Kissed by a Dark Prince

Kissed by a Dark Prince

Felicity Heaton

Olivia thinks it’s her lucky night when a dangerously handsome unconscious fae ends up on her inspection table. He’s her chance to redeem herself with her employer, the demon-hunting organisation, Archangel. But when the tall, dark and deadly immortal warrior awakes, she gets much more than she bargained for…

Attacked by his enemy in the elf kingdom, the last thing Prince Loren expects when he comes around is a beautiful angel watching over him and medical technology of the mortal realm. Hazy from his injuries, all he can focus on is the pulse ticking in her throat and the sweet allure of her blood.

One single bite reveals she is his eternal mate, triggering a bond between them that will leave him weakened until it is completed… or broken, and pulling Olivia into the crossfire of his ancient feud.

To protect his people and his mate from the machinations of a madman, Loren must risk everything by working with Olivia at Archangel to find a way to break the bond blossoming between them.

But will Loren be strong enough to place duty before desire and give up the one thing he has waited millennia for and craves above all else—his eternal mate? And will Olivia be able to resist the incredible heat that burns between them and the temptation of her dark prince’s kiss?

 

This is an extended excerpt, not a complete book. For details on how to purchase this book, please visit: http://www.felicityheaton.co.uk/kbadp

Copyright

Copyright © 2013 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 November 2013

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

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Olivia had never seen anything like the male specimen on the inspection table in front of her.

Her heart raced. She hadn’t experienced this explosive combination of uncertainty, anticipation and enthusiasm in a long time, ever since her superiors had stripped her of her rank and sent her to this satellite facility in London, taking away her high-level privileges and forcing her to work on studying demon and fae species already extensively researched. It still felt as though they had shoved her out of sight, burying her in the Archangel equivalent of a basement to punish her for her mistake. She had lost all hope of removing the taint it had left on her name in the organisation.

Until now.

The specimen lying right in front of her was her chance to prove herself again, a gift that some higher power had literally dumped on her doorstep.

Blood stained his neck and splashed across his jaw, and pooled at the left corner of his mouth too, luring Olivia’s gaze to firm sensual lips that had her staring blankly, lost in their perfection. She blinked herself out of her trance. Time was of the essence. She needed to get her study underway before her guest woke up or one of the other doctors belonging to the facility barged in and tried to take over.

She shook her hands to steady them, pulled her digital recorder from the pocket of her white coat, and turned it on. She set it on the silver trolley filled with all the equipment she thought she might need to complete her inspection of their unconscious guest.

Olivia tugged on a pair of latex gloves and ran her fingers over the scalpels and tools, and settled on a pair of shears. It had been a long time since she had been able to work on a live specimen and she wanted to start by getting his vitals monitored.

She picked up the shears and cut down the middle of his long black tunic style jacket. Red stained her cream gloves.

“Specimen appears to have suffered severe injuries, worse than at first thought, resulting in a high level of blood loss.” She reached the end of his jacket and peeled the two sides back. She paused, her eyes widening at the impressive display of taut honed muscles under tight bloodstained and bruised skin. “Specimen also isn’t wearing anything under his coat.”

Completely unprofessional of her but she had expected at least some sort of undershirt, and she certainly hadn’t anticipated a body like this. She drew in a shaky breath, mentally told herself to get it together, and cut upwards along each of his sleeves. She peeled the two sides of his ruined jacket away from his body and set them down on the tray.

“Multiple lacerations and abrasions on his torso and arms. Many appear to be claw marks. Possible demon attack. Subject wears matching black and silver metal bands on each wrist.” Olivia spread her fingers and stroked along the lines of four long slashes over his left deltoid. She gasped. “Specimen has markings on his body that hadn’t been visible prior to interaction with him.”

Olivia tracked the symbols with her fingertips, following them as they formed a curl over his deltoid to his shoulder. Whenever she moved along the line, more symbols appeared, luring her fingers. The colourful swirls and glyphs shimmered through the blood staining him. They swept over his shoulder and under his collarbone, and suddenly she was caressing his left pectoral, chasing them as they followed the shape of his muscle downwards over his heart and around across his torso, and then curled under his nipple to end in a point there.

