Copyright

 

Copyright © 2012 Felicity Heaton

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written consent of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

The right of Felicity Heaton to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First printed May 2012

First Edition

Layout and design by Felicity Heaton

All characters in this publication are purely fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Cover by Felicity Heaton

 

 

Masquerade

Masquerade

Ten years have passed since Sophis and Vivek, two vampires of the Venia bloodline, came close to death at the hands of twin hunters Aleksis and Izabella Romanov. The events of that night turned Sophis and Vivek against each other, shattering their close friendship and driving them apart.

Now, on the eve of a centenary Creator Day masquerade and at a time when things between them are dangerously close to separating them forever, they uncover a small army of vampire hunters in Saint Petersburg, led by their nemeses, Aleksis and Izabella.

With the safety of the rulers of the seven pure vampire bloodlines in their hands and their chance for vengeance hanging in the balance, can Sophis and Vivek face their past and overcome their differences? Will they realise their true feelings for each other before it’s too late or will the hunters finally claim their lives as their deadly plot to destroy the bloodlines unfolds?

 

This is an extended excerpt, not a complete book.

For details on how to purchase this book, please visit: http://www.felicityheaton.co.uk/masquerade

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Where in the Devil’s good name had the rest of her squad gone?

It was twenty minutes past ten in the evening and Sophis had only managed to locate and relay orders to five out of her group of eight guards. If Commander Tynan discovered that she couldn’t keep her squad in line and at their posts on time, she was heading for an earful and possibly punishment. She didn’t need this right now after everything that had happened so recently and with the Creator Day masquerade less than a week away. Sophis clenched her fists, her arms trembling with the rage that pounded through her, part of it directed at herself, part at her squad and the rest at a man she couldn’t think about without grinding her teeth and wanting to growl. It would have been bad enough if it had been a normal ball, but this year was a centenary and that meant two nights of celebration and all eyes on the guards of the host bloodline.

Her bloodline.

The Venia household didn’t tolerate weakness at the best of times. With the safety of the lords, ladies, and other important members of the seven pure vampire bloodlines of Europe on the line, it was imperative that every group of guards performed their duties impeccably.

With her self-esteem already severely dented, Sophis dreaded that her team were going to be the weak link, the guards that failed should there be an attack, and it set her on edge as she walked across the immaculate lawn of the Venia mansion heading towards the main house. Her recent mistake during a routine patrol had already made her appear weak and unworthy of her position as a captain in the guard. If word reached her superiors that she couldn’t control the newest members of her squad, they would lose all faith in her. She couldn’t let that happen. She had to find the missing men and bring them into line, and she had to do it before anyone else discovered they were absent from their posts.

There was one man in particular that she didn’t want to find out—the person whose name labelled the largest part of her anger.

Vivek.

Sophis uncurled her fingers, stretching them and trying to shake away the burning fury and shame she felt from just thinking that name.

She hadn’t seen Vivek since the night she had led her team on patrol in Saint Petersburg to confirm that the Validus bloodline’s reports of increased hunter activity in the city were true. She had confirmed it all right. A vampire hunter had attacked and she had leapt into action, earning herself a poisoned arrow in the back for her impatience.

Vivek had come out of nowhere and saved her life.

Again.

Sophis paused halfway across the beautiful moonlit garden as her left shoulder blade burned with the memory of that night over a week ago. She closed her eyes and pressed her right hand to the front of her shoulder, breathing deeply and slowly to steady her rising panic.

She owed her life to Vivek twice over now. Her fingertips pulled the black material of her uniform jacket tight as she clutched her shoulder and ground her teeth. His actions that night had left her confused. He had swept in and singlehandedly dispatched her attackers and had shown such concern when he had picked her up, cradling her in his arms like a princess, and ordered his men and hers to go on ahead and warn the infirmary. The sickness from the poison had come upon her then but she had remained staring at Vivek, her mind swimming. She wasn’t a member of his squad, yet he had treated her as though she was, had shown the same amount of concern for her wellbeing as she had often seen him feel towards his men under similar circumstances.

Only he never went to their rescue.

He let them fight their own battles.

Why had he interfered with hers?

Was it just to make her feel weak, to make her look feeble in front of her squad and his, to make her appear as though she wasn’t suited to the role of their leader? To prove to that small section of the guard that he was right and she shouldn’t hold the position of captain?

Or was it something else?

Her closest friend, Ella, had told her once that people who fight all the time were secretly in love with each other.

In that brief moment in his arms, Sophis had dared to hope that the care he was taking with her and his concern weren’t only because she was injured and sick. She had wondered if Ella was right. That hope still knotted her stomach and confused her whenever she thought about it. It had been nothing more than a slip, a flash of insanity caused by the poison, a fleeting feeling that Vivek had crushed. She would do well to remember that.

Vivek had looked so cold as he had carried her back to the mansion, covered in the blood of her attackers, reeking of their grim deaths at his bare hands. He hadn’t looked at her once. His icy gaze had remained fixed ahead of him and his heavy steps had echoed in her drowsy fiery mind. She had kept her attention locked on him to stave off her muddled feelings and as a point of focus so she could battle the toxin. The cold abyss of his heart had shown in the depths of his eyes, void of emotions and any shred of care for her.

Nothing had changed that night. Not her feelings or his.

He was still the bane of her life with his sexist attitude towards her and his desire to have her thrown out of the guard. He felt nothing for her now. Those times were long past. Lost forever.

Sophis had felt that then as she did now, but it hadn’t stopped her from musing the strangest thing.

Vivek never smiled anymore.

That thought had plagued her during her recuperation and even cut through her present anger towards him.

It lingered in her heart and she had spent her long empty hours of rest thinking about how he used to be and how he was now. The contrast between past and present was as sharp as that between white and black.

What had happened to the man she used to know, the one who had trained her and taught her to fight to the best of her abilities and, if those weren’t good enough for her, to practice until she didn’t have the strength to stand and then rest only long enough to catch her breath? Vivek had inspired her, supported her, and made her feel that if she tried hard enough she would be the best guard in the Venia household, surpassing even him. Where was the man with the brilliant smile that made his normally intense hazel eyes sparkle and the quick wit that had always brought out her own smile and made her feel so at ease around him? He was so serious now, his eyes as cold as glaciers and as hard as diamonds. His smile nowhere to be seen.

And he was cruel.

Two days ago, Sophis had returned to duty and this evening she had discovered that Vivek had filed a rather unsavoury report about the hunter attack in the city and her ability as a captain of the guard. He had cited her weakness, her leap into the fight without using her team, and other faults that she was already painfully aware of without his mentioning them to their commander. Her blood had caught fire as she had listened to Commander Tynan recite the report.

It was boiling now that she had discovered her men missing.

Sophis set her jaw, stormed across the damp grass and the golden gravel path and entered the elegant palatial mansion that was her family’s home, using the back entrance close to the ballroom. She moved swiftly along the short corridor towards the stone steps that led down into the basement. The hallway was plain and unadorned, with dull walls and cold flagstones underfoot, a poorer cousin of the bright cream corridors in the public spaces of the house, with their oil paintings and lamps, and antique wooden furniture that lent them a regal and warm air. These passages were used by guards and servants of her bloodline. No one of importance lowered themselves to walk them so there was no need for them to look remotely inviting.

The darkness clung to the hall, broken at intervals by a single lamp on the wall that cast insipid light in a small semi-circle around it, barely chasing back the gloom.

Sophis hurried down the stone steps to the basement, her heightened vision and her memory providing her with the position of each tread. The flat heels of her knee-high polished black leather riding boots were loud on the cold stone, echoing along the hall coming into view before her and marking the quick rhythm of her steps. She could have moved silently if she had wished, but she wanted everyone in the corridor ahead to know that she was coming. She wanted them to hear her anger before they managed to sense it.

She ground her teeth until her slightly extended canines cut into her gums, flooding her mouth with the sweet perfume of her own blood. The taste of it stopped her in her tracks and she drew a deep steadying breath, searching for some calm amongst the storm of her feelings so her fangs retracted.

This wasn’t just about her missing men. Vivek was getting to her again and she was playing right into his hands. He wanted her angry, wanted her to slip up and give Tynan a reason to lose his faith in her abilities as a captain. She couldn’t give Vivek the satisfaction of winning.

Regardless of what he thought about her, she was a good guard and a strong leader. She had fought for her position within the ranks and she wasn’t going to throw it all away, no matter what he did or said about her. She wouldn’t let him win. The guard was everything to her. It was her life.

Sophis strode along the dimly lit hallway, passing servants quarters and the blood store. The smell of it tainted the air, causing her stomach to twist and grumble. It had been days since her last feed. The preparations for the upcoming Creator Day masquerade had everyone rushed off their feet, especially the guards, and feeding hadn’t crossed her mind since she had returned to duty. She would have to soon or she would grow weak and would be of no use to her bloodline during the celebrations. After her duties tonight had ended, she would request permission to head into Saint Petersburg to hunt. There would be enough time before sunrise for her to locate, distract and kill a suitable male human. Strong blood would allow her to last through the celebrations without needing to feed again and would restore her strength, giving back what she needed to prove herself a worthy captain of the guard.

She would show Vivek that she was strong and capable, that what had happened was just a glitch, nothing more than a mistake, and he was wrong about her. She was worthy of her position. She would prove that.

The door for the guards’ rest room came into view along the grey corridor and she straightened her back, tipped her chin up, and quickened her pace. Noise came from the room, drifting out of the open door along with warm light. She focused her senses, trying to detect whether her men were there, slacking off and disobeying orders. None of the voices coming from the room were familiar to her. She stepped inside, sharply coming to a halt and drawing all eyes to her. Several of the men quickly rose from the dark couches and armchairs scattered around the dull windowless stone-walled room and saluted her by pressing their hand against the breast of their black mid-thigh length uniform jackets. She scanned their faces, realised that neither Vivek nor her men were present, and then nodded and turned away.

Heat coiled in her stomach, anger blazing there and slowly pouring into her veins like acid that ate away at her restraint, giving free rein to her desire to unleash her feelings on Vivek even when she knew it was wrong of her to aim all of her fury at him. It wouldn’t be the first time they had fought outside the training room. When she found him, she was going to give him a large piece of her mind and find out just why he had felt the need to emphasise everything she had done wrong that night in his report.

She passed another room where guards were relaxing between duties. Her men weren’t there either.

Where were they?

Sophis hurried along the dim corridor to the steps at the other end, took them quickly, and pushed the heavy wooden door at the top open. The brightly lit vestibule of the house greeted her, warm with its pale yellow walls and grand crystal chandelier. The servants were already decorating the double-height room. Elegant arrangements of red roses stood in huge antique vases on the black-cloth-draped side tables and the pedestals placed around the large room. Several women dressed in plain black clothing were threading garlands of roses through the banister of the mahogany staircase that curved upwards to the first floor. That area would become the guest suites for the most important attendees during the ball and her family had spared no expense to ensure their comfort. They had even moved some of the less important members of the Venia bloodline to the second floor where her room and those of other ranked guards were to free up their stately rooms for the guests. The theme of red roses and gold would run throughout the entire first floor and the rooms on the ground floor that remained open to their guests during the ball.

Several guards entered from the ballroom beneath the balcony to her right and she saluted their commanding officer.

“Have you seen Vivek?” Sophis stepped towards Seth, a blond man of impeccable neatness who had come through the ranks at the same time as her, although he was closer in age to Vivek. The two men had never seen eye to eye. She now shared Seth’s dire opinion of Vivek and he had grown supportive of her, even fighting her corner more than once when Vivek had chosen to start on her in his presence.

Seth waved his group of young guards on and then closed the gap between them. His deep blue eyes expressed more than his handsome schooled features. He wasn’t happy.

“Not since Commander Tynan ordered us both to patrol the grounds and ensure there were no intruders. We split up to head around the perimeter wall in opposite directions and he was not at the meeting point. I waited with my squad for more than thirty minutes before realising that Vivek was not coming.”

Sophis frowned, her eyebrows meeting tightly. Vivek was annoying as Hell when he put his mind to it but he wasn’t someone who shirked his duties. It wasn’t like him to leave a fellow officer to lead a patrol singlehandedly, especially when Tynan had given him orders to assist him. Something must have happened.

“Perhaps he finished before you and decided to return to the house.” The words sounded weak even to her ears. She wanted to give Vivek the benefit of the doubt, but it was difficult to see past her anger over his report and her missing squad members.

Seth didn’t look so sure.

“Listen.” Sophis glanced around the double-height room, making sure no one was close enough to them to hear her whispered confession. Seth would never tell on her. They had confided a lot in each other over the past ten years. She told him all the things that she would have gone to Vivek about in the years before he had turned sour towards her. “I’m having trouble locating some of my squad. Three men. They’re new recruits. I don’t suppose you’ve seen them?”

“Perhaps they are with Vivek.” Seth’s expression remained flat and serious.

“Why would you say that?” The question sprung from her lips before she could stop it. It was obvious why he would think it.

Her men had spent time under Vivek’s command while she had been recovering in the infirmary. He had probably taken the opportunity to corrupt the newest members of her squad. It was one thing to openly challenge her right to her position within the ranks of the Venia bloodline and completely another for him to convince members of her squad to mutiny against her.

Sophis closed her eyes and exhaled slowly, ignoring Seth as he spoke. She was jumping to conclusions again, basing everything on her feelings rather than fact. It was just her anger clouding her judgement. Vivek would never disobey Commander Tynan and he had only been honest in his report. It had pained her to hear the cold hard truth and know that he felt she was unfit to act as a captain. That pain was pushing her into reacting in a way that was unlike her. She was directing all of her anger at Vivek, pinning the blame on him to deflect it away from herself. This was her fault. She had acted rashly, behaved in a way unsuited to a captain, and had got herself injured and taken off duty. Now she was paying for it. If she hadn’t rushed into the fight, Vivek wouldn’t have had to rescue her, he wouldn’t have had to file a report on her actions, and her squad would have remained faithful to her.

The scar on her back burned with the memory of the scrape of the holy wood arrow shaft and the fiery heat of the toxin. Fear threatened to seep into her veins again. She shunned the emotion, unwilling to allow it to control her. She had survived and she had learnt a valuable lesson, one that would see her survive her next fight against the vampire hunters.

When she found her men, she would see that Vivek wasn’t responsible for their actions and that she was wrong to aim all of her anger at him.

She had to hold on to the faith she had in him and needed to remember what he used to be like. He was still that man inside. She was sure of it. Something had changed him and if she could discover what it was, she could set things right between them and restore the friendship they had once shared. That felt like too much to hope for. Vivek had changed so much that thawing the ice in his heart seemed impossible.

Seth was staring at her.

Sophis shunned her thoughts and looked him square in the eye.

His lips quirked into a smile. “Perhaps it is that female who distracts him.”

Female? Anger lanced her gut again, spreading fire into her chest. She hadn’t noticed Vivek chasing a female. If he was, it could prove that she was wrong and he had disregarded his orders tonight. Around twenty years ago, a female had caught his eye and he had shirked his duties then in order to pursue her. The feeling inside Sophis increased, burning through her blood, and she turned her frown on herself. What did it matter to her if Vivek was chasing anyone?

She pitied the poor female he had targeted. That was all this feeling was. She was just confusing it with something else, something she definitely wasn’t about to consider, not even for a split second.

“If you see my men, can you please come and tell me? If I find Vivek, I’ll reprimand him and send him to Commander Tynan to file his report,” Sophis said.

Seth’s look turned sour and he frowned. “The idiot will get what is coming to him one day.”

Sophis couldn’t agree more.

She saluted Seth and he pressed his hand to the chest of his crisp black jacket, nodded, and walked away.

Sophis stared after him, her focus wavering as her gaze tracked him until he disappeared down a corridor. She blew out a long sigh, her thoughts weighing her feet down. There was no point in putting things off. Her men were here somewhere. She wasn’t sure what she would do if she found them with Vivek. It would be the final blow to her already damaged self-esteem but she couldn’t stop looking for them now.

