Chapter 5
I woke to the sound of silence, not morning traffic, not sirens, not the cheap hum of my apartment’s air conditioner struggling through the night. Just Silence.
The sheets beneath me were soft. Too soft. The air smelled like leather and spice and something darker like smoke curling off burning cedar. Everything in the room pulsed with warmth and dim gold light. It felt like being inside a cathedral built for sin .
My body ached, between my thighs, In my chest, deep in my very soul. I could feel my cheeks warming with colour as I remember what happened in this very bed.
Roman!
My brain screamed his name the memory hit like a flood: his voice in my ear, his hands on my skin, the way he claimed me, inside and out, like I belonged to him long before we ever met. And I let him. God.
I curled into the sheets, trying to breathe past the heat rising in my throat. I had let him, I had wanted it all of it, with my whole being, him and only him.
And that terrified me more than anything, because I didn’t understand it, any of it. How was it even possible?
What was I supposed to do now? Go back to work like nothing happened? Tell my boss I got claimed by a vampire, oh, not just any vampire but the vampire mafia king and now I’m living in a fucking mansion with a man whose kiss made me forget my name?
What about Rosemary? She’d be freaking out by now. Had she called the cops? Had she even noticed I was gone ?
And worse, far worse, what if this was all just a mistake?
What if Roman looked at me in the light of day and realized I wasn’t good enough?
That I wasn’t strong enough, or sexy enough, or experienced enough?
I’d never been with anyone before. I didn’t know how to exist in his world of violence and shadows and blood-soaked rules.
I wasn’t some fierce immortal warrior, I was a tired girl who could barely afford rent. And I…
“Stop.”
His voice came low and hard from across the room. I sat up, startled. Roman stood in the doorway shirtless, tattoos stark on his chest and arms, his eyes sharp and unreadable. His presence filled the room like gravity.
“I can feel you thinking,” he said, walking toward the bed.
I clutched the sheets around me, heart pounding. “I just…I’m confused, Roman.”
“I know.”
I looked up at him, voice shaking. “What if I’m not enough for you, what if this was a mistake and you got the wrong person?”
He froze mid-step .
“What if you wake up one day and realize I can’t handle this?” I whispered. “This world, you. All of it. I’m not powerful. I’m not seductive, I’m just…me. And maybe that’s not good enough.”
For a heartbeat, he said nothing. Then he moved, fast. I gasped as he grabbed my wrist and pulled me off the bed, dragging me across the room with impossible strength. He stopped in front of a massive mirror framed in black iron.
“Look at yourself,” he growled.
“Roman…”
“Look.”
I did, what I saw was a woman who’s hair was a mess, eyes wide, skin flushed from sleep and sex and fear.
I looked like a woman who had been thoroughly owned.
Turning my neck slightly I see a bruise where I have been branded.
But somehow…I felt powerful too. Powerful that I am standing here with a drop dead, hot as hell male that has taken me throughout the night.
Me, a woman that he seems to be unable to resist.
“You see that?” he said. “That’s mine.” I shivered at the possessiveness in his tone. He stepped behind me, crowding me with his body, bare skin burning against my back.
“You’re stunning, you’re a scorching fire. You’re a fucking goddess-level beautiful. And if I ever hear you call yourself inadequate again, I’ll bend you over this mirror, spank you and then fuck you until you remember what you are.”
My knees went weak as he growled in my ear. “You’re not allowed to doubt yourself, not in front of me, not ever.”
I turned to face him, eyes wet. “But I don’t know how to be this woman, I don’t know how to live in your world.”
“You don’t need to know,” he said. “You just need to be mine. I’ll teach you everything else.” And then he kissed me, not gently, not patiently, but with the same fire that had nearly shattered me the night before.
His hands gripped my thighs and lifted me onto the dresser beside the mirror.
He spread me open with rough hands and no hesitation.
“You’re going to learn what it means to be worshipped,” he whispered, sinking to his knees between my legs.
“To be taken and kept.” And then his mouth was on me, his tongue was slow, deliberate, teasing and torturing until I was shaking, crying out his name as I came against his lips, over and over until my voice was hoarse.
He didn’t stop; he didn’t even let me breathe. When he stood, he lifted me off the dresser and flipped me around so I faced the mirror again flushed and panting, my legs were shaking so bad that if it wasn’t for Roman holding me up with his hands, I would fall to the floor in a puddle.
“You see that?” he said, lining his cock against me from behind.
“That’s what it looks like when a woman is wanted.
When she’s worshipped.” And then he thrust inside me again, pushing deep as I moaned into the glass, eyes locked on the reflection of a girl I didn’t recognize because she was more confident now.
I was changed, I was his.
***
When I woke, I expected to feel different broken, raw, maybe even ashamed. Instead, I felt… anchored.
Sore, yes. Thoroughly used, yes. But more than that I felt claimed.
Not just by Roman’s body, or his words, or even his mark on my neck.
It was deeper than that, like my soul had been reset.
He wasn’t beside me when I opened my eyes.
Just the soft ripple of silk sheets and the lingering scent of his skin on mine.
But I could feel him somewhere nearby in the weight of the air, in the thrum in my blood that hadn’t stopped beating for him since last night.
It was so strange being able to have these feelings that they are linked to someone else.
I slipped into one of the oversized shirts he’d left on a chair, rolled up the sleeves, and padded barefoot through the heavy double doors out to his wing’s main sitting room.