She had never seen anything like this. It fascinated her. The ones that curled around his deltoid were already fading, disappearing into his skin.

She had made it her business to study the written languages of the fae and demons, because many non-humans bore markings like this and it made it easier to identify the species of the owner. Incubi were born with lines of symbols on their skin that not only changed colour to show their mood, but also detailed their lineage, proudly displaying their heritage in the paternal line. The symbols inked on this male’s skin weren’t that of the common fae language though. They were new to her.

“Specimen’s markings seem limited to his upper torso.” She leaned over him and swept a single finger across his right pectoral, and sure enough, markings appeared there too, perfectly mirroring the design she had followed. Olivia used the shears to cut through the waist of his black trousers and froze when more markings shimmered over his hipbone. “Correction. Specimen’s markings continue on his lower body, notably his hips.”

Olivia flicked a glance at the front of his trousers. If this lean, unusual male didn’t wear an undershirt, what were the chances he wasn’t wearing underwear too?

She curled her fingers into fists and stifled the blush that crept onto her cheeks. She had seen plenty of nude men during her years as a doctor and in her personal life too. He was just a specimen. Her gaze roamed to his handsome face, taking in its sculpted perfection. A very gorgeous specimen.

Her heart beat harder and she rolled her shoulders. She had to get a grip. This was her chance. If she had never seen anything like this man, then there was a chance neither had the other scientists employed by Archangel. All those scientists that were currently enjoying a soiree at headquarters, leaving her as the only medical staff in the building. If she could document everything about this male, and figure out what species of demon or fae he was, then her superiors would have to give her some credit, and maybe she could get back to doing what she loved most—studying new species.

So, she had to do this. He was just another subject.

Olivia cut away his trousers, running the shears straight down each long, toned leg. She removed the central part and swallowed as her gaze betrayed her, darting to his groin. No underwear. Her face flushed. Oh my. The man was built like a god with not an ounce of fat on his lithe body. All powerful muscle.

She set the shears down and took another steadying breath before touching the fading marks on his left hip. They brightened again and she followed them.

“Specimen’s markings curl over his hip from behind. Cannot risk moving specimen without harming him to investigate them. They move down past his... groin... and then sweep back around to curl over his hip.” Her heart ran away with her again, her blood rushing through her ears. She hadn’t needed to follow the marks all the way to make the ones that arced around towards his buttocks appear. Her fingers had brushed the ones closest to the dark thatch of curls around his genitals and they had appeared.

His hip twitched beneath her fingertips.

Olivia quickly pulled her hand back and froze. He didn’t move again. The breath she had been holding rushed out of her.

“I am going to proceed with monitoring the specimen’s vitals.” She picked up several of the pads used as contacts for the machines and stuck them to his chest and below his ribs on the left side. If he had a similar physiology to a human as many fae species did, chances were high that she could pick up and monitor his heart rate this way. She connected the wires, switched on the machine, and placed a clip over his index finger. The heart rate monitor beeped slowly but everything else was off the charts. “Specimen shows extremely high levels of oxygen in his blood, beyond normal parameters. What are you?”

She ran her gaze over him. He had taken a severe beating before they had found him unconscious outside the building, as if someone had wanted them to find him.

Sable, her friend and demon hunter extraordinaire, had taken one look at him and her gift had told her that he wasn’t mortal.

The hunters who had helped her bring him in had believed he had crawled to them or had made his own way to their doors. Sable didn’t believe that and neither did Olivia.

No demon or fae in their right mind would place themselves at the mercy of Archangel.

No. Someone had dropped this male on their porch and left him there, wanting Archangel to bring him inside. Why?

It could be a trap and it would be just her luck if it were.

“Specimen appears mortal. Markings on his skin appear fae possibly.” But they hadn’t captured a fae in years and he was nothing like the fae she had read about in the database or seen firsthand. “Specimen is male, estimated six-feet-six, one hundred and eighty to two hundred and twenty pounds. Black hair.”

