Chapter 3
Her blood was inside me. Not much but just enough to mark her. Just enough to burn a line straight down my throat and into the hollow of my chest where nothing used to live. But now something pulsed there, something ancient, something permanent. Her name is engraved in my bones.
Her essence fills me like a fire I couldn’t put out.
I can feel her heartbeat against mine, it is fast and frightened, and so beautiful.
I could smell her arousal buried under the fear, sweet and trembling and real.
I was unravelling, coming apart at the seams, a feeling which I have never felt before.
I have never felt like I wasn’t in control, but this innocent wisp of a girl has completely and fully unravelled me.
Everything in me screams for me to take her fully, and make her mine in every way.
My body, my mind, my very soul is pushing for me to do it now.
Not just a kiss, not just a mark. I want her tied to me, claimed, sobbing my name with my blood on her lips.
I want to bury myself inside her so deep until she couldn’t remember a world where I didn’t exist. Until she forgot her name and only answered to mine.
“Roman.”
Viking’s voice cut through the haze, cautious and close, too close.
I turned, slowly, my body shielding her as if someone had pulled a weapon on her instead of just saying my name.
Viking held up both hands, palms open. “Easy, brother. Just making sure you’re not about to blow the fucking club off its hinges. ”
I growled a warning, low and guttural. He stepped back immediately. His eyes flicked to Layla, then back to me. “She’s yours,” he said quietly. “I get it.”
No, he didn’t. No one did unless they’d felt the bond. Unless the scent of their mate's blood had burned through their brain like gasoline on fire. “Leave,” I snap in a low growl.
He nodded once, backing away like a man walking away from a ticking bomb that hadn’t finished counting down. He was smart, he’d seen what happened to males who were interrupted mid-mating. Some went feral, some went mad, and some like me got deadly.
I turn back to look down at a shaking Layla. Her hands are clenched at her sides her eyes wide and terrified, but she hadn’t run.
“I don’t know what this is,” she whispered again. “But I’m not going with you.”
“Yes,” I respond, stepping in close, “you are.”
“I need to get my house keys, my sister’s here…”
“She won’t see you tonight.”
“You can’t just…”
“I can,” I reply. “I already have. ”
She tried to push past me, but I caught her wrist, not rough, but firm enough for her to know that I’m serious. Her breath catches and she whispers in a frightened voice, “I could scream.”
I lean in, my lips brushing her ear. “You could. But I’d be the only one who came.” She flinches at my statement knowing the truth of my words. I hate how much I liked it.
“Let me go,” she whispered.
“You don’t want that. You feel it too, Layla.
” Her pulse jumped under my fingers. I pull on her wrist turning her around and pulling her behind me, guiding her carefully down the stairs and through a private hallway to the back of the club.
My car is waiting in the alley, sleek and black with bulletproof glass and scent blockers.
She resists, which has me wanting to smile at her stubbornness. She’s a tiny little thing but she’s not afraid as she pulls her hand from mine and stands her ground. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“Yes, you are.”
“You don’t get to decide that…”
“I do,” I reply, voice cutting like a blade. “I’m your mate, Layla. You were made for me. And now that I’ve found you, nothing will stop me from keeping you. Nothing, that includes you.”
I opened the car door, but she just stands there with her arms crossed without moving. I step closer and look her dead in the eyes. “You can walk, or I’ll carry you. But you’re coming home with me.”
She glares at me, her chin lifting in defiance which makes me want to take her right here, right now. She is beautiful. She sighs and then climbs in.
“Good girl,” I murmur as I close the door behind her before walking around the car and getting in behind the wheel.
I look in the review mirror and see my men in a SUV parked behind me, Viking must have ordered them to keep out of my way today and follow at a distance.
Since a few years ago where a group of Demons attacked Lucien and nearly killed him, we do not go out alone.
The drive was silent, she sat rigid beside me, arms folded tight across her chest, eyes glued to the window. Her scent was in the car now and it filled every inch of it. I was drunk on it, drowning in it. My claws itched under my skin, I wanted to rip her clothes off and take her right here .
I gripped the steering wheel like it had insulted me. Focus, I just need to get her inside, just get her behind locked doors. Where she’d be safe, where no one else could smell her or look at her. Where I could touch her freely.
