Total pages in book: 55
Estimated words: 52247 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 261(@200wpm)___ 209(@250wpm)___ 174(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 52247 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 261(@200wpm)___ 209(@250wpm)___ 174(@300wpm)
“Love.”
She’s quiet so long I think she’s fallen asleep.
“Lucius?” Selene asks in a small voice.
“Yes, pet?”
“What happens after? Where do we go from here?”
“What do you want to happen?”
I would like...there are things I would have liked to do.”
“Kill me?” I offer, dryly.
“There’s that...but other things too. Those shifters in cages. I wanted to save them.”
“What if they wanted to be there?’
“They don’t. The auctions are an abomination. I’d like to put a stop to them.”
I want the same thing, though she doesn’t know that. “How about...you help me, and I help you?”
“How?”
“You remain here, as my submissive, until the end of the month.” That will give me time to flush out my enemies. “In return I will stop the auctions.”
“And set all the other shifters free?”
“Yes. No shifter will serve a vampire. Not unless they want to.”
“They won’t want to,” she says.
“You sound so sure. A shifter in love with a vampire? Is that such an impossible thing?” I ask.
She raises her head and meets my gaze. The air charges between us. Little currents of electricity running between me and her.
“One month,” she agrees, her voice husky. “Then it’s over.”
“One month.” I nod and pull her back into my arms. “Now, hush. We have things to do.” I reach to the bedside table and nab the remote.
She hides her face in my neck. “No more scening, I can’t take…”
“Shh,” I chuckle. “It’s all right, pet. That part of the night is done.”
I click a button and a panel over the fireplace pulls back, revealing a flat screen TV. Another button and the screen flickers on.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail starts playing. Selene goes still.
“Comfortable?” I whisper. She nods, eyes on the screen.
“Good. Relax,” I order. A moment later she giggles at the ‘Swedish’ subtitles. She’s still rigid in my lap, fighting my order.
At one point she makes to move and I restrain her.
“I have to pee,” she pouts and I let her go on the promise that she come right back.
“Feeling all right?” I ask when she re-enters and stands at the foot of the bed.
“Just a flesh wound,” she says in the Black Knight’s voice.
I open my arms. “Come,” I order her when she hesitates. “I want to hold you.” Biting her lip, Selene crawls into my lap. A second later, my submissive she wolf sighs happily. The credits keep rolling and our laughter mingles.
It won’t last forever. But nothing does.
Selene
I wake at noon the next day. The bed is empty and I am bereft.
I didn’t expect him to be this way. I didn’t expect for the kindness, hate, anger and love all tangled up. But whenever he’s gone...I miss him.
He says he didn’t kill my pack. Who do I believe? My mentor, who sacrificed everything to give me revenge, or Lucius?
Do I trust my head or my heart?
“I’m such an idiot.” I rub sleep from my face. I have a crush on the Vampire King.
A shifter in love with a vampire...is that such an impossible thing?
He’s a vampire, and not just any vampire--the King. I’m a wolf. We’re worlds apart, far as the sun is from the moon.
It’s no use. I’m in love with a monster. And I don’t even care.
At nightfall, Lucius finds me pacing on the patio.
“Pet?”
I push back my wild fall of hair. I bathed after my babysitters left, but didn’t primp. I couldn’t bear to be inside, surrounded by his scent. “You call yourself a monster. Why?”
“I’ve done things, Selene,” he says gently. “Things I regret. Not what you’re thinking--but I have killed before. Hurt people. But it was a long time ago.” He spreads his hands. “The world was different then.”
Call me stupid, but I believe him. “What made you go to the auction?”
“I heard they were auctioning shifters.”
“You didn’t know?” Xavier made it sound like the auctions were Lucius’ idea.
“I knew there were vampires with a taste for shifter blood who’d take consorts. But shifters are not our natural victims. I didn’t know shifter slavers were hunting down the weakest species and auctioning them to the highest bidder.”
“You didn’t?”
“No. I confess, I had my head in the sand. But now that I know, I’m putting a stop to it. And not because of our little agreement,” he adds. “I had planned to do it long before that.”
“You did?” I shake my head, dizzy. Lucius isn’t the villain Xavier makes him out to be. Is he?
“It’s not all altruism. There’s evidence my sired have latched on to a new scheme to rise up against me.” He shakes his head, looking as if he’s found a toddler finger painting on the living room wall, not a set of grown vampires plotting a coup. “A few of them got the idea that they could turn shifters, form an army to overthrow my rule.”
“Turn shifters? How?”