Hunger (29 page)

Tor’s hand shifted in hers and for a terrifying moment she thought he would release her as he had back at the mansion in Amsterdam, leaving her to face the horde of vampires alone.

He didn’t.

He held her tighter and moved closer instead, partly shielding her from the overzealous greeting from her new vampire family.

When several men tried to reach her, Tor flashed his fangs at them and growled low in his throat, the menacing sound a warning even she understood. He wouldn’t let anyone touch her, especially unmated males.

He pulled her closer, tucking her against his side, his grip on her right shoulder firm as he pinned her there.

Eve looked up at him and froze when she smelled a familiar scent. It sent a shiver through her, bringing tears into her eyes, and she swung her gaze towards the vampire standing directly across the foyer from her on the bottom step of an elegant wooden staircase.

They looked so much alike, and both wore black jeans, although Lilith had paired hers with a red jumper. Very casual attire for a ruler of a whole bloodline. Eve stared at her, straight into eyes that made her feel she was looking in a mirror and could see her reflection again, only Lilith had always liked to dye her hair blonde. She wore it down tonight, a sleek ash blonde waterfall that caressed her shoulders.

“Out of my way,” Lilith said and nudged several vampires aside as she made a beeline for Eve.

Her sister dragged her out of Tor’s protective embrace and into her own one, squeezing her tight enough that her left arm ached and throbbed. Eve grimaced.

“Easy,” Tor said in a low, dangerous tone, and Lilith pulled back and raised a dark eyebrow at him. He cast his gaze at his boots.

“I’m kinda hurt,” Eve said as way of an explanation for his behaviour, hoping her sister would understand and not punish him for how he had spoken to her. “Tor probably felt it.”

“Probably felt it?” Lilith clutched Eve’s shoulders and pushed her back to arms’ length, her gaze questioning and searing at the same time. “What do you mean… probably felt it?”

“Perhaps a conversation best had in private, my love?” A dark-haired man dressed in a fine black tailored suit took Lilith’s arm and Lilith looked over her shoulder at him, her eyes as round as full moons.

She stared at him for long seconds, looked from Eve to Tor, and then at the crowd.

Lilith raised her hand and silence fell. “I wish to speak with our dear Chosen Daughter in private, but she is overwhelmed by your greeting and touched.”

“A ball,” someone shouted and Eve tensed and clenched Tor’s hand.

She wasn’t ready for another ball, not yet, not when everyone would expect her to behave and act like their Chosen Daughter. She needed more time.

Lilith took one look at her and shook her head. “Once Eve is settled, we will celebrate her arrival, but we must wait until she has recovered from her ordeal.”

That seemed to placate the murmured requests for a ball now running through the crowd and Eve sagged with relief. She looked across at Lilith, warmed inside. She had forgotten how well Lilith knew her and how attuned to each other they had always been, always knowing when the other didn’t want to do something, or wanted to do something.

Lilith held her hand out to her but Eve didn’t take it. She kept hold of Tor’s hand and followed her sister through the crowd, nodding in acceptance of all the greetings she received as they made their way towards an open wooden panelled door. The dark crimson walls along the corridor on the other side reminded Eve of blood.

Her stomach clenched.

Tor petted her hand and she lifted her gaze to meet his. It stuck on his neck and the pronounced vein there. Her mouth watered. His lips curved into a wicked smile.

He could tease her all he wanted but she knew he was hungry too. They had somehow managed to keep their hands off each other for the past two nights while she was healing her arm and other injuries, and Tor was healing his ribs and right shoulder. She didn’t think they would make it through a third night.

The first had been easy because she had been so tired after the battle at the warehouse and in so much pain that she hadn’t even thought about kissing Tor, let alone anything else. The second had been more difficult but it was the night the three Law Keepers had left Amsterdam, and had insisted on taking Angelica with them.

They wanted to study her and hold her until she had become accustomed to life as a vampire, and until the lords and ladies of the seven pure bloodlines had decided what to do with her.