The drive was quiet as she sat stiffly looking out of the window, her hands clenched on her lap. I left her to her thoughts knowing that this is a shock for her, knowing that as a human she needs to come to terms with everything before accepting the situation, but I’m not a patient man.
My mansion sat hidden behind high iron gates in the hills above the city. Three acres of stone, steel, and shadow. There are no neighbours, no witnesses, there are only my guards that are loyal to me, and terrified of my wrath.
The mansion wasn’t just luxurious, but it was a fortress of black stone and carved gargoyles. Heavy windows with imported bulletproof glass and shutters with timers to descend at sunrise. The whole house sat like a beast in the dark, waiting for something to trespass so it could tear it apart.
But when we arrived Layla refused to walk freely into it. Instead, we stood at the entrance of the mansion, the giant steel-reinforced doors looming in front of us like a gateway to another life. “No,” she said, arms crossed, planted like a tree refusing to be uprooted. “I’m not going in there.”
“You are.”
“This is insane.” Her voice shook, but it didn’t crack. “I don’t know you, I didn’t agree to this. You just grabbed me and you… bit me.”
I stepped closer, “You walked into my club, the minute I saw you every cell in my body said mine.”
“That’s not how it works. I have a job. A home…”
“That is exactly how it works in my world, you’re not going back there.”
Wherever she lived before? Whoever she was before? That life had ended the second her eyes met mine, but she wasn’t ready to hear that yet. So instead, I took another step forward, and when she backed up, I lifted her easily into my arms.
She gasped, legs kicking. “Put me down!”
“No.”
“You can’t just...! ”
“I can,” I growl, tightening my grip. “And I am.”
I carried her through the doors, the motion sensors triggered the chandeliers overhead, wrought iron claws holding blood-red glass.
The floor beneath us glowed with subtle underlighting, veins of black marble webbing across crimson stone.
Inside, the foyer opened into wide marble floors veined with blood-red lines.
Ancient paintings hung in gold frames, real gold, not plated.
There were also war scenes, and other vampire kings.
She went still, “This place looks like it eats people.”
“Only the ones I invite.”
Hallways stretched in every direction as shadows clung to every corner. But everything was immaculate. Floors were polished, everything was spotless, under control, like me.
I’d brought her home. The car ride had been unbearable as her scent saturating the space, her heartbeat pounding like war drums against the inside of my skull. I could feel every shift in her mood like it was stitched into my own flesh .
But she hadn’t run, and she hadn’t screamed, she had sat there in silence, fuming and confused, trembling and beautiful. The kind of beautiful that made gods break rules and kings start wars, and now, she was in my world.
Her breath hitched, and I hated how much I liked the fear in it. Not because I wanted her scared but because fear meant she knew I was real, that this was not a dream. I carried her through the west wing, past armoured doors and blood-etched artwork, into my private suite.
I look around trying to see what she will see, the walls were deep grey, the floors a black wood polished to a shine. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked the grounds, and the four-poster bed dominated the centre of the room. Heavy chains hung from the ceiling, not decorative but real.
The thought of tying those chains around Layla’s white wrists and slim ankles, opening her up to my view, to my touch has my cock twitching, straining desperately against my slacks. If I don’t take her soon, I will blow a fucking nut.
I set her down gently in the middle of the room, she didn’t bolt but she stared at me like I was a monster.
Good, because now she would know what kind.
“This is where you sleep?” I nod, as I see her cheeks heating, her breath hitching and when she sees the chains hanging from the ceiling her heart starts to race, and I can scent her lust which has me taking a step towards her before I forcibly stop myself.
My hands fisted at my sides, my body was screaming. My cock was hard and aching, my fangs throbbed with the need to bite again and complete our bond.
I take a deep breath that did nothing to calm me. She stood there like temptation in skin, her chest rising and falling fast. I can smell her want, her passion. But I wouldn’t take her like this or at least not until she understood what it meant.
Still the words came low, rough, and almost dangerous. “You’re not going back to that little apartment. You’re not chasing after your sister. You’re not going back to that life. That ends tonight.”
“You can’t…”