Seduce (Vampire Erotic Theatre Romance Series #3) (21 page)

“I’m not leaving. She is.”

“She?” Antoine looked lost.

Snow huffed. “Anya.”

“Anya,” Antoine echoed.

“The woman you left the party with? I know you still have feelings for her... love that has lasted centuries. I get that. I saw the look in your eyes when she fell into your arms tonight... but I’m not going to stand by and let her just walk back into your life and take you from me.” Sera prodded her fingertip against Antoine’s hard chest, digging it deeper with each word. Her heart raced and blood rushed, knees weakening with each passing second. She wouldn’t falter. Snow was right. If she wanted Antoine, she had to fight for him, and she would, even if it was a fight to the death with the bitch who had broken his heart.

“Look?” Antoine frowned, his frustration flowing through her blood, and glanced over at Snow. “Are you alright? I did my best to get her out of the room straight away. I should not have brought her up here. My office might have been the better choice. I wasn’t thinking.”

It dawned on Sera that the look of concern in Antoine’s eyes when he had seen Anya bloodied and injured hadn’t been for her. She slowly turned her head towards Snow and looked at him, eyes wide and her body numb as she realised the gravity of her mistake. Antoine had been concerned about Snow. He had known the smell of blood would trigger Snow’s hunger and had tried to stop that from happening by quickly removing the source of the scent. That was also the reason why there hadn’t been blood on offer at the party. Antoine had wanted Snow to come down and socialise, and had taken steps to make sure his brother would be comfortable.

Sera felt so stupid.

She had mistaken Antoine’s concern as love for the woman when it had been love for his brother.

“I am fine, thanks to Sera.” Snow looked at her and smiled softly, his eyes barely touched with crimson now. “Remember what I said.”

Sera nodded and felt a little more confident as Antoine turned back to her. He smiled warmly, his blue eyes bright with it, and placed his hands on her hips and drew her up against his hard body. Sera refused to give in to him, even when his smile widened. Mercy, he knew how to melt a woman’s heart.

“You were saying something about not letting someone take me from you?” he said and she blushed. He swept his fingers over the marks on her throat.

Sera dropped her chin but Antoine didn’t let her escape. He placed his fingers under her chin and raised it, forcing her eyes back to his. They were so warm now, a sea of feelings that she would willingly drown in. She could die happy lost in this man’s eyes, or in his arms.

“I won’t let her take you from me, Antoine. I fought too damn hard for you to lose you now, or ever. As soon as she’s able to move, she is out of here. I mean it. I want her gone. No one in this world is going to come between us.” Sera glanced over her shoulder at Snow. “Present company excluded.”

Snow just smiled.

Sera turned back to Antoine, her jaw set and heart steady. Snow had told her to make Antoine see that she was the one for him, the only one out of her and Anya who could make him happy. She wasn’t normally the type to command people, but then she hadn’t been the type to seduce someone either before she had found herself falling for Antoine. For him, she would do anything, no matter how embarrassing it was. If it would make him see that what they had together was stronger than what he’d had with Anya and that she intended to keep fighting for him, because she was falling for him and she needed him more than anything, and that she would love him forever and never hurt him, then she would lay it all on the line right here and right now.

“I refuse to let you go and I’m sure as hell not about to let you or anyone else make me leave. You are mine, Antoine.” She snaked her arms around Antoine’s neck and drew him down for a slow, unhurried kiss.

Antoine’s hands settled against her lower back, holding her close to him as he kissed her, so softly and lightly that she felt as though she was floating. He pressed a final brief kiss to her lips and then pulled back to look down into her eyes.

“And you are mine.” His blue eyes shone with the promise behind those words, one of love and forever. His breathtaking smile warmed her right down to her soul. There was so much affection and happiness in that smile. Happiness that she had given him. “Anya got herself into a fight with a werewolf pack, but her injuries will not take long to heal. I will move her into one of the dormitory rooms and she will be gone soon. I would never allow her to come between us, Sera. I need you and you mean too much to me. If you wish her gone sooner, I will arrange for a doctor to take her away this night.”

