PARANORMAL: Tamed By My Alpha Vampire (Vampire Billionaire Alpha Male Paranormal Romance) (BBW Multicultural Mail Order Bride Short Stories) (14 page)

B
rakha’s men were relieved to see us. I suspected that lions didn’t enjoy the cold very much. My son was released and I told him to go far from here. I would find him when things settled down. I took Madame Aveline down to the dungeons beneath the castle. I didn’t trust her or the doors on the cells after all these years. I placed her in the center of the cell, tied down to a chair so she couldn’t move.

I came to bring her food and untied her so she could eat. Every time she saw me she would ask questions. Mostly she would ask what I planned to do with her. I always answered the same:
I don’t know.

I had no qualm with her so I didn’t see any reason to kill her. Even so, I had no guarantee if I let her go that she wouldn’t simply find another way to slow down or impede my business. So, she sat in my dungeon while I worked in my lab. Even through the thick walls, I could hear her screaming and yelling. After two weeks, she gave up and remained silent, which I was grateful for.

It was the day before Brakha would come for his Instinct; I was feeling the pressure of making a decision on what to do with her. I wouldn’t admit it to her, but I had grown fond of her presence. I didn’t know it would feel so nice to have a woman living in my halls again. Perhaps, even after a hundred years, my heart was still capable of feeling something.

I brought a tray of food and opened the gate. Aveline regarded me with her dark brown eyes as I set the tray down.

“I have a question for you,” she said.

“I still haven’t decided.”

“No, it’s not that.”

I stood up and looked at her. “Then what is it?”

“A guy like you could have any woman he wanted. Why do you live alone, in the middle of nowhere?”

“I do not seek the pleasures of the flesh. Besides, the only woman I ever loved has been gone for over a hundred years. In my time I’ve made too many enemies and been hurt too many times. This was for the best. I could still make Instinct and save our people without interference,” I said.

“Is that what you think?” Aveline asked, “That you’re helping shifters?”

“Yes, that is why I created it. To protect us from humans who would eradicate our people.”

“We are stronger than them! We can cut them down!”

She spoke with a passion and a fire that was undeniably alluring. I stepped closer to her.

“What would you have me do? This is my life, this is my business!” I said.

“You and I both know that you don’t care about the money, and there’s a part of you that wants something more than this pointless existence!” She said.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I saw the way you looked at me when we first met Sergei. There’s a part of you that knows I’m right. Why do you resist? Together we could free our people. Shifters would no longer live in fear!”

I thought back to the night we first met. The image of her naked body in my mind filled me with desire. I took another step closer to her.

“You want me to join you?” I asked.

“I want you to look into your heart and do what you know is right,”

I reached out and pressed my hand against her face. She tilted her cheek toward me. Her thick lips pressed against my skin. A rush of pleasure ran down my body like a wave. It had been so terribly long since I felt the kiss of a woman.

“Why don’t you let me give you a taste of what you’re missing? Go ahead, get undressed,” she said.

I took off my clothes and stood before her naked and bare. “Come closer, but don’t untie me just yet,” she whispered.

I stood over her and ran my hands through her silky black hair. She leaned forward and pressed her lips against me. Her tongue emerged and traced the length before she kissed the tip.

“I want to taste you,” she said.

I reached down and lifted myself into her open mouth. She eagerly took all of me in. I slid back out and let loose a long sigh. The pleasure was incredible.

“Keep going.”

I leaned forward again and pushed myself into her mouth. Her tongue swirled and slid across me. I threw my head back and felt her lips cling to me. I slowly started thrusting my hips back and forth, relishing in every moment her lips slid across my skin and her tongue danced along my length.

The pleasure was becoming too much, I was going to cum. I reached around behind her head and held her still as I started thrusting into her mouth faster.

I felt it coming, but I was too enthralled in the moment to notice that she had undone her ropes. Before I could react she was out of the chair. She pushed me down onto my back and leaped on top of me. She took the knife from the tray of food I brought her and pressed it to my neck.

“What is this? What are you doing?” I asked.

