

The Loneliest
Alpha

STANDALONE WORKS

Capturing
Jeron

Jace

Midnight
Sex Shop

Ecstasy
Overload

Evernight
Romance Anthology –

‘The Vampire’s Mate’

To
all of those who share their love and support with me.

Castle
Glimmeric, Northern Ireland

100
years past

Of all the things he’d be doing on his mating
day, shivering on a balcony in the middle of nowhere was not something that had
crossed Grayson Blackmoore’s mind.

A puff of white cloud billowed from his cold
breath as he sighed with resignation. The cloudy sky looked like a gray mass
hovering above. Moonlight lit the sky into a hazy glow. Snow graced the hilly
landscape with such suffocating density that Gray couldn’t tell what was tree
from road anymore. Then again, out here where more vampires lived than humans,
at one of the last standing vampire strongholds, maybe Castle Glimmeric was the
last sign of life here in the deep wilderness.

The outside air did nothing to alleviate the
pressure against his lungs keeping him from sucking in a full breath of air.
His heart hammered far too hard and too loud for his liking. A sign of weak
nerves. He hated it. He yearned for the day he could keep his chaotic emotions under
control. As it was, every single day felt like a battle.

There’s always been something wrong with him,
he suspected. Though he didn’t dare speak a word of his suspicions to a living
soul, not even his new brothers. Any one of them was liable to slip his secret
to his father and then Grayson would never live down the humiliation. Or worse,
the failure to his mother. Besides, how did he try to explain that whenever
someone was in trouble he felt compelled to help them? That he cared about
people, their interests, their lives, everything in a way that no one else
seemed to. All his life he’d felt like he was always seeing people through a
different pair of eyes than everyone else did. Even though he knew that couldn’t
be true. He wasn’t different or special. If anything, he was nobody.

A thud not far away sent Grayson spinning around
on the balls of his pristine leather boots. They’d been shined, tailored, and
created solely for this ceremony. All the time and money spent on the boots
alone could have been saved. Grayson would have easily done the ceremony
barefoot. The silver sword hanging from his hip swung as he turned around.

Please be my father
.

The sooner this day was over, the better.

Grayson tugged on the heavy metal ring that
served as a doorknob. The castle had seen better years. It looked worn from
years of dealing with harsh winds and cold winters—much how the weather was
today. In fact, Grayson had seen several pillars holding up the second story of
the house which looked in desperate need of repair. It was only a matter of
time before those pillars toppled down. It might not kill a vampire, but if it
caught an unlucky subject’s head in the process—then there was no coming back
from that. Even a Were couldn’t survive decapitation.

The sound came again, this time of someone
singing—Grayson pressed his ear to the door to hear better. Even with his
vampire hearing, the voice, that of a girl, sounded far down the hall. Her
voice. That voice held him spellbound.

May the wind blow and the trees grow and the
wild things grow all around them!

It sounded like an old folk tune. The voice
faded as the girl moved further away. Grayson pushed away from the door to
pace. Where was his father anyway? His father had ordered Grayson to stay here
until the ceremony was ready, then his father would retrieve him. Not even his
brothers were allowed to stay.

His mother’s words came to him.
You must be
strong, my love. You must impress your father, do what he tells you, and you
will succeed in ways I never could.
At the time, only years ago, Grayson
had raged inwardly at his mother’s command. He’d do anything for her. But that
had nearly broke him. To leave his mother behind in Turkey and go on to be
raised by a man who’d done nothing more than impregnate his mother had changed
Grayson. In that time though he’d learned a precarious respect for his father,
his new brothers, and even his step-mother. Though every action he made, every
choice he decided, was for his mother.

From the hallway, Grayson heard a crash and the
sound of a feminine yelp. He only hesitated for a moment before breaking his
father’s word and leaving the room. He found a girl kneeling on the ground over
a broken vase. She was hurriedly trying to clean the mess. Her frantic gaze
darted up to meet his.

