My dreams of Darius have returned, only they’re…different. Each time we made love, it was always on top of a pile of human bodies. Then my dreams switched from us making love on the corpses of humans to us actually slaughtering them together and making love while we bathed in their blood. My dreams were a glimpse into my mind, my desires. But more dead human bodies were the last thing I desired. And every night I awoke, panicked, on the verge of tears and full of regret. It made me that much more determined to do something about their suffering.
I tried talking to Darius about it, but he shut me down. He told me to bury it. To let my father and him handle it. But they weren’t. For the most part they seemed to be ignoring it. Not me. I told Darius I was going shopping and met with a private investigator, James Crumby, I hired to find out as much as he could about the plight of my people. The report I got back less than a week later broke my heart.
In every town only those who catered to their lord were prosperous. Every other human in that territory was left to die. This was how my father survived. He did Viktor’s dirty work. He betrayed his own people. James also came bearing a gift. A silver necklace with Amber encased inside a silver pendant shaped like the sun. He said it would protect me from influence.
I tucked the necklace inside my shirt and headed home. Immediately Darius began questioning me about where I’d gone. He tried and failed to read my thoughts. It peaked his interest and he examined me from head to toe, roaring with laughter when his eyes finally fell upon the silver necklace.
“Clever girl,” he smirked, “Now I know you’ve been up to no good. Why else would you go to such lengths to disguise your actions?”
“Someone has to help them,” I declared.
“Giselle,” he groaned.
“If you and my father think you can keep me out of this, you don’t know me very well,” I glared at him, “Did you see the morning paper? My people think I’m a traitor. That I’ve somehow forgotten them.”
“You are a traitor. Well…you’re the daughter of one.”
“And you’re the son of the man who’s oppressing the human population. Did you know the unemployment rate for my kind is almost at one hundred percent? That ninety-nine percent of my people are poor, hungry and dying?”
“Yes.”
“And yet you feel nothing for them?”
“Why should I? Your people tried to exterminate us when all we wanted was peace and equality,” he glared at me, “when it became clear they were more concerned with controlling us than living with us peacefully Vladimir made an executive decision. We’d rather be feared then subject ourselves to the rule of your kind for the sake of peace again.”
“You’re killing us!”
Too fast for me to register his movements, Darius was before me now, hovering over me, chest heaving up and down, with his hand clamped over my mouth. I gasped. His touch…dear God his touch was almost unbearable. His feral eyes, full of rage, burned into mine, demanding I back off.
He removed his hand from my mouth and whispered to me, “Lower. Your. Voice.” I stopped talking. Mostly because I couldn’t find the words to speak. The moment he touched me my mind went blank. “I tolerate you because I have to, but my patience wears thin.”
His words stung more than they should have. To know he was merely tolerating me…it ate at me. Slicing mercilessly into a part of me I hadn’t realized would care.
He sat down at his desk in a far corner of our bedroom and began to go over some paperwork. For a moment I watched him, trying to find the part of me he fractured so I could put it back together.
We sat in silence for what seemed like forever before he finally glanced up at me and said, “I’m sorry for losing my temper.”
“I’m sorry you have to tolerate me.”
Darius grimaced. Whether he meant the words or not, there’s only one reason he would have said them. He wanted to hurt me. The longer I stared at him, the more inadequate I felt. Everything about me was a flaw in his eyes.
It took everything inside me to tear my eyes away from his. He had so much power. He could help me if he wanted to. But he didn’t. I was just a bleeding heart to him. Weak.
I stood up to leave and Darius appeared before me. His mouth opened like he wanted to say something to me but no words came out. I didn’t dare look him in the eyes. Not now. Not while he was so close.
“I can’t read your thoughts,” Darius leaned his head against mine, “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
I’m thinking I can’t breathe with you so close to me…I’m thinking about how close your lips are to mine…how I’ve never been kissed before and how I hope your lips find their way to mine…
I retched at the thoughts circling in my head and he backed away from me. Running to the bathroom, I barely made it to the toilet before I filled the toilet bowl with vomit. What’s happening to me?
Again I retched, heaving everything I ate up until my stomach was completely empty. I hugged my knees and rested my head against the wall. Darius appeared in the doorway, and God help me, I dry-heaved. Thankfully nothing came out. There was nothing left.