Olivia inspected his stomach, pressing in to feel his organs. He felt human but something about him, something other than his mysterious markings, told her that he wasn’t. She peered closer at the severe wounds on his stomach and chest.

“Specimen appears to have advanced healing ability. Age of blood around the wounds is indicative of a recent injury, but the wounds in question are already closed and beginning to scab over.” Many demon and fae species had heightened healing. He could be any number of them. Olivia carefully pulled his upper lip back and studied his teeth. “No fangs. Canines appear normal.”

She drew back and something caught her eye. She parted the wild strands of his short black hair and traced the pointed tip of his ear. Was he a demon? They had pointed ears.

Olivia hovered over him, looking down at his handsome bloodstained face. She had never seen a demon as beautiful, mysterious, or deadly as he was.

Deadly.

She could feel it like an aura around him.

He was dangerous.

And waking up.

Olivia scooted backwards and reached for the call button on the wall near the head of the bed. She didn’t make it. His eyes slowly opened and she froze in mid-swing for the button, transfixed by them. They were incredible. She had never seen eyes like his. His irises were the most amazing shade of purple.

His gaze slid towards her but he didn’t move.

“What are you?” Olivia whispered it again as his eyes began to change, shifting to a normal shade of blue, and then his ears changed too, the points dulling until they appeared human. Adapting. He was studying his environment and her, and he was adapting.

It was incredible.

Fascinating.

She lowered her hand to her side and stared at him.

“Specimen appears able to blend into his environment, changing his appearance to conceal himself.”

She had never seen a demon do this. Many of them did it and she had heard the tales from the field agents, but she had never witnessed it.

“You are being held in a secure facility and no harm will come to you.” She hoped he understood English. His blue gaze narrowed with his frown, locked on her mouth as she spoke. Maybe he didn’t understand her.

He sat up in one fluid motion, swinging his legs over the edge of the inspection table, the movement so swift that it startled her and she shot backwards, distancing herself. Her heart thundered in her throat. She should have pressed the call button.

She should have strapped him down.

Stupid.

Her gaze darted to the red button off to her right. Could she make it there and sound the alarm before he attacked?

“Where am I?” The sound of his deep voice sent a fiery tremble through her. It was at odds with his lithe figure. The commanding edge to it had her forgetting the call button and automatically answering him, because he didn’t sound like the sort of man you could piss off and live to tell the tale.

“At a secure research facility in London.” She hoped he didn’t ask what she had been doing to him while he had been unconscious because now that he was awake, very awake, that sense of danger he radiated had only grown stronger. Her shot at resuscitating her ailing career looked as though he might kill her if he didn’t like any of the answers to his questions.

His blue gaze moved around the room, cataloguing everything, a keen edge to it. Strategising. He had adapted to blend into his environment and now he was plotting a way out of it.

“How did you do that?” she said, unable to get her voice above a whisper. His attention snapped back to her.

“How did I do what?” He could definitely grasp her language.

“Your eyes... your ears.” She pointed a shaky finger at them.

He planted his hands on the edge of the table on either side of his hips and she struggled not to look down. Her guest didn’t appear to have any qualms about being naked in front of a stranger. He sat on the table, frowning at the equipment in the room. His gaze caught on the wires attached to the machines and he followed them to his chest. He raised a single black eyebrow and pulled the sticky pads off his body.

“Strange to ask me how and not why,” he said at last and looked up at her through his long black lashes, his blue eyes holding a glimmer of curiosity.

“I’m a medical doctor... a scientist.” She pulled at the chest of her long white coat, drawing his attention to it.

He glanced at it and then back around the room. His gaze lingered on the tray of tools to his left, narrowed, and then slid to her. A threat. She had enough experience of the world to know when someone was silently threatening her. He didn’t intend to use the scalpels and other implements on her. No. He meant to warn her that if she dared to attempt to use them on him, she would come off worse.