And there he was standing shirtless by the tall windows looking out at the lights of the city far below in the distance, a cup of dark liquid in one hand, tattoos stark against his pale skin.
At sunset there was a buzzing noise that had me jump in fright as I had just dozed off. Roman had pulled me close against his chest appeasing my fright to tell me that it was just the shutters closing out the light. I must have slept the day away as it was dark outside again.
His eyes met mine the moment I stepped into the room. "You’re awake," he said, like it mattered more than anything else in the world. I nodded, unsure how to breathe properly in the same space as him now that my body knew what he could do with it.
He handed me the cup filled with coffee but a faint iron scent to it. I stared at it, my nose wrinkling in a grimace. “It’ll help with the energy drain,” he said. “You’re bonded now, I can feel how tired you are, your body’s adjusting.”
I took a sip, it’s warm, a little metallic, but all in all not bad.
He sat on the edge of a leather chaise, beckoning me to him.
When I was at arm’s reach, he takes my hand and pulls be down next to him, I curled into his side like I’d been doing it forever.
Then came the question that had been burning in my mind.
“What happens now?” I asked, voice quiet.
He ran a hand through my hair, slow and careful. “You stay here with me, and you live a happy and protected life as my mate. You will learn our world with time.”
“But I have a job. A sister. A life…”
He cut in, his voice is quiet but not unkind. “You had a routine, but what you have now is a life.”
I pulled back slightly, looking at him. “So, what, I just…forget everything? ”
“No,” he said. “You’ll speak to your sister, I’ll arrange it.
It will have to be discreetly; this will be to protect you.
You won’t just vanish, but you will have to slowly through time start to draw away as she will be suspicious when you don’t age.
Don’t worry my Angel, you will adapt.” He strokes my cheek as I frown up at him.
“And if I can’t?”
His eyes darkened, he lowers his head to kiss my forehead in comfort. “Then I will drag this world into line around you, don’t worry I won’t let you break. You’re stronger than you think.”
I shook my head. “You say that, but you don’t know me.”
“I know what you feel like when you orgasm. I know how your body trembles when I look at you, I know that your blood sings to mine.” He cupped my jaw, tilting my face to his. “Don’t ever doubt that I know you.”
I swallowed thickly. “But I don’t even know anything about you, like your family? What if they hate me?”
He smirked. “They wouldn’t dare.”
That made me laugh just a little. It felt good, maybe a little dangerous and strange, but good. He kissed my forehead, then rose. “Get dressed. I want you to meet my brothers tonight at dinner.”
“Really…you going to introduce me tonight?” I had snapped up, standing before him while I rubbed my hands in agitation. I wasn’t ready for this, what if they didn’t like me? What if they thought I wasn’t good enough for Roman?
“Hey…” Roman snaps, his eyes carrying a warning as he looks at me, “What did I tell you?” he asks with a frown, “don’t you dare question yourself again!”
***
An hour later I have changed into my jeans and one of his t-shirts that was a bit long but that I tucked into my jeans, and am following him downstairs through the mansion’s main hallways, all dark stone and warm candlelight.
There was something ancient in every detail.
Heavy rugs. Oil paintings of cities long turned to ash, carvings I didn’t recognize in a language that curled like serpents across the walls.
And then…him, the man I had seen at the club when I met Roman. I remember he called him Viking .
The man leaned casually against a doorway at the far end of the corridor. He was tall like Roman, but broader, with long blond hair pulled back at his neck and arms crossed over a plain black T-shirt that clung to every muscle.
He grinned as we approached. “So, this is your mate.” I felt Roman’s energy change instantly beside me, he was sharper, his possessive streak screaming through our bond, barely restrained.
“Vik,” he snaps, voice low and full of warning.
The man, Viking, tilted his head, looking me over like I was a riddle. I froze under his gaze wondering what he was thinking, what he saw.
He was magnetic in a completely different way to Roman. He seemed more reckless, fiery, and dangerous in a maybe fun kind of way, but still dangerous.
I opened my mouth to speak, but Roman stepped half a step-in front of me. “She’s mine,” he stated, his voice like a blade unsheathed.
Viking raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t touch her. ”
“You looked.”
“Don’t worry, brother. I like breathing.”
I glanced between them, heart pounding. Roman’s hand found my lower back and stayed there, it was warm, firm, and possessive. “You will wait to meet Layla, same as the others,” he snaps.
“Clearly,” Viking replies, amused, his voice a slow drawl. “She doesn’t smell like one of us yet. But I’m sure she will.”
Roman growled low in his throat, and I could feel it reverberate through his chest. Viking backed up taking the warning for what it was, with both palms raised. “Alright, alright. Noted.” And then he turned and was gone.
Roman turned to me, jaw tight. “He’s one of my brothers,” he explains. “But even they don’t get to see you like that.”
I looked up at him, confused. “Like what?”
“Like a thing to take,” he said, dark eyes burning. “You are not a thing; you are not available. You are mine.” The intensity made me shiver not from fear, but from the weight of how much he meant it. He pulled me into his chest and kissed the top of my head .
“You will never walk this house alone without someone knowing where you are,” he said softly. “Not because I want to control you, but because I want to protect you. And if anyone so much as breathes wrong in your direction, I’ll tear out their lungs.”
Some part of me should’ve flinched because I know he means every word. Instead, I closed my eyes and leaned into him, because the truth was, I had never been protected, not like this. Not ever.