“Now you make your choice, Sergei. Either you accept what you know is right in your heart, or you refuse my offer and you die here and now. Make your choice!”
I knew she wasn’t bluffing, I could see that plainly in her eyes. She was right, but it took staring into the eyes of certain death for me to see it. Instinct wasn’t the solution; it was part of the problem.

“I accept your terms, on one condition,” I said.

“Name it.”

“You must come with me to my private quarters so we can finish this conversation in a more comfortable setting.”

Aveline threw the knife away and leaned down onto me. She pressed her lips into mine and then pulled away.

“Lead the way,” she said.

I
followed Sergei up to the second floor of his castle and into his bedroom. I admired his body with each step he took. His shifting muscles and thick arms worked like a well-oiled machine. I needed him to free our people, but I was almost becoming fond of him. There was a quiet kindness to him that I found endearing.

We stepped into his lavish bedroom with a massive bed. It was covered in crimson sheets that shimmered like silk. I stepped inside and Sergei closed the door behind me. I felt his lips graze my neck as he softly kissed a path from my neck down to my shoulder. He unbuttoned my shirt and peeled it off me. His hands effortlessly undid the clasp of my bra and he pulled down my panties with a swift motion. I was naked within seconds.

I turned around to face him. I could lose myself in those ice blue eyes of his. He pulled me to him and we kissed passionately as I backed toward the bed. When we reached the edge, he pushed me onto the soft sheets and leaned over me. I felt his hot breath against my breasts as his tongue gently slid over my nipples. His hand reached up and cupped them, gently massaging as his lips wandered down between my legs.

He pushed my legs apart and buried his head between. His tongue slid out and gently touched the boundary. A shrill shot of pleasure shot across my body as his tongue pressed against the soft flesh near the top. His breathing came in short bursts as he eagerly slid his tongue in circles and lines.

Years of experience had been kind to him. He knew just how to please a woman. I felt the pressure building as a climax approached. He showed no signs of slowing as my back arched, my legs quaked, and my body was wracked with waves of ecstasy. I screamed and clutched his jet black hair.

Before he could fully stand, I pulled him down and climbed on top of him. His hands gripped my waist as I slid him deep inside of me. I could feel his heartbeat keeping time with mine and I slid and grinded myself against him. He reached up and massaged my breasts as I furiously chased another climax.

His hands descended down my back and gripped tightly. He started thrusting to the same rhythm of my movements. I felt him thrusting deeper into me, sending out shocks of pleasure with each one. As I approached my second climax, I begged him to keep going. His gripped me tightly as my body once again exploded with ecstasy. The sounds of my screams prompted him to roar as he came inside me.

I collapsed beside him on the bed.

“I wish we could sleep Sergei, but there’s work to be done. My brother will be here tomorrow.”

“Yes, he shall, he will not find us or his Instinct,” I said.

“What are you planning?” I asked.

“I will set fire to the lab. When the flames reach the Instinct, this entire castle will be destroyed in the explosion. The secrets will die with me, and our people will finally be rid of the drug that keeps them from realizing their true destiny.”

I lay on his chest and closed my eyes. For the first time in my life, I felt hope for the future.

I
stood beside Aveline in the lab that had occupied my life for centuries. I never saw a future beyond this. I had assumed I would spend whatever time was left for me on this Earth making a drug that I had convinced myself was the savior of the shifter race. As it turned out, I was wrong. It wasn’t a solution, it was a crutch. For so long we had denied our gifts and chose to live among the humans.

No more, today everything would change. Without my lab, without Instinct, shifters would be forced to embrace their animalistic sides. They would finally stop denying their destiny and instead walk proudly into the future. The scene was set; all I had to do was start the fire. There was a long fuse that led through the lab and into a cloth that sat suspended in a vat of Instinct. There was enough here to destroy any hope of the drug existing again.

“Brakha will be here soon. Light the fuse so we can leave!” Aveline said.

“I spent countless years here. I built this place with my own two hands. This is my home.”

Aveline took my head in her hands and turned me toward her.

“This isn’t your home anymore, Sergei. It’s lost everything that made it one, now it’s just a building. You can do this, I promise.”