“Please, could you help me?” The soft,
breathless question had Grayson walking down the hallway toward her. A look of
such relief swept across her face that Grayson couldn’t help but smile at her.
That’s when she smiled back. Her smile packed a punch like a hard right hook.
Everything turned upside down. He forgot where he was, why he was there,
who
he was. Her smile dazzled him.

The girl had the prettiest hair Grayson had
ever seen. It swept down to her slender waist and hung in curling waves. It
wasn’t her hair that he couldn’t tear his gaze away from though—it was her
eyes. Gray eyes much like the cloudy sky he’d been looking at.

“Thanks for your help,” she said.

Grayson picked up the pieces and disposed of
them in a bin. He felt awkward standing there staring at this beautiful girl.
And she kept smiling at him, which only made him smile back, but he had no idea
what he was smiling for.

Finally, he snapped the heels of his boots
together and remembered to bow as he’d been taught. The girl did not bow back
however. Instead, she pressed three fingers over her mouth and giggled, her cheeks
turning a pretty red. He’d made her blush. Another strange feeling came, this
one warm and pleasurable.

“Grayson Blackmoore, at your service, my lady,”
he recited as he’d been taught.

Another giggle, this one softer but lasting
much longer. “Grayson Blackmoore? Impossible.” The smile she gave him dazed
him. “You’re far too nice to be a stuck-up Blackmoore.”

She was teasing him. A girl hadn’t teased him
since… Grayson struggled to think of a single time. No matter how hard he tried
to recall a name, a face of any girl who’d flirted with him, had smiled at him
like this girl did, not one had since coming to live with his father. He was
the Blackmoore son no one wanted to talk about. He came from the womb of a
mistress whose blood was not wealthy.

“In that case,” the girl said, bringing him
back to reality, “I’m Anita of Redenver.”

It was on the tip of his tongue to admonish her—
impossible!
She was not his
—
the woman who would become his mate on this day—when
the floor dropped beneath their feet. One moment Grayson stood before the beautiful
girl, and in the next, he had her pulled close as the floor gave way.

The floor caved in with an explosion that
surely shook the entire castle. Rocks rained down upon Grayson’s back, cutting
his jacket and scraping skin, but he did what he was always good at—protecting
people. With the girl in his arms, he used his speed to land on the ground only
seconds before rocks pummeled all around them. Grayson leapt out of the way. No
sooner than he’d made clear of the wreckage, did the whole ceiling collapse in.

He took in his surroundings. They were now one
floor below where they’d been. The door to this room was caved in by the tons
of stone, debris, and dirt now filling the space. He didn’t see any way out
without removing the heavy rock encasing them inside what looked like a small
storage room. There were crates of vegetables and fruits, barrels of wine,
blood, and beer stacked to the ceiling. Some had been crushed when the floor
gave and now the scent of alcohol permeated the room with its bittersweet
scent.

“My father’s going to kill me!” The girl pulled
at her hair. “I wasn’t supposed to go off wondering by myself, and now look at
this mess.”

“I think we have bigger things to worry about,”
Grayson said. He started lifting away rocks, trying to make his way toward the
door. Only, for every rock he moved, more came falling down from above. Beneath
the rubble were crushed, heavy boulders. Those would be impossible for him to
try to lift. Maybe one day he’d be strong enough but not now.

The girl smiled. “It looks as if we have time
to spare until we’re rescued. Why don’t tell me who you really are?”

One eyebrow went up. “I’ve already told you.”

The girl narrowed her eyes on him, assessing.
After a minute, she smiled and batted her lashes. “If you’re Grayson Blackmoore
then I’m Anita of Redenver house. At your service, my lord.” She performed a
grandiose bow.