The basement guards’ quarters, the rest rooms there, and the armoury had produced no results. She hadn’t sensed her men or Vivek there. No trace of their scent lingered in the air, which meant they hadn’t been there in at least an hour. The grounds had held a hint of Vivek’s scent, but Seth had explained that for her. Regardless of what Seth thought, Vivek had been out there at some point this evening, although that didn’t mean he had patrolled as ordered.

Sophis closed her eyes and focused her senses. It was difficult to pick out a specific scent in the mansion. There were so many people coming and going because of the masquerade preparations that the scents all swirled together into one blanketing smell of roses and vampire blood.

If she were older, she would have been able to pick through the scents until she found Vivek’s masculine smell of strong blood and warm aftershave. She was on the wrong side of one hundred for that sort of skill though. Picking him out of a crowd was beyond her.

She tipped her head up and drew in a deep breath anyway on the off chance that she might detect him. The smell of roses choked her senses. Useless.

Was he on this floor? There were areas where those of their rank could go, reception rooms they could use if they wished, but Vivek rarely went there.

They had become some of her favourite places for that reason alone.

Sophis turned to face the door on the opposite side of the room to the one she had just exited. It was one of the few remaining places to check. She crossed the entrance hall and entered the elegant green reception room. None of her men were among the guards relaxing on the deep forest green antique couches around the large fireplace or those playing card games on the polished wooden tables towards the back of the room. The smell of flowers lessened and something sparked on her senses as she approached the next reception room, her favourite one where she loved to relax with a good book and find some peace.

Vivek.

She ducked to one side when the dark wooden door opened and two guards walked out, and curled her fingers around the edge of it to stop it from closing. Instead of entering the pale blue drawing room that acted as a library for the guards of the bloodline, she remained tucked behind the door, listening in. Her senses pinpointed Vivek and several other soldiers. She recognised some of them, had studied the feel of them on her senses so she could pick them out during battle and quickly relay orders or check whether they needed assistance. Her three missing men. Disappointment lurched through her, its taste bitter in her throat and on the back of her tongue.

Sophis drew in another deep breath, needing it to retain control and stop herself from storming into the room and giving Vivek a piece of her mind. Her senses stretched out and she was familiar enough with the room to be able to picture where Vivek was.

That was her favourite armchair and he probably knew it. He was here on purpose, to show her that he knew her innermost feelings and how much pleasure that place brought her, and he was going to ruin it for her. Demon. She cursed him under her breath and tried to see who else was present in the room. Several males judging by their scent, and also a female or two. Some were seated further away from Vivek and his group, towards the double doors far to her right, where crammed bookcases lined the walls. Vivek was closer to her, seated near the elegant white marble fireplace in the cluster of dark blue upholstered antique armchairs and sofas that stood on the expansive ornate blue and gold Chinese rug.

“We should probably go,” a deep voice said, gravelly with Czech accented English, and she recognised him as one of the younger guards assigned to her group.

“Perhaps you should run along and return to your mistress,” Vivek said, his voice low and teasing, his Russian-edged words filled with amusement that tore at Sophis. She wanted to shut him out and not listen, not hear the things he had to say about her because they would only worsen the pain she felt whenever she thought about how much Vivek had changed in these past ten years and how much his behaviour hurt her. “She is no doubt wondering where you have gone and if you do not return to her soon, she will run crying to Commander Tynan. Although, I thought you had all come here because you wanted to be part of my squad? I only accept strong guards who can think for themselves, not younglings who turn tail and run.”

Sophis gripped the door, her claws extending and pressing into the wood.

Not only was he trying to get her dropped from the guard but he was stealing her men too. She growled low enough that no one would hear her, venting her anger in the only way possible without open confrontation and violence.

His sexism was nothing new to her. She had endured such snide and horrible behaviour from others in the past, especially during the time when she had been working her way up the ranks. It wasn’t often that a female was elevated to her level within the guard but it had happened before, and it would happen again, regardless of what the males in the house of Venia thought about it.

Part of her wanted to go into the room and remind Vivek that the Law Keeper of their bloodline, the highest echelon of guard and the position many of them aspired to achieve, was female. Marise was strong and powerful, and deserved her position as the representative of the Venia, the one who upheld the laws of the seven pure bloodlines in their name. Sophis looked up to her and fought to be as strong as she was. Marise was a sign that a woman could achieve anything they set their heart on, regardless of what some men believed. It was because of her that Sophis had the strength to endure everything that Vivek threw at her and wouldn’t surrender her dream. She was strong and able, led her squad by example and followed the rules herself. She was the epitome of a good leader and one worthy of her position. She would keep working to prove that until even Vivek couldn’t deny it.

“You saw what happened the other week during patrol,” he said and the contents of his report echoed around her mind.

Her resolve faltered and her anger and disappointment turned back towards herself. She clung to the door, leaning on it for support, weak as she thought about everything that had happened. She had wanted so desperately to fight and prove that she was strong and worthy of her position, and she had only proven that she was still rash and a youngling in some ways. She hated that she had shown that side of herself to her team and to Vivek. She had given him a reason to believe her weak and unworthy of her captaincy, and that was something she despised with all of her heart, not because he would use it against her but because she had wanted him to believe in her, to have faith in her skills as he had ten years ago, and now he wouldn’t.

“You want to be in a real man’s squad, not hanging on the skirt of a female. Is that not so?”

Those words sent the fire in her blood to her heart. It consumed her, burning away the last threads of her restraint and releasing all of the pain she held locked in her heart, hurt that she felt whenever she thought about Vivek. She couldn’t stop herself from stepping out into the open. Her dark brown eyes widened when she spotted Vivek sitting on her favourite armchair in the middle of the room, surrounded by his squad and the three men belonging to hers, and with a woman seated on his lap. Sophis recognised the neat chignon of blonde hair and the slender curvaceous outline before the woman had even turned her face away from Vivek to look at the others.

She couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

It was Ella draped all over Vivek, sitting on his thigh with her feet tucked between his black-clad legs, her fingers running through the longer lengths of his messy short dark hair. Her friend smiled, as though in agreement with what he had said, and Sophis’s heart stung over the betrayal. How many times had Ella supported her when she had griped about Vivek and his treatment of her? Ella had agreed with everything she had said about him and his sexist ways, and now she was sitting on his lap, staring at him with adoring eyes. Ella brushed her fingers across his cheek. He smiled at her.

Was he so absorbed in Ella that his guard was down?

The others had sensed her presence, and her anger judging by how they had backed away from Vivek, leaving him open to attack. The three males from her squad were staring at their boots, huddled close together as though there was safety in numbers. She would deal with them later. After she had given Vivek that piece of her mind reserved for him.

Sophis growled, crossed the expansive room in a flash, and grabbed Vivek by the short stand-up collar of his black military-style uniform jacket. She twisted it in her grip and tore him from the blue velvet armchair, sending Ella toppling off his lap as she forced him to stand and dragged him towards her.

His hazel eyes met hers, cool and calm, unflustered by her assault.

“I’ve had enough of you.” Her words came out evenly despite the anger sweeping like liquid wildfire through her veins.

He smiled slowly, his sensual dusky lips bowing into it. Amusement shimmered in his eyes as he looked down into hers.

It didn’t fool Sophis. The tight lines bracketing his mouth and the tautness of his neck muscles warned her of his anger long before the emotion began to roll off him in tangible waves that told her to back down or accept the consequences.

Doubt settled in her mind. Right now, she wasn’t strong enough to beat him and she didn’t have any proof to lay at his feet should he demand to know what had her so riled. She was overreacting again, pinning all of the anger that should have been directed at herself on him instead. She had accused and sentenced him in one breath and she had to go through with what she had started.

“Why did you say those things in your report?” It seemed like the safest of her reasons to mention. He couldn’t deny it at least.

“Why did I tell the truth in a report to my commander?”

When he said it like that, Sophis couldn’t hold his gaze, no matter how hard she tried. Her eyes darted to his chest and the heat of shame engulfed and incinerated the anger in her heart, turning it to ashes. Vivek was right. He had only told the truth, a requirement when filing a report. What reason did he have to lie for her? None at all.

“If you want to prove that you are not weak or a liability, then do so,” Vivek said and her eyes widened.

Was he challenging her?

She raised her gaze to meet his. His intense hazel eyes gave nothing away, no sign of his feelings or any hint of the meaning behind his words. The banked flames of her anger sparked back into life, fanned to a fierce roar in her heart by the challenge he had issued and the desire to prove herself.

“I’ll fight you.” The hardness of those words leaving her lips surprised her.

The guards gathered around them moved back as one, positioning themselves at a safe distance, some of them shifting to stand behind the furniture.

A glimmer of light touched Vivek’s eyes again and Sophis had the terrible feeling he hadn’t meant what he had said as that sort of challenge. It didn’t matter. She had fought him before and she would fight him again. She would prove right here and now that she was strong and capable.

“I beat you last time we danced,” he husked in a low voice that felt too intimate, as though he was trying to speak to her alone, shunning the others who surrounded them.

She could feel their eyes on her, the spark of fear that ran through some of the younger vampires and Ella, but didn’t take her focus off Vivek. She wouldn’t give him an opening. If he made the slightest move, she was going to knock him on his backside in front of everyone. That would bring him down a peg or two but would do nothing to satisfy the deeper craving for violence that filled every inch of her.

Vivek lowered his head towards her, his sharp hazel eyes holding her motionless as though he had cast a spell on her, and carefully placed his hand over hers where it held his jacket. She started at the feel of his cool fingers closing over hers and swallowed the lump forming in her throat. She fought to tear her gaze away from his, feeling the danger of staring into his eyes, but failed. It was impossible when he was so close to her, barely a few inches away. Each flake of purest gold that flecked the transition of rich green to earthy brown in his irises held her fast and mesmerised her. She was open like this. He could attack her before she could bring her focus back to the fight let alone manage to defend herself. It would be game over in under a second.

He leaned in closer, until his mouth neared her cheek and she could no longer see his eyes. Her senses snapped back to attention, outlining the room and its contents in sharp relief in her mind. Vivek’s proximity played havoc with them. Her vampire senses bounced off everything in the room like radar but it was quickest to leap back from him. She could feel his senses on her too, monitoring, focused with intensity. The signals echoed back and forth, bouncing off each other, until awareness vibrated between them and threatened to drown out the rest of the room. Sophis swallowed again, fighting a losing battle against it and the startling effect it had on her body.

“Surely you do not want to humiliate yourself again?” he murmured against her cheek, sending unpleasant shivers down her neck as his breath washed over it. The shiver became a tingling that spread over her arms and trickled down her spine. She fought the urge to close her eyes and shoved him backwards, placing distance between them.

His gaze lost its warmth.

“I won the previous two, remember?” Sophis tightened her grip on his black jacket and he tightened his on her hand, crushing her fingers with gentle pressure, not enough to hurt but enough to remind her that he was the stronger out of them, and not only because he had fifty years as a vampire on her. Another rush of tingles swept through her, stealing the strength from her legs and turning her mouth dry. She straightened, refusing to let him affect her and denying the electric feel of his fingers against hers.

Her senses sharpened and Vivek responded in kind, his focus settling wholly on her. The intensity of it and the sure smile that tugged at his profanely sensual mouth shot her concentration to Hell. She sucked in a sharp breath, narrowed her eyes on his, and tipped her shoulders back. Vivek’s gaze briefly dropped to her chest, his right eyebrow quirking, and then met hers again.

She wasn’t going to let him fluster her. She was going to prove right here and right now that she could take him in a fight because if she didn’t, her men would never follow her lead.

Vivek’s broad build lent him physical strength that she couldn’t match, but while he could use brute force in their fights, she had intelligence and speed on her side. She had outwitted him several times over the past few fights and had won because of it.

Sophis snatched her hand back and squared up to him, tilting her chin up and holding his gaze.

“I’ll win this time,” she said on a sneer, unafraid of the darkness emerging in his eyes as the colour began to bleed from them. The flecks of gold turned icy, black gradually ringed his irises, and then pale blue emerged and subdued the hues of brown and green until his eyes were softest aquamarine, the colour that signified him as a member of the Venia bloodline.

Each of the seven pure bloodlines had different eye colours when they were showing their true face. From the obsidian darkness of the Tenebrae, through the fiery orange of the Nocens and the blood red of the Vehemens, the intense emerald of the Caelestis and striking sapphire of the Aurorea, to the royal purple of the strongest family in Europe, the mighty Validus bloodline. All of them were unique in this one way, and many thought it was this difference that divided them, that pitted them against each other in an eternal battle for dominion over their species.

Sophis allowed her eyes to transform and her canines lengthened into fangs, revealing her true self to Vivek. His pupils widened and then narrowed, and she sensed the change in him, the moment he went from treating her as a feeble woman to a potential threat. His guard came up, his focus sharpening, swamping her with a sensation that she was in danger.

She wasn’t going to back down. “You just got lucky last time.”

The group around them jeered.

Vivek glared icily at them and then his gaze shifted back to hers. His fangs showed between his lips as he spoke.

“I will not make the mistake of going easy on you again.”

With that, he threw a right hook at her.

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Sophis dipped her left shoulder back and down, bringing her head out of the path of Vivek’s strike. His fist grazed her cheek as it passed her and before he could right himself, she brought her hand up and struck him under the chin with the heel of her palm. He grunted and stumbled backwards, quickly regaining his footing and lashing out with a clumsy punch. She evaded it but his feint worked. His left fist came out of nowhere and smashed hard into the right side of her cheek, sending her careening across the room.

The wooden edging on the back of one of the blue antique sofas slammed into her spine and forced the breath from her. She grimaced and clutched it with one hand while swiping the back of her other across her mouth to clear away the trace of blood from where her canines had caught her lip. She glared at Vivek.

He smiled casually, rolled his broad shoulders, and then kicked the armchair he had been sitting on out of the way.

Sophis pressed the sole of her right boot against the couch behind her and shoved it backwards, scattering the guards gathered behind it for protection.

She unbuttoned her stiff black uniform jacket, revealing the white pin-tuck shirt she wore beneath, walked to the sofa and carefully laid it over the back. Vivek ran a glance over her, his pupils narrowed and focused, as though he was putting her to memory, and then shirked his jacket too.

Rather than the standard-issue shirt, he wore a tight white t-shirt beneath his black jacket. He laid the jacket down with the same care she had shown towards hers, a mark of their mutual respect for the guard of the Venia bloodline, and then faced her again.

His build was even more daunting now. The stark white of his t-shirt emphasised the breadth of his chest, and the soft material clung to each muscle of his torso, outlining the chiselled square slabs of his pectorals and the hard ridges of his stomach.

Vivek flexed his fingers, causing the tendons and muscles in his forearms to ripple and his upper arms to tense under the tattoos that covered him from wrist to shoulder. He rolled his shoulders again and sent a cocky smirk Ella’s way, gaining a shy teasing smile from the blonde in return.

Sophis clenched her fists.

She was going to lay him out flat on his backside no matter how much damage she took. She wasn’t going to let him use a fight with her over something as important as him belittling her and making her appear weak in front of three members of her squad in order to impress her best friend and work his way into her underwear.

If he hadn’t been there already.

Sophis launched herself at him and he was too slow to respond. By the time he was facing her again rather than Ella, her right fist was smashing into his jaw. His head whipped to one side and she knocked it back the other way with a swift left hook. He grunted, blood coating his lips, and shifted his left foot, bracing himself. She didn’t give him a chance to recover and didn’t listen to Ella as she begged Sophis to stop hitting his face.

Maybe a little time bruised and not so beautiful would give sense a chance to plant roots and grow in Vivek’s mind. Maybe then he would think twice about picking fights with her and doubting her ability.

Sophis landed an uppercut on the right side of his jaw and then frowned.

