Page 9 of The Vampire's Redemption

He moved in a blur, pulling her up against his chest. His breath tickled her ear, causing her body to arch into him of its own accord. “Do you think this is what I’ve been doing while you’re away?”

He turned her around so that he held her from behind and she faced the vampire with the two women wrapped around him. Something between a gasp and a whimper escaped her. The woman who’d been sucking on the vampire earlier was now above him, moving up and down, oblivious to anything except for her own pleasure.

Her legs trembled as her core clenched. Felix’s hardened length rubbed against her buttocks. It would be so easy, so quick, to satisfy her craving for him.

No.

She hadn’t suffered for two hundred years, hadn’t gone aground for four, only to give up now.

Using all her strength, she elbowed him in the chest. He released her, and she shoved people out of her way toward the exit. Into the night air not infused with lust and sin. She stopped when she was two blocks away and sucked in deep, gasping breaths. This had been a mistake. She wasn’t ready to face him. Fiery need shot through her veins, so much so she might go up in flames.

She wanted to fly back to California, back to the safety of Haven, and hide there for another six hundred years.

Yet, the Council had given her no other choice. She’d built Haven for people like her, for those who had nowhere else to go. Nikolas had taken the burden to run and protect it while standing by her motto.

Anyone was welcomed at her House. No questions asked.

Haven, she’d named it.

Now it was her turn to protect it.

For those of her House, she had to face Felix and survive this Gathering.

She could do it. She would find the strength to resist him, resist the call of the mating bond.

Another deep breath, then Gabby whirled around to confront Felix, who’d followed her. At least he was keeping his distance this time, waiting across the road on the sidewalk. She forced herself to meet the intense heat of his gaze and ignore the ever-present desire.

“You petitioned the Council to wake me,” she accused. Anger was her best defense against him, against the onslaught of emotions and physical need.

“Yes.” No regret, no shame. Just a statement of fact. “Four hundred years is long enough.”

Eternity wasn’t long enough.

“What’s your plan? Kidnap me back to your castle?”

A flash of guilt? Regret? “The castle is gone.”

Of all the things he could’ve said. That castle had been her home once. Before things had ended, she’d begun her vampire life there. Despite the bad, there’d been good too. The times when they’d been happy. In the beginning.

For it to cease to exist was incomprehensible. To her, it had always been larger than life. A constant.

Like him.

His expression softened when she stayed quiet. Had she given something away? She didn’t need him to know she missed it, even for a second.

“Good riddance,” she bit out, ignoring the tinge of sadness.

Felix took two steps toward her.

“Stop,” she ordered, infusing the words with all her strength. She was not an innocent, sheltered, and powerless sixteen-year-old girl who’d let her curiosity get the better of her.

She was the ruler of her own House. Nikolas and Maria and the rest of her House stood behind her. She wasn’t alone and helpless anymore.

She was his equal. He would not dictate her life again, even if he had the Council on his side.

He stopped when her power washed over him and tilted his head with a look of curiosity. When he smiled, it sent shivers down her spine. “You’ve grown.”

“Yes, I have. Whatever you have planned, it will not work. At the end of this, I’m returning to Haven, not with you.”