Page 117 of Wedlock (Vampire Bachelor Games #3)

Lying in his arms, drenched in sweat, my body feeling like jelly, I run my fingers up and down the length of his arm where it lies draped across my breasts, and smile.

“Are you grinning, Lady Dragonspur?” He chuckles, tightening his arm around me.

“Why yes, Lord Dragonspur, I believe I am.”

“And do you concede you had no idea what I was thinking as I crossed the threshold with you in my arms?”

“I concede you’ve surprised me and delighted me, and satisfied me beyond anything I could have imagined,” I laugh quietly, “and that my memories of after-dinner ravishment were accurate.”

“Indeed,” he laughs as he kisses me on the forehead, “and here I was trying to be a gentleman and take things slowly, unaware that my wife’s memories of those halcyon evenings were on par with my own, and that I should be the one being overpowered.”

“Hardly,” I laugh, “I didn’t see you putting up any fight.”

“If it’s a struggle you want,” he grins, “I’m sure that can be arranged.”

“No,” I sigh, “we’ve had enough struggles. Speaking of, I know I’m right in assuming you were thinking of Jag when you carried me up the steps.”

“And were you ?” He asks now, his voice low and leaching concern.

“No, you don’t have to ever trouble yourself about that,” I roll over so our faces are inches apart.

“But it does bother me that I was the cause of your friendship disintegrating. He’s been a good friend to me, to us.

He still is. And don’t think I didn’t file it away for future reference when you said he had something to do for you. ”

“Ah, I can’t get anything past you, can I?”

“What have you asked him to do?”

He scowls and leans forward to kiss me, and I pull back.

“Don’t even think about it. Answer the question.”

“He’s going to get married.”

“What? To whom?”

“That’s for him to determine.”

“I don’t understand. Have you told him you’ll be friends if he gets hitched within a certain timeframe?”

“Something like that,” he sighs, rolling onto his back and looking up at the rich, velvet canopy above us.

‘No. He wouldn’t. Would he?’

“Oh, God. Falcon, tell me you haven’t done what I think you’ve done.”

“You know I have.”

“But he doesn’t kill women. He only bites men. How on Earth can he enter The Games and play properly if he doesn’t bite?”

“The game changes us all.”

“Falcon, you’re being unreasonable. What happened between Jag and I was entirely my fault. You can’t keep punishing him.”

“The fault lies with my brothers. Both of them,” he growls. “You were under a thrall; nothing you did was your fault.”

“But to send him to The Games?”

“When he’s married, then, and only then, will I allow him back through my doors,” he shrugs. “Then and only then will I know he no longer harbours feelings for my wife .”

“Just because he ends up with someone doesn’t mean he’ll love her,” I murmur, my face flaming at the knowledge that my own husband hated my guts the day he married me.

“Every vampire plays the game differently,” he sighs.

“And in between times,” I groan, “another twenty-three innocent women will be killed for a macabre ritual that seems like it will never end.”

“I agree, but change takes time, and you know that my mother, rightly or wrongly, is still working with The Free Men to make changes. Wolf, too, is about to make changes that will rock our world. I can feel it.”

“Poor Jag,” I murmur.

“I have no doubt Jaguar will surprise us all, he always does. Perhaps he’ll find the woman of his dreams and discover love on that ridiculous show. It happens to some, or so I’m told.”

I shake my head and smirk.

“You mean like, ooh, I don’t know, the most dangerous, bloodthirsty vampire bachelor of all time?”

“And the most reluctant, maddeningly infuriating human contestant to have ever been selected,” he grins back.

“If they could…”

He rolls over so his body is once more atop mine, his eyes intense.

“They have.”