Dominik
Surprise doesn’t even cover the feeling I have from what just happened. Not only is my little morsel hiding a big secret, but she has actually managed to inflict pain on a vampire who hasn’t been assaulted in this manner in over a century.
It’s enough she has escaped my grip and is at the door, finding it locked the moment she gets there. She is searching for a window or any other exit from the room.
I run my tongue over my lips. I can still taste her. The sweetest of all the sweets. And the surprise in the mix. She sends me spiraling to the skies with a single drop.
I want more, so much more from this creature. But first I need to tame her, like the beautiful predator she is.
Lucy continues around the room like a bird trapped in a cage. At least until she gets to my hidden bedroom door. And with a triumphant look over her shoulder, she pushes her way in, the door clicks shut behind her.
I wait. I’ve been around a long time. I know how to be patient. In a surprisingly short time, the door opens again, and Lucy rushes out.
“Coffin,” she pants.
“Where else do you suggest I sleep?”
“Why can’t you use a bed?”
“I prefer a coffin.” I consider her revulsion for a short time. “I like to be enclosed.” I shrug. “Comfy.”
“Comfy?” She stares at me, and the disgust has gone.
“Comfy,” I repeat.
“Since when did an undead monster need to be…comfy?”
“Perhaps I’m not a monster?”
“You drank my blood! You consume humans! You deal in death and destruction!” She fires the words at me but with less intensity than I would expect from a Van Helsing. “You don’t do comfy. You do gothic revival and evening dress!”
“You appear to have some common misconceptions about vampires,” I suggest. “I’m well aware what google says about us…”
“I don’t google vampires any more than I google the law when I’m preparing a case for a client,” she retorts, hands on her hips.
“Really?”
“Really.”
Like I said, I’m good at waiting. So, I wait. I watch. She twists uncomfortably under my gaze.
“Okay, yes! Sometimes I do google, but I do the research after,” Lucy grumbles. “Nothing goes out unverified.”
“As I would expect,” I respond.
I’m well aware of her efficacy as a lawyer. She proved that when the idiotic werewolf got himself caught by the ridiculously named Monster Force in London.
Admittedly the strings I could pull were the ultimate reason he was released, but she was very close. Maybe even too close for comfort.
No one should be able to best the king of the vampires.
Unless she is a mate. My mate.
“Are you going to let me go?” Lucy says.
“You are not a prisoner.”
“The damn door is locked, Dominik,” she growls.
“Is it?” I query.
She sucks in a breath, something I haven’t been able to do for a long time. Then she moves away from my bedroom door, past me in a rush, and tries the handle.
Of course it’s unlocked…now.
But she hesitates, not rushing out the door.
“What are you going to do with me? Throw me to your progeny?”
“Why would I do that? I told you, you belong to me. No other vampire will touch you.” I gesture to the door. “Or your child.”
She turns back towards me, very slowly.
“What?”
“You are pregnant, are you not, Lucy Cushing?”
“How do you know?” she says in a vicious whisper.
“I can taste it.” I smile.
“No one can know,” Lucy says suddenly and then instantly her expression changes, as if she knows she should not have said anything.
“I cannot un-know you are with child.” I feel a stirring in my loins which, despite their recent trauma, have an interest in this female I haven’t felt for the last fifty years. Or longer. “Are you married to the father?”
“And what if I am?” she retorts. “Would that stop me from belonging to you?”
So, that’s a no. She is not married.
“No,” I respond. “It would not stop me from claiming you.”
“Beast,” she retorts.
I preen a little. “I aim to please.”
“Look,” Lucy says, putting her hands on her hips again. “If you keep me here, there will be trouble. My family will come for me, and you will lose plenty. If you let me go, I’ll return, say you’ve left Budapest, and no one will bother you.”
I chuckle under my breath.
“Do you think I was turned yesterday, little morsel?” I see her shoulders visibly drop. “Your family will come for you, and they will attempt to destroy me and my nest.”
Instantly I see a way to manage this situation. To get Viktor off my back, to put off the inevitable visit from the Van Helsing clan. To keep Lucy and the child she carries for myself.
“How about”—I gently thumb my fang, as I have done since I was a newly turned vampire—“we make a deal.”
“A deal? With the devil,” Lucy scoffs, but there’s something in her eyes which begs to differ with her words.
“If you be my consort for…I don’t know…until you birth your child, I can keep your secret, and you can help me with some social occasions.”
“Social occasions? Me? With you? A vampire?” she says incredulously. “How is that going to work?”
But she doesn’t say no.