Had she just called Vivek beautiful?

His fist slamming into her stomach knocked that thought from her mind and she gasped for air. While her body had no need for oxygen, she wasn’t old enough to have overcome her instinct to breathe. Her throat burned as she sucked in great gulps, trying to settle her fear of suffocating. Vivek punched her hard before she could recover, his knuckles crashing into her right cheek and sending her down on one knee. Pain blazed over her skull, throbbing in her eye, and she couldn’t help crying out. She flinched away when Vivek moved, expecting him to deal the finishing blow whilst she was weak and vulnerable.

He surprised her by backing off.

The scent of blood reached her nose.

Sophis slowly opened her eyes, rose to her feet, and looked across the open expanse of Chinese rug to Vivek. His chest heaved as he breathed deep and fast, muscles straining against the white t-shirt. She tried to meet his gaze but he had his ice-blue eyes locked on her cheek.

His pupils dilated, blotting out the paleness of his irises.

Sophis raised her hand and touched her cheek. It stung and her fingertips came away wet. Vivek’s eyebrows knitted together but his pupils remained enlarged, fixed on the spot just below her right eye, burning into it.

Her own breathing quickened to match his, the scent of her blood affecting her almost as much as Vivek’s reaction to it. His focus was completely on that single spot on her cheek, honed with such intensity that she doubted he was even aware of the others in the room or their jeers as they waited for the fight to continue.

He wouldn’t back down. Sophis knew that.

This little cut wouldn’t stop him.

If anything, it would only make the fight more vicious and deadly.

It would only increase Vivek’s thirst for violence.

She knew it because it was how she felt as she watched him staring at the blood on her cheek, hunger darkening his eyes, his focus on his desire to taste the precious liquid that went with the scent now filling the pale blue room.

A flood of hunger crashed through her when Vivek wet his lips, tongue roughly capturing the blood that marred them. His blood. Her own ice-blue eyes fell to his mouth, her breath catching in her throat and saliva pooling around her tongue. She wanted to taste it too.

Sophis snarled and launched herself at him. He ducked, dodged to one side, and threw a punch at her. Sophis dropped low and swept her leg out in an attempt to catch his and send him down. He leapt over her attack and landed his own kick on her shoulder. She screamed this time. The tender scar tissue on her back blazed white-hot and she rolled away from Vivek, clutching her shoulder and breathing hard.

A brief flicker of concern lit his eyes.

Sophis growled, pressed her toes into the rug and sprung at him. He dodged, caught her wrist to stop her from passing him, and snapped her back to him. He didn’t get a chance to land the punch she could see coming. She swept under his arm and kicked him in the back with the full length of her shin, sending him flying forwards and over the armchair. He hit the ground with a grunt and rolled to his feet.

And was gone.

Sophis’s senses blared the warning but she wasn’t quick enough to turn. He came up behind her, locked his hand around her right wrist and kicked her feet out from under her. She hit the rug face first and Vivek came down on her, knocking the air from her lungs.

She struggled against the weight of him across her backside and lurched up only for Vivek to shove his hand against her shoulder and press her into the floor. Pain ripped over the scar on the back of her left shoulder and she gritted her teeth to contain the cry that tried to escape her. Tears stung her eyes but she blinked them away, refusing to show weakness in front of her men and Vivek.

Vivek tugged her right arm back, bending it around until it felt as though it would pop free of her shoulder socket.

“Yield.” It was an order.

He wasn’t asking. He was telling her to give up the fight and concede defeat.

“Never,” Sophis spat out, forced her hips up and tipped him off her.

She rolled on top of him before he could move and straddled his stomach, her feet locked between his thighs and her hands pinning his wrists to the floor.

Sophis breathed hard and stared down into Vivek’s icy eyes. Strands of her brown hair had fallen down and grazed his cheek, shifting in the breeze of their combined breaths. His stomach moved beneath her, a steady rise and fall, muscles hard against the apex of her thighs.

The world disappeared for her this time, the jeers of her men fading a little more with each second that she stared into Vivek’s eyes.

The instinct to fight drifted away together with her consciousness of her surroundings as an awareness of only Vivek grew into existence. It shrouded her senses, forcing them to shift to him in their entirety. He lay beneath her, muscles strained and taut, gaze locked on hers, neither submissive nor aggressive.

Her breathing fell into synchronisation with his.

His gaze fell to her cheek. His pupils dilated again, hunger filling his eyes, sparking on her senses in a way that sent heat into her veins.

“Yield,” she whispered, too caught in the moment to put a firmer voice to that word. It should have come out strong and commanding, not so soft and full of desire that was nothing short of disturbing.

Vivek drew a long deep breath. His stomach pressed into her groin, sending a not-too-unpleasant shiver through her.

With a lightning-fast move, he twisted his wrists out of hers, caught her hands, and flipped her.

Sophis’s eyes widened when she found herself lying beneath him with his hips firmly wedged between her thighs. The spark of violence that had risen back into Vivek’s eyes flickered and died as he dragged his gaze over her, heating her with only a look until she burned hotter than she would have if the sun had touched her. What the hell was happening to her?

She struggled against his grip but it only made things worse. His fingertips pressed into the backs of her hands and she realised with horror that he had entwined their fingers, his palms against hers, and had them pinned to the floor on either side of her head.

Worse than that, he was using a part of his anatomy that she didn’t want to think about to keep her hips against the floor, immobilising her lower body.

Sophis swallowed and stared up into Vivek’s eyes as his gaze shifted once more to the cut on her cheek. His lips parted to reveal the tips of his fangs. His cool breath caressed her face. Her breathing hitched. She almost wanted him to go through with it and run his tongue over the line of blood.

Things couldn’t get worse than this.

“What in the Devil’s good name is happening here?”

Sophis cringed at the sound of Commander Tynan’s deep Russian accented voice bellowing into the room.

There was a flurry of activity around her during which she tried to take her eyes away from Vivek’s and failed. She couldn’t even muster the strength to push him off her. She lay there beneath him, dying inside, wishing the rug would swallow her and take her to Hell. Spending the rest of her days in the fiery pit of torment down there was preferable to facing her superior and explaining just why she was lying underneath Vivek in the middle of a public space in the mansion.

Tynan appeared in view above Vivek’s shoulder, leaned over and grabbed the back of his t-shirt. He tore Vivek off her and shoved him to one side. Sophis didn’t say a word. If she kept silent, Tynan might not unleash the fury blazing in his dark brown eyes on her.

They slid down to her and narrowed.

No luck there.

She flinched when his hand shot towards her, closed around her shirt, and he yanked her onto her feet. He pushed her aside and she bumped into Vivek, who snarled at her, flashing fangs. She snarled back.

“You both want to explain what I just walked in on, because it had sounded like a fight from the training room... but that wasn’t what I just saw.” Tynan moved to stand in front of them and Sophis realised with dread that he was only wearing a pair of loose black sweat pants. His torso was bare, revealing his broad physique and a few new cuts and grazes. He had been training. The last person who had disturbed Tynan in the middle of one of his intense training sessions had spent a day locked in the cells in the lower basement.

“You were fighting, weren’t you?” His eyes shifted from Vivek to her.

Sophis inched her head downwards, afraid of admitting it but unwilling to have Tynan believe that what he had walked in on was anything other than one of their usual scuffles.

Tynan sighed wearily and scrubbed a hand over his short dark hair and down his face, causing his muscles to bunch and twist under his pale skin. Her gaze caught on the sweeping curves of the tribal tattoos that adorned his arms. She traced the beautiful decoration downwards, following the ribbons of it that snaked around his shoulders and then caressed his lower abdomen and hips before disappearing under the waist of his sweat pants. It was enough to spark any woman’s imagination and have them wondering just where the markings went down there and what they looked like.

Every woman in the guard and even some of the high-ranking women in the bloodline knew that Tynan was single and a lot of them had their eye on him. He was handsome, strong for his young years, and held a good rank within the bloodline, but he wasn’t quite what she was looking for.

Vivek’s eyes burned into her. The intent behind his stare caused her senses to flare into life. She focused them on him, curious as to why he was watching her now. Anger dominated his scent. She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. She wanted to end their fight. Is that what he was angry about too?

Tynan wasn’t the only vampire in her bloodline with tattoos. Green and blue dragons covered Vivek’s arms, elaborate and beautiful. Tattoos that she knew he’d had done after becoming a vampire. Why someone would do something so permanent when they had a potential eternity ahead of them was beyond her, even if they were breathtaking.

She had seen them several times in the past when they were fighting or when he had been changing after his shift. The sight of them now took her back to when she had first entered the guard and he had trained her, teaching her everything she needed to know in order to defend herself and quickly dispatch hunters. He had been kind to her back then. Never a cruel word in her direction. Only smiles for her and encouragement.

Something had changed him.

How many times had those four words crossed her mind or kept her awake during the day? She had spent years trying to figure out what had happened to make him act so coldly towards her when she had once been able to call him friend and she was no closer to understanding him.

It confused the hell out of her.

“You do know where the training room is, don’t you?” Tynan said and she cast her gaze down at the Chinese rug, too ashamed to look him in the eye.

“Yes, sir,” Vivek answered, his voice steady and calm, but thicker than usual. The hunger that had shone in his eyes still laced his signature on her senses, speaking to her of desire for blood.

He had wanted to taste that which he had drawn.

Sophis touched her cheek. Tynan’s attention shot to her. He roughly caught her jaw and raised her head, his near-black eyes narrowing on the cut.

“Explain to me what happened here then,” Tynan said and released her jaw. “In my office. Now!”

Sophis flinched from the volume of that word and saluted at the same time as Vivek. Tynan turned and stormed from the room. Sophis followed him without looking at Vivek, grabbing her jacket on the way, and hurried to keep up with her commander. She could feel Vivek following her, his eyes boring into her back, focused so keenly that she could pinpoint the exact spot he was looking at.

Her left shoulder.

It still stung from the fight. When he had been on top of her, pinning her face first against the floor, and had pressed his hand into that area of her shoulder, it had hurt like hell. A second later, the pressure of his hand had lightened, as though he had realised that he was hurting her and didn’t want that. Why? She had felt his hesitation before he had twisted her arm back too. He had never hesitated in a fight with her before. Was it because of her injury? It didn’t make her weak, if that’s what he was thinking. She could still fight him. She would still fight him if Tynan let her. She was sure he wouldn’t mind as long as it took place in the training room instead of somewhere the high-ranking vampires of the household could see them.

Sophis put her black uniform jacket back on and fastened the gold buttons that formed a V down the breast as she followed Tynan across the pale yellow entrance hall and then descended the stone steps to the basement. The guards there whispered as she passed, loud enough that she knew word had already spread about her fight with Vivek and how things had ended.

With her pinned under him in the most intimate of positions.

Why had fate sent her commander into the room at that exact moment?

She didn’t want Tynan to start believing she was a weak female too. He was one of the few guards in the household who believed in her and in having women in the ranks. He had commended her several times on her abilities. She doubted he was going to be commending her this time or that he would be as understanding and supportive as he had been when reading Vivek’s report to her. He led the way into his small cream-walled office near the armoury in the dingy basement of the mansion. The bright lamp on the oak desk struggled to add warmth to the windowless room and the sparseness of the furniture lent it a cold empty air.

Sophis stopped on the other side of the desk to him, her back to the door. Vivek filed in behind her and came to stand on her left. He pressed his right hand to his broad chest and she noticed that he hadn’t put on his jacket. It wasn’t like him to be so disrespectful around Tynan. As an officer on duty, he should be dressed appropriately, especially when in the presence of their commander. Sophis’s gaze caught on the dragons dancing down his right arm, entwined with each other and so detailed that she could have spent hours studying them, picking out each lily or thorny rose in the gaps between them, and each scale on the dragons’ multi-hued backs. Tynan’s tattoos sparked curiosity because of the way they disappeared from view but Vivek’s were beautiful, breathtaking, and fascinating. They were art that enhanced the allure of his honed muscles and had always captured Sophis’s attention.

She dragged her gaze away from them to find Tynan watching her, one eyebrow raised high. There was a look in his eyes that she couldn’t interpret. It had an edge of disbelief to it, a hint of shock, and a smidgen of amusement. Why?

Her eyes widened.

No. It was nothing like that. He was wrong. Just because he had found her underneath Vivek and had caught her looking at him just now, didn’t mean that she felt anything for him. Vivek’s tattoos had always interested her. Her staring at them was like her looking at a painting. It was an appreciation of the skill of the artist and the beauty of the design, not an appreciation of the canvas. Tynan had it all wrong. If Vivek hadn’t been standing beside her, she would have told him that too, regardless of how much trouble she would get in for speaking out of line to her commander. The days when her appreciation might have been more about the body the art was painted on were long past.

Tynan looked as though he was going to settle himself in the black leather chair behind his large desk and then turned his gaze on her and Vivek instead. He frowned and his already near-black eyes darkened further.

He plucked his white shirt from a row of coat hooks on the back wall near a large corkboard crammed with what looked like rosters and other snippets of information and slipped his arms into it, leaving it hanging open.

His gaze worked over both her and Vivek, scrutinising and assessing, slowly filling with shame that eventually had him shaking his head. He ran his fingers through his short dark hair and then took his seat, leaned back into it and loosed a long sigh.

“What am I supposed to do with you two?”

Neither she nor Vivek answered. Tynan didn’t want them to respond. It was written in the hard set of his jaw and his brown eyes.

Sophis straightened, standing tall with her feet shoulder width apart, and placed her hands behind her back, locking them together over her bottom. Vivek mimicked her pose, bracing his feet so his right foot was close to her left and tipping his chin up. He made her feel small when he stood like that, towering several inches over her. She fixed her eyes ahead, on the dull cream wall and corkboard behind Tynan, and waited for him to explode.

She could sense it coming.

Tynan shook his head again. “The leaders of our bloodline are starting to hear rumours and I do not like being questioned by Lord Timur about my ability to lead his guard. If your behaviour continues, I will be forced to kick you both out. No demotions or punishment. You will be dropped to the rank of servant of this bloodline or you will leave it completely, whatever path your pride allows you to choose.”

Sophis’s heart fell into the pit of her stomach. Her gaze ate the flagstones under her feet, shame burning her cheeks even though they couldn’t colour. She scuffed the grey stone slabs with the toe of her right boot. Her life was the guard and she had worked hard to achieve her position within it. She didn’t want to throw that all away because of petty arguments with Vivek, but more than that, she didn’t want to jeopardise Tynan’s position as commander. It was one thing when only her and Vivek’s positions were on the line, completely another when their lord was going to pin blame for their actions on Tynan too.

“We cannot afford to have any weak spots in our defences, not after what happened with the hunter and Lord Timur, and with the approaching masquerade... and that’s what you both are.”

Vivek audibly swallowed and her gaze crept across to his boots. His shame radiated through her, touching her senses, his feelings open enough for her to read them. They both valued the honour of being a guard, and she had fought to keep a level head and act in line with expectations, but Vivek pushed all the wrong buttons in her. He constantly goaded her into fighting and she had a feeling that he really did want to get her discharged. She just didn’t understand why.

They held the same position so it wasn’t done out of an intent to gain rank, unless he wanted to lead both squads. Tynan would never allow it. All squads had nine members now. Seven guards, a second in command, and a captain to lead them. Getting her kicked out wouldn’t gain him any more than the eight guards he already led.

Was he doing this purely to have her dropped from the guard then? He had said in the past that she didn’t deserve her position so soon after becoming a guard but did it go beyond that? Did he believe that she didn’t deserve to be a guard at all?

She had been a civilian once, when she had been newly turned and still learning from her sire. He had wanted her to remain a civilian too and to go away with him to one of the other Venia safe houses in Europe. She had declined the offer and joined the guard instead, choosing to protect the most important members of her bloodline.