The woman had been bleeding profusely from multiple lacerations. She didn’t look as though she was in any state to be moved tonight and Sera would never let her jealousy control her enough that she placed someone’s life at risk, but she appreciated the gesture.

“Move her out of the apartment and she can stay until she’s fit to leave, but I don’t want you near her.”

Antoine’s smile widened, as though he liked the jealous hiss that had been in her words and the possessive way she held onto him.

“As my lady desires.” He touched the marks on her throat again.

“They do suit her,” Snow said. “I take it she was yours long before tonight?”

Sera frowned at him. “Whatever do you mean?”

Antoine dropped a kiss on the scars and she looked back at him, deep into his eyes. There was an edge of concern in them now.

“Yes, Antoine, whatever do I mean?” Snow’s voice rang with amusement.

Antoine scowled at him and then smiled at her. His thumb swept over the marks.

“You are young, so you probably do not know, but in the time I was born and raised, biting another vampire was a show of possession.” He continued to stroke the place where he had bitten her. “I still believe in the old ways... so when I say that you are mine, Sera, I mean that you are mine, irrevocably, eternally.”

Antoine pulled her back to him and covered her mouth with his, stealing her voice with a kiss that had her leaning into him for more, uncaring of their company. She smiled against his lips, warm from head to toe, victorious.

She had risked everything to pursue a man who others believed was emotionless and had discovered that he was warm, loving, and beautiful. She had done all in her power to gain an audience so she could win his attention and had ended up wanting to win his heart and give him happiness. She had been through so much with him already but she knew this was only the start, that the years ahead would both test and reward them, and she was determined to see it through and remain at Antoine’s side.

He had placed a claim on her. She was his now.

And he was hers.

Irrevocably.

Eternally.

The End

A
ndreu watched the show unfolding. Tonight’s opening performance of the winter season was in full swing and to a packed house. It seemed that many of the aristocrat and elite vampires that had refused to set foot in Vampirerotique after discovering that one of the owners had fallen for and impregnated a werewolf had come crawling back, unable to find another theatre that could provide the erotic bloody fix they needed to satisfy their darker hungers.

That was the sort of addiction that Andreu wanted for the theatre he planned to open. Filling in for his older brother, Javier, at Vampirerotique was nothing more than temporary, half a year in which he would learn all that he could from the place and build some connections for himself. He had no interest in emulating Javier by becoming a slave to a business and chaining himself to a woman. A century ago, when Javier had first told him that he was leaving Spain to open an erotic theatre in London that catered to their kind and provided live human performers, Andreu had been all for it. It had sounded like a fantastic business. It was, but Javier’s approach to the business left a lot to be desired in Andreu’s eyes.

When he opened his own theatre in the busy city of Barcelona, he wasn’t going to help run the damn thing. He would hire capable elite vampires to do the day-to-day work for him and would oversee it all from a distance, and reap the rewards. Enough money to keep him set for life and a reputation that would get him into even the most exclusive vampire clubs and would bring him a flock of females to satisfy his every carnal need.

Life would be good.

Pleasure and fun. That was what he wanted and the quickest way to get it was to get famous, get rich, and stay single.

Javier had it all wrong. Andreu couldn’t imagine what had possessed him to do something as foolish as chaining himself not only to his business but also to a single female for the rest of his long life.

Andreu leaned back in his crimson velvet seat, kicked his feet up to rest on the low curved wall that enclosed the private box, and clasped his hands behind his head. He smiled and surveyed the eager audience stretched out below him and then those in the boxes that lined the wall opposite him, all of their eyes glued to the two male humans and the female vampire at the front of the stage.

Life would be very good indeed.

The huge black four-poster bed in the middle of the stage was a new set piece. The human male chained to it by his ankles and wrists was a new twist too. Antoine, the aristocrat who handled most of the business, had decided to mix things up a little now that they were in the winter season and the night hours were longer, giving them more time for the performances. Andreu had seen a lot of changes in the past five weeks, and not only in the shows.

