Page 10 of The Serpent’s Bride (Bloodlines #1)

There it was. There was the Raziel she had been expecting.

The one she’d heard of in the stories and rumors.

It was a command. There was no room for argument.

She felt the power in it. Like a warm blanket, surrounding her soul.

If she had been human, or, by the void, if she hadn’t been paying attention, his words would have been tattooed into her very being.

Without even making eye contact. Without even making a gesture—with only the power of his voice—he had commanded her to wear her hair down for the rest of her life.

She had heard all the stories of people who had torn out their own eyes, had eaten their own fingers, all because he had politely asked them to.

When she didn’t answer, the point of her dangerously sharp hairpin was suddenly against her throat. She tilted her head back away from it until it touched his shoulder. His lips were close to her ear, his hot breath pooling against her skin.

Heat pooled somewhere else in her, sudden and unexpected.

“I love the ones that look so sweet, so innocent, so simple , yet have such resilient minds.” He chuckled, nuzzling close into her hair. His voice was a quiet rumble, and it sent a shudder through her that made her head spin.

The clash between that and the point of the pin against her throat made every nerve in her body feel electric. Like lightning.

Gods.

She wanted him.

She felt herself leaning back against him, seeking more of him, her eyes slipping shut. It was wrong. This was wrong. He was wrong. But it was unlike anything she’d ever felt in her life. And it had absolutely nothing to do with his failed attempt to hypnotize her.

“You cannot fight me.”

Oh yes, she could. But Monica couldn’t. She took a deep breath in and, as she exhaled, forced her shoulders to go slack.

“That’s it…now. Your hair stays down from now on.”

All the bizarre, warring emotions that were crashing through her were making her head spin. But she didn’t have time to examine them now. She had a role to play. And if she let him trip her up now, she’d be dead. “Understood,” she whispered.

“Very good.” But he wasn’t done with her. Not yet. He trailed the pin down her throat, following the line of the tendon, the point scratching her skin just enough to feel it, but not hard enough to leave a mark. Her heart was racing. Every nerve in her body felt like lightning.

The tip of the pin moved down her shoulder and her arm before he placed both pins on the table beside her left hand. Lowering his head just a little more, he kissed her shoulder. Slowly. Lingering. His lips searingly hot.

She didn’t know what to do. Didn’t know what to say or how to react. All afternoon she’d played dinner out in her head in a thousand different ways. But this wasn’t one of them. This hadn’t been part of her plan.

Not that she hadn’t expected him to flirt with her, or to touch her. That much she’d figured would happen. No, that wasn’t what had her eyes shut tight and her heart pounding in her ears. That wasn’t what she had failed to anticipate.

The way she was reacting to him was not okay.

No, no, no, no, no! This was an anomaly. It would pass. It’d just been a long time since anybody had touched her, that was all. And the wine on a nearly empty stomach was probably going to her head.

He hummed. “You are afraid. But intrigued.”

When she answered, her voice wavered. “I’ve—I’ve heard stories of vampires, but never met one, and I?—”

“Do you think you are the first human who wishes to be hunted? Who wishes to feel the fangs of the beast, and know their sting? Hardly. Nor will you be the last.” He kissed her shoulder again.

“I…” She trailed off, uncertain as to what to say.

After what felt like an eternity, he finally straightened up and walked back to his seat.

In his absence, she realized how warm he had been, like standing next to a hearth.

It must have been the blood he’d been drinking.

His skin had been cool earlier this afternoon, and now he was throwing out heat like a coal fire.

Shivering at the sudden cold, she blinked her eyes open. He was sitting across from her with a pleased smile across those perfect features.

She might have won the first point, but he had won the second. And judging by the smug expression he wore, he knew it.

Fuck.

Raziel smiled at Monica. She had put him on the back foot for a moment when she’d walked out onto the balcony, but he had recovered and quickly showed her precisely who was leading the dance. Not that he hadn’t deeply appreciated her attempt—though he knew it hadn’t been intentional.