“I’d ask you if you were pregnant if I didn’t know you were still a virgin,” Darius ran a careful eye over me. “Are you alright? Are you ill?”
Those eyes…those lips…
Violently I dry-heaved this time, back arched and my arms extended, holding me in place. Nothing. No bile, no bits of food…nothing. Darius went to get a physician.
Come on Giselle…get it together…
Darius and the physician showed up several minutes later and at the sight of Darius I began to dry-heave again. Jackson, Cara, William and Viktor all came running to find out what was going on.
The physician had Darius carry me over to the bed. I couldn’t walk. He gave me a sedative and some water. I’d barely gotten the water down when Darius leaned over me to see if I was okay. Wide-eyed, I shot up, barely missing the physician and threw up everything I just drank all over the floor.
The physician forced me to look into his eyes and then he pressed his thumbs to my temples. I had no idea what he was doing, but when he was done, there was understanding in his eyes. He knew. He pulled everyone out of the room and only Cara was allowed to come back in with him.
“Oh sweetie, if Darius made you sick, all you had to do was say so. Literally vomiting at the sight of him…priceless. You should have seen his face when the physician told him he made you sick,” Cara cackled.
I smiled.
The physician handed me more water to drink and when I finished the cup the sedative he gave me took over. In no time at all I was sound asleep. I slept for two whole days and woke up starving. Thankfully Cara was waiting with a tray of food. Like a starving animal I scarfed down every ounce of it.
“Are you well?” Darius asked from the seating area. His back was to me.
“I believe so.”
In a heartbeat he sat beside me now, placing the back of his hand to my head to check for a temperature. No dry heaving. No retching. Good. I can stomach the sight of him now.
“We must discuss wedding arrangements,” Darius placed a couple of newspapers in my lap. Both front-page articles were about us. One claimed he’d somehow influenced me to marry him and I was trapped in a loveless relationship-another victim. The other article painted me as the savior of my people sacrificing myself, and my own happiness, for the sake of my people. He placed a third paper on my lap. This one accused Darius of both going soft and being a traitor to his kind by being with me. “Pick a date.”
“How about never?”
No smile, no amusement, and no sense of humor. He leered at me and simply repeated, “Pick. A. Date.”
“No,” I refused, “Not until I know what I’m getting myself into with you. You haven’t even taken me out on a real date. And all you do is bark orders at me. If you want me to pick a date, then I want romance. I want bouquets of flowers, I want chivalry, I want you to let me in and I want you to love me.”
Darius sucked in a breath and exhaled deeply, “I’ve never been in love before. I’m not even sure I’m capable of such a thing,” he confided.
“Everyone is capable of love. Even you. You simply have to let go of the control you covet so much and blindly take a leap of faith.”
“Is it your blind faith in your God that makes you so certain I won’t decide to break your heart once I’ve infiltrated it?” He asked. I had to stifle a gasp. Such a ballsy question.
“That’s the thing about faith. However you should wield it determines its effectiveness.”
“Do you want me?” Darius’ eyes met mine, waiting for me to answer.
“I’m afraid to.”
“But do you want me?”
I thought long and hard about how to answer before saying, “You first.”
“Yes,” his eyes slid to my lips then back up to my eyes, “And you?”
Breathlessly I nodded and whispered, “Yes.”
My eyes slid to his lips and then back up to his eyes. Like magnets we seemed to be drawing closer together. His eyes pinned me in place and I stopped breathing as his lips stopped a hair away from mine. He waited. Taunting me with his close proximity. Torturing me with what’s to come. He purposely waited until I was forced to draw a breath and slid his tongue in between my lips, sweeping it against the roof of my mouth.
I shuddered, whimpering softly, and he responded with a sensual growl. His lips were soft, succulent, and every flicker of his tongue chipped away at my resolve.
As if remembering him from all those dreams, my center began to ache for him. He caressed his thumb over my cheekbone. Everywhere his hands touched me burned into my skin. Time seemed to have stopped altogether, suspended in this one moment.
He continued his onslaught inside my mouth, stroking my tongue with his and sucking on both my bottom and top lip. The throbbing between my legs intensified, begging for his touch. He answered by sliding his hand into my jeans, tracing circles just beneath the folds of my center until my back arched and I went rigid with immeasurable pleasure. I could have ripped the hair from his head. That’s how intense the feeling was. Long after he pulled away, my eyes remained closed, savoring the way his lips felt against mine. When I opened them, Darius removed his hands from my pants, smiled, and sucked my wetness from his fingers.
