Tempting The Gorgon: A Gorgon / Vampire Romance

Chapter 27

“Iheard you have my mate,” Cliona snarled as the head she chopped off moments before finished rolling, finally stopping next to Patrick’s feet. I kept my eyes on my idiotic brother but did a quick perusal to see Patrick and Vinni both seated on a stained cement floor that smelled like more than enough blood had spilled on it before they ever ended up here. I didn’t miss the upturn curve on my mate’s lips when she heard Cliona speak.

Whatever grand gesture I’d had planned to retrieve my own mate was put aside when my brother spoke and I heard his voice for the first time in over a century.

“You bitch,” Thatcher seethed from where he stood at my mate and my best friend’s feet. “You can’t just come into my home swinging axes like you’re a fucking lumberjack! Do you know how hard it is to train good help?”

“No harder than it is to not be a royal pain in my ass.” Cliona spun the axe in her hand as we walked further into the room. My brother still had two of his loyal servants near the other entrance. They looked nervous. Good. “This entire building is done with. You have two options. Give me my mate and my friend and leave.

“Or?” the fool asked.

“Or I separate your head from your body and burn the pieces in my next full moon ritual.”

My High Priestess hadn’t even changed her tone. She was a bad fucking bitch, and I had never been more thankful than that moment to have her on my side.

“Take your fucking freak of a mate,” Thatcher said. He grabbed Patrick by his upper arm and tossed him forward toward Cliona. She grabbed him immediately without taking her eyes off the threat. “He was collateral damage since I figured he’d fetch a good price at auction. I only want my gorgon.”

A snarl ripped out of my throat at his words.

“She’s not yours, Thatcher.” I stepped forward, swiping my hand behind my back to let Cliona know she could leave and get Patrick out of there.

“Oh, my dear brother.” Thatcher inched back, closer to Vinni. “I thought she smelled familiar when they were hauling her in here. I figured she still held on to father’s scent after the years of blood curses, but it was your claiming marks on her? This is too perfect. Do you really think this snake haired cunt is yours?”

I scoffed.

“Of course she isn’t mine.” I put bravado I didn’t actually feel in my tone. I straightened up, slowly looking him up and down, trying to gauge how demented he’d turned since I left the family before I ended up like him under my father’s influence. “I’m not ignorant enough to think a Greek goddess in the flesh would ever be claimed by someone else, let alone a bloodsucker like me.”

“Then why are you here acting as if you have some kind of claim on her? Are you that desperate? Or did the bitch keep you at arm’s length like she managed to escape me all these years?” My brother’s rage had always been his weakness, and it was proving to be again.

“Your daddy neutered you because he knew the deviant you were. Even his psycho ass knew I wouldn’t survive your twisted idea of fucking, you pig.” Vinni spat in my brother’s face, and I swear my cock twitched at the sight.

Until Thatcher reached down to grab Vinni and haul her up so she stood between us, her back pressed to his front, wrapped in rope that sparkled in the low lights of the basement we were in. I took her in and she looked okay, all things considered. I hated that her eyes were still wrapped shut, a clear sign he knew she could take his ass down in a minute.

“As I said, I may not be the smartest male, but I sure as shit am not dumb enough to think I could own Vinni like a prize. She’s more powerful than you. Than me. Than our father. You’re an idiot if you think you can claim her.”

Thatcher scoffed. “Sure, brother. Seems like you’re just pissed you weren’t able to claim her for yourself and let her come here to rescue a poor little gorgon.”

I had assumed when they had been captured but needed to know for sure.

“There wasn’t ever a gorgon at the club, was there?” I asked.

“Of course not, you idiots. As soon as I heard of your little rescue operation at my newly acquired club in Charlotte, I knew I could count on Vinni showing up here to play the hero again. Save a poor little snake haired bitch from her same fate.”

I saw his grip tighten on Vinni’s arms and felt my fangs lengthen in rage.

I was going to kill my brother.

I held my breath as I saw Luxor and Titi slowly unfurl themselves beneath the mesh.

If you cut this net, we can take him, Titi said.

You must be swift, Luxor commanded.

“You’re missing the obvious here, brother.” I walked forward as slowly and nonchalantly as possible, hoping he saw the need to get in his face and not close to my mate to help. “You were always an idiot like our father. So full of yourself, you failed to see what was right in front of you.”

