In the Arms of the King Read online

  A tremor of fear-like anticipation rushed through her at the sight of him, rigid and unforgiving. He’s going to kill me.

  Roman’s response was another wicked smile, which turned him into a veritable incubus above her, a triumphant demon of seduction who had captured his victim and was about to go to town with her.

  Yes, he told her. I am.

  Evie lay beneath him, her wrists now free, but her body unable to move as it was trapped between layer upon layer of hot, aching need and the paralyzing trepidation of what he was about to do. She squealed in surprise when his hands slid around her waist and turned her, blurring them both to switch up their positions with vampire speed.

  A shaky breath escaped her lips when she chanced a glance down. He was holding her above him, her slick opening positioned directly over his very broad hardness.

  She swallowed hard. If he released her, she would impale herself. Her eyes flew back to his to find them again burning like bonfires. His fangs were bared, his beautiful features hard. There was no escape from this.

  His hands nearly spanned the whole of her small waist. They tightened on her flesh and slowly, so slowly that it was maddening, he lowered her onto him. Evie closed her eyes, taking her lip between her teeth. She could do nothing to suppress the moan that escaped her when she felt the tip of him part her pulsing core.

  He slowed and waited, allowing Evie to feel the intrusion in a way that she never could have imagined. She was violated – blessedly, beautifully violated – but not nearly enough. She needed more of him.

  He lowered her a touch more. Evie’s head fell back, exposing her throat.

  Careful, little one. You’re tempting the beast.

  Evie had no words to come back with. The very idea that she was unknowingly teasing him was laughable. She would have given almost anything in that moment to have him drop her, to just fill her once and for all and take her all the way.

  His deep, wicked laughter echoed through her mind. Evie bared her teeth. She lowered her head and glared down at him, expecting to find him grinning darkly up at her. But the look on his face was one of slight bewilderment. You’re stunning, Evie.

  Evie’s brow furrowed. What the hell was he talking about? Roman!

  Then his expression changed. It became intense and serious, and Evie held her breath.

  With that, he lowered her the rest of the way, pressing thick and hard into her hot, waiting tunnel until he finally sank to the hilt. Evie’s head again dropped back, her hair cascading until it brushed Roman’s legs. She moaned long and low; it hurt so wonderfully good. So perfectly agonizing.

  So full….

  But he gave her no time to get used to it before he was again switching their positions, turning with her in the clover until she was under him. She felt the soft green beneath her and in the next intake of breath, Roman was shoving his hand through her hair and yanking back her head.

  She knew it was coming a millisecond before it came. Roman’s long, sharp fangs impaled her once more, sinking deep. Evie cried out. The feeling of being so deeply taken, so fully claimed in this way by such a man was indescribable.

  She sensed a dangerous peak drawing closer, so intensely pleasurable, she knew it would feel like an explosion, all encompassing and all destructive. It was mounting inside her, both promising and threatening at once.

  He’s going to kill me….

  Yes, Roman said again. His mental voice claimed her as surely as did his body. It was laced with power, spoken with magic, and it curled around her, binding tight like strong silk ropes. I am. He made the promise and sealed it with his soul. Every chance I get.

  His muscles rippled and flexed as he lifted his body, never breaking the seal he’d formed over her neck. He gently but deeply pulled and swallowed at her throat as he eased out of her tightness below, and then shoved back in. Evie shuddered with the impact, feeling him deeper than she thought possible.

  Again he eased away, and again he drove forward, claiming her with a thrust that took her one step closer to the edge. He carefully pulled his savage fangs from her tender throat and Evie trembled under assailing sensations as he grazed those teeth along the flesh of her neck to her collarbone.

  Her hands clutched at his chest, unconsciously marveling at the broad ridges beneath her fingertips, and when Roman’s teeth rose over the crest of her breast to stop at the barrier of her aching nipple, Evie dug her fingernails into his muscle, desperate to find relief.