God help me...
“June of this year,” Darius whispered to me.
“Next year,” I countered, catching my breath. He smiled bearing a perfect set of white teeth. Not fangs. Teeth.
“This year,” he stood his ground.
“What’s the rush?”
“I have needs,” his eyes devoured me.
“August.”
“July,” He countered.
“August.”
He mulled over my requested and flashed me a wicked smile before saying, “August then.” He motioned to the ring finger on my left hand, “Your engagement ring.”
Sure enough, resting on my ring finger was a simple band with a four-carat, princess cut diamond stone resting on it.
“Get dressed. We have another appearance in four hours.”
“Can’t you go without me?”
“We’re to go together,” was all he would say.
Cara came in and took me into the bathroom to get ready. She smiled when she saw the ring on my finger. I was too busy still processing that kiss and his fingers to think about anything else. My first kiss was with a night-dweller, with Darius…and it was even better than expected.
Later that day we appeared at the capital for the passing of new laws. Laws I cringed at when I heard them. All of them were geared towards humans, and all of them were damning. I wanted to protest, and Darius must’ve picked up on it. He laced his fingers with mine, making my mind go blank. Those fingers. He gave my hand a quick squeeze. I met his gaze and the world beyond us faded away. Damn him. Damn those eyes…damn him for what he did to me with those fingers…
Darius gave a speech to his people, addressing new laws that benefited them. Laws that were a contrast to the damning laws unleashed on my kind. Laws created to uplift his kind as opposed to the ones enacted to oppress mine.
Later that night on human news channels, reporters dubbed me the devil’s whore. They butchered my family name and me. Devil. Darius was the devil and I was his whore. They used the words brainless and naïve when describing me. But I am not those things. They said I didn’t care because Darius had his hand up my ass. I’m his human puppet. This was how they described me…my own people. They were so angry with me. Seeing how much it bothered me, Darius turned off the television.
“They hate me,” I sulked.
“Pay no attention to them,” Darius barely looked up from his desk.
“They called me the devils whore. Your whore,” I began to pace.
“And I’ll make them wish they hadn’t.”
“Darius, I have to do something.”
“No,” he protested.
“But-”
Finally peering up from his papers at me, he cast me a warning glance and said, “I said no.”
Puppet...Darius’ whore…kept and stifled…seen but never heard…that’s who I’d become…
“Murderer. That’s what you are if you let them die.” Darius’ temples flared. I’m getting underneath his skin. Good. Maybe now I have his attention. “Their blood and the blood of their children will be on your hands because you were too much of a coward to stand up to your father and do-”
Before I could finish my sentence his hand clenched around my throat and his fangs were on full display. He hissed at me, pressing me into the wall at my back. I almost pissed myself. He was strong, fast, and deadly. A predator through and through, and I’d just provoked him. His fangs were mere inches from my throat. I swallowed hard. I couldn’t breathe.
“Do not provoke me,” Darius warned, “Your people are as good as dead but my people have a chance at life.”
“I will never give up on them.”
He laughed. “My family and I control everything. No one breathes in this town without us knowing it. Help them and outside threats will be the least of your worries. I’ll slaughter you where you sleep and bathe in your blood for sport,” he whispered to me, grazing the slope of my neck with his lips.
I believed every word he spoke. It was in his tone, his eyes, and even in the amount of restraint he forced himself to have with me. All of it said he could and would kill me if he had to. He’d kill me and bathe in my blood if I defied him. Pressing his body against mine, he gently kissed the contours of my neck.
Powerless. That’s how he made me feel whenever he touched me. His fangs pierced my neck and I bit my bottom lip to stifle my whimper.
Darius fed on me. It was undoubtedly another act to show that he was in control, not me. He wanted me to submit to him. He didn’t know me very well. I should be cowering, but his lips against my skin have set my nerve endings on fire.
By exposing more of my neck I let him know I wanted more of him. Perhaps all of him. As if he didn’t know that already. He’s had millenniums to master the art of driving women crazy and he did so with ease. He pressed himself further into me, hoisting me up and wrapping my legs around his waist. His lips tugged at my flesh while he sucked, licked and flicked his tongue over the wound on my neck. I wrapped my arms around him trying to hold myself up as I lost consciousness.
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