She wasn’t sure she knew how to be anything other than a guard now. Without her duty, she would have no sense of purpose. If Vivek succeeded in getting her kicked out, she would probably leave Saint Petersburg and join her sire in Nice. She had always wanted to travel and he wrote to her sometimes, talking of the warmer weather and how different the blood tasted down there, spicy and exotic, full of vitality and nutrients that the blood of Saint Petersburg lacked. What was Nice like at this time of year? Spring in Saint Petersburg was chilly and it often snowed. Her sire had always made it sound as though it was warm all year round in the south of France. Unlike most vampires, she enjoyed summer, but that was when daylight ruled in Russia and the night was short. The lingering heat in the air when it eventually grew dark enough to leave the mansion relaxed her and made the world seem a better place.

“Sophis!”

She jolted to attention, saluting Tynan and snapping her heels together.

“Both of you will stop this foolish behaviour. Do you understand?” Tynan said and she nodded without hesitation.

Vivek saluted and dipped his chin.

Neither of them had ever queried Tynan’s orders. That only led to more questions in Sophis’s mind. Tynan was younger than both her and Vivek, but he deserved the rank he had achieved in the short years that he had been a Venia. Both he and his brother, Jascha, were exemplary and perfect soldiers, trained as humans in special operations for the Russian government, and then as vampires to be the elite of the guards. Sophis knew that Vivek felt the same as she did about Tynan. If he could accept a man younger than him as his commander, why couldn’t he accept a woman as his equal?

“I have a mission for you, and it will require you to work together.” Tynan stood and pushed his chair back before planting his palms on his oak desk. He levelled them both with a hard stare. “Perhaps it will knock some sense into your heads. You will hunt in the city tonight, without your squads, and will find out how many vampire hunters have arrived since our last count.”

Sophis blinked. That sort of mission was something usually reserved for elite guards and Tynan himself. It was an honour to do it in his stead, but it was daunting too. The mission was important enough normally. With the Creator Day masquerade starting soon, bringing almost one hundred high-ranking vampires from the other six pure bloodlines in Europe to their mansion, scouting the number of vampire hunters in the city was critical. A wrong count, even if it was only one missed hunter, could spell disaster. The number of guards and their position in the grounds could prove ineffective and result in failure to protect the lords and ladies of the bloodlines.

She wouldn’t be responsible for that.

Tynan was showing faith in both her and Vivek by giving them this mission and she wouldn’t fail him.

Tynan nodded as though he had seen the resolve in both of their eyes.

His brown gaze shifted to her and softened. “Are you sure you’re up for this mission?”

Sophis cast her eyes around the room, searching for her strength and battling the sudden wave of fear that swept through her blood. After what had happened during her last city patrol and encounter with a vampire hunter, and the events of her past, it was only natural for her to feel apprehensive about heading out of the mansion grounds in search of them. Once she was out there, everything would be fine and she would overcome any residual fear of facing the hunters again.

She nodded. “I am.”

A hint of a smile touched his mouth.

“Good to hear.” He regarded both her and Vivek, his deep voice losing its warmth and regaining its commanding edge. “I do not need to tell you how important this is. Many hunters have entered Saint Petersburg in recent weeks. We must discover what is happening. Hunters have never known of the masquerade before but we are beginning to suspect that they know now. Head into the city, scout them and report to me. Can you do this?”

Sophis and Vivek moved as one, pressing their hands to their chests and speaking in unison.

“Yes, Commander Tynan.”

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Vivek kept pace beside Sophis, his focus on the dark rundown residential streets surrounding him, alert and aware of every shadow and every nook where a hunter could hide. Sophis’s deep brown gaze remained locked ahead of her and he could feel she was on high alert too. Her signature was strong on his senses, sending a signal that she was a danger to him. She wasn’t. Their bout earlier this evening had proven that.

Sophis wasn’t strong enough to defeat him, not when he was focused. The times she had spoken of, taunting him with them to goad him into reacting and fighting her this evening, were both times when he had been distracted. He couldn’t remember what had shattered his focus, but he could remember that it had happened.

He glanced across at her.

She hadn’t said a word since leaving Commander Tynan’s office. He liked their new predicament just as much as she did but it was an order, and she was failing dismally at her role in their mission. Tynan had instructed them to leave their squads behind and masquerade as lovers. Playing the doting male turned Vivek’s stomach but he was willing to do it if it meant they remained inconspicuous.

Sophis wasn’t.

Unless her silent treatment and distance was supposed to be a lover in a foul mood.

She walked under the yellow circle of one of the streetlights hanging between the buildings and he frowned when the light flashed over her face, revealing the thin dark line darting across her right cheek.

He hadn’t meant to cut her.

The smell of her blood had been a distraction and she had used it against him. He had hoped to avoid cutting her for that reason. Distraction was a weakness. Saliva filled his mouth at the thought of blood. It was only a few days since his last hunt but he was hungry again. Tynan had him on duty most nights, either patrolling the city or mansion grounds, or working with some of the teams that would be responsible for security during the ball. Vivek knew that Sophis had received the same busy schedule since returning to duty a few nights ago even though she was still recovering. She was too damn young to be taking the lead against hunters. Her actions that night had been foolish. She should have teamed up with other members of her squad to take the hunter down or waited for him to arrive rather than going in alone ahead of them.

He clenched his fists until his short nails dug into his palms, anger curling through him as memories of that night flashed across his eyes.

Foolish female.

Where had it gotten her?

The hunter hadn’t been alone. Another had shot her in the back from a rooftop and the hunter she had been attacking had used the arrow sticking out of her shoulder as a weapon. He had dragged it over her back, causing the arrowhead to snap off. That hadn’t stopped him. The man had stabbed her again with the holy wood shaft of the arrow and torn a long line through her flesh with it, leaving splinters deep in her skin.

Sophis had gone down in seconds, screaming in agony as the holy wood burned her.

And he had slaughtered both hunters.

Vivek still wasn’t sure what had come over him.

His fists tightened at his sides. He wanted to kill the hunters all over again whenever he thought about it.

And he had thought about it a lot.

Sophis looked across at him, her gaze briefly meeting his, a frown creasing her brow.

Vivek uncurled his fingers and breathed out slowly, expelling his rage. She could sense it and he didn’t want her asking about it, because he didn’t want to question the feeling himself. He wanted to ignore it.

He wasn’t convinced that what their teams said about them was true—that they only fought like vampires and werewolves because they were attracted to each other. He would know if he wanted her. He wouldn’t want to fight her, that was for sure.

He would want to... he frowned as she moved off ahead of him, taking the lead and signalling him to follow.

Who did she think she was?

He had over fifty years on her, had trained her when she was nothing but a youngling trying to prove herself to her sire and the bloodline, and had saved her far too many times to count. If anyone should take point, it was him.

Everything male in him said to storm past her and take the lead himself but he held back, letting her have her way. If he tried to take command things would only degenerate into another fight between them, one which she would blindly go into believing that she would win. She wasn’t in any condition to fight him. She had masked her pain well earlier this evening but he had felt it in her, sensed it through where their bodies connected, his hand on her wrist and her shoulder. She was still healing from the vampire hunter’s attack.

That thought spurred him into catching up with her and then taking that all important step in front.

She growled, grabbed his arm, and dragged him back.

In line with her.

He had expected her to push him behind her, not to accept him at her side, as an equal.

She stepped ahead again, as though she had heard his thoughts.

This time, Vivek snarled and snatched hold of her wrist, pulling her back in line with him. She twisted her arm out of his grip and pinned him with a thunderous glare.

“You should follow me. We both know I’m the more capable leader,” she hissed the words with venom and a sliver of icy blue shot into her eyes before melting away again to reveal only darkness.

“Funny, I do not recall you being particularly capable when you patrolled the city the other week.”

Her anger washed over him, the strength of it swamping all of her other feelings until he could only sense that one in her. Her eyes spoke of other emotions, softer ones locked deep inside her, ones that drew questions up to the tip of his tongue. What made her look at him that way? It wasn’t hatred or rage that burned in her eyes but something else.

Not shame over losing to him.

Or fury over having to hunt with him tonight as punishment for their fight.

It was a mesmerising sort of warmth that bordered on passion or arousal, a heat that scorched his skin and made his bones ache with a ridiculous need to step into her, tangle his fingers into her soft rich brown hair and fuse their mouths together in a hard kiss.

Which was disturbing.

Regardless of how unsettled that desire made him, he might have gone through with it had she not been insulting him with the very lips he was intending to claim.

“You’re one to talk, Vivek. I can recount a thousand reasons why I’m far more competent as a captain than you will ever be, starting with your behaviour towards others of your rank in the guard and the despicable things you did tonight. You are callous, and unworthy of your position.”

He stepped up to her, using his height to intimidate her.

“You have no right to think that,” he snarled the words and ice flashed in her eyes again.

She countered him by stepping right up to him, until he was aware of how close her body was to his, until her proximity was all he was conscious of and their surroundings began to drift into obscurity. She pressed the tip of her finger into his chest. His skin burned as though her touch was holy wood against his bare flesh, not merely her fingertip against his thick black uniform jacket. She tipped her head back, locked eyes with him, and set her jaw in a most deliciously defiant way.

“Really?” She prodded his chest harder, digging her nail in as though she wanted to stake him through the heart with it. “You were intentionally cruel in your report, left Seth to patrol alone, and sought to turn my men against me. You have shirked your duties and brought disgrace to all captains of the Venia bloodline.”

Vivek opened his mouth to retaliate and then snapped it shut. When she put it like that, he couldn’t fail to see her point. She was right, his behaviour recently had been less than sterling, downright disgraceful in fact, but he wasn’t about to admit that to her, not when his pride was already dented.

He had given everything for his bloodline, had fought for his position within the guard, had fought for his vampire family and would gladly die for them too. Duty was everything to him.

Yet the accusation in her words rang true, and the disappointment creeping into her eyes made him feel like a bastard and unworthy of his position.

He had let himself down tonight and he wasn’t even sure what had compelled him to do those things.

But he hadn’t been slacking as she had insinuated and he hadn’t been trying to steal her men either.

“I did patrol with Seth.” It was a weak retaliation but a stand he needed to make. He couldn’t deny that he had carefully chosen the words used in his report so Tynan would fully understand how dangerous her behaviour had been but he could at least defend himself on some of her accusations. “I patrolled half of the grounds with my squad and then waited for him at the designated meeting point. Seth dragged his heels so we returned to the mansion.”

“To steal my men no doubt. You probably wanted to reach them before I could.”

That one stung. What sort of low opinion did she have of him to believe that he was capable of such a malicious act? He hadn’t been serious about having her men join his ranks.

“I felt you standing outside that room, Sophis. I am not a youngling. You were broadcasting anger and only the idiots in the room with me did not feel you there.”

She glared at him. “So you said those horrible things knowing I was listening?”

Hurt surfaced through the darkness in her eyes and he felt like a bastard all over again. It had seemed like a good idea at the time. He had said those things so she would know what was happening and could address the issues her men had with her. She was twisting everything against him and was intent on having things her way, but he wasn’t going to back down until she saw things as they truly were.

“Your men came to me.”

Her eyes widened and she blinked before taking a step backwards. Her hand left his chest and she stared at him in disbelief.

“Why?” There was a tremble to that word and Vivek turned his senses away from her, not wanting to feel how much she was hurting.

His gut tightened over the blunt way he had said it and how ashamed she looked, and he wanted to apologise to her but couldn’t bring himself to go through with it. She was riling him again, accusing him of things he hadn’t done, and he had only meant to set her straight. He couldn’t coddle her and protect her from the truth, no matter how bad he felt about revealing it to her. She needed to know so she could take action. He just wanted to help her. The silence stretched between them, punctuated by her soft breathing and the brief glimmers of pain that shot across his senses whenever he dared turn them on her. He hadn’t meant to hurt her.

“I do not know. They found me there and spoke to me about it... they are young and when you were injured they spent a great deal of time with members of my squad. I presume they just prefer the way I do things.”

She snorted. “Like returning to the mansion when you should have remained at your position and waited for Seth so you could file your reports together? And how is it you patrolled half the grounds so quickly? Eager to get back to the mansion? Did you even go out at all?”

She wasn’t going to let that one go. She must have met Seth during her search for her men and he must have told her what had happened. It irked him that she believed Seth rather than him, that she was willing to believe he hadn’t done his duty tonight and patrolled, but what irritated him most of all was that she was so damned friendly with Seth.

When had that happened?

When she had been in training with him, she had never favoured Seth’s opinion over his own, or sought the man out to spend time relaxing with him in the reception room. He knew that she did that now. She would sit there in that room, discussing patrol and books with Seth, smiling at him as though they were friends. When had everything changed?

Vivek’s gaze fell to her stomach, to a spot above her left hip where her black jacket and shirt concealed a thick scar.

Had it all changed that night a decade ago?

His stomach clenched with the memory and he couldn’t tear his gaze away, couldn’t stop the images from flooding his mind and dragging pain and fear in their wake. Sophis with a dagger in her gut, poisoned blood pouring from the wound and covering his thighs as he held her in the middle of the cemetery surrounded by graves that stank of death and waited for the medical team to arrive, praying they would make it in time.

Tears had streaked her pale cheeks, her ashen lips working silently to tell him things he couldn’t hear because the ringing in his ears had obliterated them.

He had known it then, sitting there with her, watching her die from an encounter that never should have happened because he never should have signed off on her training and allowed her to join the ranks. He should have put an end to it then, told their former commander that she wasn’t cut out for the guard and that she should remain a civilian.

Why hadn’t he?

Vivek closed his eyes.

Because she had been young enough at the time that her sire would have whisked her away.

She would have left Saint Petersburg.

“This isn’t like you.” Her softly spoken words wounded him and desire to defend his actions leapt into his heart but he couldn’t put voice to it. He kept his eyes closed, hiding in the dark and pretending that he hadn’t heard those words leaving her lips and felt them cutting into his heart.

That he hadn’t just had an epiphany.

“Seth was right... Ella has gone to your head and—”

“Now wait a minute.” His head shot up and he fixed her with a glare. Ella was nothing to him. The woman had come into the room and sat on his lap. She had been chasing him, not the other way around. He had tried to make her get off, had known that Sophis would come and see her best friend close to him, and that it would wound her worse than any cruel words he might have said or anything he might have done to her.

Sophis swept her hand out to silence him. “I’m taking the lead. If you don’t like it, deal with it. When we get back to the mansion, I’m going to file a report and then you’re going to speak to my men and tell them the truth. If I see them with you again, I’m reporting you to Commander Tynan. We’ll see who drops a few ranks then.”

The steely edge to her eyes screamed that she would go through with that threat. She turned on her heel and strode on ahead through the haloes of the lights on the quiet pedestrian street.

There was no imminent threat on his senses but Vivek followed her anyway, remaining a few steps behind her to give her some space. He could still feel her anger and knew that if he dared to walk any closer that she would unleash it on him again. Instinct told him to move closer, whispering insidious words about not being able to protect her should she come under attack. He tamped down his need to take the lead in order to keep her safe and swept the area with his senses, trying to remain alert even as his focus kept flicking back to Sophis.

If vampire hunters attacked, he could easily move in front of her and take them head on. She would hate him for it, but at this point her opinion of him couldn’t get much worse. He would rather take the hit on her dire view of him than have her injured again. She might not want to admit it, but he had seen it in her eyes enough times in the past to know that she was aware that he was stronger than her and faster, and better skilled at fighting.

Sophis stopped at a crossroads ahead.

Vivek came up beside her, risking her wrath. She jerked her chin left, towards the broad glittering swath of river at the end of a gently sloping road. He nodded and she turned and walked on, taking the lead once more. The world around them was still, all of the windows in the buildings that edged the pavement dark and not a single car moving nearby. A chill wind carried the hum of distant vehicles in the busier city centre across the river. Finding hunters was always difficult in a city as large as Saint Petersburg but not many humans roamed the streets this late at night. Normally their only occupants were dealers, thieves, vampire hunters and unfortunate souls in the wrong place at the wrong time.