Eve knew what that meant. They were going to discuss whether Angelica should die. Eve wouldn’t allow it. She meant to petition her sister as soon as she had settled, before the Law Keepers scheduled the trial. Angelica had Tor’s blood in her veins. She was part Vehemens and Eve wanted her new family to take her in. Tor had explained it would be difficult on Angelica. The family wouldn’t easily accept a vampire of mixed breeding.

Not even if Lilith decreed it?

Probably not, but Eve had to try.

They reached a pleasant pale blue drawing room with beautiful antique furniture. A set of armchairs and two couches formed a crescent directly ahead of her, surrounding a large white marble fireplace. The colour of the room reminded her of Tor’s eyes and she snuck another glance at him.

His smile broadened.

Lilith stared at her, the sharpness of her gaze cutting into the side of her face. She dragged her eyes away from Tor and caught her sister’s look of shock. The man beside her, Lincoln she presumed, didn’t look surprised by what he was seeing. He actually looked as if he had expected her to walk into the building hand-in-hand with Tor.

Tor closed the door behind her. Lilith started to pace across the wooden floor. Lincoln calmly rested his backside against a large walnut table off to the right of the seating area. That section of the room looked like a sort of office. There was a lamp on the table, a stack of files, and a closed laptop. Did Lilith do her business from here?

Lilith eyed Tor. “So let’s just get something straight… you’re involved with my sister?”

He nodded without hesitation.

“Probably more than involved,” Eve said and Lilith’s dark eyes leaped to her. She shrugged. “I mean… we’re bonded.”

Lilith blew out her breath and the speed of her pacing increased. Lincoln looked as if he was suppressing a grin. Did Lilith’s reaction amuse him? He had clearly known how things would end when he had sent Tor to her. How?

“Bonded.” Lilith wrapped her lips around that word as if it was new to her and she couldn’t quite comprehend what it meant. “Bonded?”

Tor nodded and squeezed Eve’s hand. “Bonded.”

Lilith’s dark eyebrows drew down. “Did you start it?”

He shook his head and Eve stepped forwards, unwilling to let him sit in Lilith’s crosshairs any longer.

“I did,” Eve said and tipped her chin up. “You’re bonded too, aren’t you? You don’t see me ragging on Lincoln about it.”

The dark-haired man did smile now but quickly covered it by rubbing his knuckles across his mouth when Lilith scowled at him.

“We’re bonded, and soon we’ll be mated.” That announcement made Tor’s fingers flex hard against the back of her hand and intense heat rippled through her when his gaze landed on her. She resisted the temptation to look at him and stared at Lilith. “I realised when I thought I had lost him in Amsterdam that I want what we have to be as special as it should be. I want Tor as my mate.”

“It’s unbreakable once we mate.” Those low-spoken words coming from Tor ripped at her heart and she looked up at him, catching the touch of fear and vulnerability hidden in the depths of his pale blue eyes.

Part of him had thought she might want to break their bond, even after she had told him that she was in love with him. She had a battle on her hands convincing Tor that what they had was forever and that he belonged at her side and she at his. This bloodline had conditioned him to view himself as the lowest tier in its social structure and she needed to slowly recondition him to see that he deserved to stand at her side, as one of the elite. Their bloodline owed him for his centuries of service and dedication.

“I want it unbreakable,” Eve said in a snippy, playful tone. “I don’t want you getting ideas about slipping back into the shadows and spouting nonsense about not being worthy of me. If I make it unbreakable, you have no choice but to accept that you belong among the elite. This bloodline was wrong to make you think otherwise and I might demand that changes.”

She looked across at Lincoln and Lilith.

“I want Tor’s position as a hunter elevated to the rank it deserves… because you’ll have two hunters now. So either I’m down there in the servant ranks with him, or he’s up here with me.”

Lincoln didn’t cover his grin this time. “I am sure it is well past time that the hunters were acknowledged as an extremely worthy and elite position in this bloodline. We had been considering changing the previous ruler’s social structure, but now we have all the more reason to make those changes. We would not want our Chosen Daughter viewed as a servant.”

Eve nodded, satisfied that she had made her point. Tor stared at her.

“Now that your demands have been met, will you sit for a while?” Lincoln gestured towards the couches and armchairs near the fireplace. “It would be nice to get to know you.”