“I really am Grayson Blackmoore.” He felt this
need to make her understand. He really was who he was, but who was she? Somewhere
deep inside him he knew she couldn’t be Anita of Redenver, the woman he was to
meet for the very first time tonight. He had yet to see Anita’s face, had only
heard whispers of her appearance from others. The whispers he’d heard spoke of
dark brown hues in her hair, eyes the color of oak. This girl couldn’t be her.
She had hair men fought wars over; it was the color of a glowing candle. For a
brief moment, Grayson wondered how stunning her golden blonde hair must look in
the sunlight. Not that he could ever see her thusly. This girl had cloudy gray
eyes not ones like oak. Surely it couldn’t be her, and yet, a part of him so
strongly wished it be her that his heart nearly felt like it’d doubled in size.
The new size of his heart added pressure to his lungs making it difficult to
breathe and speak at the same time.

Grayson cleared his throat then snapped a pose—cocking
one hand out to her, the other forming a gentle fist at his hip as his feet
once again snapped together. The beginning dance move was something else he’d
been taught since coming to live with his father. “Seeing as it may take some
time for us to be rescued, may I ask you for this dance?”

Her reply might have made scared him if she
hadn’t taken his hand as she said it. “But there is no music playing!”

Grayson swept her into a traditional dance, one
where music wasn’t necessary. The beats of the music played silently in his
mind as their bodies swayed in a counted rhythm.

“What if I am really Grayson Blackmoore and you
really are Anita Redenver?” he asked suddenly. He hadn’t even meant to ask,
yet, Grayson was dying to know the answer.

“Well I know I’m really Anita Redenver,” she
said, smiling like she knew a secret.

“And I’m really Grayson Blackmoore,” he said,
somewhat forcefully.

She looked contemplative. “If you’re Grayson,
then why do you speak with that heavy accent? The rest of the Blackmoore’s don’t
sound that way.”

“Dominic, the eldest, also speaks with an
accent,” he told her. He did not explain why; only he and Dominic had accents
while the rest of his family didn’t. She did not need to hear about his father’s
multiple bastard sons from different women.

His hand resting over hers, his arm around the
middle of her small back, her white-gloved hand holding up the top of her ball
gown as they stepped in time together. She made him feel so big to her small,
feminine size. Simply feeling her dancing in his arms gave him a renewed
strength. Surely he could toss all those boulders away from the door one-handed
now.

“Hmm. I’ve never met Dominic, I’ll have to be
honest. Where are you from then?”

“Turkey. I was raised by my mother in Turkey.”
No one had asked him about his past. Not since coming to live with his father
in this new world. His brothers had and of course his father knew, but no one
else had asked him. No one else had cared. This was the first he’d heard about
his ‘heavy accent’.

She smiled and held his hand a little tighter.
Where their hands joined, energy swirled. He couldn’t see it but he could feel
the presence of something special in her. Maybe she really was his
bruid.
A flicker of hope sprung. That could explain why she made him feel so strange…so
good.

“My mother’s not around. My father’s always
traveling so I go with him. He’s really good at finding people. He says I’ll be
better than him some day.”

“My father is Argonzo Blackmoore, president of
the were and vampire council.”

Her fingers flexed at the name. Everyone knew
the name of his father. He was one of the most powerful people in the world. “That’s
if
you’re really that awful Grayson.”

“Awful?” Surprise got the better of him.

A playful look crossed her face. “I hear
Grayson is a stalwart hero who’s as impenetrable as a rock in a fight.”

That almost made him laugh. “No one says
anything so poetic about me.”

“True. I believe what they really said was that
you were a quiet vampire with a temper.” She threw her head back and laughed,
revealing the smooth length of her neck, and the thumping pulse beating beneath
the skin. Gray tried to force his gaze away from her vein.
Too late!
He
saw the throbbing vein. The muscles in his neck locked tight in a painful knot
as he straightened his spine. His fangs distended. Only weak, or young vampires
couldn’t control their compulsion to feed at the sight of a vein. Panic grabbed
at him. How shameful to reveal his fangs to her, to show weakness to this
woman.

No!
Grayson’s heart beat frantically, sweat
slicked the back of his neck; he wouldn’t do it. Even if he had to kiss her to
keep her from seeing those vile teeth. Wait. His mind slowed.
Kiss
her?
Grayson froze, his wayward thought garnering far too much consideration.