She blinked a few times, then wiggled her head as if she was shaking away some clutter. “Why do I trust you?” she blurted.
I grinned. “What is your name, angel?”
“Bronwyn,” she mumbled. A beautiful name, befitting of my—this angel. “Stephan,” I introduced myself. “Well, Bronwyn, I’d like to say it’s because I’m so damn charming, but the truth is that it’s an instinct for consorts to trust daywalkers as you are meant to be one of us.”
Her arm jerked hard as she tried to pull it from my grip, but I didn’t let her go. I silently called myself ten different kinds of a moron for blurting that out. I’d been doing this job for centuries, and I knew how to handle an uneducated consort. But for some reason, I was royally fucking this up. Thinking strange thoughts and speaking without considering my words first.
“You said you trust me,” I reminded her in a cajoling tone. “Come with me, and I’ll answer all your questions while we find you transportation to safety.”
My hand slid down her arm to take hold of her small one so I could guide her into the house. The second our skin touched, my entire world upended. Except...it didn’t turn upside down. It righted itself as though it had always been inverted, and I’d never noticed. Electric shocks sparked and traveled over my skin, several going straight to my cock. The flaccid appendage was suddenly stiff and swollen, pulsing with every beat of my heart and already dripping with the desire to be inside our consort’s virgin pussy. The need to claim her welled up inside me and nearly knocked me on my ass. My canines fully descended, and my throat dried up, parched, and thirsty for her blood.
“What?” Bronwyn’s eyes had widened to round saucers, and they jumped back and forth between our joined hands and my face. “I don’t understand what is happening.” Her pretty lips turned down, and her brown eyes filled with sadness, squeezing my heart. “You’re sending me away?”
“No,” I growled, unable to conceal the raw, animalistic feelings consuming me. “You’re never leaving.”3BronwynThe ordeal I had just gone through must have affected me more than I realized. My fear over the possibility of Stephan sending me away was more about wanting to stay close to him than having to go back out into the dark night by myself again. I should have been scared about another attack instead of worrying about leaving a man I didn’t even know. But no woman alive would blame me for wanting to stick close to Stephan. Not only had he rescued me, but he was also the most handsome man I’d ever met. Tall, dark, and dangerous with bright blue eyes and pale skin was apparently the perfect type of guy to kick-start my dormant libido.
At a completely inappropriate time, too. I’d just learned vampires were real, and the man I was lusting over was one of them. My heart was racing faster from being next to him than it had been when I was running from the bad vampires who had been chasing me. “Something has to be seriously wrong with me,” I mumbled under my breath.
“What? Are you injured?” Stephan’s eyes lit with fury as he scanned my body for any outward sign I’d been hurt. “Did one of those bloodsuckers get to you before you bumped into me?”
“No, I’m fine.” I shook my head and tried to clear the mental fog. My wits were scattered, and it took me longer than it should have to put everything together. His bright blue eyes and name could only mean one thing. “You’re Kieran and Athan’s brother?”
“You know my family?” He scrutinized my borrowed outfit before asking, “Fuck, please tell me you didn’t get attacked after leaving the party Athan and Selene threw tonight.”
“Yes”—my answer seemed to make him furious again—“although I have nobody but myself to blame for being out there by myself. Athan, Selene, and Thana tried to talk me into accepting a ride home, but I thought I’d be fine since I didn’t have far to go and I was looking forward to getting some fresh, night air.”
Opening the door and gesturing me inside ahead of him, Stephan grumbled, “That’s what I get for dragging my feet tonight.”
I didn’t understand what he was talking about, so I asked, “What do you mean?”
“I could’ve met you there, and then you wouldn’t have gone through all of this,” he explained as he led me through the elegant entryway and into a sitting room off to the side. “You almost paid a steep price for me wanting to spend as little time at their event as possible so I wouldn’t be disappointed when all of their attempts at matchmaking failed.”
It was a good thing there was a couch nearby because my knees went weak at his answer. I dropped down onto one of the brown leather cushions, my head shaking in disbelief. My voice wavered when I asked, “Athan and Selene hosted the party to try to match you up with someone?”