Page 15 of A Love So Deadly (Kissed by Darkness #1)

Chapter

Fourteen

Lucian

A nger rolls off me. I can barely control it this time. But I have to. The only thing cooling that fire, keeping it tapped down, is the woman staring back at me.

Elliot.

Monty.

Mine.

Right now, I’m torn between her and what happened. And the thing is, if we destroy that fuck, tear him into pieces, there’s another Benicio waiting in the wings of his world.

Ready to step out and take over.

He’s not Vincent. He’s not a low rung criminal. People like Benicio are infinitely more tricky. I’d been hoping he’d see reason, take another offer if it came down to it, but no. He’s one of the few who almost is never alone, which makes mesmerizing him difficult.

He’s too big, has too many threads, and there’s something that smells like war around him.

My gaze flickers back to Monty. Elliot’s looking at me like I’m going to devour her.

Maybe I am, but something bad is going to happen. I feel it. And I always pay attention to my instincts.

Telling that fucker I won’t be going into business with him wasn’t pleasant, but it was the only reason I went to that party.

I don’t need to attend those types of things usually, but I knew he wouldn’t take my rejection seriously if it didn’t come directly from me—two powerhouses facing off, testing each other’s influence.

He may be human, an easy kill, but I’m living in the modern world and have to follow human rules to thrive in it. That means playing Benicio’s game.

Even if he’s threatening someone I care about.

Someone vulnerable.

Nell.

Benicio learned about Penelope from somewhere. And her connection to me.

How? I have no idea.

I can’t do more than put more people, more protection, at Nell’s door. So I send another message to Andrew, more worry and anger streaking through me.

Vittoria always called her my weakness, and it looks like she may have been right. It’s a weakness a monster like Benicio is willing to use to take me down.

“Where are we going?”

Elliot’s voice is that sweetness of sunlight I crave. I stopped craving sun years before I reached the point that it didn’t kill me, but I crave her and the essence she exudes.

I want to corrupt and defile it.

“To your sacrificial altar,” I say. When the car pulls up to our new destination, I step out into the rain, knowing she’ll follow.

Of course she will.

Monty’s addicted to me, the way I’m addicted to her. I want to corrupt her, play with her. And she…she wants me more than she knows what to do with.

That isn’t arrogance. It’s experience.

I know the signs.

Her want and desire are visceral. I can taste it.

I shouldn’t take her here. It’s a place for my kind and their pets. She’d die in moments if she stepped in without me. Which, from what little I know of Elliot, I know she’d do, given half a chance.

The sex club is elegant, dark, yet decadent. On the inside. Outside? It’s nothing much to look at.

I approach, and the nondescript doors open.

They know who I am.

“The usual?” the hostess asks the moment I step inside. I don’t remember her name, but I’m sure I’ve had her, too, at one point in my past. If she’s shocked to see me here with a human, it doesn’t show.

I’m rich enough, powerful enough, old enough for every vampire—other than Vittoria—to pretend whatever it is I’m doing is normal. They’ll keep it private. I could fuck Monty on the street, have a blood ritual in a church, and not one word would be said.

I don’t smile at her but nod. “Private.”

She pulls back the black beaded curtain and waves us through. “Enjoy your time here, Mr. Vale.”

Oh, I plan to.

I glance at Elliot. Her eyes are big as she glances into the room beyond, where the sounds of moans and cries of pleasure tangle together with a sensual song’s thunderous beat.

Looks like tonight, an orgy is in process in the main room, and it’s one with many, many participants. Vampire and human alike.

Elliot’s nearly frozen in place, so I hook my arm with hers and lead her past the curtain.

Her gaze bounces everyone, taking it all in.

We walk into one of the side hallways, passed curtained off rooms where people are fucking, bloodletting, doing all kinds of fucked up things to scratch their sexual itches.

My little Goldilocks plasters herself to my side, and I’m not the only one who smells the intoxicating perfume of her blood. Heads whip towards us.

Untouched.

Human.

Taken.

Mine.

Once the other vampires realize she’s already been claimed and by me, they turn away.

Good. But we keep moving, climbing stairs up two flights until we get to the floor I want, my floor.

When we get to my door, I punch in the code to unlock it, and push it open.

A room painted in different shades of red and designed to appease ever one of my sexual fantasies.

There’s a bed large enough to fill most of the space, with a custom headboard meant to restrain and restrict.

There are ropes and cuffs, chains and pulleys, a leather couch and bars for suspension.

