Dark and Deadly: Eight Bad Boys of Paranormal Romance (128 page)

The blood rose bond felt like a bridge between them, something that would never go away, even though each of their mating vibrations had settled down.

The moment of ecstasy would live in her mind for a long time, perhaps forever, and would no doubt define the rest of her life with him.

“I love you, Zeph, with all my heart.”

He shifted inside her, still firm. She arched against him. “Would it be asking too much if we did that again?”

He drew back and pushed her hair away from her face. “Nothing would make me happier.”

He made love to her for a long time that night and her heart kept making all the blood he needed.

She slept deeply in his arms, maybe the first good night’s sleep she’d had since her father had died and her mother had been abducted.

When she woke up with his arms holding her tight, and his muscular warrior body spooning her from behind, she reveled in the knowledge that her life had changed forever, had become something new, something different, something extraordinary.

She’d come to understand Zephyr’s warrior nature better, just as he’d finally stepped out of his battling self long enough to see what each wraith-bonded realm-person had lost through being abducted.

She looked forward to becoming part of the solution and joining with Zephyr to rescue wraith-pairs. She’d been inside the rehab prison centers enough times to know that her mother’s recovery would be a long, slow process that would take years. But she meant to be part of that process as well and she would wait, however long it took, for her mother to recover.

As for Zephyr, she never thought in a thousand years that she’d get to be with him in a permanent way so that what had felt like a disaster when she’d learned she was a blood rose, had become the greatest miracle of her life. Not only could she ease his suffering, but she’d get to share his bed and perhaps one day in the future, they’d make a family together.

With these thoughts, she savored her life, her man, and the truth that sometimes the most difficult experiences brought the greatest rewards. Zephyr was proof of that. How grateful she was that she’d had the courage to accept her blood rose ability and to complete the bond with him.

She promised herself, from this time forward, that she would remember their joining and all the events leading up to it. And even if the time came when they celebrated their union with a wedding, this was the night she would mark as their true anniversary, the moment when she became his blood rose, now and forever.

The End

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Trapped
and I hope you enjoyed it.

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.

“If you still refuse to budge, I don’t see the point. We should go our separate ways.”

Brianna sat with her boyfriend in their favorite bar, The Long Tooth, uncertain whether to break up with him or not. She tugged her shawl around her shoulders, her throat tight.

“Don’t do this.” Yolen looked hurt, but she refused to get lost as she always did in his dark brown eyes and in the scent he gave off like smoky wood, burning by a river. Sweet Goddess, she craved that scent. “You know I love you. Tell me you know I love you.”

She drew in a deep breath. “I do. But I need more from you and yes, I know you hate hearing that.”

He narrowed his gaze and leaned back in chair. “Wait a minute. Is this because I’m not going to your exhibition?”

“In part.” Her art show was their current bone of contention, but might just be their last. “This is the first one I’ve had in a year and given the write-ups in the Bergisson News, this could be a turning point in my career. At the very least, I want my boyfriend there and I don’t think that’s asking too much.”

His expression hardened and his gorgeous eyes started throwing off sparks. “So I was right. We wouldn’t even be having this conversation if I’d set aside my work schedule to be with you at the gallery tomorrow night.”

She sighed because this meant getting to the heart of things. “You’re missing the point. The exhibition is only part of the problem.”

“And I think you’re being ridiculous. We’ve got a great thing here.” He crossed his arms over his chest, which of course made his biceps look like the size of small boulders. A shiver raced through her all the way to her toes. She loved his body, loved making love with him. Hell, she loved everything about him, except that he was so damn obstinate about the strict box into which he’d crammed their relationship.

Friday nights.

That’s all she ever got.

“You’re not listening to me.”

He compressed his lips. Not a good sign, but a very familiar one. She knew what would follow almost as certainly as night followed day. She tensed up, waiting for the lecture.

But he surprised her. Instead, of going into his full-blown diatribe on how his plan was best for all concerned, he slid his arm around her shoulders and held her gaze. He was only a few inches away and she was pretty sure her heart had just slammed out a few extra beats. “This is the way I keep you safe. Don’t you get that, Brianna? Distance is good given that those of us in homicide are targeted by the enemy. Try to remember what happened to Alec and his woman. She died because she was with him when the wraith-pairs attacked. And he was a mastyr vampire.”

“I know you believe what you’re saying, but seeing you only once a week just isn’t working. I can’t explain it, but I get so hungry for you and I need so much more—like talking to you throughout the week, being with you, sharing your bed—”

Suddenly, he dropped his arm off her shoulders. “Fuck. I know what this about. It’s because I won’t embrace my mastyr calling, isn’t it? You and Ethan, always on me about this.”

She widened her eyes, startled how he’d shifted the subject. “I never said that,” she responded, shoving at his arm. “I do not pick on you about your refusal to rise to mastyr status, nor does Mastyr Ethan.”

“But you think it. You’ve shared your opinion often enough.”

“I’m sorry, but what universe are you living in? I think I may have said twice that you should think about it. That’s all. Just think about it and I’ve never brought it up again.”

He frowned. “You’re right and I’ll concede that.” But he rose suddenly. “I’ll get us some beers and I’ll try to calm down. But you’re really pissing me off tonight and I had all this stuff planned.”

“What stuff?”

“Just forget it. Forget I said anything.”

She watched Yolen wend his way through tall tables, stools, and chatting customers. The bar had an industrial feel with exposed ductwork and lamps that hung suspended from the twenty foot ceiling. Old, beat-up Bergisson license plates, along with some from their neighboring U.S. access point of Louisiana, covered the red brick wall behind a long glossy wood bar.

