Mine
His hands were hard and strong—rough and
impatient—as he crushed her to him.
Desire rode roughshod over him, raw and insatiable, pushing him to ravish, driving him to ravage. The deep, dark voice in the back of his mind urged him onward, urged him to take all she offered, and give her more in return than she’d bargained for.
That voice of midnight urged him to give her forever.
Cole wrestled with the very idea, torn for the first time in his long life by the one thing he’d never before considered doing to another living creature. He hadn’t been given a choice when he’d been turned. He’d never sired another Vampyre, and always swore he never would.
Yet right now, the very thought of spending the rest of eternity i
n this woman’s arms was enough to render his personal morals
inconsequential…enough to render her own wishes on the matter—her very ability to make the choice for herself—insignificant.
Fated mate or Vampyre. Either way, he’d be able to keep her forever.
His Bride
.
His lips fastened on her throat. His fangs scraped her delicate skin. She moaned, the sound of his name on her lips drove all thought—what little of reason he’d managed to retain—from his mind. His fingers fisted in her hair, ruthlessly pulling her head back to expose the sweet flesh of her neck. His eyes glowed, dilated, focusing on the erratic throb of her pulse. His mouth opened wide in anticipation of the ambrosia he’d soon be
savouring
. His fangs stretched, long and lethal, demanding as they descended toward her flesh.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
COPYRIGHT © 2009 by Brenda L. Huber All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Contact Information: [email protected] Cover Art by
Rae Monet
The Wild Rose Press
PO Box 706
Adams Basin, NY 14410-0706
Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com Publishing History
First Black Rose Edition, 2010
Print ISBN 1-60154-691-2
Published in the United States of America
Dedication
For Michelle~
My best friend by choice, my sister by chance.
You are always there—and I am the lucky one.
For Audra~
Thank you for all the romance novels and horror movies.
I haven’t forgotten…
Deepest heartfelt thanks
to my editor, Joelle Walker.
You have been a bright glimmer of hope and a supportive compass for my craft.
Special artistic gratitude to
H.I.M. and Velvet Revolver—
my musical inspiration.
He slithered through the shadows and pulsing lights. Dark bass, driving drums, and screeching electric guitar pulsed all around him, vibrating the sticky floor beneath his boots.
Bodies writhed and gyrated with the tempo, brushing against him, bumping into him. Alcohol flowed with slick bartender smiles—rivers of multi-hued liquid courage bearing imaginative names like Cosmopolitan, Hurricane, Strip and Go Naked, and Sex on the Beach—lowering inhibitions, making already easy targets pitifully effortless.
Stupid Humans.
They didn’t have a clue. Death walked among them, and they danced. A reaper stalked them, and they drank. They celebrated. They partied.
And, if he had his way, they would all bleed. They were food, and he was the ultimate predator—
perhaps the most dangerous on the planet—
because he could walk among them without detection. He could mingle with them, talk to them…lure them…and they were none the wiser.
Until it was too late.
Ignorant cattle.
Ah, there was his little pigeon now. She fluttered through the writhing mass, a butterfly among moths. Beautiful as she was, he would not drink from her. She was unworthy, nothing more than a means to an end, his emissary…a vessel for communication. Her blood the same to him as a fax or an email…a text message. He smirked at 1
that analogy. Humans may be ignorant when it came to his kind, but they were clever morsels when it came to technology. The advances they’d made in the last fifty years alone were impressive.
Impressive…but irrelevant.
He sidled close. Moving with the music.
Swaying with the tangle of warm bodies. Closer.
His gaze locked on her neck, homing in on the pulse hammering at the base of her throat.
Closer. Edging a shoulder between two dancers, he slipped into the gap with practiced finesse.
One corner of his lips edged upward.
So easy
.
His pigeon glanced up, smiling delayed recognition, her eyes offering shy invitation.
A wide grin spread across his face. Would she be so flirtatious if she caught a glimpse of the monster lurking behind his smile? He held out a hand to her, nodding toward the edge of the dance floor. She hesitated, pushing her long blonde hair over her shoulder, then placed her hand in his, allowing him to lead her away.
Would she be so eager if she knew what waited for her in the darkness on the other side of those doors?
How many messengers would it take before the rest of his kind finally understood?
2
Darth Vader’s sinister, driven theme song echoed through the shadows of the spacious bedroom, pulling Alex up from the fuzzy world of slumber. Rolling over, she irritably pushed at the down comforter covering her head and ground a palm into her eye in a vain attempt to clear away the blurry edges of sleep. Blinking at the oversized, lime-green numbers on the digital clock, she groaned. Seven thirty-four glowed back, unrepentant. Cheerful sunlight flirted around the edges of her closed vertical blinds, wringing another miserable groan from her lips. She didn’t need the distinctive ring tone to know who was calling. Only one person had the audacity at this ungodly hour on a Saturday.
Dropping her head onto the thick feather pillow, she let out a long, resigned sigh. Why could she never remember to set that damned phone to silent? The spear of pain between her brows throbbed in tempo with her phone, dragging forth a strangled oath that would have made a sailor beam with pride. She’d stayed up too late last night…way too late…working on the Marston article, but then, such was her life.
She’d almost convinced her arm to reach for the phone, when the cursed device went silent.
Praise the powers that be. Alex pushed the silken tangle of her long, golden hair away from her face, rolled back over with a dreamy smile, and snuggled into the warm, down-filled cocoon of her bed, intent on stealing a few more hours of sleep.