I have no idea if she’s a virgin in the pure human ways, but she’s more pure and virginal in sexual exploration. Kinks. I’m sure of it.

I’m going to open her world, introduce her to the darkest parts of her, and show her true ecstasy.

I look about and spot what I’m looking for right away—a coil of red rope hanging on the wall.

I haven’t used that one. It’s been sitting there. I’ve been saving it for the perfect being, and ever since the moment Elliot walked through VMR’s doors, I’ve pictured her tied up and at my mercy. It’s only fitting.

“Lucian?”

I do hate my name being shortened, but for some reason I miss her snark of Lucy. “Yes, Monty?”

“W-what is this place?” She looks around, dark fascination in the sunshine of her, and it makes me fucking hard.

I glance away from that rope a moment. “A dungeon. For sex. Decadent, perfect sex. What do you think it is?”

“Not that,” she says with a wave of her hand, picking up that red rope I was looking at and running her fingers over it. “Those people. I saw blood.”

Fuck, she wasn’t asking about my room. She’s curious about what she saw. The vampires, the things they were doing out there as we entered.

In such a place like this, no one needs to hide. “Some people are into blood play.” Literally. The vampire and their pet, drinking, licking, bringing them both to orgasmic bliss.

I go to her and take the rope, letting it unwind. It’s soft, new, and will look perfect wrapped around her pale, pristine skin. Better than the sparkling dress. I should have gotten her red, or a pink rose.

But in here… She doesn’t need the dress at all.

“Take off your dress.” The order might be softly spoken, but it’s clear.

Her spine stiffens. Fuck, she’s perfect. The innate response to the order is exquisite.

Even though she studies me thoughtfully, I can hear the increase of her heart, the way her blood rides fast against the surface of her skin. She’s turned on and itching to obey that command.

“And if I don’t want to?” she says.

“I could send you out there. To spend… quality time with everyone else.”

She just stares me down. “You wouldn’t.”

“I would.”

Her mind’s processing it all. I know I’m being more direct with my intentions now. I’m dangling sex and games right in front of her. But I want her. Pure, complicated, utterly simple.

If I finally feed off her, then she’s mine. My toy, my slave, mine.

I want her truly as mine.

Claiming Monty makes a more permanent attachment. She’ll be under my protection, my command, and those claimings, by definition, only end with death.

She’s forbidden. The worst kind, too, because it’s a rule of my own doing, a personal oath I gave myself to follow. And I have followed it strictly. Since Nell I swore…

I swore I’d never claim another human. I swore I’d never fuck one.

But that all broke apart when I kissed Monty, when I touched her.

She soothes the beast within because of her freshness of her, the light, the life. I need the thing I don’t have. That spark. I crave it.

My cock’s hard, and my fangs long to grow.

“Take off your fucking dress,” I say again, more aggressively.

She swallows as she tugs at it, hands never sitting still. “I-I don’t want to.”

“Thing is, you do,” I say. The pulse in her throat throbs, the thud of her heart is in my ears, and I can hear the uptick of her blood moving fast, making her cheeks grow pink. “You want to strip down and see what I’ll do to you.”

“My friend?—”

“The one you’re looking for?”

Her eyes widen. “I…”

“Kayla Evans.” I half smile, coiling the rope around one hand, only to loosen it and do it all over again. It’s ritualistic; it soothes. “You want to know what happened to her.”

“She—Kayla—” She stops and her gaze follows my every movement. “She started working for you and she changed. Then she disappeared.”

Like she was killed and erased from existence.

I don’t react. “We’ve had a variation of this conversation before.

You don’t really remember.” A flicker passes over her face, and I come close, stroking my fingers down the side of her cheek.

“And yet it keeps coming back. You won’t remember this, either. Not fully. It’ll be a dream.”

“Wanna bet?”

I kiss her, biting her lip, hard enough to make it throb, to just break the skin. I can taste the blood instantly, and it shoots through me like a lightning bolt. I lick it to heal it and then suck on her lip before finally I releasing her.

She sways.

“I don’t know what happened to her, this Ms. Evans. I never met her. She probably ran away or was kidnapped while off the job. An accident. It happens all the time.” I say it in the soft tones that’ll help her forget. But this is fucking Elliot.

“But…”

“I have nothing to do with the entertainment and news side. I run the business from the top. There are lower managers that handle the hiring and employees.” I pause. “Are you really working for me because of your friend, or do you have another motive for trying to pry?”