Unleash (Vampire Erotic Theatre Romance Series Book 6) (7 page)

“I was curious to know what you would tell me.” She wrapped her small hands around one of the steel posts at the end of his bed and leaned her shoulder against it.

Snow didn’t like that she had seen him in the throes of his bloodlust, but he was beginning to share her sense of curiosity. “Why are you here… and why did you sing to me?”

A pretty blush coloured her flawless pale cheeks. “You remember?”

Wasn’t he supposed to have remembered? Evidently, she hadn’t expected him to recall that someone had been in his room, singing him to sleep, speaking to him in a language that hadn’t left his lips in close to one thousand years before he had awoken to find Antoine watching over him.

Snow nodded.

She didn’t tell him why she was here. She pushed away from the post and twirled so her back was to him, the white layers of her dress spinning outwards to reveal the outline of her shapely legs beneath. Snow barely bit back the growl that rumbled up his throat at the sight of her long slender legs.

Her black wings shifted and stretched, almost spanning his room before settling against her back again.

“I do not enjoy your choice of decor,” she said in a bright tone and looked over her shoulder, past her black wing to him. “It is morbid. Mortals would call it depressing.”

Snow folded his arms across his chest. “You know that I am not mortal, and I feel this decor suits me and this place.”

He smiled slowly. Desire to make her blush again so he could see it shot through him.

“You must know the sort of business I run with the others here, and the sort of creature I am.”

“I do not care.” She twirled to face him, affording him another glimpse of long legs that would have made him blush if he hadn’t been in perfect control of himself.

“Again, female, why are you here?” If she didn’t answer this time, he might leave the bed, grab her shoulders and shake the answer out of her.

She was petite, delicate in appearance, but his senses warned that she was powerful and more than able to put him on his arse if he tried to harm her.

“I said… I was watching over you.” Her black eyebrows pinched in a frown. “Do you not listen?”

Snow scowled back at her and scoffed at her words. “My own guardian angel? I have done nothing to deserve an angel watching over me. Your kind should be put to better use, given to those who deserve you.”

Her frown hardened. “You do not deserve compassion?”

There was an edge to her expression and the hint of her emotions that he could detect that told him she didn’t believe him worthy of compassion either and that she hated being here. Confusing female.

He wanted to pick her up on her feelings towards him and ask her why she was here when she harboured such dark, un-angel-like emotions. Did she despise all of his kind or just him? Had he done something to gain her scorn?

It bothered him but he pushed it to the back of his mind, unwilling to contemplate the notion that she may hate all vampires because it would inevitably lead to him deciding that she was a danger to everyone at the theatre and then his bloodlust would break free of the tattered threads that restrained it.

She had been in the room before, and he didn’t know how many other times she had visited him over the twenty-one days he had been out of his mind. If she were a threat, she would have attacked before now.

No. Attacking the theatre or killing him were not the reasons she was here. There was another one, one she was unwilling to share with him right now.

The angel meandered around his room again, the longest feathers of her black wings almost grazing the wooden floor with each silent step.

She delighted in the strangest things, such as looking through his drawers and pulling out items of clothing and holding them up for inspection. She rummaged through his wardrobe too, and held more than one shirt against her small, wickedly sensual body.

Those shirts would smell like her, and he had the stupidest urge to wear one of them tonight and carry her sweet scent with him to the party. It was almost as pathetic as the pleasing image of her dressed in only one of his shirts, curled up asleep and sated on his bed, that leaped into his mind.

She hummed as she poked at everything on top of his dressing table again and thumbed through several of his books. The same melody she had sung to him. The sound of it soothed his bloodlust and relaxed him, and he found himself enjoying her company.

She turned on the spot again and looked from his black-tiled bathroom and the broken mirror to him, her dark eyebrows rising as her gaze fell to his injured hand.

“Why did you taste your blood only to spit it into the sink?” That question leaving her lips caught him off guard and almost knocked the wind from him.

“You saw?”