3
The day would roll by soon enough, and she’d have to start getting ready for the charity gala at the yacht club tonight, but for now—blissful languid sleep was the cure for her raging sleep-deprived headache. Well, that, and maybe a couple Excedrin the size of man hole covers.
The world had just begun to slip away on the gentle wings of exhaustion…when good old Vader returned. Groaning, eyes closed, Alex stretched for her phone, knocking her book off the nightstand and tipping her water glass over.
Scrabbling to rescue her new addiction, a Kay Hooper paranormal suspense, from a soggy demise, she tangled in the sheets and fell to the floor, smacking her head against the soaked nightstand on the way down. Oh, yeah…
that
was gonna leave a mark.
With the heel of her palm pressed tight against her forehead, she scooped the book up, dangling it by the jacket as the sodden pages dripped all over her lap. Her bookmark fluttered to the floor. Terrific…just goddamned terrific. Not only had Tweetie joined the stars circling in her throbbing brain, but now her sheets were wet, and she’d lost her damned page, too.
And the phone went silent.
Of course
.
With a disgusted snarl, she hoisted her awkward sheet-tangled body back onto the bed.
Determined come hell or high water she
would
go back to sleep, she pounded a fist into her pillow, then jammed it beneath her head with enough force to dislodge a snowy feather. Giving the pillow one last smack for good measure, Alex drew in one long, slow breath through her nose, releasing it through parted lips with measured restraint, then closed her eyes, picturing serene gentle waves against a white sandy beach.
4
Cue Vader.
In the twitch of an eyelid, her serene beach morphed into a nice shiny, extra-value sized Glock with a whole case full of cell phone demolishing ammo. Cursing the fates that be, she buried her head beneath the oversized pillow, contemplating the merits of smothering herself.
Glutton for punishment that she was, Alex fired one shrill scream into the Egyptian-cotton covered feathers, then flipped the cell phone open.
With sticky sweetness, she offered, “Good morning, Mother.”
“Don’t sass me, Alexandra.” Lily Sinclair’s icy voice cut straight to the chase. “Turn your television on.”
Alex couldn’t decide whether to rub her eyes again, or to roll them heavenward and plead for divine intervention. What heinous wrong had she committed in some distant past life to deserve Lily? It must have been a whopper. “What?
Mother, it’s seven in the morning—”
“Turn on your television, Alexandra. Channel 13,” Lily interrupted, her snobbish, Fifth Avenue tone slipping just this side of frosty.
Yielding to the urge to roll her eyes—knowing the only way to placate the beast would be to comply—Alex leaned across the bed for the remote, yawning with gusto. “Mother, I was up late last night working. This better be…” Alex’s voice trailed away as the large plasma screen glowed to life with grievous insult. The background on the screen was a bit too familiar.
That darkened nook was nestled in the back corner of
her
favorite, swank little restaurant. In that nook, a drop-dead gorgeous man and a knockout redhead came to vibrant Technicolor life beneath the camera crew’s judicious lighting.
5
The amorous couple writhed in a torrid embrace, every small, sord
id detail captured in lurid HD
clarity.
The man’s hands were all over his
companion, sliding up her curvy thigh, tangling in her long, salon-tinted hair…groping beneath her designer blouse. His tongue had to be halfway down red’s throat, while her hand blatantly massaged his crotch. Without warning, the man lifted his head, batting at the camera in scowling outrage. The picture went to still frame, immortalizing his chiseled face, smeared with cherry-bomb lipstick, plummeting Alex’s heart straight to her knees.
A raging river of blood crashed in her ears droning out Lily’s catty remarks. Trapped in a nightmare she couldn’t wake up from, Alex snapped her phone closed, her eyes riveted to the face on her television. She pushed herself farther up in the bed, hugging her knees to her chest.
The frozen image of the man’s face shrank and slid to the upper right corner of the screen, making way for the polished, smug countenance of a celebrity news reporter.
Fumbling with the remote, her eyes riveted to the TV, Alex groped for the volume button.
“…last night where NewsFlash stumbled across Griffin Myles, rising star of the up and coming primetime phenomenon,
Fairfax General
,” the reporter’s voice crooned saccharine sweet.
Then another picture flashed in the upper left corner, a candid shot of a petite blonde in a sleek, black slip dress and three-inch, spiked heels. The blonde stood, frozen in the doorway of a prominent jeweler’s boutique downtown on Fifth, on the arm of the very same Griffin Myles. With a radiant, ignorant smil
e, the blonde beamed up at her
Casanova.
An enormous
princess-cut
6
diamond twinkled with dramatic flair in a setting of platinum and sapphires on her third finger, charming the flash of the camera.
The smug reporter grinned at Alex with malicious glee. “I wonder what Griffin’s fiancée thinks about his choice of dessert. Apparently blondes
aren’t
always more fun.” Then, adding insult to injury, the steamy clip from the restaurant looped, again and again, driving the point of her humiliation a little deeper with each thrust. Alex stared in morbid fascination at the TV, watching as her happily-ever-after slipped away in the vivid shade of cherry-bomb red lipstick.
Alex’s hands shifted on her lap, her dry eyes glued to the flat screen. She wrenched the sparkling, platinum band from her ring finger, numb to the thin line of scarlet one of the prongs drew across her skin. Without giving the deceitful ring so much as one last glance of longing, she hurled it across the room. The glittering band hit the wall and bounced behind an antique armoire.