I struck the match and lit the end of the fuse. We had just over five minutes before this place would explode. By the time Brakha arrived it would be smoking rubble. I leaned down and lit the fuse. The flame took hold and started following the path to its destiny. Now, it was time to follow my own.

Aveline and I left the castle behind and shifted into our animal forms. We ran full speed into the jungle until we were far from the castle. I spun around and watched my home explode in a ball of fire through the eyes of the dire wolf.

I looked over to Aveline who glistened in the night like a living shadow in her Black Panther form. We locked eyes and I knew I had made the right decision. She turned and ran off into the forest. I took one last look at what used to be my home and then followed her into the night.
             

I
remember the day I died. It was raining, hard. Lightning temporarily added illumination to an otherwise overwhelming darkness. Thunder growled all around me like the inner demons that tormented my mind. I stood atop a stone tower in the concrete jungle of Hong Kong and looked out into a night illuminated by lights just as artificial as the people who made them. This was a world that would smile in your face while it stabbed you in the back.

I was once a part of this, an empire of deceit built on a foundation of lies and paved with the bones of the poor. Businesses in this world was nothing more than dirty warfare covered in a fancy pressed suit and tie. Careers and lives were made and broken as often as the tides changed. It made me sick thinking about all of it, but more than that, it made me feel like there was nothing I could do to stop it. I was once one of them, a shark preying on the weak and sleeping like a baby while families bled out watching their financial futures fall to ash.

In a world where no one cared about anyone but themselves, and anything could be bought for the right price, no one would be left standing when it all burned.

The suit I was wearing cost me over six-thousand dollars. That was the kind of money that could feed a family for a year, and I spent it on a piece of clothing that was currently being ruined by a torrential downpour of rain. We all have our masks that we wear: masks for the world to see, and masks to convince ourselves we're still human, deep down in our souls. My mask was broken, and I was forced to look in the mirror at what laid beneath. There was nothing, just an empty shell of a man.

The smartphone in my hand started vibrating. I swiped to the right and placed it to my ear.

“I’m here, are you on your way?” she asked.

“Yeah, I’ll be there soon. Just stay out of sight.”

I hung up and placed the phone in my coat pocket.

“Zhang Wu! Stay where you are!”

I knew the voice, just not the face. It didn’t matter; he was death coming to finish me off. It was time I paid for my sins.

I heard his footsteps approaching, and I felt myself deeply conflicted. There was a part of me that thought I deserved this, all of it. I told myself I wouldn’t run anymore, that I would face the consequences with honor. Then I saw her face, perhaps the last angels left in a world filled with demons.

You made her a promise.

Death was knocking at my door, howling my name.

Sorry, I can’t answer today, I won’t leave her alone in this world.

I turned and ran as gunshots roared through the night. The bullets passed by my ears, screeching like banshees. I approached the edge of the rooftop and looked down on the building adjacent to it.

Remember your training. Jump!

I leapt off the side of the building and passed over the city below. I tucked my legs into my chest and rolled as I hit the coarse surface of the neighboring building. The assassin behind me wasted no time in doing the same. He hit the ground as I climbed to my feet and ran to the edge of the rooftop.

The next building was too far. I couldn’t make it. I stood on the edge and looked down. There was nothing but darkness until the bottom.

“There’s nowhere else to run Zhang! Stand there and accept your fate!” the voice said.

I slowly turned around and looked my assassin in the eye. His face was all too familiar.

“You?”

He nodded. “They’re not stupid Zhang, they knew from the beginning.”

“I should have known. You’ve made a living out of stabbing people in the back,” I said.

He chuckled. “Don’t put this on me, Zhang, you’re the one who dug your own grave.”

“Better me than the rest of the world, don’t you think?”

He checked his gun and cocked it. His finger curled around the trigger.

“One last question for you, old friend: where’s the drive?”

I smiled and closed my eyes. “If you have to ask, you’ll never find it.”

“Maybe, maybe not. Either way, you’ll never know. Goodbye Zhang.”

He pulled the trigger.