Unleash (Vampire Erotic Theatre Romance Series Book 6) (15 page)

“You don’t need to… please, don’t push yourself, Snow.” Because she would hate herself if he relapsed all because she had forced him to talk about his family and his past. He had experienced difficulty when mentioning his mother and father by name ever since that terrible night and she knew in her heart that each time he spoke the words it pained him, lashing at him and cutting him deep.

He shook his head. “No… it is no problem. I was over nine hundred when I became a Preux Chevalier. For those four hundred long years, I saw things that made my skin crawl and did things that I am not proud of, and you are right… it changed me. When Antoine was born, I had already served for a century. I knew the moment I held him in my arms that I could never allow him to take my place. I could never let him go through what I had. A vampire only has to serve four centuries. When it came time for me to leave that hellish legion, I made it painfully clear to those in command that Antoine would never become what I had.”

Aurora cast her mind back to that time and recalled that around then many of her feathers had turned black at once, and she knew with chilling certainty that Snow had bloodied his hands in order to keep his brother safe.

“You killed your own kind.” She needed to hear him admit it before she would believe it.

Snow nodded solemnly. “They left me no choice. They refused to heed my warning and told me Antoine would take my place. He was only three hundred. Little more than a youth. I had to kill them, Aurora. You have to see that… I had to kill them.”

“I know,” Aurora whispered and ventured another step closer to him. She swallowed and raised her hand, and then lowered it again, cursing herself for not having the courage to reach out and lay her hand on his cheek or his knee to show him that she didn’t think ill of him because of what he had done that day. He had done it to protect Antoine. He had given those vampires a choice, and they had chosen death.

Snow glanced up into her eyes and lingered, the red around the edges of his irises fading and the darkness lifting. Sorrow replaced it, but mixed in with that sombre emotion were others. Warmer ones that gained ground the longer he looked up at her, obliterating the pain until it was gone and only they remained, filling his beautiful eyes with a look that verged on tender.

Aurora breathed slowly, fighting to steady herself, battling to resist the urges that look in Snow’s eyes awakened in her. It would be all too easy to surrender to the pressing need to touch him and feel the coolness of his skin beneath her fingertips. From there it would be but a step to lean down and bring her lips to his.

And then she would be lost forever.

Snow would claim all of her with that one simple kiss. She would lose her objectivity, and most likely her heart, and it would become impossible to bring herself to judge him with clear eyes.

It took all of her strength, but Aurora managed to take a step backwards, placing a small distance between them. That distance felt like an ocean and she longed to cross it to him, to fall into his arms and discover the reality of her darkest desires.

Aurora lowered her eyes to the black bedclothes, focusing on them to steady herself.

“You should sleep,” she said and her voice had never sounded so hollow to her ears. It wasn’t what she wanted to say to him, but it was what she had to say. She had to get things back on track. She had to resist her forbidden urges.

Snow slipped off the bed and walked past her, so close that she could sense his power as a hot shiver down her spine and she ached for him to brush against her.

She looked over her shoulder, gaze following him. He reached his wardrobe and began to strip off. Slowly.

Aurora had the distinct impression that he was doing it on purpose, drawing out his undressing because he liked the feel of her gaze on him, watching as he slowly unbuttoned his black shirt and revealed inch after inch of delicious pale skin stretched tight over powerful defined muscles.

The ache started again, hot and fierce, making her belly flutter.

He tossed his shirt onto the laundry basket in the corner and then tackled his jeans. Aurora told herself to look away but failed to follow the order when he pushed his jeans down, revealing his black underwear and long toned legs.

A blush heated her cheeks.

Snow glanced over at her and she swore a wicked smile tilted his lips before he turned his face away. He was enjoying tempting her. Perhaps her master was right and he was evil after all, but it was a strange sort of evil, a sinful and sexy sort.

He finally dropped his jeans on top of his shirt in the basket and crossed the room, slowly stalking towards her, his gait that of a predator hunting prey.