By the Father, the country girl cleaned up nice. He’d expected a demure, shy, trembling thing to walk out, tugging at the bottom hem of her dress or trying to close the front to keep her modesty in the scandalous outfit he’d chosen for her.

Not for her to walk out like a black cat along a fire escape railing, owning every step with pride and surety.

Even the high, pointed heels he’d expected her to wobble on didn’t seem to give her pause.

The dress he had chosen would have shamed even the ladies his sister sold at her jazz clubs, and yet this Monica seemed to be unfazed.

What did it say about him that the body underneath the dress wasn’t as impressive to him as the way she wore it?

He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised. Beauty only reached a certain point before it was all the same. But the unassumingly confident way she had walked up to him, smiling as though this were just a picnic in a field, had made a sudden roaring inferno of need nearly overcome him.

The mental image of bending her over the railing, rolling up that short hem, and burying himself in her tight flesh had struck him dumb.

This was unexpected.

This was new.

And not entirely welcome.

There was never anything stopping Raziel from scratching whatever itch he wanted—no matter how profane, no matter how sinful. He relished his easy access to anything and everything his twisted mind could dream up.

Especially as he could simply tell others around him to do whatever he wanted them to do, at any point, meaning very few things were ever outside of his reach. But, the sad result of that was…he found almost everything boring. Uninteresting. A waste of his time and attention.

He couldn’t remember the last time in over two hundred years of life that he had ever been stunned to silence by desire. Left gawking like a schoolboy at a pretty girl.

It was only the sudden, equally powerful rush of anger that had finally shoved his lust aside. How dare she? How dare she saunter over like that? Dressed like that ? In his home?

No. He had needed to take control of the situation back, at any cost. He needed to remind her exactly where she was and who she was dealing with.

And when her cheeks had gone pink at his nearness and goosebumps had prickled her bare skin, he knew he had done just that.

Wonderful little thing, she had even tried to fight his invasion of her mind.

But like all humans, she fell to his hypnotic gifts with only a moment’s worth of struggle. She had put up a fairly good fight, which was surprising—most humans collapsed like a house of cards in a breeze—but soon enough, she was in his palm.

The rest of the dinner after that went along peacefully.

They barely spoke. She knew well enough to not prattle and fill the air with vapid nonsense, and only responded to him when he prompted her first. Instead, her inquisitive, spring-green eyes were taking in every detail around her as if memorizing them all.

Three very interesting things had come out of their dinner that left him pondering what his next step should be.

First—he wanted her. Very badly and in a way he hadn’t experienced in centuries.

Two—she had the bravery to sip his bloodwine and barely flinched. It was vile to humans, but she took it in stride. She clearly had more of a backbone than he had imagined.

And three—she had no clue about the truth of his “line of work.” That was the most intriguing part of all of this. Had her father really not told her? Or had she written it all off as rumor and slander?

She was about to become the wife of one of the most feared crime lords on all of Runne. He wondered how she would deal with that knowledge. Part of him was suddenly deeply interested in finding out.

One of his men approached from inside his home. “Sir?”

“What?” Raziel hated interruptions.

The man shifted nervously. “Your sister wants to speak to you.”

“Tell her I’ll call her back.” He rolled his eyes.

“No, um—she’s downstairs.” The man took a step back, flinching away from expected rage. And for good reason.

Raziel’s instinct was to hurl the messenger from the balcony. But he bit all that back down and let out a long, weary sigh. Some things couldn’t be avoided. And Lana was definitely on that list. Forcing a mocking smile onto his face, he turned to Monica, who was watching the exchange curiously.

He knew why Lana was there. His meddling sister very likely wanted to greet the fresh meat for herself before Raziel broke her into tiny pieces. Which was fair. Standing, he gestured for her to follow. He didn’t offer her a hand up.

“I’d hoped to spare you this until closer to the wedding, but Lana waits for no one. Come, my dear…time to throw you into the fire.”