Olivia held her hands up in front of her. “Listen, I’m just curious about your species, and the things you can do. I wanted to help you.”

He grimaced and his grip on the edge of the table tightened until his arms shook. He ground out dark words in a foreign tongue and paled further. The edges of his irises turned purple.

The heart rate monitor still linked to his finger went crazy. He scowled at the machine and tried to move to take the clip off. His hands trembled violently.

“You’re not well.” Olivia reached out to steady him, instinct telling her to help him. She caught his upper arms and gasped. He was burning up, shaking beneath her fingers, his skin clammy. “You need to rest.”

“I will be fine... with a little fluids.” Pain grated in his deep voice and he swallowed hard.

“I wasn’t sure what to give you.” Olivia pressed her palm to his forehead. A fever? Was it part of his healing process or was his condition deteriorating? “I wasn’t sure what would harm or help you.”

He leaned forwards and his breath skated over her bare neck. She shivered, a hot rush sweeping through her.

“I know what fluid I need,” he whispered low, his voice barely there and teasing, stirring unbidden heat in her veins and quickening her pulse.

“Tell me and I’ll get it.” She tried to draw back and his hands shot up, fingers closing tightly around her upper arms.

“Oh, you already have it.”

He struck hard on the left side of her throat and her eyes widened. Shock stole her senses for a second before reality came crashing back. He was biting her. He was drinking her blood. Dark memories surged to the surface and she fought his hold on her, struggling like a wild thing. She wouldn’t let it happen to her again. She shoved at his chest, clawing with her short nails, and pounded her hands against it, striking as hard as she could.

He pulled her against his chest, caging her there, his arms steel bands across her back, pinning hers between their bodies. She wriggled, desperate to escape him, fear pounding down on her and making her heart stutter. He was going to drink her to death.

Tears streamed down her cheeks and her head spun, wooziness threatening to pull her down into the darkness.

“Please,” she whispered, breathless and weak, barely clinging to consciousness as her panic and fear overwhelmed her. “Release me... don’t kill me.”

He immediately pulled his fangs from her throat and she crumpled, only his arms around her keeping her on her feet. His heart beat wildly against her palms, strong when hers was weak, a timid thing that barely beat at all.

Olivia managed to find the strength to look up into his eyes.

They were different again, amethyst and dazzling. He wobbled and shimmered, said something she didn’t hear over the whoosh of blood in her ears. Ears. His were pointed now, more so than they had been before. All his markings were shining too, colourful and beautiful.

Olivia wrestled her right hand free and absently raised it, the action seeming to take forever. She touched his bloodied lips and they parted to reveal his fangs. Her blood. He had stolen her blood. Her head turned and twirled, the bright white room spinning with it. He spoke again, his beautiful mouth moving against her fingertip. She stared dazedly at it, captivated, lost, feeling not quite herself in the presence of this man.

He continued to hold her, cradling her against his body, keeping her on her feet, and stared down into her eyes. His shimmered with something she couldn’t decipher through the haze in her mind. The fog refused to lift and part, even now that her strength was slowly beginning to return.

Olivia grazed the point of one of his fangs with her fingertip. He remained very still and she had the strangest feeling that he was letting her see him like this.

“You’re not... like any vampire... I’ve seen.” Her words swam in her head, disjointed. Was she making sense to him?

His lips quirked.

“Not a vampire,” he whispered and drew her closer, and her gaze lingered on his mouth. Decadent. Profane. A mouth made for kissing. She wanted to kiss him. Olivia shook herself. It was just the blood loss talking. He frowned, a flicker of concern in his purple eyes, and then his expression turned guarded again. “Perhaps I am a forefather of that species.”

He leaned down and she didn’t resist him. His cheek brushed hers, cooler now, and he licked her throat. The gentle sweep of his tongue over her flesh sent a shudder through her and the achy heat returned, making her skin feel too tight.

She lost herself again in that caress, each stroke of his tongue cranking her temperature up another ten degrees, until she was burning inside.

His words swam around her cloudy mind.