  Roman’s mouth closed over the nipple. Evie’s eyes flew open as the tip of one of his dangerous fangs pricked threateningly at the tender, taut flesh. He sucked, and she rose to meet him as rivulets of lightning arced from her breast to her core, wringing a cry of pleasure from her throat.

  His tongue expertly swirled over the sensitive bud, and he sucked again, this time hard enough it hurt. Evie whimpered, shuddering. His body withdrew from her tight, wet heat and pressed back in, claiming her deeply over and over.

  Roman gently abandoned one breast for the other, teasing and torturing it without remorse, and his thrusts sped up, rocking her small form to oblivion.

  Finally, he rose above her with vampire speed, and Evie caught a glimpse of the devil himself before he crashed down upon her to sink his sharp fangs into her throat a third, final time.

  It was too much. Evie bucked beneath him, and as if he’d known she would fight, Roman’s hold on her wrists tightened.

  Close… so close, her frenzied mind rambled.

  The madness was rising, the ridge of release ever closer as Roman’s hardness pulled out and drove in – over and over, every long, thick inch of him claiming her as his to the point of delirium. He drank deeper, sucking against her with determined thirst.

  Evie’s head tossed to the side; she had nowhere to go. The ache grew and grew, and her body quaked beneath the King, consumed by a passion it could no longer endure.

  And then, like an answered prayer, Roman drove in one final time, sinking deeper still to set off the convulsions of insane bliss that had been hovering and teasing, just out of reach until that moment.

  She could feel his own release like an eruption of molten merciless within her, scorching her to the core and magnifying her own climax as it finally broke free. The waves rolled over Evie, claiming her in a suffocating sea of pleasure… as her final drop of blood was claimed by the Vampire King.

  She felt herself die in that moment. It was nothing like she would have imagined. It was like “sloughing off her mortal coil” in favor of the new, better one underneath. There was no weakness, no pain, no fear. She cried out in ecstasy as the last of her volcanic orgasm ripped through her, her beautiful new vampire voice going hoarse with the effort.

  Above her, the Vampire King rose like a god and claimed her lips with his own, stealing the last of her cries to swallow them in a kiss that threatened to drive Evie right back toward that ledge of need.

  Her climax laid waste to her, wringing every last ounce of resistance from her new immortal body, and infusing it with a sense of calm she had never known. That peace drew a shuddering sigh from her throat. She closed her eyes. Roman released her wrists and slowly, tenderly, brushed his hands along her arms to settle them around her waist.

  Then he broke their kiss and drew her gaze to his with a curled finger beneath her chin. His eyes had gone black like the cosmos. Evie saw stars in their endless darkness. She became lost in them, floating in that mesmerizing outer space.

  His gaze lingered on hers for several long moments before it dropped to her mouth. Evie ran her tongue over the tips of her teeth – and her eyes widened.

  Fangs. She had fangs.

  They were new and small and very sharp.

  Above her, Roman smiled. It was a warm smile, welcoming and proud. Evie hesitated only a moment before she returned the smile, revealing to him what he had given her.

  For a moment, Roman looked stunned. His smile faltered and his expression became bewildered. Evie, came his whispered awe. You’
re… perfect.

  Evie’s smile broadened. As far as compliments went, the Vampire King knew how to dish out the best. She ran her tongue over her teeth again and experienced a new kind of thrill. Quite unexpectedly, she felt the sudden, quick urge to pull Roman back down and sink those new fangs into his strong neck. It was an automatic notion, and one that gave her a bit of a charge.

  But of course, she didn’t. Maybe later.

  Roman’s look darkened. The aura around him concentrated, returning from blatant awe back to blatant hunger in record time.

  Every chance I get, he repeated to her, allowing the deep, dark promise he had made earlier to register.

  Evie pressed her palms into his chest with the intent to put space between them, but she didn’t get far. Roman was still lodged deep inside her, and when he moved, the sensation forced Evie to go still, her breath catching. Her body tingled with the beginnings of new vampire yearning.