Lilith was ahead of her, taking one of the seats on the couches. She patted the cushion beside her and Eve was sorely tempted to go to her, but she didn’t want to leave Tor. As if sensing her dilemma, he led her to the couch and waited for her to sit before claiming a seat on the one beside her. Lincoln took up position on the couch next to Tor.

“So things went as planned,” Lincoln said to Tor, a second meaning to his words judging by the amusement flickering in his dark eyes.

“Apparently,” Tor retorted with a grim edge to his expression. If he felt he had been played, he was probably right. Eve suspected that Lincoln had chosen Tor as her escort not only because of his talents as an assassin and his ability to protect her.

She suspected her new brother-in-law had sent Tor to her because he had known that she would feel connected to him because of his life as a hunter, and that Tor would understand her and know how to handle her because of it too.

Eve lost herself in conversation with her sister, finding it fascinating as Lilith told her about how she had met Lincoln and came to rule a bloodline. The hours seemed to fly by as she listened and added titbits about how her life had been, breaking things about her turning and everything up to when she had met Tor slowly to her sister, letting it out of her little by little.

Tor was always there beside her, either talking with her as a group, or speaking to Lincoln about business. He touched her back from time to time, a small contact that reassured her whenever she felt tense or the memories of her time in captivity began to overwhelm her.

Lilith yawned and quickly covered her hand with her mouth.

Lincoln smiled. “Lilith is still in that stage where she cannot resist the rising sun.”

Eve remembered going through that and how she had hated it. Lilith took her hand.

“I want to keep talking,” her sister said and Lincoln shook his head.

“She will fall asleep on you. She always does when she wants to keep doing something.” The wicked glint in his eyes said Lilith didn’t just fall asleep when she insisted on continuing a conversation into daylight hours.

Lilith scowled at him. It didn’t deter Lincoln.

He rose from his seat beside Tor, took hold of Lilith’s hand, and pulled her onto her feet. “Come along. You can speak with your sister more later. I am sure she is tired too.”

Eve took Lilith’s free hand and pressed it between her fingers. “We can talk later. We have all the time in the world.”

Lilith smiled sleepily. “Literally.”

Lincoln escorted her to the door and looked back at her and Tor. “It is good to have you home. Your room is ready on the main floor with ours. A servant will show you. Goodnight.”

“Our room,” Tor whispered to his knees and Eve smiled at him.

“I have the feeling this is going to take some getting used to for both of us,” Eve said and eased onto her feet.

A young woman entered the room and bowed her head. Tor stood and linked hands with Eve and they followed the servant up to the first floor of the mansion, and along the dark green corridor towards the end of one of the wings. The woman stopped outside a wooden door and bowed her head.

“Thank you,” Eve said and the woman left them. Eve pushed the door open and her eyes widened.

She stepped slowly into the sumptuous rich blue room, her eyes only growing wider as she took in the opulence of it and the sheer size. It was huge, making the four-poster bed look tiny, the space around it enormous. Long black curtains hung across the three windows opposite her, closed to block out the dawn.

Tor shut the door behind them and she glanced at him. He looked as shocked and out of place as she felt.

“Our room,” she said and looked around it again, taking in the white and gold bathroom off to her left, and the large flat-screen TV on a wooden side cabinet opposite the foot of the bed, and the elegant wardrobes and dressing table. “I don’t think I’ve ever had a room like it.”

Tor chuckled. “I know I haven’t.”

She turned to face him. “You think we’ll fit in here?”

He lifted his broad shoulders. “Not sure. It might take some getting used to. I’ve never shared a room before.”

Eve smiled now and sauntered over to him. “You’re sharing more than a room.”

“My position too, apparently.” He mock-scowled at her. “Comes into my life, turns it on its head, and takes my solo position of hunter and turns it into a double act.”

She placed her right hand against his hard chest and pouted up at him. “But think how great we can be together.”

He grinned wickedly. “I already did. We make a good team, but we could make an even better one.”

His hands came down on her hips and he held them tightly in his large hands as he started walking with her, backing her towards the bed.