“Forefather.” She frowned and the fog began to lift, bringing with it too many questions, all of them centred around the gorgeous male clutching her against his naked body, licking her throat. “How old are you?”

He lifted his head and stared down into her eyes.

Alarms shrieked and the room spun in a blur across her eyes, and suddenly she was behind him, her bottom against the empty inspection table, and he was in front of her. He reached behind himself and grabbed her arm, pulling her closer to his back. Bottom. Oh my. She stared at it, blaming the blood loss for her shamelessness. He had a fine backside. The markings swept above it, meeting on his spine and drifting up his back to his shoulders.

She dazedly reached out to touch them.

The doors burst open and the man jerked her closer, smashing her against his back. She peered past him, touching him forgotten. Two men were there and she didn’t recognise either of them.

The men she worked with didn’t wear black armour like these men. It was like a second skin on their bodies, covering them from jaw to toe. Their helmets were fashioned to cover all but a V across their eyes and rose back into two dragon-like horns. She gasped when the part that swept downwards to conceal their nose and mouth opened, each slat sliding beneath the next.

The man shielding her said something in his foreign tongue.

Olivia pressed herself against his back and eyed the tools just a few feet away from her. A scalpel wasn’t a weapon, but it would suffice in an emergency. This was definitely an emergency.

Were these the men who had harmed the one in front of her?

The alarms continued to shriek and she prayed the resident hunters reached her before it was too late and these men attacked.

She dived for the tray of tools, but wasn’t quick enough. The man grabbed her right wrist and pulled her back to him, the swiftness of the action too much for her in her weakened condition. Her legs gave out and she hit the pale floor of the medical room, her left hand catching on the trolley and sending it crashing into the monitor stands.

One of the other men spoke.

In the same language as her specimen.

He answered them and she looked up at him, on her hands and knees on the floor. The men pressed their hands to their chest in a sort of salute. They were with her specimen. Here to take him from her. He reached for her and voices sounded outside in the corridor. The two men rushed forwards to grab him. The male snarled something dark and looked at her with striking purple eyes that spoke of anger, confusion and regret.

And disappeared in a brief flash of violet and blue light that left a flickering outline of him behind that lasted barely a second.

Olivia stared at the space where he and the two other men had been, blinking slowly, trying to get her head around what had just happened.

Hunters raced into the room, her friend Sable leading the charge. She rushed over to Olivia and helped her stand. He had wanted to do that. He had tried to protect her from men who clearly served him.

Olivia rested against the inspection table, confused and dizzy.

What was he?

She tugged the collar of her white coat up to conceal the marks he had placed on her throat, her fingers lingering over them.

He had bitten her, but said he wasn’t a vampire. A forefather of that species.

Olivia turned her head and stared at the remains of his clothing, replaying everything that had happened after he had bitten her. He had taken care of her, sealing the puncture marks, and then he had protected her.

And then he had held his hand out to her.

She had the weirdest notion he had meant to take her with him and had been angry because the arrival of the hunters had stopped him from doing so.

“Are you alright?” Sable bobbed around in front of her to get her attention, her golden eyes shining with concern.

Olivia focused on her friend and nodded.

Lied.

She didn’t feel alright.

She wasn’t sure she would ever feel right again.

Not until she knew what he was.

Not until she saw him again.

Not until she gave him hell for biting her.

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Loren curled his hips, driving himself into the female’s supple body, tearing another sweet moan from her lips. Her fingers tangled in his black hair and she kissed him, her mouth hot and teasing, her tongue sweeping along his. He took control of the kiss, mastering her mouth and forcing her into submission. Her tongue danced with his, her lips soft and yielding, her taste addictive. He caught the nape of her neck with one hand and held her in place, taking her mouth as he took her body, his kiss as aggressive as his thrusts.