He trailed behind Sophis as she continued down the incline to the river, his gaze scanning the parked cars that lined the residential street. The lights hanging above the middle of the road were brighter here, punctuating the darkness at intervals and even reaching the pavement. A breeze swept up from the river, pungent with the scent of the water, but carrying a familiar undertone.

A vampire hunter he knew well.

Aleksis Romanov.

When had he returned to Saint Petersburg?

Vivek focused all his senses on Sophis, using the intensity of them to silently signal her. She slowed to a halt and looked back over her shoulder at him. He motioned for her to remain there and swept his senses out again. The man was on the move and not far from them. Vivek studied his surroundings, looking for possible avenues of escape or hiding places. Few and far between. The river was barely two hundred metres away and the edge of the road that lined it was even closer still. If Aleksis had his wits about him, he would be aware of them the moment he crossed the road to continue along the river. Even with their preternatural speed, they wouldn’t reach the crossroads behind them before Aleksis came into view.

Vivek caught Sophis’s arm and ran down the sloping street with her, heading towards the hunter. His senses screamed a warning at him but he kept running, silent and fast, aiming for the rear of a white van less than one hundred metres from the intersection.

Sophis gasped behind him as the dark haired man appeared in view at the bottom of the road, his hands tucked into the front pockets of his thick black wool coat and the upturned collar obscuring the lower half of his face. Vivek tugged her to one side, behind the large parked van, and pressed her against the doors. He held her there, his senses locked on the vampire hunter, monitoring him in case he had spotted them. The feel of Sophis against him, her chest rising and falling with her rapid breathing, threatened to bring back their fight and how intoxicating it had felt to have her pinned beneath him. He shoved the feelings away, locking them out of his mind along with his earlier epiphany about why he wanted Sophis off the guard, and forced himself to remain focused on the vampire hunter.

He drew a slow deep breath through his nose, catching the man’s scent. It held an underlying note of vampire. Not a weakling vampire either. It was Venia this man smelt like. Had he been fighting one of the city patrols this evening? Aleksis was foolish enough to go after Vivek’s kind, the pureblood vampires.

Back when Vivek had first encountered the man, the pure bloodlines hadn’t known of the existence of enhanced hunters. The fact that he had survived their first battle had only added to the suspicion the bloodlines had about the hunters after the sudden increase in the numbers of those capable of fighting purebloods around thirty years ago. It was only recently that they had discovered why vampire hunters had become so strong.

Someone had been playing God, tampering with their DNA to include genetic code taken from vampires. The result of the mutation didn’t give him the strength of a pureblood, but it did elevate the human to a level similar to a weakling vampire and made him more of a threat to Vivek’s kind.

When the Law Keepers had discovered this, they had created a database and given all seven pure bloodlines access so they could add information as they gathered it. It detailed known abilities and skills, marked the hunter as an enhanced or normal human, and provided locations they had been spotted. Aleksis’s name was on that register. It was proving useful even in its infancy. They had even granted the werewolves permission to use it and the dogs had provided some extremely useful information about hunters they had encountered. Allied in this war against the new threat of the vampire hunters, his kind were armed with the knowledge and the power to eradicate them before they became a danger.

Aleksis Romanov would die but not until his traits had been documented and his allies exposed.

Vivek wanted that mission.

He wanted vengeance.

Sophis stared beyond his shoulder with wide ice-blue eyes, her body trembling against his, betraying the fact that she had sensed the vampire hunter now disappearing from view behind the set of buildings to Vivek’s right and she feared him.

Aleksis Romanov would die by Vivek’s hand with the dagger he kept locked in a box in his quarters.

The same dagger the vampire hunter had used on Sophis over a decade ago.

Her shaking hand brushed Vivek’s hip as she brought it to rest over the left side of her stomach. Her skin drained of colour.

Without considering the consequences, Vivek placed his hand against her cheek and brought her head around so she faced him. Her pale eyes met his and the look in them compelled him to fulfil her silent request. It was strange to see her so afraid, so weak, and even stranger to have her relying on his strength.

“I will not let him near you,” Vivek whispered, so low it was barely audible even to their heightened hearing. “He will lead us to his fellow hunters. We must follow him. Are you able to proceed?”

She was still for a few seconds, the look in her eyes and her feelings on his senses flitting between panic and resolve to face her past, and then nodded.

Vivek lingered.

He looked at his hand where it cupped her soft cool cheek and the dark thread of blood just above his thumb. Temptation to sweep the pad of his thumb over it, to tell her that he hadn’t meant to draw blood and that it hadn’t just been because he knew the scent of it would distract him during their fight, overwhelmed him but he battled it. Sophis would never believe him capable of the feeling behind his desire to protect her. Not tonight anyway. With their fight and the sight of him with Ella so fresh in her mind, she would deny him if he foolishly tried to give her even the most miniscule clue as to his newly discovered feelings for her.

It was a risk he wasn’t willing to take, not when he wasn’t sure of his feelings himself. The fight had worked him up and the scent of her blood had driven him wild with need, and neither feeling had faded completely. He was still on edge, still hungry for blood and a battle to the death. There was a chance that anything he thought and anything he felt were just a result of that.

He didn’t believe himself capable of that sort of feeling either, at least not for Sophis.

He didn’t want to believe.

Vivek let his hand drop from her face, turned away from her and crossed the road to the other side. She remained leaning against the back of the white van for long seconds before pushing away from it. When she joined him, she wouldn’t look at him. Her now dark eyes darted around the street, touching everywhere but on him, and eventually settled on the river.

Sophis motioned for him to follow and he did, remaining close to her this time, no longer willing to risk even a few metres between them. It wasn’t only because Aleksis was a threat to Sophis, and himself. It was because he could still feel the lingering beat of fear in Sophis’s blood. She was putting on a brave face by resuming the lead but she wasn’t fooling him. Her recent ordeal with another vampire hunter hadn’t been enough to have her thinking twice about being out in the city, but the presence of Aleksis certainly was. It was only duty that kept her feet moving forwards rather than retreating to the mansion. If his presence at her side would boost her confidence and give her the strength to continue their mission, then he would stay there, close to her, and he would keep his promise to protect her.

Aleksis would never lay a finger on her again.

He would go against his bloodline’s orders to only track the hunter and gather information on him and would kill him, would watch him bleed out from a dagger in his gut, before he allowed Aleksis to even step within thirty metres of Sophis.

She must have felt his anger again because she glanced back over her slender shoulder at him, rogue strands of her long dark hair obscuring part of her face, and her near-black eyes meeting his for the barest of seconds before she dropped them to rest on the pavement and then turned away again.

His fingers burned with the memory of how soft her skin had felt beneath them.

Did her cheek burn too? Did it ache with the need to have him touch it again, just as he ached with a need to touch her?

Vivek shook his head to dislodge those thoughts and focused on tracking Aleksis. Sophis turned the corner ahead of him and Vivek switched his focus to her until he could see her again, even though he knew that Aleksis was over four hundred metres ahead of them. He wouldn’t leave anything to chance. Not tonight. Not while Sophis was still recovering.

Not ever again.

Aleksis strode on, a shadowy distant figure. His heavy footfalls told Vivek that some things hadn’t changed in their decade apart. The hunter still wore sturdy black leather army boots that could disorientate a vampire for a few seconds if a kick connected with their head. Vivek used his senses to track the hunter whenever he turned down a road or alley, leading them deeper into the outskirts of the city. The wind picked up, chill against his skin, carrying with it a sharp metallic scent that Vivek hoped didn’t mean snow. Snow made tracking difficult. It exposed footprints and swamped everything in the same overpowering scent. If their routine counts of the hunters were going to become nightly affairs until the ball had passed, then they could do without a change in the weather. It was almost impossible to remain hidden during a hunt when fresh snow fell between the time when most humans retired and the time when his kind and the vampire hunters came out.

He had even resorted to using the rooftops in the past and sometimes the river, anything to stop himself from becoming the hunted rather than the hunter.

The residential area gave way to commercial buildings, a mixture of old brick factories and modern metal constructions. The roads widened and the number of cars parked along them dwindled. Not good. If Aleksis looked back, he would easily spot them and it was late enough at night that their presence in the area would arouse suspicion. Vivek signalled Sophis and she nodded, and followed him down a street that ran parallel to the one Aleksis had taken.

Sophis remained in line with him this time.

When they came to the end of the road, Vivek signalled her to stay in the shadows of the long brick factory at their backs and peered around the corner. Aleksis quickly ascended a set of stone steps that led up a hillock to a row of tall brick buildings at the top. The three spacious warehouses had seen better days. Several of the windows were broken and the door of the one on the left looked as though someone had kicked it in. Tramps most likely. The disused buildings would draw them like flies, especially during the bitter winter months.

Aleksis knocked on the door of the middle one. It opened, revealing a pitch-black interior that concealed the person on the other side, and Aleksis stepped inside. Just as the door was about to close, two more men hurried up the stone steps, dressed in long heavy black coats ideal for hiding weapons from the local police and prying eyes and not out of place at this time of year in Russia. The dark haired one on the right held his hand up and the door opened again.

This time, the hunter who had opened the door stepped out into the light.

A female with wavy black shoulder-length hair dressed in a dark sweater and jeans.

She embraced the fair haired male, smoothed her hand over his cheek and then kissed him.

Vivek growled. Female hunters were more dangerous than their male counterparts. A female could breed with a strong male hunter and bear children to bring into their ranks. A report filed by Lady Lilith of the Vehemens bloodline stated that it was possible for a genetically modified hunter to pass on the mutations in their DNA to their offspring. The bloodlines trusted her word on this. She had once been a hunter for Section Seven, and was the product of mutated DNA, a merging of human and vampire DNA requested by her mother before Lilith and her sister Eve had been conceived. Lady Lilith was the source, the seed from which the idea of enhancing hunters had sprung.

Records had since been siphoned from the Section Seven database using her login and they had uncovered several breeding programs and the results.

The children born of the union between two enhanced humans were stronger and showed signs of being more in tune with their vampire traits. They were a danger.

If the male in this pair of hunters was enhanced and their offspring allowed to mature, they would become a deadly threat to his bloodline.

Vivek already knew that this female was enhanced. Her name was in the register.

Sophis shifted closer to him, her side brushing his back, and looked past him to the building.

She growled low in her throat.

“What is she doing here?” The words left her lips on a second snarl.

The woman looked towards them, as though she could see them where they stood shrouded by darkness, revealing the scarred left side of her face. The two men walked past her into the building but she lingered and Vivek moved further into the shadows.

Vivek could understand Sophis’s anger. Aleksis Romanov hadn’t been alone the night he had almost killed Sophis.

His twin sister Izabella had been with him.

She had almost cost Vivek his life.

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Sophis’s hand gently coming to rest against his back startled Vivek into tearing his eyes away from the vampire hunter who had nearly claimed him as her prize. He hadn’t told Sophis about what had happened that night over ten years ago as she had lain in his arms, sick from blood loss and poison, but the concern that shone brightly in her brown eyes said that she knew, as did the place where her hand rested.

Izabella Romanov had used his distraction against him. He had been so concerned with Sophis that he had lost track of his surroundings. Aleksis and Izabella had taken flight into the shadows of the cemetery after the initial attack, leaving him alone with Sophis, but they must have only gone out of range of his senses and waited for him to drop his guard before striking again. She had come at him so fast that he hadn’t even had the chance to turn fully before her holy wood stake had penetrated his back to the left of his spine, shattering his ribs.

He was lucky he had sensed her at all and had started to turn. If he hadn’t, her aim would have been true and the stake would have hit his heart, killing him. He would have died that night and Sophis would have died too. Izabella would have killed her before help could arrive.

Vivek had dropped Sophis and launched himself at Izabella, but the pain of the holy wood burning into his flesh had slowed him down and he had only managed to scratch the left side of her face, cutting her with three of his claws from her temple to her nose and lips. She had evaded his fumbled second attack by ducking behind a large stone cross on a grave, tossed a vicious look in his direction as she held her bleeding face, and then fled to join her brother at the top of a grassy embankment. They had stood there a moment, watching him waver as the pain became too much to bear and he collapsed to his knees on the wet grass, desperately trying to reach the stake in his back to remove it. Taunting him with the fact that they were within his reach yet beyond it at the same time.

The sound of the warehouse door closing snapped Vivek back to the present but the dull throb in his back wouldn’t allow him to forget the pain in his past.

Izabella would die too.

He would sever both her head and her brother’s as vengeance for that night.

She wouldn’t be coming back as one of his kind and death by any means other than decapitation would allow that because of her mutated DNA. The vampire hunters were fated to become the very creature they loathed on death. It triggered the immortality part of their new genes. Vivek called that justice for daring to steal the precious abilities of his kind.

How many of them would be brave enough to kill themselves and end their life as a vampire?

The one that Marise, the Law Keeper of the Venia bloodline, had tracked in Saint Petersburg after he had attacked Lord Timur and come close to killing him had taken poison to protect the hunters’ secrets but that hadn’t stopped them discovering the genetic manipulation the hunters were undergoing. Marise had taken the body to the Law Keepers’ stronghold outside the city of Vilnius and the Vehemens vampire Eduard had examined it, revealing that the DNA sequence had changed from human to something closer to a vampire. Several days later, the dead hunter had awoken. When faced with the revelation of what he had become on death, he had tried to kill himself with a surgical knife. When that had failed and he had succumbed to the Law Keepers’ questioning, surrendering information about the locations of several Section Seven bases, he had sought death through a desperate and grim method.

He had escaped and fled into the sunlight.

Holy wood touching vampire skin was painful enough. Vivek couldn’t imagine how terrifying and agonising death by sunlight would be.

Perhaps he wouldn’t decapitate Izabella and Aleksis Romanov. Perhaps he would snap their necks and then stake them out in the sunlight and wait for them to turn and burn.

He smiled grimly, amused by his thoughts, and Sophis frowned at him, her gaze questioning.

He wasn’t about to tell her the dark imaginings crossing his mind. She thought he was cruel as it was.

Instead, he motioned towards the buildings, intimating the one on the left. It was close enough for them to be able to sense the hunters, count them, and even judge their strength. Aleksis and Izabella were strong, and the enhancements they had undergone were so successful that they had even slowed their aging, so they still looked as young as they had all those years ago, barely thirty in appearance. Not many of the documented hunters displayed such a trait.

Sophis led the way, stealthily crossing the open expanse of road, running up the grassy incline, and then heading straight into the building on the left without disturbing the broken door. Vivek followed close behind her, his senses sweeping the area while hers remained fixed ahead, monitoring all three buildings.

As they entered the darkness, Vivek allowed his eyes to change. His senses sharpened with them and his fangs extended. The blackness faded to reveal the room and silver highlights touched the broken furniture and rubble that littered the floor, outlining it for him. He moved swiftly through the building, taking the lead because his vision was better than Sophis’s. She brought up the rear, her senses now sweeping outwards, scouring their surroundings and outside the building too, searching for signs of more hunters.

When they worked together as harmoniously as they were now, Vivek could almost believe that Tynan was right about them and that they were a good pairing. Tynan had spoken to him in the past about what would happen should he prove himself worthy of promotion to the position of elite guard, a role in which he would work only with other elite guards. It was Vivek’s dream but it came with a catch. Tynan had mentioned that he would want to elevate Sophis at the same time and match him with her. Vivek had been against the idea solely because Sophis wasn’t ready for such a leap in rank. She was still too young and too rash, and had proven that the other week.