He had respected Antoine once. The man had a head for business and a reputation for having a detached attitude that had given Andreu the impression that he was only interested in profit and pleasure, but it turned out that Andreu had been wrong. The pretty female blonde vampire wrapped tightly in Antoine’s arms where the powerful aristocrat stood in his usual position to the side of the stalls, watching the show, had been the first indication that Antoine wasn’t his sort of man after all. The female of their species had lured him into submission too, and that was just the tip of the iceberg.

What lurked beneath the water was Snow. Andreu didn’t intend to show it, but Snow scared the hell out of him. The huge male with platinum hair and eyes like ice was frightening enough on a good night. When he had a bad one, the man was dangerous. Insane. What had possessed Javier to ask the two aristocrats for help when he and Callum had been setting up the theatre? There were a thousand better choices in aristocrat society than these brothers. Bloodlust gripped Snow most nights, and probably infected Antoine too. If both of them lost control, it would be a bloodbath.

Andreu shuddered at the thought.

No way in Hell would he be sticking around if that happened. It was every vampire for himself in that sort of situation and Andreu would be first out of the door.

The woman in Antoine’s arms, Sera, turned and looked up at her lover. Antoine dipped his head, as though pressing a kiss to her cheek, and she went back watching the show. Sera had been on edge until only recently, annoyed by the presence of an injured woman who had once been Antoine’s lover. The aristocrat female’s wounds had healed and she had been gone for a few days now, long enough that Sera looked more relaxed around her man. She smiled more now and had spoken to Andreu several times, although he hadn’t really made much effort to converse with her. He had spent the past few weeks learning the ropes from Javier. His work seemed easy enough, and it had its perks.

The female vampire on stage, a pretty petite redhead dressed in a black leather thong and a matching black studded bra, chained the second nude human male’s wrists above his head, attaching them to the top of one of the bedposts. She kissed him until he strained for more and then backed away. Andreu quirked a dark eyebrow as she unhooked a whip from her side and the human male turned around. She cracked the whip across his back, leaving a red streak, and the scent of blood drifted up to Andreu.

The man was strong. Whoever had selected him had known he had potent blood that would get the audience leaning forwards and eager for more. Andreu didn’t want to fall for the same lure as everyone else in the theatre, but he found himself dropping his feet to the floor and sitting up.

Javier remained relaxed beside him.

Andreu cursed his older brother for having stronger control over himself and settled back into his seat, watching the woman as she struck the man again. He cried out this time and a ripple of pleasure flowed through the theatre in response. Nothing got a vampire’s blood pumping like the scent of blood laced with fear and pain.

The naked dark-haired male on the bed writhed with each strike she placed on the other man, as though he gained pleasure from the pain she inflicted. A dark power. She was somehow transferring her own pleasure to the male, her own desire and arousal, keeping him subdued. The man chained to the bedpost turned around to face the female vampire, his eyes screwed shut in evident pain. She didn’t stop. She cracked the whip across his chest, leaving a long red gash that dripped blood.

Andreu sucked in a sharp breath as she rewarded the human male, licking the rivulets of crimson from his chest and then stroking her tongue along the line where the whip had struck him. Devil. He wanted a show like this in his own theatre.

He leaned forwards, resting one arm on the low carved wall of the box, his gaze glued on the woman as she writhed against the man, tasting blood that Andreu wanted on his own tongue.

He breathed deeply to steady himself as his fangs emerged, pressing against his lips.

He definitely wanted a show like this one on his own stage. He had been to plenty of erotic vampire shows in his years, especially the past century, but he had never witnessed one that had such darkness and such deviation.

The petite redhead unchained the man and wrapped slender fingers around his steel collar. She lured him to the bed with her and left him at the foot of the mattress, near the other man’s feet. Andreu frowned, nostrils flaring and blood on the verge of heating with desire as she crawled up the length of the man chained to the bed. He strained to reach her, unable to move his hands more than an inch in his cuffs. The female removed her underwear, teased her breasts and the man at the same time, and then settled herself onto his cock. The man bucked up, hissing and grunting, tugging on his restraints as the woman rode him with a few swift, brutal thrusts, and then stopped. He begged for more.