AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I couldn’t even laugh at how ludicrous he sounded. “Most women prefer to be asked, not abducted from their beds.”
“I didn’t abduct you, my sweet. I simply called. And you came.”
“I would never come here of my own free will. It’s the blood, isn’t it? Is that how you control me?”
Unperturbed, he continued leading me in a slow waltz on the fur carpet. His expression remained stoic. Placid and amiable, as if we truly were in some Victorian mansion and I was his willing lady, content in his arms. The reality was disturbingly the opposite.
“It’s always been my understanding that women rarely know what they truly want. Their betters, specifically their lords and masters, must gently show them the way, sometimes with a firmer hand. Only then are they content to follow their true destiny.”
“My destiny is not tied to you,” I said with a shaky breath.
His expression hardened to sharp planes. “There has never been a Vessel without a demon lord, and I will most certainly be yours. Be sure of it.”
I shuddered. A masculine whisper, a familiar chant, shivered through the hollow halls, then faded quickly away. Danté smiled as if he hadn’t heard the whisper or as if it were perfectly normal to hear hostile voices echoing in this vast, bleak fortress.
“Don’t worry, my sweet,” he whispered into my hair, “you’ll become accustomed to my touch. We have eternity to discover each other in every way.”
“Never,” I bit out through clenched teeth.
A throaty chuckle as he bit the lobe of my ear. I cried out, unable to pull away.
“So fiery. I like that. It will make things more…interesting. The end will be the same nevertheless.”
“You are so sure of yourself,” I challenged, doing my damnedest to put a few inches between us. His compulsion to have me against him was so strong the effort to resist caused spine-numbing pain.
“Yes. Once a Vessel has succumbed to me, there is no going back.”
“But I will never succumb to you,” I said, trying to thrust out of my mind the fact that he’d had Vessels before. What happened to them? “And Jude will never let that happen.”
“Ah, but see, that’s where you’re wrong.” His chilling gaze froze me in place. He stopped swaying to the music, coiling me tightly in his arms, his touch like a cold-blooded serpent constricting its prey. “Your hunter will deliver you to me on a silver platter. He can’t help himself. So tempting, vixen that you are.”
His face was a hairsbreadth away, smiling at some secret of his own. A loud banging reverberated throughout the castle. Danté’s eyes slid sideways to the hallway, a sinister smile spreading wide.
“I hear you knocking, but you can’t come in,” he said in a singsong way that raised gooseflesh along my skin. “Oh, my sweet, you’re cold. I apologize. Perhaps I should get you under the covers.”
He started for the bed with a viselike grip around my wrist.
“No!”
The very thought sent me into hysterical panic. I struggled, despite the compulsion threatening to break me in half as I tried to bend away.
Furious pounding echoed from the outer door, growing louder and more violent.
Danté laughed, whether at my vain struggle or at the one who I could guess was banging for entrance to this macabre place, I wasn’t sure.
I punched toward his throat while trying to wriggle out of his grip. He slid sideways in a fluid, sinuous motion, tackling me to the white fur rug. His strength far surpassed his demon minions.
Spreading his body on top of mine, he pinned my wrists above my head, leering from blood-red eyes. He smiled, all sharpened teeth and elongated canines. My heartbeat sped in terrified alarm, the rabbit once again caught so easily by the cat. His cold aura scraped against my skin.
“You think I care about the hunter’s fixation on you? It’s so perfect, it’s almost poetic. I’m amused just thinking of it,” he said, laughing between serrated teeth. “I know you want him. There’s no doubt he wants you. The fallen are forever looking heavenward. It’s so obscene.”
He paused to run his tongue along my neck. I bucked to push him away. That wicked laugh again before he pierced me with a bloody gaze.
“Please, with my permission, take him to bed. Go for a nice long ride. Then you’ll be perfectly ripe for the taking. I don’t mind sharing, just that one time. One time is all it will take,” he gloated, “and you’ll be mine forever.”
He bent to kiss me. I twisted away violently, disturbed at his body pressing intimately against mine.
No, not my body. Just my soul.