  Gods help me, she thought as the Vampire King’s gaze shifted from black to burning red.

  It was going to be a very long night.

  The Phantom King

  The Kings, Book Two

  Siobhan clutched to the arm he held around her in sudden uncertainty as the world wavered around them, the house disappeared, and the only solid thing in the universe was the tall, hard body pressed up against her back. Her breath caught in her throat when the night sky seemed to blur into hyperspace around her. It was like watching a laser light show, and it was dizzying enough that a part of her wanted to close her eyes.

  But the rest of her was fascinated, and Thane’s solid form gave her enough courage to keep watching as he literally moved space and time around them.

  When it began to slow down again, Siobhan could feel that they were somewhere else – somewhere very else, as in not in the same realm. The ground was still solid beneath her feet and still devoid of vegetation, but the night sky seemed closer, the planets larger.

  Thane slowly released Siobhan as she gazed up at it. Rings circled a planet that looked like Saturn, but was painted blue and pink and orange. The stars looked like big holes punched in a black velvet blanket, they were so bright. Smaller, closer lights zigged and zagged across the sky like comets, leaving trails of stardust in their wake. Everything seemed in motion, animated like a massive mobile above a child’s crib.

  Siobhan stared up at it in awe.

  “This is the astral plane,” Thane said as he slowly moved around her, drawing her attention inexorably back to him. “The cosmos are closer here, though it makes no physical sense. But then,” he added softly as he stepped in front and then turned to face her. “Magic rarely does.”

  He stood tall before her, a rock of a man in black, all rough and tumble and so much more. His tattoos had changed again, now vividly colorful and as vibrant as a lit up rainbow. Swirls of ocean and space painted his well-muscled arms and peeked out from the collar around his neck. His eyes were different now as well. There seemed to be motes of color swirling within their silver depths, as if to reflect the stars and planets above. They were mesmerizing, and as he reached up to cup the side of her face, Siobhan felt hypnotized.

  Her breath caught and held. Her heart danced. His touch was feather-soft and heart-wrenchingly tender, as if to defy the strength of the man touching her.

  I’m lost, she thought as he leaned in, the darkness and charisma of the Phantom King blocking out the rest of the magnificent multiverse. When his mouth touched hers, it was with the faintest brush, and tiny fireworks of feeling crackled across her lips. He lingered, for the slightest of moments, like a stallion waiting at the gates before charging.

  And then his hand slid to the back of her head and fisted in her hair. He deepened the kiss, moving in like an animal, hungry and desperate. Siobhan melted as he opened her up, pressing deep. His kiss bruised her lips and buckled her knees, but a second strong arm around her waist held her aloft, trapping her in a heated embrace.

  He probed her mouth, drinking it in as if he were possessed by an unquenchable thirst, and she felt the razor-sharp tips of his fangs prick her tongue. She gasped, the sensation both frightening and tantalizing. Instinct forced her to try to pull away, but his grip on her hair tightened and she lost her balance, falling.

  She gasped against his lips as he fell with her. With a soft cry of surprise that his kiss simply swallowed up, she landed upon something soft. He pulled away from her then, to gaze down at her through glowing, lust-filled eyes. “A deal is a deal,” he said, his deep voice rasping with harsh desire.

  Siobhan was puzzled. Her mind felt addled, her body on fire. In a daze, she glanced at what she’d landed on. It was a bed – the same bed that had been in his bedroom only hours ago. But now it was here in the middle of an empty astral plane beneath a brilliant Galileo sky.

  She had just enough time to process this and what it meant before the arm Thane had around her waist lifted her much smaller body up on the bed and slid her toward the middle. Once he had her where he wanted her, he rose up and ripped his black t-shirt over his head to toss it away with stark impatience.