His ember eyes, the same shade as our mother’s, gleamed in the rage I could see pulsing at the vein in his neck.

“And what exactly is that?”

“She might not be mine…”

“But he’s mine,” Vinni growled, throwing her weight back against Thatcher, which admittedly didn’t do much to move him but did take his eyes off me long enough to jut forward and rip the netting free.

Luxor and Titi wasted no time, digging their fangs into Thatcher’s cheeks. I’d known subconsciously that their bites on my own flesh were more love bites than anything vicious, but I didn’t fully realize how gentle they’d been with me until I saw their fangs not only pierce Thatcher but rip at his flesh enough for his cheekbones to become visible.

I started to untie Vinni from the ropes while he fought the snakes off. His wailing was loud as he tried to clutch his cheeks, only to be stopped by the six other snakes latching on to whatever piece of skin was near and ripping it to shreds. Blood spilled and began to pool at his feet. Even with his rapid healing abilities, he would be scarred.

Not that he was leaving this room still breathing.

I kissed Vinni’s forehead as I untied the last bit of rope and removed the tape blocking her eyes. She reached up to caress my cheek before turning around to face the victim her snakes were devouring.

“You scream so prettily, Thatcher,” Vinni muttered, taking in the gory sight of her one-time captor being torn apart by her snakes. “I only wish I had the patience to listen to you more.”

I looked at Vinni, seeing her beautiful eyes turn solid gray. My brother’s screams were cut off as a bright white glow surrounded Vinni. Her snakes unlatched from their victim and hovered around her head as if they would kill the next person who dared look at her wrong.

She was devastating.

She was ethereal.

I turned to my brother, seeing him encased in light gray stone, trapped in a permanent scream, and cursed to watch the world pass him by for all eternity.

“I’m not worthy.” I dropped to my knees, eyeing the floor near her feet, still sticky with Thatcher’s blood, before he was turned to stone. The buzzing energy of the room dulled slightly, and the glow that surrounded her was dimming as the natural light of the sconces flickered around the room.

“You’re the only one worthy, Archer,” my mate muttered before falling to her knees in front of me.

“That was the coolest and hottest shit I’ve ever seen in my entire fucking life,” a female voice echoed around the room, causing Vinni and me to jerk our heads toward the entrance. The other two guards lay dead at Lennox and Guillermo’s feet as they took us in.

“Are you sure she’s your mate, Arch? I think she could very well be mine.” Lennox moved toward us, licking her lips as she took in my mate.

I snarled. “Back off, Lennox. I will not hesitate to hit a female if you look at my mate like that again.”

Vinni slapped me on the back of the head, but I snarled at her too.

“I’m allowed to be extra alpha-dickish right now. You have no idea—” I cut myself off and took a deep breath. The last few hours were catching up to me quickly, and I wasn’t sure how to collect myself.

“We do have to go. Cliona is beyond ready to get all of us back to Haven Pass.”

“But I wanted to fuck my mate in his brother’s blood like a real romance novel,” Vinni said, shocking the literal fuck out of me.

“See. My fucking girl.” Lennox winked at me before tugging Guillermo out of the room. “Give them a minute. They’ll catch up. We can stall Cliona.”

“Did you just call me your mate?” I asked.

Vinni smiled.

“It seems you were keeping secrets and making bro plans with your alpha bros about wooing me.”

“Fucking Patrick’s big-ass mouth.”

“It was actually Guillermo.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, so I took her face in my hands and brought her close.

“You are more than my mate, Vinni. You are my friend. You are my family. You are my everything. And I’m yours to do whatever you see fit. I didn’t want to scare you with the label. I know how it can be?—”

“Shh.” She covered my mouth with her hand, still covered in my brother’s blood. “I know, vlákas.”

Then she pressed her puffy lips to mine, licking at the seam of my mouth before wrapping her tongue around mine. She kissed me like she was consuming me, and I let her take control. It felt like an eternity, and I wanted nothing more than to strip her bare and fuck her right here, to claim her in front of my brother’s statue so he could see just how filthy she was for me.

“We don’t have time,” she said, pulling away, licking her lips while doing so.

“What do we do with him?” I nodded toward the statue.

“I have an idea.”