Page 1 of Worse Fates (Soulmates Suck #1)
Spain, 1801
Drinks flow freely in this house of sins.
Dancing girls flutter around, pouring red wine down their exposed breasts to tempt men closer. For a fee, of course. The drinks are cheap but plentiful, and are more to my taste than the pretty girls.
But I laugh and dance with them all the same.
“Not enjoying yourself, Lucero?”
Vidar calls from where he lies sunken into plush pillows, both thick tattooed arms wrapped around women dressed in nothing but silk.
Grinning, I drop beside him, sweat dripping off my forehead as one song ends and quickly becomes another. Nodding my thanks to a slim woman refilling my empty glass to the brim with watered down red wine.
“How could I not enjoy myself, Vidar? The music is good, the company is good, and the wine?”
I gulp half the watered down red to the cheer of drunken revellers, then smirk like the devil himself. “Good.”
“Don’t think I’ve forgotten your needs, Luc.”
Vidar’s hand slaps a girl’s arse and she screams in delight.
“Naughty boy,”
she giggles, playing with his short silver hair as he squeezes her.
He grins and captures her chin.
“My friend here has different tastes.”
The woman on his lap flutters her eyelashes.
“You have a preference for cock?”
I answer her with a tilt of my drink, unashamed and blood heating at the promise of pleasure.
“Always the handsome ones, such pretty blue eyes, too.”
She lifts a hand to beckon another beautiful woman close.
“And what am I?”
Vidar teases in his deep, commanding, growl.
“You’ll have to show me,”
she teases in return, then turns her attention to the woman she called for.
“Holly, love, please take our lovely Lucero to the back? He’s awfully bored out here, and we simply can’t have that.”
Holly’s eyes travel up and down my body, a slow seductive appraisal that I can appreciate but the effect is wasted on me. Instead of insult, humour flashes across her features as she inclines her head for me to follow.
Climbing to my feet, I’m led between dancing half naked bodies and opium clouds, to entertainment I’m ready to lose myself in.
Vidar really does take me to the most wonderful places.
Behind a partition, Holly escorts me to a bathhouse heavy with steam scented with roses. Here, naked men drape across customers, talented fingers massaging oiled backs or mouths wrapped around cock.
I peruse at my leisure each handsome face, and all the delicious sights laid bare. I have eternity, afterall, and feel no rush to find a playmate when what's on display is already so much fun to observe. The sounds of moans, and flesh slapping against flesh, hidden behind red curtains only piques my curiosity, and pulls at my growing need.
“What’s your flavour?”
Holly asks, her voice far away as every sight and scent catches my attention.
“I’m not picky.”
Tossing back the rest of my wine, I discard the empty glass on a table, strolling like a king through a garden of flowers ready to be plucked. It's laughable, really, when I’m nothing but a conman in fancy clothes.
“But,”
I add with a grin.
“I do like a pretty face.”
“I know just the—”
A scent; midnight sweet and strong enough to knock me on my knees. Even from the hint I’ve managed to catch.
I move, stalking towards that perfect scent. The girl calls my name, the pit-pat of her bare feet on wet tiles as scurries after me. But she’s forgotten as I push aside a heavy red curtain to reveal…him.
A halo of curls so blonde they might as well be spun gold, frames his oval face. Small, sweet eyes, rounded in shock when they land on me. My feet move without permission towards him, an instinct I couldn’t resist for all the money in Spain.
“Have we met before?”
His voice is deeper than I’d expected, carrying a dream-like quality, as if he’s just woken from a long sleep.
“I know you.”
Dropping to my knees in front of where he sits on a bed, I cup his face, needing to memorise every detail; blue eyes the colour of jewels. Cheeks high. Skin white as fresh milk.
“We’ve never met,”
I say.
“What’s your name?”
My heart beats so fast I fear I’ll die, however, a strange calmness settles over me. I am home, he is my home.
“Francisco,”
he breathes.
Tentatively, Francisco’s fingers brush against my jaw and his breathing hitches.
“Who are you?”
His warmth is a shock to a body that died more than two hundred years ago.