His chest tightened and he rubbed the spot over his heart to ease it. Coming around that city street corner to see Sophis fighting a vampire hunter alone, her squad watching on from a distance as though she had told them to stay out of the way, had been one of the most heart-stopping moments of his life. He had sensed the shooter on the rooftop, had spotted him bare seconds before he had fired on her, and her scream had chilled Vivek’s blood, freezing it in his veins. Instinct had seized control, a fierce need to protect her beating deep in his bones as he had sprinted across the distance between them. Everything had been a blur after that. There had been blood, the feel of flesh rending under his claws, the bitter taste of fury, and the sweet pleasure of pain. He had come to his senses to find himself almost a mile away from where he had started and with the shooter’s butchered corpse at his feet. He had left it there and run back to her, back to where she lay on bloodstained concrete sick from poison.

That was the most heart-stopping moment he had ever experienced.

It had robbed him of his strength, filling his mind with twisted flashbacks to that night ten years ago, causing her to flicker between looking as she had then, soaked in blood with a dagger protruding from her side, and as she had in the present moment.

He had snarled his commands, needing to be alone with her, to be the one to tend to her and ensure she would live. He had needed to save her.

Sophis touched his back again, shattering the memories clouding his heart and mind, and he looked over his shoulder at her. The sight of her in one piece, watching him in the darkness with curious eyes that he felt could see straight through him, soothed the raging beast within him and his focus slowly returned to the present. Her hand dropped to the spot on his back where Izabella had staked him and her look softened. Let her think that his mind was on that night ten years ago and his own close encounter with death. It was easier than trying to explain what was really going on in his mind and his heart.

He eased up the rickety staircase to the first level of the dark building and then made his way across the patchy broken wooden floor to the crumbling brick wall that separated the building from the one where the hunters were.

Vivek turned and pressed his back against the dusty wall. Sophis carefully crossed the room, stepping around the holes in the floor and the detritus left by whoever had previously occupied the building. She eyed the wall with distaste and placed her hand against it rather than leaning into it. Such a small area of contact would hinder her senses but he wasn’t about to get into an argument about the correct manner in which to use a structure as an amplifier.

She mouthed the word ‘count’ at him.

At least he thought it was ‘count’. In the darkness, it had looked like something distinctly ruder and with one less vowel.

Vivek switched his focus from her to the neighbouring building. The brickwork muted the voices on the other side but he could pick out fragments of their conversations. There was no talk of the ball but several mentions of lords. He looked at Sophis.

She leaned against the wall facing him, her ear close to it and her pale blue eyes on his. Silver threads danced over her form, his heightened vision revealing her in the darkness, tracing down her hair and over her shoulders, curving around her waist and hips, tempting him to track them with his gaze to places it shouldn’t go.

He closed his eyes instead and focused on counting the number of hunters.

His senses touched on everything in the adjoining building floor by floor and he either tallied it as living or discounted it as an object.

Nine.

That was a lot of vampire hunters.

A dangerous amount if they were all enhanced.

While a single enhanced hunter working on their own wasn’t a threat to most of his kind, a group of them working together could prove a problem for even a strong vampire.

Sophis touched his shoulder. A shiver danced over his flesh, spreading outwards from the point her fingers had brushed and carrying warmth in its wake. Vivek frowned at the intensity of his reaction, how that simple brush of her hand had sent sparks like fireworks exploding from every nerve ending in his body and heated him down to his core in a split second, and then put it down to being in his true guise. It was his heightened senses that made him feel her touch as an electric shiver, not anything else.

He opened his eyes and met hers.

Another tremor raced through him, pounding in his blood like a drum, a beat that ignited a deep hunger in him that wasn’t thirst for blood.

He stifled it and held his fingers up, revealing nine. She raised an eyebrow, stared intently at the wall and then nodded. Had she counted less or more the first time? A wrong count could prove disastrous. This wasn’t the last time someone would track hunters and tally their numbers before the Creator Day masquerade but it was imperative that they knew exactly how many they were dealing with at all times during the lead up to it.

Vivek counted again, double-checking his figures.

Four on the ground floor. Two of those were Aleksis and Izabella. He would recognise their signatures anywhere because they were so similar to each other—a trait he presumed was because they were twins. The other two were probably the men who had arrived after Aleksis. Three on the same level as him and Sophis. Two on the top floor, although one was in transit now, heading downwards. The other was very still and the signature was faint. Sleeping most likely. Perhaps Sophis had missed that one. Her senses weren’t as acute as his were.

Nine.

More than he and Sophis could deal with alone.

Someone on the same level as him mentioned lords again. Two more voices joined it, both male and both speaking Czech. Vivek could speak the language fluently. He listened, picking out words in the muffled conversation.

No one mentioned the ball but instinct said that these hunters were here because of it. They needed to report to Tynan and get him to send the elite guards out to scout for more hunters.

The vampire hunter that was moving continued downwards and then reached the periphery of Vivek’s senses. Were they heading out?

He signalled Sophis and she nodded, silently following him back through the building. Vivek paused at the door and quickly glanced out, his gaze scanning everything in under a second. No sign of the hunter. He led Sophis down the hillock and into the shadows of the tall industrial buildings. They moved swiftly on a direct path to the mansion but Vivek didn’t drop his guard. He monitored and mapped his surroundings with his senses, constantly on the lookout for more vampire hunters.

Once they had filed their report, they would gather their men, return to the hunter base and eradicate them all, Aleksis and Izabella included.

Vivek scrubbed a hand through his unruly black hair and glared at the road ahead. He couldn’t remember the last time there had been nine hunters in Saint Petersburg at the same time, and he had never seen more than three together before. There were no Section Seven bases in the area, unless the hunters had created one since his kind had last accessed their network or information about it had been hidden in the protected files.

Enhanced or not, this handful of hunters wouldn’t stop the masquerade from happening. It was tradition, held every year to celebrate the recorded point in time when the first vampire had awoken on Earth and started to spread his gift. The ball was a single night in which the pure bloodlines cast aside their differences, donned masks, and threw away the rules. Those lucky enough to attend the masquerade were no longer lords or ladies, or Chosen Sons and Chosen Daughters, or even commanders and elite guards. Their rank, their bloodline, the laws, none of it existed at the ball. They were one species, born of one master, all the children of his creation.

They were vampires.

Many dreamed of attending the masquerade. Few achieved that desire. Only the highest-ranking members of the bloodlines received invitations to the ball.

Which was why the gathering of hunters seemed insane.

Even if the hunters worked together, they were only a match for vampires of Vivek’s age and strength or possibly lower. The members of the seven pure bloodlines of Europe attending the ball were the strongest and included some of the oldest vampires in existence.

Lord Hyperion of the Validus was over three thousand years old and could probably defeat all nine hunters without even breaking a metaphorical sweat.

Nine hunters wasn’t the entire force. It couldn’t be. If Aleksis were serious about attacking the ball, then he would have more hunters based in different locations throughout the city. This was just one cell. How many more were there? How many hunters did Aleksis have under his command?

It didn’t matter.

There could be one hundred hunters, one for each of the attendees, and the ball would still go ahead. The lords and ladies of the pure bloodlines would sooner face the hunters disturbing them than forgo a Creator Day masquerade. Especially this one.

Another century had passed since the birth of their creator. In honour of this special occasion, the ball would last two nights.

Forty-eight hours of freedom from duty and laws for the elite of their kind. The lords and ladies wouldn’t give that up, not for anything.

The guards could live without it.

The masquerade normally started in the evening and ended before dawn, with guests leaving immediately. A two night celebration meant that every lord or lady, Chosen Son and Chosen Daughter, of each of the seven bloodlines would be sleeping in the Venia mansion.

In the day.

When none of the guards could venture outside.

Many of the bloodlines had proposed to bring guardians with them.

Werewolves.

The recent steps towards peace between the werewolf and vampire species by Lord Hyperion of the Validus bloodline and the remaining lord of the werewolves, Dmitri, brought with it added complications. Lord Hyperion, Lady Prophecy of the Caelestis bloodline and Lord Valentine of the Aurorea bloodline had forced agreement from the other lords and ladies that in an effort to improve relations between vampires and werewolves, only free werewolves would be used as guards during the ball.

Tensions were running higher than usual between the bloodlines because of that.

The Venia’s guardian compound was on lockdown, Lord Timur convinced that the werewolves Dmitri brought with him to guard them would attempt to free their kin from Venia rule. Lord Hyperion had apparently assured him that no such thing would happen but Lord Timur wasn’t taking any chances. Without the guardians, the Venia household was vulnerable to attack during the day.

Many in the bloodline believed that the Venia should stop keeping werewolves like rabid dogs in the compound and seek to employ them instead, following the lead of the Validus and Nocens bloodlines just as the Aurorea and Caelestis had. Lord Timur was intent on keeping them as slaves, in following with tradition. The Tenebrae and Vehemens bloodlines were in agreement with him for now.

The bloodlines were divided on the matter.

Lord Hyperion was a powerful and cunning foe, and had threatened Lord Timur, reminding him that tradition also stated that Saint Petersburg and its environs were Validus territory.

Therefore, in following with tradition, Lord Hyperion was perfectly within his rights to remove the Venia by force.

Lord Timur was no fool. The Venia bloodline was strong but they were no match for the Validus. There were barely a handful of vampires in Vivek’s bloodline that were over five hundred, fewer still who had reached one thousand years old. The guards of the Validus bloodline, known as Watchmen, were all over five hundred years old, with most over one thousand.

Lord Timur had conceded.

The free werewolves would guard the mansion during the ball.

Vivek wasn’t looking forward to having to patrol with the mangy dogs.

Although, he was curious to see their lord, Dmitri. The tales painted him as a fierce warrior of monstrous stature in both human and wolf form.

And he was equally curious about whether the once-darling princess of the Venia bloodline, Mia, would dare to come with him.

Creator Day masquerade or not, the Law Keepers wouldn’t stand for there being a mixed species couple at the ball.

It was one thing to work with a werewolf, completely another to mate with one.

Vivek froze when his senses sparked. Sophis stopped dead too.

Vampire hunter.

A slim man with overlong dark hair and a short leather jacket that bulged out at the chest in a way that reeked of concealed stakes came out of a side street just ahead of them. Vivek tugged Sophis against him, buried his fingers in the satin of her long hair, and held her face close to his so it looked as though he was kissing her. All the while, he watched the man. The human glanced their way and then turned and entered the park across the road, heading into the darkness. He was probably the one who had left the building before they had exited the one beside it.

Sophis broke free of Vivek’s embrace and scowled as she smoothed out her uniform. Undeterred by her reaction to his touch, Vivek grabbed her hand, slipped his fingers between hers, and started walking with her. Her hand was soft in his, small and delicate feeling. His skin tingled where her fingertips pressed into his knuckles, holding him tightly. Was this how she would hold the hand of her lover?

He liked the pressure of her grip, the way it made him feel as though she would never let go, conveying a sense of attachment and need.

It was a lie.

Pretend.

Telling himself that didn’t change how it made him feel. What the hell was wrong with him recently?

His heart mocked him, saying he knew exactly what was wrong and exactly why his attitude towards Sophis had taken a sharp downturn.

Seeing her hurt again, seeing another hunter coming close to killing her, had sent his desire to protect her spiralling into overdrive and he couldn’t deny why that need existed in him.

He couldn’t admit to it either.

Her hand shifted against his, sending a fiery jolt shooting up his arm to his shoulder where it melted into his blood, heating his body through despite the cold night. His senses zeroed in on her, sharpening his awareness of her proximity and the subtle but alluring scent of the trace of blood on her cheek mixing with her perfume. She had to move close to him as they entered the park through the open wrought iron gates and her breasts brushed his arm. If his heart had beat, it would have gone off the scale. He tried to get his focus off her but it was hard when she was so close to him, clinging to his hand even though the vampire hunter they were tracking would no longer be able to see their charade as lovers through the darkness.

Vivek’s eyes changed and the world brightened until it looked as though someone had turned on floodlights in the park. Silver skittered over everything, pulsing with life, outlining it all for him.

Everything including Sophis.

She glanced up at him when he looked at her, her irises shining silver, telling him that she had changed too, and then stared ahead again.

Vivek told himself not to take pleasure from the feel of her hand in his and her body so close. He was just reacting so strongly to everything because their fight and his hunger for violence and blood had him fired up, and Aleksis and Izabella had him on edge. He repeated that in his head, focusing on it and the park, shutting out the presence of Sophis at his side. It didn’t stop the little shivers that tripped up his arm each time she brushed against it or the way his gut tightened and he wanted to groan whenever she loosed a breathy sigh. All of it sent his mind racing down avenues best reserved for times when he was alone, preferably asleep and dreaming so he could pretend this was all a nightmare and beyond his control. She didn’t send him careening off the deep end into hunger so intense and consuming he was close to losing all control with barely a sigh and a casual, probably accidental, brush of her body against his.

His gaze crept to her throat, gliding slowly over the short stand-up collar of her black jacket to the smooth creamy flesh above it. His fangs pressed down on his lower lip, hunger curling through him and pushing him to move closer to her, to take what he wanted. He groaned internally. What he wouldn’t give to sink his fangs into that soft skin and taste her.

Vivek frowned.

His eyes dropped to her jacket, and then to his.

And then darted to their surroundings.

The vampire hunter was gone.

“Damn it,” Vivek muttered and tugged on Sophis’s hand, making a break for the trees that edged the open expanse of grass. They needed cover.

“What the Devil is wrong with you?” Sophis tried to twist free of his grasp but he tightened his grip on her.

He wouldn’t allow her to slow down, not when they were both in danger.

“Uniform,” he pushed the word out and doubled his speed.

Sophis barely managed to keep up with him but he didn’t relent. They crashed through the bushes and into the cover of the trees. He pulled her behind one of the broad trunks and pinned her there with his body, placed his hand over her nose and mouth to silence her breathing and held her as she struggled.

It was a cruel way to force her to stop breathing when she hadn’t forgotten the need but he wouldn’t risk her giving away their position.

He leaned in close when she wouldn’t stop thrashing around and clawing at his hand, bringing his mouth near to hers.

“Silence,” he whispered softly. “I will release you if you will not breathe.”

He felt her swallow and nod.

Vivek eased his hand away from her mouth, ready to replace it if she so much as drew a single breath. He knew it was difficult for her not to breathe but it was necessary. He had forgotten the need himself shortly after turning one hundred, far earlier in his vampire life than most. It was rare for him to feel the need to breathe at all now but sometimes he couldn’t help himself.

Like when he was fighting Sophis.

Vivek leaned to his right and peered around the tree trunk. A crossbow bolt zipped past his ear and thudded into the tree a few metres behind him. How the hell had the hunter spotted them? Vivek growled and scanned the darkness in the direction the bolt had come from. He had a few seconds before the hunter reloaded and could fire again.

He spotted the man in the trees that lined the side of the park at a ninety-degree angle to the one where Vivek hid with Sophis.

Night vision goggles.

Damned hunters and their toys.

The crossbow was a compact model, a type that folded out. No wonder Vivek had thought the man would be only carrying stakes. What other weapons was he concealing in that jacket of his?

Vivek wasn’t about to hang around to find out.

He watched the hunter raise his weapon, dodged the bolt that flew at him, and then started to make a break for the man.

Sophis beat him to it.

She broke cover on the other side of the tree and was halfway across the grass before Vivek could react.

He growled and went after her, sprinting in an effort to catch up. He wasn’t going to let her fight alone. They didn’t know if this was an enhanced hunter or not.

The hunter reloaded and fired another round. Sophis dived to avoid the bolt, hit the damp grass, rolled onto her feet and sprung forwards, launching herself into the air. She snarled as she flipped over, tucked her left leg in and extended her right. The heel of her black riding boot smashed into the man’s shoulder, sending him crashing to the ground.

Her landing was off.

She hit the ground perfectly but skidded on the wet grass, ending up on her backside.

Vivek roared, drawing the hunter’s attention away from her as the man got to his feet, and barrelled into him, taking him back down and landing on top of him. He grunted on impact and Vivek slammed his right fist into the man’s jaw. Judging by how quickly the man’s reactions came back online, he was enhanced. The hunter grabbed Vivek’s wrist, shoved it upwards and tipped him off balance.