“Of course,” she said in a matter of fact tone, as though it shouldn’t surprise him that he hadn’t been as alone as he had thought.

“From here?” He didn’t like the thought of her being in his room, invisible to his senses, watching him. It stirred his bloodlust, reawakening the sense that she was a threat to him.

She shook her head.

“No. From my home.” Another pretty blush stained her cheeks. “I did not watch when I should not have. I only saw you strike the mirror and what came afterwards, and then I turned my gaze away from you again.”

Snow raised a single eyebrow at her. He hadn’t even considered that she could have been watching him in the shower. The thought of this beauty secretly watching him bathe had something other than his bloodlust rising and he cleared his throat and shifted his leg so she wouldn’t notice.

“Why did you spit out your blood?”

Snow averted his gaze, settling it on the black covers beside his left hip. Why indeed. He would sound stupid if he told her the truth, but the thought of lying to her didn’t sit well in his stomach, causing it to squirm worse than his hunger did.

He sighed. “Because it tastes foul.”

Snow lifted his head again, locking his eyes on her, monitoring her for a sign that might tell him what she thought of that. Her expression remained placid but the pink tint on her cheeks darkened as he stared at her and a flicker of curiosity reignited in her striking eyes.

“Why ask me about my blood and not about why I struck the mirror?” He couldn’t hold that one inside any longer. If she had watched him strike the mirror and then suck blood from the wound only to spit it out, shouldn’t her first question have been about his reason for smashing the glass? He was sure most people would have chosen that as their starting point.

Her gaze held his, unwavering and unreadable, emotionless. “Because I already know the reason why, Snow. I know what haunts your soul.”

Snow swallowed hard, the action forcing his galloping heart back down into his chest. The way she stared at him, her cool impassive eyes looking deep into his, as if she could see beyond his physical form, down to the soul she claimed to know, set him on edge and made him believe that she spoke the truth.

She knew all about him and the wretched acts in his past that he couldn’t escape.

This angel knew his pain and he had the feeling that she had been watching over him for longer than these past few days.

She turned away again and the instant the link between their eyes broke, he sagged against the pillows and his mind raced with the possibility that this angel had been watching over him for centuries or longer. His gaze followed her, tracking her as she resumed her perusal of his room.

Her eyes leaped from one thing to another in his apartment, but never fell on him. In fact, she seemed to be avoiding him now, as though she feared gazing upon him for some reason.

He doubted it was because she had noticed the effect of her earlier words on him and how quickly his body had reacted to the thought of her watching him shower. He even doubted it was because she knew his dark past and that it still tormented him now.

Was it because he wasn’t decent? He refused to close his robe for her sake. She had come to his room, an intruder not an invited guest. She would have to take him as she found him or leave.

When she turned in his direction to study the cuffs attached to the posts at the foot of his bed, her beauty arrested him again, claiming all of his attention. Her strange eyes darkened as she opened and closed one of the cuffs, and even went as far as shutting it around her delicate wrist. Her nose wrinkled in a frown when her hand easily slid free of the closed cuff.

Even the ones for his hands would produce the same result. They were designed for his thicker wrists and larger hands, not the slender ones of a female.

Her eyes finally lifted and met his, and the longer he stared into their mesmerising depths, the calmer he felt. He wasn’t sure why.

She curled her hand around the post at the foot of his bed to his right and swung around it until her knees hit the edge of the mattress. Closer than ever. She was within five feet of him now and not a trace of fear flickered in her eyes. Even Antoine was afraid of him at times and with good reason too.

His stomach twisted and rumbled, his hunger rearing its ugly head. He needed to chain himself and sleep, not give in to his urge to feed. Taking more blood tonight would be a grave mistake. He had to wean himself off it again, dropping to the smaller doses that had proved effective at keeping his bloodlust under better control before he had fallen off the wagon in dramatic style by draining three canisters in a row a few months ago.

“Leave, before it is too late,” Snow growled in warning and sat forwards with the intention of securing his ankles.

