Page 5 of Vampire's Choice

Deliberately, she lifted a middle finger, punctuating the gesture with a seductive tone that taunted him with what he was getting none of.

“No.”

He swooped. Just like that whirlwind of air had done to the grass, it spun her about and knocked her off balance, no matter that she tried to counter it.

She ended up on the ground, flat on her back, his shimmering energy above her. Not touching her. Not physically. She had half a heartbeat to know what he was going to do, to manage a desperate, final, “No.”

She felt his male satisfaction, that he’d gotten her to beg. His rough laughter danced over her mouth, teased her lips.

The erotic energy invaded her anew, far more powerfully than before.

He’d been holding back. Holy fuck.

It pinned her down, roared through every artery, every muscle and bundle of nerve endings, impossible to resist, to deny.

He wasn’t…touching her. It was overwhelming. Nothing to grasp. She thought his breath whispered across her face, his lips again so close, which made the torment even worse.

Her breasts felt so tender, the nipples painfully hard. Her skin was gooseflesh, tingling, her thighs strumming with sensation. When the orgasm tore through her, her cunt convulsed, gushed. Her strangled cry pierced the night. She bowed up as if yanked on strings, caught in the grip of the worst, most intense, most incredible, most out-of-control thing she’d ever experienced.

The weight of his invisible gaze was another kind of penetration as those cries kept coming from her clogged throat. She clutched the earth, found it moist and rich in her hands, like crumbled chocolate cake. She wanted to touch him, hold onto him, yet even if she could have raised her hands, she wouldn’t.

She could tell herself it was because she was being contrary, and yes, that was part of it. The other part was knowing he hadn’t given her permission to touch him, and in this state, stripped down and vulnerable, she couldn’t stop that part of her from coming forth.

But was it only one-way? Even through the chaos of her mind, she sensed his physical distance from her wasn’t merely to enforce his mastery of the situation. Maybe he fought the same emotional dangers she did. Either way, it was the most connected and most isolated, lonely feeling of her life, tearing her apart, even as she wanted more.

Not more of it.

More of him.

When the orgasms—yes, multiple—left her, she was disoriented, shuddering and weak. Almost mindless.

He was gone.

It seemed like eons later when she rolled awkwardly to her side, her muscles protesting. When she did, she saw scraps of paper from the book Tau had shredded. Caught on one of them was a black and white feather. The white had a silver tint and a zigzag pattern. Like lightning.

She stared at it. Her brain weakly kicked back in and told her why she needed to pull herself together. If Tau came back, he’d decide she’d become something weak enough he could eat.

She needed to get up. She would. Any minute now.

As soon as she could convince herself a far more dangerous predator hadn’t devoured her already.

CHAPTER TWO

“She was asleep again. In the middle of the night.”

Mal braced his hands on the split rail fence by the house, gazing at the field beyond it, dotted with purple wildflowers. Unlike other vegetation here, the resilient blossoms were native to the island.

The preserve was an amalgamation of environments, created by a sorcerer’s spellcraft to provide optimal habitat for the animals Mal had rescued or brought here for rehabilitation. One-way portals, pieced together with fault lines between the protected areas here and the wild places where many of the cats would ultimately be returned, allowed that transition to happen less traumatically than a plane or boat trip.

So much that had once seemed impossible had become possible here. He didn’t take any of that for granted. But there were days when he was filled with anger, because none of that could save his daughter from the dangers of the vampire world into which she’d been born.

Elisa stood next to him, her hip pressed against his thigh. Over eighty years ago, she’d come to him, and proven herself far more than a simple Irish maid from the household of another vampire, Lady Danny. Elisa was a woman who’d faced unimaginable loss with courage, not allowing it to stop her from caring for others. Or falling in love with him.

She’d become his third marked servant, which bound her to him forever. Three hundred years in this life, and whatever lay in the afterlife, if vampire lore on the subject wasn’t merely wishful thinking. He hoped it wasn’t, because every day he spent with her told him no amount of time would ever be enough.

She’d also borne his children. Vampires rarely procreated, and if they did, and the child survived to adulthood, it was expected to be their one and only. Twins were an even rarer miracle. He'd only heard of it once before, so their children had received closer scrutiny.

For a mercifully brief timespan, they’d faced the threat of their removal. It was thought the children would be safer with a stronger, older vampire until they’d passed the age at which they were susceptible to kidnapping from the Trad sect, or other vampires who hungered for the status blood children could bring.

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