Sophis was on the man before he could attack.

She leapt on his back, wrapped one hand around his forehead and yanked his head backwards. The man cried out and her lips parted in a vicious smile, revealing her fangs. She struck but the man brought his elbow back, smashed it into her side and knocked her off him.

Vivek pushed to his feet and took the man on, throwing punches in quick succession to drive him backwards, giving Sophis a chance to recover. The man ducked and dodged, strafing left and right to avoid each strike. Vivek doubled his effort, using his speed to his advantage, toying with the hunter and wearing him down.

A low snarl sounded in the darkness and the smell of Sophis’s blood hit Vivek like a tidal wave, swamping his senses and sparking his hunger back into life. He drew a deep breath to catch the sweet scent and savour it.

The smell of it and the thrill of the fight collided into one deep pounding in his veins, one violent need to taste fresh warm blood coating his tongue and easing down his throat.

Sophis joined the fight, kicking the man in the back of his leg to force him onto one knee and then catching him with a sharp uppercut. Vivek snarled when she moved between him and the man but she growled back at him, exposing her fangs, her silvery eyes challenging him to try to intervene.

He wanted the kill as much as she did and he wasn’t going to back down. He craved the blood and the fight, the pain of battle and the sweet reward at the end of it. Hunger burned in his gut, lust for violence a heady drug that drove him to obey, and he could think only of sinking his fangs into this man’s throat and drinking his fill.

He despised hunters.

Vivek went to rejoin the fight but the sight of Sophis stopped him.

She moved swiftly, her punches and kicks executed to perfection, a beautiful dance that mesmerised him. He had never seen her fight like this, with such grace and such deadly precision. She countered each punch or kick the hunter aimed at her, evading him or blocking and landing her own blow. She was alive with the instinct to fight and feed, driven by her need for blood to restore her strength and finish healing the wound on her back given to her by another hunter.

Vivek had taken that man’s life as payment for what he had done to her, but Sophis would take this man’s life as her own form of retribution.

And he would allow it.

Sophis shifted behind the man, caught him by the chin and viciously pulled it up. She sank her fangs into his throat through his dark shirt and the rich scent of blood flooded the chilly night air.

Vivek watched her, breathing hard, unable to tear his gaze away. The sight of her bordered on erotic as she dug her claws into the man’s jaw, piercing the skin, and moaned as she drank deep from his vein. Vivek bit his lip. His fangs cut into it and filled his mouth with the taste of his own blood. His body stirred again and hunger hit him like a blow to the chest, knocking him. The sight of Sophis and the feel of her pleasure as it flowed out of her and shimmered across his senses coupled with the strong scent of the hunter’s fear as his life faded away intoxicated him. Vivek almost took a step forwards, hungry to join her in tasting the man, but stopped himself.

This was her kill, beautifully executed. Entrancing. If he dared to join in, she would turn on him too.

Sophis lifted her head and an arrow of desire shot through Vivek’s heart as she drew back, dark blood glistening on her lips. She licked them, capturing only half of the nourishing liquid. The rest of it enticed him, urged him to go to her and kiss it off her lips, to delve his tongue into her mouth and share in the taste of the hunter.

To take her and make her his.

Vivek turned away, curled his fingers into tight fists and blew out his breath to steady himself.

He wanted to feed too, needed to kill. This feeling had nothing to do with Sophis. The denial was weak, so flimsy that it easily shattered and his gaze roamed first to his shoulder and then over it to her.

Sophis dropped the hunter’s body and tilted her bloodstained chin up. Her eyes met his, almost white in his heightened vision, and her chest heaved as she breathed hard. The scent of her arousal permeated the air, the divine smell causing every muscle in his body to tense, winding him tighter until he was close to crossing the narrow strip of ground separating them and claiming her mouth and then her neck.

He shifted to face her.

Her eyes darkened and dropped, raking over his body, burning him wherever they touched. They lingered on his chest, his stomach, his groin. The length of his uniform jacket would conceal the granite-hard bulge in his black trousers but he couldn’t hide the scent of desire as easily. She would smell it on him, the same heady need that was currently controlling her. It urged him to go to her, to steal this moment. She was open, willing, and hungry for him.

Vivek turned away again. Not for him. She was lost in the haze of her feed, aroused by the fight and the taste of fresh blood. The moment that intoxicating feeling passed, she would look at him as she always did, with hatred burning in her eyes.

He sensed her move and glanced at her when she came to stand a few feet away from him. She cleaned her face with the sleeve of her black jacket, erasing the remaining drops of crimson he had wanted to lick away, stealing them from him.

“I didn’t see anything,” she said and Vivek turned to face her, confusion knitting his eyebrows. She kept her gaze fixed on the grass. There was an edge to her expression that bordered on shy. It wasn’t the first time this evening that she had looked that way around him.

“The hunter was human.”

“I thought that if he was enhanced, if he had our DNA in his body, that his blood might hold memories.”

Vivek looked over his shoulder at the hunter’s corpse. He could understand her reasoning. The man had recovered too quickly from Vivek’s initial punch and had been too strong to be anything other than enhanced. Perhaps the gene that allowed vampires to see memories in each other’s blood was the one that also granted immortality. The one that required death as a catalyst to bring it to life.

“Do you think he was enhanced?” Sophis’s soft voice drew his attention back to her and he nodded. “Do you think they all are... the other six we felt tonight?”

There was fear in her voice and he could feel it in her signature too. She feared mentioning Aleksis and Izabella Romanov as though they were demons who would materialise if she spoke their names aloud. They weren’t. They were humans and he would prove that to her. He would kill them both and she would see there was nothing to fear. Enhanced or not, a vampire hunter was no match for one of their kind.

Vivek frowned. “I am not sure. Aleksis and Izabella definitely are. The rest... well... that is what we need to find out.”

He turned, picked up the body, and slung it over his shoulder.

“What are you doing?” Sophis said.

“Taking this hunter in for questioning.” He jostled the corpse into a better position on his shoulder and the confusion in her eyes only intensified. “If he is enhanced, as I suspect, then he will turn within a few days. We can question him then.”

“In a few days... when the ball starts in barely two?”

“Commander Tynan will have our heads if we return without the body.” Vivek wasn’t about to argue his point with her. “Need I remind you that we failed to question him? We should have used this as an opportunity to interrogate one of the hunters, not place our bloodline and the others in danger by killing him outright.”

Sophis stared hard at him and he thought she was going to argue about it anyway, but then she nodded. “You’re right. We need the information this man might have. If we are lucky, he will turn quickly and Commander Tynan will have no reason to reprimand us.”

Vivek scoured the area with his senses and then set off in the direction of the mansion.

He hoped that luck was with them and that the dead hunter would rise as a vampire.

They needed to know how many they were up against if they were going to win this war.

Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Sophis couldn’t find her voice during the journey back to the mansion. She walked on the left side of Vivek so the body slung over his shoulder obscured his view of her, needing some time alone with her thoughts. The discovery that Aleksis Romanov was back in Saint Petersburg and gathering a small army of hunters that included his sister wasn’t the only thing playing on her mind.

What Vivek had said about her men haunted her. He was right and she shouldn’t have tried to blame him for their disobedience. The fault lay with her and her weakness. If she hadn’t done what she had, if the hunters hadn’t managed to injure her in front of her men, then she wouldn’t have lost control of them and they wouldn’t have lost their faith in her. Vivek had taught her better than to go charging into a fight without a strategy like a youngling.

Sophis clenched her fists and vowed that it wouldn’t happen again. She would grow stronger and not repeat the mistakes of her past.

The fight in the park with the hunter tonight came flooding back and the moment demanding the most airtime in her thoughts reared up again. She couldn’t shake the startling way she had felt as the haze from feeding had lifted and she had found herself face-to-face with Vivek. His desire had been unmistakable.

As had hers.

At first, she had tried to put it down to the effects of feeding but that excuse had died a little more with each silent moment that had passed between them. The longer he had looked at her with eyes full of fire, the harsh rise and fall of his chest emphasising the breadth of his powerful muscular body, the more intense her awareness of him had become. The scent of their desire mingling and filling her senses had urged her to go to him and satisfy the dark craving to finish what they had started earlier this evening.

Not the fight.

Where the fight had been going.

On some instinctive and feminine level inside her, she had been aware that things had changed during the flow of their battle and that they remained changed now. Vivek had started responding differently to her and, in turn, she had reacted differently to him.

Hideously differently.

It had felt too good when he had pinned her to the floor, his body against hers, sending heat chasing through every inch of her and igniting a lust not for violence or blood, but for him.

Every touch of his body against hers since then had sent sparks skittering over her skin and rekindled the embers of her passion.

Definitely disturbing.

She hated Vivek. He hated her. He had made that evident over the past decade or so, destroying their friendship in the process. What everyone said about them might have been possible once but it was impossible now.

Vivek muttered something, slowed, and came around the other side of her. She silently cursed him for it when he looked at her out of the corner of his eye. The streetlights washed over his face, softening the harsh line of his jaw and the straight angle of his nose, and turning his hazel eyes as black as midnight. Golden highlights threaded through his hair, weaving over the tangled dark waves. Sophis cursed him again and swore he was the only man in the world who could look even more handsome than usual under sickly sodium lights.

“When we get back to the mansion we need to go straight to Commander Tynan and file our report,” he said, casual and disinterested, as though commenting on the weather rather than the fact they had uncovered a dangerous level of hunters grouping together.

She frowned at him and he glanced at her again, his eyes briefly touching hers before he faced forwards and jostled the hunter on his shoulder. The calm and detached air he affected didn’t fool her. She could feel his senses locked on her. Monitoring her for what?

She hoped to the Devil it wasn’t for a sign of arousal.

That had been a temporary glitch. Nothing more. The man was a misogynistic cruel bastard.

Her heart said that he hadn’t been once. They had been friends. He had taught her how to defend herself and how to dispatch hunters quickly, and trained her in tracking and almost every other valuable skill that she knew. He had spent hours with her in the training room when he should have been teaching others, favouring her over them.

What had changed him?

Aleksis Romanov loomed up in her mind and her steps faltered, her hands shaking at the memory that assaulted her and her side burning so fiercely that she swore if she touched it her fingers would come away bloodied.

“Are you alright?” Vivek’s tone was low and cautious, his English accented with a Russian edge that teased her ears and gave her comfort that she couldn’t help but accept. Her senses locked on him before she could stop herself and the comfort just his voice had given her paled in comparison to that which flooded her when she felt his senses focus on her in return.

I will not let him near you.

Those words echoed in her head, husked close to her ear, whispered with so much feeling that she believed in their promise to keep her safe from the beast that was Aleksis Romanov.

Had Vivek meant them or had he only said what had been necessary to make her continue with their mission?

Sophis looked up into his eyes, afraid of seeing the answer in them. There was no edge of softness and concern in them now, not as there had been during that moment behind the white van when fear had gripped her and she had turned to Vivek for reassurance and strength.

She cursed her own weakness this time, nodded and kept walking. She didn’t need his strength or his reassurance. She was strong enough to fight her own battles, even against a foe as deadly as Aleksis. Her swift steps carried her a few feet ahead of Vivek and she was thankful when he didn’t catch up with her and brought up the rear instead.

What was getting into her?

Seeing Aleksis and Izabella again had rattled her. Now that she knew they were in the city and had seen them once, she would be prepared when she faced them again. She would kill Aleksis.

And Izabella?

Sophis’s senses switched back to Vivek. His fear had been palpable when he had spotted Izabella at the hunters’ base tonight.

When Sophis had been recovering from the dagger wound in the infirmary a decade ago, Seth had come to her, saying that Vivek had sent him to check on her. She had asked him why Vivek hadn’t come himself. He had hesitated and made excuses, but eventually he had confessed that Izabella Romanov had staked Vivek in the back whilst he had been holding Sophis to comfort her. Sophis still felt sick to her stomach whenever she thought about that, or whenever she happened to catch sight of the scar on Vivek’s back. He had come close to death because of her.

Things had degenerated so quickly between them after that night that she had never had a chance to apologise, or even thank him for remaining with her.

Or ask him why he had been so focused on her and not his surroundings.

Her memory of the night was patchy, but sometimes she relived it in her nightmares, and each time Vivek held her close and told her to hold on.

Told her not to leave him.

A shiver raced down her spine and arms, spreading heat through her body, and she turned her head to one side. Not enough that she could see Vivek walking behind her, but enough that her awareness of him increased.

Was that moment just part of her fevered imagination during her nightmares or was it something that had actually happened?

She couldn’t ask him. If she did, he would brush it off, would laugh at her and tease her about it. It had plagued her for over ten years and now she wondered if she would ever find the courage to talk to him about what had happened that night.

He had been surprised when she had touched his back earlier tonight, resting her hand over the spot where the scar was, and she hadn’t wanted to stop herself from silently asking him whether he was all right. He had needed to know that she was there with him and that nothing would happen. Just as he had promised to keep her safe from Aleksis, she had promised without words that she would protect him from Izabella.

They would both have their vengeance one day.

The imposing black wrought iron gate of the mansion came into view ahead, illuminated by the yellow glow of the lanterns on the twin stone guardhouses that stood on either side of it. Two male vampires emerged from the small buildings and watched them approach. Beyond the gate, an immaculate lawn and gravel drive stretched into the distance, leading her gaze to the palatial home of her bloodline. Golden light bathed the long elegant façade and the sight of it chased away her lingering fear. She quickened her pace. The guards saluted as she approached and then cast inquisitive looks past her to Vivek. She could understand their curiosity. It wasn’t every day that someone brought a dead body back to the mansion, especially one that reeked of human and hunter.

The man on the right pushed his side of the gate open to allow them into the grounds. The pale gravel crunched beneath her boots, marking her swift steps. Vivek’s footfalls were heavy, louder than hers were, evoking the memory of a time she would rather not remember. His steps had been heavy the night he had carried her back into the mansion over a week ago, weary sounding to her ears, and she had looked up at him the whole time, trying to discern whether it was the weight of her in his arms or something else that made them sound that way. The more she thought about that night, the clearer her memory of it became and she realised she had been wrong about some things. His eyes hadn’t been cold after all. There had been pain in them that she had seen even though her mind had been swimming from the drug that had laced the hunter’s arrow and she had felt his concern on her hazy senses. For a moment, she had seen a glimmer of the man she used to know.

She cast a glance back at him. He didn’t seem bothered by the weight of the dead hunter on his shoulder and there was no weariness to his steps tonight or hurt darkening his hazel eyes.

He moved up to walk beside her, mesmerising her with the way his body moved, a sensual shifting of sinew and hard muscles that exuded power and was a pleasure to watch. What the Devil had gotten into her tonight? Sophis clenched her fists and tried to ignore the way her body lit up inside when Vivek’s gaze moved to her. She always knew when he was looking at her. It was an awareness that ran bone deep, intense and undeniable. It had never bothered her in the past but it did now. She no longer wanted to feel when he was looking at her, to shiver whenever their skin touched accidently, or flush with heat whenever he spoke close enough to her that her senses were full of him and she could feel the soft caress of his breath over her throat. Vivek had callously cast aside their friendship and turned his back on her, and she had vowed to do the same, to give as good as she got, to not let his barbs hurt her anymore. It had worked for so long but her resolve had fallen apart when he had saved her from the hunters in the city over a week ago. She had started to hope again, to desire to understand what had altered him so she could undo those changes. Why couldn’t she just move on as he had?

Vivek felt nothing for her now. It was time she accepted that. He would never become the man he used to be, the one she had called friend.

The one who might have become so much more to her than that.

She was tired of hurting.

It was time to let go of the past and focus on her future. It would hurt to cut all ties with him and sever all hope that she might regain him as a friend but it would be better for her in the end. The ball would bring many Venia back to the mansion. Perhaps she would see her sire again and could speak to him about her feelings face-to-face. She had written him more often recently, pouring out her feelings and telling him everything in some desperate hope that he could provide answers for her, some method of making everything right again. His replies were always supportive, if not a little derogatory towards Vivek, and always made her smile for a short while.