His gut clenched violently and his hands shook from the pain that ripped through him, shattering his fragile control over his bloodlust. He glanced at the angel, afraid he would harm her if he didn’t shackle his wrists this second. He trembled as he lay back, his stomach churning again, twisting in on itself until he couldn’t draw breath. Blood. He needed blood.

His eyes fixed darkly on the female.

Her blood.

He would drink her dry.

N
o. He needed to resist.

Blinded by the pain, Snow fumbled for the wrist restraint and slammed his arm into it. The cuff whipped shut and locked automatically. After the incident with Anya and the party, Snow had asked Antoine to custom order him new restraints for his wrists, ones he would be able to close himself without any need for assistance, and therefore no need to risk the lives of those he cared about by asking them to help him.

He flopped onto his back and brought his other arm down hard. It hit only mattress. He tried again and missed the cuff for a second time.

The female foolishly moved forwards as though she wanted to assist him, and he snarled and lashed out at her with his free hand, his blunt claws swiping the air just millimetres from her stomach.

She gasped, flapped her black wings, and shot away from him, towards the mahogany panelled entrance door of his apartment. She didn’t leave. Her wide luminous eyes locked on him.

Snow smacked his arm down again and hit the cuff this time, causing it to snap shut around his wrist. He breathed hard, fighting the hunger for blood and death, and swallowed. His insides burned with the need for blood, setting him aflame and pushing him to the edge of oblivion. Couldn’t lose it. Not again. Not when everyone was expecting him to come down later and be around the babies.

Not when the angel was perilously close to him.

She had moved to the foot of the bed again and was staring at him with pity in her eyes.

He cursed her in the language of his homeland for that and she flinched away, her jet-black hair falling down to mask her face. Her fear reached out and curled around him, tempting him into breaking free and slaking his thirst for violence on her.

No. Couldn’t.

“Feet.” He forced the word out from between clenched teeth and his fangs cut into his gums, flooding his mouth with the taste of his wretched blood.

She didn’t move.

Snow snarled and lashed out with his legs, hoping to show her what might happen if she was foolish enough to ignore his request.

“I presume angels can die?” he growled the words at her, throwing them like barbs in a black deadly tone.

She visibly shook, her wide eyes darting to his before they shot to his ankles and then the cuffs attached to the heavy steel bedposts. Her nerves washed over him but she moved this time, bravely inching forwards. He tried to control himself but her proximity to him wreaked havoc and he kicked out again, trying to injure her to satisfy his dark needs even when he didn’t want to hurt her.

She grabbed the cuff in one hand and tried to capture his ankle with the other. He snarled, planted his left foot onto the mattress and used it as leverage to thrust his other leg as close as he could get it to her. The cuffs around his wrists bit into his flesh and almost jerked his arms out of their sockets, but the pain didn’t stop him from kicking out at her with his right foot.

She skilfully evaded the blow, snagged his ankle with a lightning fast strike, and had the cuff around it before he could catch up.

Her face set in grim lines of determination, she tackled his other ankle and easily captured it.

Snow hated feeling completely vulnerable and weak, he always had, and the feel of the cuff locking around his ankle sent him off the deep end. He thrashed wildly, bucking and snarling, pulling against his restraints until his bones blazed and his skin shredded.

Still it wasn’t enough to stop him from thirsting for blood and fearing he would escape and make a meal out of the angel.

“Come.” He jerked his chin, trying to entice her. He had broken restraints before when lost to his bloodlust and although these new ones had held him firm for three weeks, he wasn’t about to trust they wouldn’t give out if he used all of his strength on them.

She held her ground, refusing to budge, her eyes on his fangs. “No.”

Snow roared. “Come here or die! I will not harm you.”

Perhaps threatening her wasn’t his best move given the situation and his current condition. She shook her head.

“Collar.” He pushed the word out before another surge in his hunger overpowered his ability to speak and left him snarling in agony and bowing off the mattress. He dug the back of his head into the black pillows and growled through the blistering wave of fire that rushed through his veins.