  Siobhan watched the muscles of his strong body ripple as he did this, taking in the broad expanse of his smooth, tanned chest and the narrow, perfect beauty of his waist where it disappeared into his jeans. Vibrant ink curled in intricate designs over his incredible shoulders and around the unbelievable peaks of his biceps. Something was written in another language across the taut skin of his abdomen, and she became lost in the design where it rose and fell over each and every well-developed ridge. She could have stared at him forever.

  But he gave her mere seconds before he was looming over her once more, his mouth capturing hers. With unwavering persistence, he pressed her into the bed beneath her, his heavier body easing over hers like a barely-controlled beast. The scent of masculine soap and leather wafted over Siobhan, making her feel drunk. She closed her eyes and failed to suppress a moan when she felt one of his hands gently encircle her throat in the ultimate show of tender domination. He was taking control. He would never hurt her, but the predatory threat was still there, flooding her system with aphrodisiac-like adrenaline.

  When he released her, she was almost sorry – until his hand slid quickly down the front of her shirt to its hem and grasped it firmly. Her eyes flew open when he rose, shoved his other arm under her again, and lifted her, simultaneously pulling her thin top right over her head. She lifted her arms to make it easier for him, and because she couldn’t even think clearly to deny him at all.

  He was right. A deal was a deal. And she was almost delirious with need as he unclasped her bra and slowly eased its straps down over her shoulders. The thin lace material dropped, now useless, into her lap. Thane picked it up, smiled a terribly evil full-fanged smile, and tucked the tiny thing into the back pocket of his jeans, all the while never taking his eyes off hers.

  She felt like she should protest, and out of show, she took a breath to say something when his finger pressed to her lips and his eyes flashing in warning. Gently, but resolutely, he lowered her back down onto the bed and pinned her there for a moment before he sat back to look at her.

  His eyes burned a silver trail of lust across her flesh, scorching her as if he could brand her with his gaze. And that’s what she felt he was doing – branding her as his. The thought sent her heart into overdrive. She watched in helpless, hungry fascination as he lodged his knee firmly between her bent legs. The intimacy of the action sent blood rushing up her neck and a blush into her nipples, despite the jeans she still wore. A breeze kissed her flesh, cooling it a bit before his molten gaze warmed it again. He leaned over her close enough to once more whisper in her ear.

  “You have the body of a queen,” he told her, sending hot breath across her skin. She pressed her teeth into her bottom lip and closed her eyes, turning her head to the side so that he couldn’t see what he was doing to her. But then his lips were on her throat, kissing gently… suckling… nipping….

  She rememb
ered just what kind of teeth he had and almost cried out when she felt them graze along the flesh above her pulsing vein.

  “Tell me something little warlock,” he said as he moved lower, trailing those dangerous teeth along her collarbone and sending more heat to every throbbing part of her body. “Are you wet?” he asked.

  Oh my God! she thought. There was no way she was going to answer that.

  A heartbeat later, those teeth scraped across the top of her taut nipple and painful pleasure arced across her body, sending more moisture into her already damp panties.

  “Yes!” she cried, unable to stop herself.

  “I believe you,” he said, amusement and triumph both lacing his dark tone. “But I think I’ll see for myself anyway.”

  With that, the jeans she was wearing one moment were gone in the next. Just gone. A warm breeze brushed her now naked legs and she jumped in surprise, trying at once to rise.

  His hand was at her throat again, this time to press her back down into the bed beneath her. His eyes locked with hers as he held her, a reminder that he was the one in control, that he had won the bet.

  And that he would be taking what was rightfully his.

  His knee was already between her legs, opening her up to him, and Siobhan had never felt more wantonly vulnerable in her life. Her hands came around his wrist where he held her, her nails curling into the strong muscle of his forearm.

  His other hand cupped her breast as he held her gaze, and his thumb slowly brushed across her flushed nipple. She sucked in a breath and arched her back as he did it again. Then he leaned in, hovering over her like a big, black cat and held the sensitive little bud between two fingers, squeezing gently.