Crimson Covenant (Onyx Assassins 1)

“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” he said, his voice deep, even, calm.

I wanted to cry.

I wanted to get down on my knees, curl into a ball, and force myself to wake up from this nightmare.

But more than any of that, I wanted to smack that arrogant look off his impeccable face.

I stepped one foot toward him, angling for better purchase.

And I threw that heavy ass candelabra right at his face.

The flames hissed as it soared through the air—

And stopped.

Like, full on, dead ass stopped.

In. Mid. Air.

The brass structure hovered a few inches before his face, the flames unhindered by my throw.

He blew out an aggravated breath, his hands still in those pockets. A slight nod to the left and the candelabra gracefully returned to its position on the wardrobe. Then the lights clicked on, illuminating the rest of the room.

My knees shook, my limbs suddenly feeling like foreign entities attached to my body. I’d seen things all my life I couldn’t explain, but somehow I’d always managed to attach some sort of logical reasoning to them.

Nightmares that turned up on the news? Simply me being perceptive to the mood of the city.

Knowing when Valor would be late? Me learning her patterns.

Sensing danger before it approached? Again, like my therapists had always said, I was perceptive as hell.

But this?

I had no logical way of explaining this.

I licked my lips, my mouth filled with that flavor I couldn’t explain.

“Drugs,” I blurted out.

Alek took one smooth step toward me.

I retreated just as carefully.

“No.” He shook his head, advancing another step.

“You had to.” My eyes flashed to the candelabra, the one I knew I threw…but maybe I’d hallucinated it all. Maybe I was still hallucinating—

“I wouldn’t.” Another step.

My spine hit the wooden door.

“I won’t be sold,” I said with much more determination than I felt. Because who the hell was I kidding? The size of him? He could do anything he wanted with me, to me.

“I wouldn’t,” he said again, stopping so close I could feel the warmth from his body. And dammit, my body reacted. The traitorous bitch ached and sizzled from his nearness. Terror and lust and hunger swirled together in a crescendo rationality couldn’t follow.

“Don’t touch me,” I snapped, though he hadn’t lifted a finger toward me.

His blue gaze narrowed, his lips parting just enough…

Fangs.

Those were fangs descending from where his canines should be.

My heart slowed, time slowed as he shaped those lips into a smirk, those fangs winking in the flickering candlelight.

“Trust me,” he said, his voice gravely. “If I touched you in the way I wanted?” He licked his lips, his eyes trailing the length of my body. I felt that gaze like a brand. Like those flames from the candle had teased every inch of my skin. He stepped closer, inhaling deeply as if he could smell the mixture of terror and desire curling off of me. “You wouldn’t survive it, human.”

The word somehow made everything snap into place in my sluggish mind.

Human.

Fangs.

The taste in my mouth.

I licked my lips, sampling the flavor once again. Then I took a deep, steadying breath, inhaling more of that intoxicating scent that matched and complemented the taste in my mouth.

Blood.

His blood. Somehow, I knew that without question.

Vampire.

“No. Fucking. Way.”

3

Alek

She stared up at me with a mixture of defiance and disbelief, her green eyes brighter than any jewel I’d ever seen, and fuck, her scent had my fangs fully distended and my cock harder than the steel that framed the door to my bedchamber. My entire room smelled like honey, cinnamon, and vanilla, and had since the moment I’d brought her here last night.

I’d fed her, healed her the only way I knew how, then watched over her as she’d slept in my bed. My bed. Not the infirmary, where I should have taken her. What the hell was wrong with me?

“Yes, fucking way,” I said, bracing my palms against the door and caging the tiny, fragile human between my arms, indulging the inexplicable craving to get a little closer. To breathe her into my lungs, to taste—don’t even think about it.

“Vampires don’t exist.” She lifted her chin and met my gaze head-on, and damn if that didn’t make me grin.

“And yet, here I am.”

Her lips parted in a delicious little O, and my thoughts took a step beyond tasting and landed firmly in the realm of taking. The instinct to claim her mouth roared within me just as loudly as the hunger for her blood, and I tensed every muscle in my body to stay right where I was.

“Don’t worry, Lyric. I’ll wipe your memory when it’s safe for you to go. You won’t remember a thing. No nightmares of Nosferatu or low-ranking demons to plague your sweet dreams.”

“How do you know my name?”

“Your driver’s license.”

The intercom system went off at my left with a full two seconds of white noise to prepare me for the interruption. Only Lachlan would be so bold.