She had no chance to stifle the blush that covered the full length of her body this time, burning through her blood. She wet her lips, trembling all over, stomach fluttering as she stared into his eyes, caught by them and unable to escape.

It took all of her willpower, but she tore her gaze away, only for it to fall on the top of the tattoo that poked out above the waistband of his black boxer shorts. She wanted to know what the rest of it looked like.

“Your tattoo intrigues me,” she whispered, unable to find the courage to voice those words any louder.

Snow cocked an eyebrow, grabbed her shoulders so quickly that she gasped and jolted, and made her sit on the end of the bed. Her backside hit the mattress hard enough to make the springs creak. She didn’t notice. Her focus was wholly on Snow as he stood before her, his lean hips eyelevel to her, the pronounced muscles of his abdomen on tempting display. So close that her breath was probably skating over them.

Aurora told herself to look up. Her willpower failed her this time. She stared at the sexy dip of his navel and all that sensual hard-packed muscle. Her heart thundered, pumping wildfire through her veins. What would he do if she leaned forwards and swept her tongue around his navel?

She wanted to find out.

Snow derailed her thought by catching the waistband of his black boxer shorts above his right hip and shoving the garment down enough that she could see the full design of his tattoo. It was hard to focus on it when the action had also revealed a thatch of crisp dark silver curls. Was it wrong of her to want to ask him to shed the underwear completely?

She had seen him in many ways over his lifetime but never completely naked. She had always closed the connection when there was a danger of seeing him fully nude, not wanting to witness the majesty of his body, a body she could never know intimately, even when she had secretly desired it.

Aurora’s eyes widened as that dawned on her. How long had she desired Snow? She had never liked to watch him interacting with females. It had always left a dark feeling in her heart that she had thought was hatred towards him because he kept sinning. She had always blushed whenever he had stripped off or she had turned her gaze upon him just as he was stepping into the shower or bath, or sometimes skinny-dipping in a lake.

She had thought the flush of heat had been because she had felt it was wrong to see him in such a manner, not because she had desired to watch him but had been too afraid.

Except for the skinny-dipping times.

She had watched then, fascinated and wondering how cold the water was, or whether fish bothered him, and whether he thought about that night when she had saved his life.

“Aurora,” Snow husked and brought her back to him.

Her gaze focused on the tattoo.

“I drew the design many years ago but constantly refined it, until I decided I wanted… needed… to make it part of myself.”

She studied the design. It was a stylised purple cross with a tribal style black cross curling around it, forming the stem of a rose bloom that sat in the centre. Two drops of blood dripped from the bloom, and she knew what they symbolised. His parents and what he had done to them.

Aurora reached out without thinking and lightly stroked the twin stylised white-blue wings that flared outwards from the top of the cross to complete the design.

Snow inhaled sharply and his focus on her intensified.

Aurora slowly lifted her head, her eyes trailing over every taut muscle on his powerful torso. Delicious. She met his gaze. His pale irises were dark with desire again, locked intently on her. Her fingers trembled against his cool skin.

“Why did you incorporate wings into the design?” she whispered.

“It was a last minute decision when the artist was here. I wasn’t sure at the time why I added them. Now, I know.” His voice was gruff and thick again, deep and dark with hunger that thrilled her. “Some part of me… buried deep… must have remembered you all this time and perhaps it wanted to remind me.”

She gasped when his hand gently caught hers and he brought it away from his hip. He lingered, holding her hand, and she didn’t want him to let her go. She wanted him to hold onto her forever, even when she knew it was an impossible dream, and she was only making things harder for herself.

His large hand was cool against hers and she could sense his strength more clearly, his incredible power, but he was careful with her, applying barely any pressure to her fingers. She could take her hand away if she wanted. He was giving her the option and letting her be the one in control.

Aurora swallowed, lost in his eyes and aware of the fact that she was sitting on his bed, alone in his room with him, and the energy that crackled between them, sparks of fire that burned through her blood and made her body yearn to know his.