Her feet tightened against his backside, a silent plea for more, and he clutched her hips, dragged her to the edge of the black-rubber-topped table and pumped her harder, thrusting as deep as he could go. She tipped her head back, causing the soft waves of her chestnut hair to spill around her shoulders, a beautifully wanton and wild look in her rich brown eyes. Loren growled and took her harder, driven by a need to claim all of her. He grunted with each thrust, each meeting of their hips, lost in how warm and wet she was, tightly gloving him and driving him crazy with a need for more.

A fine sheen of sweat slicked her flushed cheeks and dappled across her bare breasts, some drops gathering on her beaded nipples.

Another growl escaped him. He wanted to taste those exquisite buds as he took her.

He leaned over her, pressing her down into the table and rising above her without breaking his rhythm. Her white coat parted, falling away from her body and revealing all of her to his hungry eyes. He snarled possessively and swooped down to claim her left nipple, tugging the hard pebble into his mouth. She mewled, clawed his shoulders and dug her fingers through his hair, clutching him against her. Her body clenched his, drawing him deeper, heightening his pleasure as he thrust into her with long measured strokes, feeling all of her.

Loren still needed more. It wasn’t enough. He needed to know she was his and she knew it.

She rocked her hips, countering his movements, taking him as deep as her body would allow. The tip of his length struck deep inside her and he withdrew almost all the way out of her before he plunged back in, striking her again. He moaned and curled his hands around her shoulders, settling his weight on his elbows. He dragged her against him with each thrust of his hips, desperate for more, needing to take her harder and deeper, ruining her to all other males. His legs quivered but he didn’t stop. Couldn’t. He wanted to possess her. He wanted to stamp his mark on every inch of her.

Loren rammed harder into her, making her feel him, wanting her to know she was his now.

She groaned and arched her breasts into his mouth, and he sucked harder on her nipple, teasing it with his blunt teeth as he continued to drive into her, relentless and hard, unable to ignore his need to take her so thoroughly she would never want another male and would never forget him. He lightly bit down on her nipple and her husky moan went straight through him. His fangs descended in response and he rose off her again, bracing himself over her as he plunged into her, bringing her towards her climax with savage relentless strokes. She thrashed her head and arched upwards, her body tightening around his, ripping a groan from his throat. Her feet pressed into his buttocks, forcing his hard length into her each time he withdrew. Her dark eyes pleaded him for more, her breathless moans his guide, telling him that she was close.

Loren wanted to feel them climax together.

His lips peeled back off his fangs and she obeyed, turning her head to one side, revealing the marks he had placed on her before, in this same laboratory. He struck hard again, burying his fangs into her soft warm flesh and pulling hard on her blood. She cried out and her body quivered around his, her pleasure racing into him through her blood, bringing him to climax. He shuddered and jerked, growled into her as he came, pumping his seed into her hot core as he pulled her blood into his body.

Loren shot up in bed, breathing hard and shaking, his senses reeling with the intense pleasure boiling in his veins. His cock ached, the brush of the silk covers pooled around his waist agony against his sensitive flesh. He rubbed his palm down it and heat shot through him, sweeping outwards with his groin at its epicentre. He groaned and flopped back onto the bed, struggling to catch his breath.

It had been two days since he had woken a captive of a mortal organisation and taken the female’s blood. Every time he had closed his eyes to catch some sleep and speed his healing, she was there waiting for him in his dreams.

Erotic, intense, incredible dreams.

Loren palmed himself again and then dragged his hand away. He was only inviting the dreams if he pleasured himself because of them. He dug his hands under the soft pillows beneath his head, caging them there, and stared at the wooden ceiling of his rooms.

Why couldn’t he get his mind off her?

She haunted him every waking hour and every sleeping one, filling his head with thoughts that had him needful of her and aching, hard at some extremely inappropriate times.

Loren sincerely hoped that his clothing had concealed the erection he had sported during a council meeting. It had refused to go away, dragging his mind through the gutter, making him imagine taking the female right there on his throne. He hadn’t heard a word his trusted advisors had said as they had gently berated him about his lack of caution that had led to him being injured and left at the mercy of demon hunters.

He scrubbed a hand down his face and then shoved his fingers through his black hair, yanking it back hard enough to hurt.

