Chapter 1
“Of all the things you choose in life, you don’t get to choose what your nightmares are. You don’t pick them; they pick you” - John Irving
I didn’t want to be a damn vampire. The screams echoed off the stone. The sound distant, yet anguished. It must be that time. In the two weeks since I’d been dumped into this place, I’d tracked the routine by when those screams began.
It marked the death and birth of a new day. The chill in the room barely touched me. I wouldn’t have minded better accommodations. Despite my expensive tastes, the damp, stone cell with its single hard bed, a sink that allowed water for washing, and a toilet in the corner they’d actually let me clean before I touched it—look, a girl has to have some standards—was empty.
I was also the only one in this wing, so the wrought iron door, reinforced with its magical protections and salted to boot, didn’t even provide me a view of the emptiness beyond. It was all shadows. The sconces in the corners lit up in the “morning” and extinguished at “night.”
I’d destroyed them twice.
The little bastards always popped back up.
Still, it was something to do when the mental retail therapy grew stale. Currently, I debated between a pair of Louboutins that were last season and the Stuart Weitzman that were just perfectly classic and provocative. Both had stellar heels and would definitely work for my ass. The red-bottomed Louboutins had gotten a little too common. Everyone wanted to be seen in them.
The screams climbed in volume. It would be nice if he could arrive without the serenade. The noise was hardly conducive to mood.
Still, if I went for the Weitzman, what would I pair them with? I was still mentally scrolling through the dress racks when I considered ditching the heels for thigh high boots and a mini-skirt. I had fabulously long legs, and I knew how to work them. Thigh highs screamed ‘come and get me.’
Heat and hunger vied for my attention as I shifted on the bed. The problem was that my fabulously toned legs were looking a little too slender. The thigh highs would hide the loss of tone.
Thigh highs it was.
The door grated open, and I didn’t bother rising as he suddenly filled the space. The shadows deepened, darkening the already pitch space. Seeing in the dark had never been my talent, yet I could make him out as easily as if the sconces were lit. Tall, rangy, and gorgeous, despite the mean streak in him.
“Fiona,” he greeted me as he closed the door and made his way across the cell. Not like he had far to travel.
“Dorran,” I mocked his deep, husky tone as I crossed one leg over the other. I wore the equivalent of a polyester jump suit in the most horrid shade of gray. The color was so drab, it blended with the walls around me.
Chuckling, he held out a hand as he stood in front of me. “You haven’t been eating.”
I rolled my eyes and ignored his hand. “I don’t survive on blood.”
“You used to not need it,” he reminded me, as if I could forget. Even the mention of it had my teeth sharpening. The canines weren’t quite as pronounced as most vampires. I hadn’t been born one or even turned like they sometimes chose with the human cattle they kept close to them. I certainly shouldn’t be one now.
Stupid. Fucking. Dimitri.
When I got out of here—and I would—I planned to gut Dimitri and hang him by his entrails. When he healed, I’d do it again.
A few centuries of that, and I might be willing to let bygones be bygones, or simply rip his head totally off.
That would be nice.
The lust for blood sent another wave of heat and hunger to balloon through me. It didn’t help to have him looming over me, flushed with a lust of his own, and it wasn’t just lust for me, though that was definitely present. Dorran had been feeding, and it practically coiled around him, a dark energy that licked at my skin, even if he wasn’t touching me.
Demons, after all, understood other demons.
With a growl, he clasped my hand and yanked me to my feet. The moment his mouth crashed down on mine, I gave in to the need to feed. Blood may be among my cravings now, but it wasn’t what I needed to survive.
With hot heavy hands, he shoved up my top, even as I pulled at his vestments. His tongue tangled with mine, and he tasted of coffee, cake, and passion. Someone had been dining well this evening. When he pulled back to yank my shirt up and over, I got his jacket off.
The clothes hit the floor with a thump. Other prisoners might try to purloin something from his pockets or steal from him. I wanted what was under the clothes. The power eddying over his skin stroked mine, and the shadows began to sink into me before he looped an arm around my bare waist and dragged me back.
Mouth on mine, he began to feast. The despair and aggravation in my blood churned as he sought to suck it out of me. Fisting his hair, I hiked my thighs to his hips. He had one hand on my ass, lifting me, and I began to writhe against the hard length of cock pressed right against my pussy.
Fuck, his lust magnified. Even as he dragged the despair out of me, I began to feast on the hunger in him. It was a magnificent loop.
After four days of denying him, I was starved for it. He drove me back against the wall, and I fisted him into position. The rough stone scraped at my back. Without waiting or warning, he slammed into me. Eyes rolling back, I tipped my head away. The pistoning of his hips jolted me right between pleasure and pain, a seesawing effect that only heightened his wanton desire.
When he bit against my throat, I bucked back at him. Fucker loved to mark me, even if he didn’t require blood. The thrust of darkness teased against my anus. It was his turn to fist my hair, and he dragged my gaze to him.
A scream broke free as he began to prod the tight rosette, his lust magnified, and a choked laugh broke out of me.
“It’s that or you feed on blood,” he ordered me, and his whole body vibrated against mine. Not once did he stop drilling into me. My breasts scrapped against the sweaty heat of his chest, the hairs there prickling my nipples. His power thickened as he began to breach the puckered opening, and another shudder raced through me.
He wanted me so bad, and it flooded my starved senses.
“Fiona,” he snarled my name, and I clenched my teeth in a grimace as his thrusts grew more ferocious. Every glorious slam he ground against my clit. The hot slide of his cock through me only ratcheted the temperature in my body higher. My blood thundered as his lust filled me.
“You want me,” I snarled at him, digging my nails into his bare shoulders. “Then take it.”
The flare of surprise followed by a swelling in both in his cock and his need threatened to tip me over. The shadows went hazy as he pummeled me, and my parched soul soaked up every drop. The first thrust of shadows filling my anus sent pain splintering through the pleasure, and he lapped it up even as he stilled his thrusting. Impaled on both his body and his power, I met his gaze. Heat roiled around me, in me, and him.
A testing probe, he eased the shadow thrust back and slammed his cock into me.
Fuck.
I forgot how to speak as he began to drive all thoughts from my head.
“That’s it.” He ground out the words somehow as he ramped his pace up. Every thrust of him stretched me. What pain his abrupt penetration caused faded as his lust spilled over onto everything. He could have carved me up right now, and I’d have orgasmed from the knife.