Page 34 of Grim’s Delight (The New Protectorate Syndicate #1)

Slapping his hand away from the screen before he could end the call, Dahlia said, “Okay, that’s a very nice offer, but I’m going to have to pass.

I am not moving in with you, Mr. Bowan, and I’m not going to be Felix’s prisoner, either.

I have a life. I’m not just going to leave it because my biology is a little different. ”

The men protested at the same time. Felix scoffed, his eyes rolling at the idea that Dahlia was his prisoner, of all things, while Alastair made a firm noise of dissent.

“That’s not going to be possible. It’s unsafe for a blood bride to wander around without protection, and it's even less safe for a Bowan to do so. There’s no other option. You’ll move in with us.”

“You are not going to the Bowans,” Felix argued, snagging the phone off the desk at last. “You’re staying here because you’re mine. You’ve been mine for years, Dahlia. You’re not a prisoner. I’m doing everything I can to keep you safe.”

When Alastair began making derisive sounds through the speaker, Felix finally had enough. He ended the call and stuffed the phone in his pocket. Without taking his eyes off his girl’s increasingly livid expression, he pointed over her shoulder to the door.

“Hey, voyeurs — fuck off. I need to talk to my bride.”

Milo and Marietta shared a look before they turned and exited the office. The door closed with a soft click only a second before Dahlia hissed, “You can’t keep me here, Felix. I came with you because you told me I was in danger, not because I agreed to live with you.”

“I can keep you here because I am protecting you,” he argued, headache beginning to throb in his temples.

Skipping sleep had been a bad idea. So had letting her anywhere near a phone.

“Dahlia, you don’t seem to understand that the life you had is gone.

It isn’t something you could go back to even if I wanted to let you, which I don’t. ”

“Why not? Explain it to me, Felix!”

He sliced a hand through the air. “You aren’t Dahlia McKnight anymore!

You’re Dahlia fucking Bowan! And you’re a blood bride.

I wish that didn’t mean anything, but it does.

It means you’re a syndicate pawn just like the rest of us.

It means that you’ll be hunted to the ends of the fucking earth by vampires who want what your new family has.

You’ll never be free of it, Dahlia. You’ll never be able to change their minds or make them see reason.

You’re just a venom type to them. A fucking name brand womb. ”

“Oh, I see. And it’s not like that for you, is it? You’re not influenced by this newfound importance of mine.” She leaned over the desk, palms planted on the wood, and snarled, “Then tell me why you waited three years, Felix, but the moment you got the news, you showed up at my front door.”

“I told you why I waited three years.” Matching her posture, Felix hunched his shoulders to bring them nose to nose.

“But fine. You want the full truth? You’ll get it.

When it was safe, I was going to keep you for a little while.

Enjoy my life and get a little taste of actual love before I resigned myself to a soulless fucking existence with a blood bride.

I was going to let you go, Dahlia, because I care about you too much to make you live that life with me. ”

Dahlia’s eyes widened. Her mouth worked but no sound escaped. When she did finally speak, it was with a disturbingly quiet voice. “You… You were going to marry another woman?”

Marry? Felix had to think for a second, weighing what the word meant.

Vampires didn’t traditionally do marriage.

They shared blood, after all. What were pretty promises spoken in front of an altar compared to a bite?

But it was a very human thing to make a claim through marriage.

It was roughly equivalent to the bond avampire formed with their anchor, he supposed, if comparatively shallow.

Curious to see how she’d react, Felix nodded, his attention keenly focused on the way her pupils contracted into tight little points. A scratching sound briefly drew his gaze to where her nails had scraped the desk as her fingers curled into fists.

Measuring his words carefully, he said, “A blood bride is necessary for me to get the elders completely on my side. I didn’t want to do it, but I haven’t worked this hard and come this far to lose their support?—”

“So you were going to throw me aside the moment you found a better fit? After three years of— of making me actually—” Her lip curled, revealing those darling little fangs again. “Who was it, Felix?”

Anger bled into something hotter. Felix’s breathing picked up as he took in her defensive stance, the bared fangs, and the color in her cheeks. Dahlia wasn’t just pissed. She was territorial in a way he recognized intimately.

His girl was jealous.

A slow, pleased smile spread across his mouth at the same time that his cock went rock hard beneath the desk. In a husky voice, he taunted, “Why, pet? I thought you didn’t want me. Shouldn’t you be happy that someone else was gonna take me off your hands?”

He didn’t think her face could get any redder, but it did. “You do not get to waste three years of my life hounding me and making me actually care about you, only to throw me away for some bullshit political marriage, Felix!”

“Well, if you don’t want to be my blood bride, what choice do I have?”

He knew he was pushing it. Felix toyed with instincts she probably didn’t even understand, plucking at them with reckless abandon just to see what she’d do. But he couldn’t stop. He needed her to understand, to want him as badly as he wanted her, and he’d never cared about fighting fair before.

Leaning backward, he lied, “If you don’t want it, I could let another woman bite me.”

In hindsight, he should’ve known to stop there, but he’d always been one to go a little bit too far.

Felix barely had a second to register the fact that Dahlia had crawled over the desk before his back hit his chair. She was on him just as quickly, their momentum sending the chair swiveling as she tore the lapels of his shirt aside.

Pain exploded in the juncture between his neck and shoulder. “Fuck!” he wheezed, grabbing her waist to steady her. He planted his feet on the floor, stopping their dizzying spin, and groaned.

The bite was clumsy, too deep, and almost certainly at the wrong angle, but it didn’t matter. Triumph roared inside him as her venom released. It was warm, a little ticklish, and within a few heartbeats, he could taste it bleeding through the thin membrane of his cheeks.

It was sweet. So sinfully sweet. Like ambrosia sweeping through his veins and coating his tongue, a gift from Grim herself.