He had even reinstated his offer to provide for her and allow her to travel with him.

Accepting his kind invitation had never been more tempting.

Perhaps she should get away from it all and focus on herself for a while and her happiness. Perhaps her sire knew some men and could introduce her to them. He had often asked whether she had taken a man into her bed yet and her answer was always the same. She was too busy for relationships. Love could come later. The trouble was, later never came. It was definitely time to change that and seize the moment.

The servants decorating the spacious entrance hall parted to make way for them as they entered and watched as they passed. Some of the other vampires moving through the room stopped too, their eyes on her. Blood. She smelt of death.

How long had it been since these gathered vampires had tasted fresh blood straight from the vein? Lord Timur had them all caught up in the mansion most nights, protecting the grounds or busy with the masquerade preparations. Sometimes Sophis felt as though he wanted to cage them all and let them weaken as he had done after a hunter had attacked him in the city and killed several of their guards. Years had passed since then and things still weren’t back to normal.

There were many in her bloodline who believed that Timur was a weak leader now, intent on hiding rather than fighting, and many more believed that the Chosen Son or Chosen Daughter should kill him and take his place. Neither of them seemed inclined to rise up against Timur though. He was their sire and had selected them as his second in command for that reason, knowing that they wouldn’t turn against him no matter how dire the situation became.

He might be able to control them, but could he control everyone else in the bloodline? She had overheard several conversations between guards, whispered talks about the weakness of their leader and their desire to take his place.

Sophis’s gaze tracked to one side when two women stepped out of the green reception room and paused to watch her and Vivek cross the vestibule. Lorna, elegantly dressed as always in a fine midnight blue satin gown and adorned with jewels, was the epitome of a Chosen Daughter. Graceful, refined and beautiful with her glossy long blonde hair tumbling around her slender shoulders, blue eyes surrounded by dark make-up and a touch of crimson staining her lips, no woman in the Venia bloodline could contend with her. Behind her stood a more meagrely clothed petite brunette. Cara. Lorna’s aide.

Sophis bowed her head in acknowledgement of her superior and Lorna’s soft gaze shifted to Vivek, her brow puckering as her eyes came to rest on the cargo he carried on one broad shoulder.

She seemed intrigued but Sophis couldn’t tell whether it was because they had returned with a body full of fresh blood or because it was a dead hunter.

Cara leaned in and whispered something to her mistress and Lorna moved on, drifting across the hall and up the staircase.

What was it like to be chosen?

It wasn’t something Sophis was ever likely to experience. Chosen Daughter and Chosen Son were ranks second only to the bloodline’s lord or lady, and were selected by that person. They acted as envoys for the family and carried out elite duties such as attending all the finest balls and assisting with the running of the bloodline. They were prestigious and sought after positions, and not only because of the political power those chosen gained. If a vampire hunter or vampire outside of the bloodline killed the ruler of their family, the Chosen Son or Chosen Daughter rose to the position of lord or lady by default. Many times in the past bloodlines had changed rulers this way, but there were many more instances where someone within the ranks had sought to rule their family and had killed the current head of it themselves. If a ruler died by the hands of one of their kin, their position passed to that vampire.

Vivek fell into line beside her as they descended the stone steps to the basement of the mansion, heading into the gloom.

She had heard Vivek talk of killing Timur and taking his place but it was just that—talk. Vivek had no interest in the politics of running a bloodline. He was a soldier, like her, and like Commander Tynan.

In time, Lord Timur would allow things to return to normal and the disquiet in her bloodline would fade away. Timur had ruled them well until recently and her bloodline would forgive him. He had been the one to save it from the tyranny of their previous lord and restore it to its former strength after all.

She rapped her knuckles on the door of Tynan’s office and waited.

“Enter.”

Sophis twisted the brass handle and pushed the door open, allowing Vivek to go through first. She followed him into the cream windowless room and closed the door behind her, and then joined Vivek in front of Tynan’s desk.

Tynan raised a dark eyebrow at Vivek and the dead man slumped over his shoulder. Sophis pressed her hand to her chest, saluting him.

“I send you on a scouting mission and you bring me a dead hunter?” Amusement warmed Tynan’s deep brown eyes and his Russian tinged voice. “It is like a cat bringing back a present to its master.”

Sophis had never had a cat in her human life and the creatures didn’t like her kind, but she knew they were loyal animals, and she also knew that Tynan was mocking her and Vivek.

She waited for Vivek to react but he didn’t. He placed the dead hunter down on one of the chairs in front of Tynan’s desk, sitting him there in a way that made him look alive, and then straightened.

“We counted nine hunters in one building in the commercial district. Two of those were Aleksis and Izabella Romanov. They spoke of lords but not of the ball, although I suspect that is the reason they are gathering. I believe that the group we found tonight is just one of many.”

“We also believe that this hunter was enhanced,” Sophis said. “I drained him of blood and Vivek suggested that we bring him to you. He should turn if he was enhanced. We can question him about Aleksis Romanov’s plans.”

Tynan’s eyebrow shot up again and he leaned back in his black leather chair and pressed his fingertips together, forming steeples in front of his face. He stared at them both for long silence filled seconds, tapping the tips of his index fingers against his lips, and then nodded.

“Very well, I will send scouts out tonight.” Tynan sat up, placed his hands palm down on the table, and stood. He grabbed his black military-style jacket from the hooks on the wall behind his desk and slipped his arms into it. “I will lead them. You have done well.”

Sophis frowned. “Aren’t you going to send us back with our squads so we might destroy the hunters now?”

Tynan’s jaw ticked and his lips compressed into a thin line that spoke of anger as clearly as his scent.

“Lord Timur has different orders for you,” he said in a tight voice and fastened the V of gold buttons on his jacket. “You will dispose of this hunter in the cells and then join your squads for patrol around the grounds. Our lord will not allow any below the rank of elite out into the city between now and the end of the ball.”

Madness.

“If we took our teams out now, we could dispatch those hunters. It would be a warning to the rest. They would think twice about whatever they are planning.” Vivek’s words matched those running through her head and the spike in his anger on her senses drew a response from her own feelings.

It was insanity to let the remaining eight hunters live.

“If we kill Aleksis and Izabella now, we could prevent an attack during the masquerade. Let us take our teams into the city and dispose of them.” Sophis broke away from Vivek’s side, stepping towards Tynan, and regretted it the moment she did.

Tynan turned dark eyes on her. “Back in line, Sophis. Remember your place... and mine. It is not our decision to make. Lord Timur has spoken and we shall obey. If we cross paths with the hunters, we shall deal with them. If we remain undetected, then we shall simply carry out the orders given to us and gather information. I understand your eagerness to see these specific hunters dead but we must obey our lord. Understood?”

Sophis stumbled back into line with Vivek and pressed her right hand to her chest, lowering her gaze to the toes of her boots. “Yes, Commander Tynan. I apologise for my outburst.”

“There is something you two can do. I was asked to select two guards to oversee the internal security for the ball.”

Sophis lifted her head and stared at Tynan with wide eyes. “You want us to do it?”

Tynan ran a hand over his short dark hair and gave her a look that conveyed just how big a risk he was taking by assigning this to two captains, and them in particular. It was a job for elite guards not someone of their rank.

“I want you to do more than oversee it.” Tynan clipped the short collar of his black jacket closed. The elaborate gold embroidery on it that signified him as a commander shone brightly against the dark material, reflecting the light from the lamp on his oak desk. “I want you to go undercover at the ball. No one will know you are there except myself and Lord Timur. Do you understand?”

Sophis understood perfectly well what he wanted them to do, she just didn’t understand why. It was an honour to be chosen for this mission, one she felt unworthy of given her recent behaviour and actions, but she couldn’t refuse the order. Tynan was showing his faith in her and she wouldn’t let him down. It was a chance to prove her strength and her ability as a guard, and she would do her duty and make everyone in her bloodline see that she was one of the best.

There was a knock at the door and the person on the other side opened it without waiting for an invitation from within.

Sophis, Vivek and Tynan saluted.

Deshal, Chosen Son of the Venia bloodline, made a dismissive motion with his gloved hand and stepped into the room.

He ran his steely grey gaze over them all and paused when it reached the body slumped in the chair near Tynan’s desk. His gaze moved on, settling on Tynan.

“We were not expecting you back so soon,” Tynan said with a stiff bow of his head. “I trust your hunt was fruitful?”

Deshal moved forwards, his attention solely on Tynan, and nodded as he tugged his black leather gloves off and then tucked them into the pocket of his fine long black wool coat. “The city is cold as a witch’s tit tonight but I managed to find a pleasant enough girl.”

Sophis’s skin crawled at the perverse smile he flashed at Tynan. Deshal stank of sex. The fact that he fornicated with his prey disgusted her. His grey gaze slid her way, his fair eyebrows briefly knitting, and she schooled her features and swiftly locked her emotions down so he wouldn’t sense them. At over three hundred years old, Deshal could probably see through her façade, but he didn’t call her on it.

He smiled at her, raked his gaze downwards at the same time as preening the tangled waves of his jaw-length blond hair from his face, and then returned his attention to Tynan. Sophis couldn’t understand why so many women in the bloodline desired Deshal. He was handsome but that wasn’t everything. The man had a reputation for keeping human pets, a perversion that Lord Timur indulged rather than eradicated. He had pampered his Chosen Son and Chosen Daughter, giving them free rein to do as they pleased.

That included bringing humans to the mansion.

The high-ranked members of their bloodline saw that as sacrilegious, but none of them were brave enough to speak out about it.

Deshal had even turned some of his females, only to grow bored of them after a short time, as though they had lost their charm and sparkle on becoming a vampire. Ella had thrown herself into the guard after he had discarded her, but another had suffered a worse fate. Deshal had given Cara to their Chosen Daughter, Lorna, as an aide, as though she was a possession that he could do with as he pleased. Sophis often saw Cara around the house, following Lorna wherever she went, and always staring after Deshal whenever he passed. When Deshal had callously given Cara away, Sophis had heard rumours that she had only agreed to become a vampire because he had promised that he would change his ways and would remain forever hers.

Sophis could understand why Cara felt hurt by that and how he had treated her. If someone had promised her forever only to cast her aside after a few years, she would have been heartbroken too. Whenever Sophis saw the petite woman around the house, she couldn’t help wondering if Deshal had even mentioned the only other course of action open to him. Deshal kept his human consorts alive at the mansion until the last possible moment, often pushing the limit of the Law Keepers’ patience when it came to the rule about not revealing their existence to humans unless they intended to kill or turn them.

Had Deshal told Cara that the alternative was to kill her?

Not many would choose death over eternal life if they were presented with a chance to select their fate, even if they knew at the outset that their immortal life would be spent pining after the man who broke their heart.

“Have all preparations been made for the security at the masquerade?” Deshal removed his thick black coat, folded it over his left arm, and neatened out the cuffs of his dark purple shirt.

His whole manner declared that he wasn’t remotely interested in the security for the ball. He yawned and then frowned at a dark smudge on the cuff of his shirt. When he touched it, his fingertip came away red. Blood.

It was on his collar too.

Deshal affected an air of refinement and elegance but it seemed he made messes just like every other vampire when the bloodlust seized him.

Sophis looked down at her jacket cuff. She could still smell the hunter’s blood on it.

Her gaze snuck to Vivek where he stood on the other side of Deshal facing her. A tremor rocked her when her eyes met his, their hazel depths lit by strange fire. Her breath caught in her throat.

Tynan must have answered with a nod because Deshal spoke again, shattering whatever spell Vivek had been under and causing him to look away.

“May I see the plans?”

“Everything is in order and exactly as Lord Timur requested,” Tynan said, a cold edge to his tone. “It is my job to ensure the safety of the attendees and not something our Chosen Son should concern himself with.”

Deshal waved his hand again. “It is not something I care about, but Timur believes I should involve myself and requested that I checked that everything was in place. I only wanted to be thorough.”

“I appreciate your concern. If you wish, I can find something you can do during the ball to improve security,” Tynan said and Deshal held his hands up.

“I do not think I would go that far. Given the choice between socialising at the ball and walking the grounds with the guards, I know which I will choose.”

Tynan nodded and gathered the papers scattered across his oak desk, tapped all of the sides until they were neat, and then placed them in the desk drawers. Sophis had seen Tynan do that enough times to know what it meant. She wasn’t sure whether Tynan was aware of his actions, but it was his way of silently telling the occupants of his office that their conversation was over and he wanted them to leave.

Deshal seemed to get the message and turned to Vivek, who saluted again. “I trust you know your role during the ball?”

Vivek nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Yes, sir,” Sophis answered before Deshal dared turn to look at her. She didn’t want his eyes on her again.

Deshal saluted Tynan with a brief nod and gave one last look at the dead hunter, and then left the room.

“Interfering bastard,” Tynan muttered under his breath after the door had closed and Sophis smiled, glad that she wasn’t the only one who didn’t like the man. He looked at her and Vivek. “You do know your roles?”

Sophis nodded. She knew it but she still didn’t want to think about why they were going undercover.

Did Lord Timur believe that hunters would penetrate the ball?

Or did he think he was in danger from one of the attendees?

 

Did you enjoy this extended excerpt?

For details on how to purchase this book in its entirety, visit: http://www.felicityheaton.co.uk/masquerade

About the Author

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Felicity Heaton is a USA Today best-selling author who writes passionate paranormal romance books as Felicity Heaton and F E Heaton. In her books she creates detailed worlds, twisting plots, mind-blowing action, intense emotion and heart-stopping romances with leading men that vary from dark deadly vampires to sexy shape-shifters and wicked werewolves, to sinful angels and hot demons!

If you're a fan of paranormal romance authors Lara Adrian, J R Ward, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Gena Showalter and Christine Feehan then you will enjoy her books too.

If you love your angels a little dark and wicked, Felicity Heaton’s best selling Her Angel series is for you. If you like strong, powerful, and dark vampires then try the Vampires Realm series she writes as F E Heaton or any of her stand alone vampire romance books she writes as Felicity Heaton. Or if you’re looking for vampire romances that are sinful, passionate and erotic then try Felicity Heaton’s new Vampire Erotic Theatre series.

In 2011, five of her six paranormal romance books received Top Pick awards from Night Owl Reviews and Forbidden Blood was nominated as Best PNR Vampire Romance 2011 at The Romance Reviews. In 2012, she was awarded the GraveTells Author of the Year Award, and Heart of Darkness was announced as a 2013 Epic Ebook Awards finalist in the Paranormal Romance category. Many of her books receive five star reviews from readers and review sites alike.

To see her other novels, visit: http://www.felicityheaton.co.uk

If you have enjoyed this story, please take a moment to contact the author at author@felicityheaton.co.uk or to post a review of the book online

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PARANORMAL ROMANCE BOOKS BY FELICITY HEATON

Stories in the Eternal Mates series

Kissed by a Dark Prince

Claimed by a Demon King – coming in 2014

 

Stories in the Vampire Erotic Theatre series

Covet

Crave

Seduce

Enslave

Bewitch

Unleash

 

Stories in the Her Angel series

Her Dark Angel

Her Fallen Angel

Her Warrior Angel

Her Guardian Angel

Her Demonic Angel

Her Wicked Angel

 

Stories in the Vampires Realm series

Prophecy: Child of Light

Prophecy: Caelestis & Aurorea

Prophecy: Dark Moon Rising

Eternity: The Beginning (free short available at: www.vampiresrealm.com)

Spellbound

Reunion

Seventh Circle

Winter's Kiss

Hunter's Moon

Masquerade 

 

Stand alone paranormal romance stories

Blood and Snow

Vampire for Christmas

Love Immortal

Ascension

Forbidden Blood

Heart of Darkness

 

Impressum

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 07.12.2013

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