She felt guilty as she always did when she made a push. Yolen wasn’t a bad boyfriend. Far from it. And he always made their Friday nights together special. That he might have had something arranged for later, for just the two of them would have been exactly his speed and she appreciated the effort he made.

But her heart ached at the serious gap between what she had with him and what she needed. She also knew it wasn’t entirely his fault because for some reason, in recent weeks, she’d developed deep and at times almost painful longings to be so much closer to him, to share her life more fully with him.

She even carried around a strange weight in her chest, especially heavy on Friday nights before she fed him. Though she’d dated a lot of vampires, Yolen was the first one who had ever pierced her throat, a profoundly intimate act. And she loved him fiercely like air to her lungs.

She put a hand to her chest and rubbed. And there it was the weight and the ache.

But she couldn’t continue like this. Her feelings of desperation were tearing her apart. Unless he made more room for her in his life, she had to let him go, had to move on.

***

Yolen shook off the anger that radiated through his brain, making his biceps flex and release. He hated fighting with Brianna. But more importantly, he didn’t like her efforts to push him into something he truly disagreed with. He had his world set up very carefully to ensure that those he cared about stayed safe, yet somehow she refused to understand that.

But the thought of breaking up, of never seeing her again, tore a hole in his chest. He loved Brianna, more than he could say. The sex was amazing, she made him laugh, and they shared a lot of things in common, especially their love of Cameron, Bergisson Realm’s largest city.

He was also sorry he’d have to miss her exhibition, but it couldn’t be helped. He worked one of Cameron’s toughest crime districts, six nights a week, until dawn, keeping their city safe. He spent his hours investigating every murder within his jurisdiction and usually once a night helped the Bergisson Vampire Guard battle Invictus wraith-pairs.

Yet apparently all that wasn’t good enough for Brianna.

As he moved toward the bar, he worked to set aside his frustration. This storm would blow over soon enough, hopefully after a couple of beers. In the meantime, he greeted friends, shook a few hands, clapped some shoulders, and felt at least some of his aggravation drift away.

When he reached the bar, he glanced back at her. With any other woman, this kind of conversation would have obliterated his interest and the relationship would have disintegrated in a very short period of time. But in the year he’d dated Brianna, she’d gotten under his skin like no other woman he’d ever known.

It helped that she was beautiful. She had a sexy, almost willowy appearance with graceful fingers, a long, elegant throat that appealed to his vampire nature, and a way of moving that reminded him of the wind. Her light blue eyes, fringed with dark lashes, flashed lightning at times, and at others, when he was looking down at her, appeared like bottomless pools into which he could get completely lost.

Her long blond hair curled just at the tips and right now she wore it pushed back behind her left ear. She wore a trio of thin gold rings just below the sexy, fae ear-point. More than once he’d used his tongue along those rings to work her up.

His whole body heated up at the thought.

At the same time, he felt damn uneasy. He didn’t want to let Brianna go. For one thing, she got him. She never bitched about his temper or even flinched when he expressed a contrary opinion. Instead, she’d give him that straight-on look of hers until he finally apologized for being a Neanderthal and rephrased his statement.

He just didn’t understand why she couldn’t see how perfect their current arrangement was. They had the best Friday night dates of any couple he knew, and he saw to that.

He contributed.

In fact, tonight he’d planned on doing something he’d never done before, and for him this was a big concession. For the first time ever, he intended to take her back to his house.

He never brought women to his riverside home. But he knew Brianna needed more and he’d worked with his housekeeper to make tonight special. He’d timed things to have champagne ready in an iced bucket, flowers in a vase, rose petals on the carpet, lots of candles lighting the place in a glow. He’d even stacked up a fire on the hearth, ready to be lit when he brought her home. And he’d done this because he cared about her.

He just didn’t understand why she’d suddenly become so demanding? If he thought back to the time when things had shifted, he recalled that a tough battling situation one night had forced his mastyr calling to surge. He’d been sick as a dog afterwards, having tamped his calling down. He hated the surges, but having faced off against two wraith-pairs, and almost dying, had brought the flow of power rising, begging to be fully embraced. Fortunately, Mastyr Ethan had shown up, the ruler of Bergisson and the most powerful vampire in their realm. He’d taken both pairs out in less than a minute.

But after that surge, things with Brianna had grown strained. Yes, he could date the moment from exactly that point.

He just didn’t know why and to give her credit, she really hadn’t picked at him about accepting his calling and rising to mastyr status. That was all on him.

***

Brianna watched Yolen as he stood at the bar. He waited for a couple of pints and as always her gaze fell to his gorgeous ass tucked into snug, sexy jeans. He worked out and it showed. He had massive shoulders that tapered to a lean waist.

She had such a thing for him.

He wore his long, wavy brown hair in the woven clasp more typical of the Vampire Guard than the local police force. Decades earlier, he’d been a Guardsman for a while, but had found he preferred working in a city setting. He knew Ethan, the Mastyr of Bergisson, really well and in years past had done some serious bar-hopping with him, though that was well before her time.

She wished like anything she didn’t have to break up with Yolen, but her relationship had moved into a difficult no-man’s-land, the one involving what she needed and just how much he wasn’t willing to budge.

Not a single inch.

He wasn’t even coming to her exhibition, her first in a year, the one that could possibly define her entire future. And all because he had their relationship in a tidy little Friday night box. And in-between, he had a no-call policy so that for six days out of seven she was lonely as hell for him.