Snow hesitated and then took a laboured step back, as if he had struggled to convince himself to place that small distance between them, just as she had fought to do the same a few minutes ago. His fingers slipped from hers and he cast a nervous look around his room, his strong heart beating as wildly as hers was.

“I should probably sleep.” His words were hollow and forced, and the look he flicked at her, the darkness that lingered in his eyes, spoke different ones to her. He wanted her but he was being chivalrous, respectful of what she was and aware of what he was. “It is still a few hours until nightfall.”

He was growing hard. It was impossible to miss when she was eyelevel with his groin. Her gaze fell there, fulfilling a wicked irresistible desire. His penis already pushed at the black material of his shorts, semi-hard and rising before her eyes.

Not only that, but she had noticed the points of his fangs when he had spoken. He hungered for her in more than just a physical way. He hungered for her blood too, and the force of the need to feel his fangs in her again that swept through her in response shocked her.

Snow swiftly turned away and her eyes followed him, catching the blush that coloured his cheeks as he rounded the bed to the left side. He yanked the black covers back, lay down and tugged them over himself, up to his chest.

He paused, the air around him heavy with tension.

“I can chain myself if it would make you feel safer around me.”

Aurora’s heart broke for him. He wasn’t a threat to her but he clearly felt he was, or that she believed he was. He expected her to want him chained, unable to sleep comfortably, unable to sleep close to her.

“I feel safe around you. I trust you not to hurt me, Snow.” She looked over her shoulder at him and he looked pleased by her answer, a spark of warmth lighting his blue eyes that she hadn’t seen since he had been a young man.

He was happy.

And she was the cause of it.

Aurora focused on hiding her wings and his expression turned to one of fascination as they shrank into her back.

“Sleeping without them is more comfortable, but they don’t like to be gone for long. I will likely wake before you.” It was a reasonable excuse. If he stirred and found her awake, he wouldn’t think anything was wrong.

Snow closed his eyes and Aurora rose from the bed, switched off the lamps in the room, and then joined him on the bed.

She lay on top of the black covers beside him, on her side with her arm tucked under her head on the pillow that smelled like him. Her perfect night vision allowed her to see him clearly in the dark and she studied his noble profile, trailing her gaze over the line of his brow, down the straight slope of his nose, to his sensual lips and strong jaw.

It wasn’t long before sleep claimed him.

Aurora watched him slumber, indulging herself and losing track of time. Only minutes seemed to pass but it must have been closer to hours because when she focused, the sun was edging lower in the sky. It would set within the hour and she still hadn’t formulated her plan.

Her gut twisted and turned, and she closed her eyes, unable to look at Snow while guilt rode her.

She despised herself for lying to him. Unlike those she worked with, her master included, she hated to deceive any creature, even the wicked ones. The fact that she deceived Snow in order to gain his trust made her feel like one of the wicked, but she needed to remain close to him if she were to judge him correctly.

Aurora sighed, lifted her eyelids and stared at him. Her master’s words rang in her ears, ones he had spoken often over the past twenty centuries.

The creature was a threat to humankind.

Aurora didn’t believe that.

He was only a threat to himself.

She had never met such a trouble soul in all her long existence. He was so lost and broken, so void of hope. It pained her to see it in his eyes and feel it beating in his heart. He believed himself wretched and tainted, evil, and deserving of death.

She had seen thousands of mortals who had taken countless lives each, and none of them had shown the deep remorse for their actions that Snow did. None of them believed they deserved to perish or face execution for their sins.

They justified their cruel and often barbaric actions, blaming society or others, or their duties. They revelled in killing. Taking lives thrilled them and too many of them drew sick satisfaction from bathing their hands in blood.

Snow despised himself for the things he had done. He never blamed his bloodlust for his actions. He never sought a way of justifying them in order to alleviate his guilt and deflect the scorn of others. He hated that he had destroyed lives or ended them, and took no satisfaction from their deaths. He took only pain that stayed with him forever.