Page 66 of Our Sins in Shadows (Coven of Sin 2)

“Oh, Princess! You’re safe. I know you need your rest, but I can’t wait to do a reading on you. Your aura is so interesting.” She pressed her hands together, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

“Ruby, this is Isadora.” Corry nodded at the bubbly woman. “She’s the coven’s Oracle and resident ball of sunshine. And this is her mate, Tau. He’s the coven’s tailor.”

“Oh, please just call me Isa, Princess,” Isa insisted with a wave of her hand and a mellifluous giggle. “If you need gowns made or palms read, we’re your go-to. We also make a mean blood tea if you ever get a craving.”

“Princess.” Tau tipped his hat at me, smiling, though the expression was far more restrained than his mate’s. “You stink of Boston, but here you are, alive. Impressive. There’s been talk about the house, how some think you should be turned.” He gave the bright-eyed girl beside him a soft smile. “Isa and I were discussing the matter.”

“Discussing what, exactly?” I asked, intrigued by the vampire couple and their pleasant demeanor.

Tau returned his attention to me with a polite smile. “That a mortal queen might be just what our people need. And now that you’ve emerged from enemy territory with your heart still beating—” His meaty shoulders gave a shrug. “Maybe now others will agree. Anyway, we won’t delay you further from your beauty sleep, Princess.” The male tipped his hat again, this time lifting it higher off his head.

For just a moment, I caught sight of his skull, which was a quarter shaved on one side. It had been so quick, but I could have sworn I’d seen the puckered flesh of a scar shaped like the letter S. If I’d gotten a longer glimpse, I was certain I would’ve seen the C poking out from his long hair. It was the Salem Coven’s method of branding their coven members, like Zeke Stone at The Warehouse.

As Corry carried me up the stairs, I waited until the couple was out of earshot before asking, “Was Tau a member of the Salem Coven?”

My young vampire blinked down at me, his brows hiking up at my perception. “They both were. Back in the day.”

“Does that happen a lot? Vampires changing covens?”

“Not really. But theirs was a special circumstance. It’s an interesting story, actually.”

I chewed on my lip, immersed in thought, as Corry carried me to my bedroom door. The moment we were inside, I breathed in the faintly musty scent, associating it now with sanctuary. My youngblood set me carefully at the foot of the bed. “Lift your arms, Red. Let’s get you out of this shirt.”

Liquid fire swept through my body as I found Corry reaching to unbutton my shirt. Was he wanting to fuck me?

The idea had so much appeal. My hot center was wet all over again with the simple kiss of this male’s fingertips. Bloody hell. Even though I could barely hold my head up, my libido was still on a crazy spike and now that I was alone with the prince, I wanted him.

My body had to be putting off all sorts of crazy hints to Corry about what was running through my mind because a lopsided, one-dimpled smirk slid easily across his features. “What I mean is, I don’t want you sleeping in Erik Thorn’s shirt. He stinks.”

Raising a bicep, muscles rippling with the movement, he reached over his head and behind his back to pull off his own shirt in one swift move.

My mouth went bone dry as he held it out to me. “I want you to smell like me.”

My heart fell when I realized he wanted me to smell of him by wearing hisshirt, not him.

“Oh.” My greedy gaze slipped down the vampire’s bare torso, gobbling up the sight of his defined abdominal muscles and that yummy little trail of hair that stretched from his navel down into the waistband of his jeans.

I scooted back onto the mattress toward the headboard, sending him a sultry, if somewhat sleepy, smile. “Maybe I want to keep it on.”

“Ruby,” he growled, crawling up onto the bed. “Don’t be a brat. I’m perfectly capable of ripping it off your body.” He paused, his nostrils twitching as he breathed in my scent. “Then again, judging by your response to that, you’d like that too much.”

The sight of him crawling on his hands and knees sent my pulse into a gallop. I spread my legs to flash him what lay beneath the hem of Erik’s shirt, knowing that combined with the roar of my blood coursing through my arteries, it would be too much of a temptation for him to deny.

“Red,” he groaned as he crawled on top of me, his hands pressed into the pillow on either side of my head. “Sterling will kill me if I don’t let you get some rest. I’m still banned from feeding on the donors, and I can’t go into town by myself. I’m trying to prove I have more self-control than they think.”

I considered for a moment and sighed, realizing that all these hormones were making me into a selfish horn-dog. “You have more control than they give you credit for. Fine. I’ll go to sleep. On one condition.”

He eyed me suspiciously. “What’s that?”

“You tell me how Tau and Isa left the Salem Coven to join ours. You said it was an interesting story. I want to hear it.”

Chapter twenty-six

Bedtime Stories

Corrysatbackonhis heels, rubbing his chin in thought. “You want to know about Isa and Tau?”

“Well, yeah.” Pulling myself into a sitting position on my bed with my legs crossed beneath me and my elbows resting on my knees, I shrugged. “They’re the first mated vampire couple I’ve met. Maybe I can ask them some questions about this whole bonded mate thing. Stuff I should know.”

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