I turn back to the girl, Holly, who looks on with confusion.
“Find the madam, I want to speak with her. Now.”
“W-why?”
he stutters.
Turning back to him, I gaze into his eyes; he has taken on an almost confused desperation and clings to my short beard, his body leaning into mine.
“I don’t know what’s going on, but I need you,”
he mumbles into my chest.
Capturing his hand, I kiss the soft skin on his palm.
“I’m going to pay his debts, then take him from this place.”
Everything from that point moves fast. The madam will only give him up for an exorbitant sum, which I toss onto her desk without a second thought. With Francisco clinging to my side—where he’ll remain—I whisk him back to the apartments I’ve rented with Vidar and fall into his body with a shared passion I never thought possible.
Francisco startles when he sees my fangs drop, as I cum deep within his body. “Demon?”
he whispers.
“A vampire,”
I reply.
“Does that scare you?”
With adoring eyes, he whispers ‘never, I love you’ again and again as we make love until the sun rises.
I leave him sleeping when I hear the sound of Vidar returning and slip out of bed, promising I’ll return soon.
“So, the rumour is true then.”
Vidar leans against the opposite wall.
“You brought home a stray.”
Shutting the door gently, I turn a glare towards the man who turned me into a vampire.
“Don’t insult him like that, he is everything to me now. My priority. My Home.”
“After only one night?”
he chuckles.
“Has the playboy been tamed?”
“Yes.”
I leave no room for argument.
Vidar scans me over, his pale grey eyes searching for something.
“What did he say when you first saw him?”
“Why should that matter?”
My attention pulls towards the door, pleading with me to return to Francisco’s side.
“Answer the question, offspring.”
“That he knew me,”
I reply impatiently, twisting the door handle to be back where I belong.
“I have to return to him.”
“He’s your mate.”
I pause, door ajar, then silently shutting it. “My what?”
“Your soulmate.”
Vidar chuckles as if I’m new to all this, and while I’m nowhere near as old as he, I’m no pup stumbling through the dark, it only adds to my impatience, but I have to learn more.
“You’re a vampire now, Luc, the rules have changed and all immortals are owed a debt from fate, and that debt is returned as a forever companion.”
“Fate owes me a debt?”
I snort at the absurdity of it. However, I’m intrigued.
“I owe plenty of people money, but have never been owed something in return. What have I given fate?”
Vidar pushes himself off the wall and strolls towards me, dropping his shoulder on the door I’m eager to go through.
“Fate doesn’t get to be a person. The only way it can experience life is through us, or so I’m told, anyway. Humans’ lives are quick, a firework in the night, pretty but not much else. We give fate more, a great big fucking flaming star to entertain her, but nothing is free, and fate always repays her debts.”
“A soulmate, then? To repay us for giving up our humanity and allowing her to attach more strings to us?”
A pleased growl rumbles from my chest.
“And I can keep him forever.”
Vidar nods.
“If he lives through being turned into a vampire, that is.”
I suck a breath between clenched teeth. I hadn’t even thought about changing him yet.
“Dying is simple, offspring, any moron can do it. Rebirth is difficult, as you well know when I tried to turn your brother, Luc.”
I push away the memory of my brother writhing in pain, vampire blood burning in his veins. Killing him slowly.
“Francisco’s my mate, surely he’ll—”
“It’s birth. Pain comes with the territory.”
I push Vidar away and open the door, unable to stop myself and glare into the room, as if daring it to hurt my sleeping mate. I would destroy anything that came for him, even myself. He stirs and I go to him without a second thought. My whole being shifting to his every need.
“Lucero…”
He rubs sleep from his eyes and falls into my arms.
“I was dreaming of you.”
“Good dreams, I hope?”
He smiles, then startles when he spots my Maker.
“This is Vidar. Francisco. A good friend of mine.”
Francisco’s attention returns to me, his face open. Trusting me in a way no one else ever has, and nods. No doubt he isn’t safe with me, and I am humbled by his sincerity.
I have to make a choice. To keep him for a short time then watch him die?
Or chance forever in my bite.