He hadn’t experienced lust in forty-two centuries, not since he had gone to war with his brother. He also hadn’t thought of anything other than Vail and their war in that time. He didn’t like it. He needed to focus on his brother now that he had re-emerged from hiding.

Searching for his brother had occupied most of his days since their war had begun. Vail cloaked himself, making it impossible for Loren to find him through the link between their blood, so all searching had to be done manually, using scouts and his dwindling army to follow up rumours and find clues.

His brother had been gone without a trace, clue or rumour to follow for almost four centuries.

Loren’s guard had been down three nights ago when walking the castle grounds, needing the space from his aides so he could think. Vail had defeated him before he had even managed to rally his senses and begin to defend and retaliate.

Somehow, he had ended up in the mortal realm. Was Vail there now?

It unnerved Loren. Vail had never taken their battle to the mortal realm and the council were concerned that he intended to reveal the existence of his kind to the humans.

Loren’s people were already low in number as it was, weakened by attacks resulting from his brother’s nefarious plots throughout the centuries. He wasn’t sure they would survive should the mortals discover a way into this realm and send in their armies.

The council were using this latest attack, and almost successful attempt on Loren’s life, to force him to agree to drop his attempts to capture Vail and end him instead. Loren closed his eyes, his chest aching at the thought of killing his brother, his only family. He was still convinced that Vail could be saved, but he was the only one who felt that way. Everyone else, even his second in command, Bleu, believed that Vail was a tyrant and deserved to die in exchange for the lives he had taken on the battlefield, both by his own blades and by underhanded tactics.

Loren had a duty to his people.

The council took great pleasure in reminding him of that and Loren could never argue against it. His duty was to his people and he would do all in his power to protect them.

Even kill his brother.

He wasn’t sure he had the strength to do it though. Whenever he saw Vail, he wanted to capture him and bring him home. He wanted to save him and he hesitated because of it, allowing his brother to escape.

Now, Loren feared that it was a fool’s dream and that he would live to see his kingdom fall and his people suffer because of his love for his brother.

Because of his inability to place his people before his only family.

The council weren’t on the battlefield to see what he witnessed. Whenever he met Vail in battle, they dealt each other blows, but it had always felt as though they were toying with each other, neither of them desiring the death of the other.

The times when Vail’s female were present were different though. The witch had been present at many of their fights over the centuries and each time Vail had been a savage, wild man, focused and determined. The sight of his brother like that left Loren with the feeling that his brother had completely lost his mind.

Whenever they had crossed swords without Kordula present, Vail still seemed crazed, but not savage or mindless. He flitted between attacking and retreating, as though he was split between them, his mind torn in two.

Loren heaved a sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose.

He still ached. No longer the ache of arousal. The wounds on his body were healing but sore, a lingering reminder that Vail was dangerous and had almost killed him this time.

Why now?

He couldn’t recall everything that had happened. There were pieces missing and he had a strong urge to return to the female doctor and finish finding out how she had come across him.

Not a wise idea.

Common sense warned that he really wanted to return to her because he had another strong urge, the one that occupied his dreams and had him rising beneath the sheets again.

Loren sat up and shifted his legs over the left edge of his expansive mattress. He shed the dark purple sheets and rose from the bed, stretched and tried to ignore how hard he was again. It was no use. He had ignored it for two days and it wasn’t going to go away until he found release. Many in his court would suggest finding a female to slake himself on but he didn’t want a stranger in his bed, a female who would be there under orders no doubt, doing her duty for the kingdom.

He hadn’t bedded a woman since long before he had gone to war with Vail. He wasn’t going to start now. He wanted his ki’ara. His fated female. He wanted the one destined to be his forever.

He crossed the room, heading towards the arch to his right, beyond the wardrobes that lined the opposite side of the wall to his bed. His bathing room was half the size of his bedroom, all dark stone on the floor and walls. A beautiful crystal chandelier hung above the bathing pool that was set into the floor. The crystals shone in different colours, casting them around the room.

Loren bent and swept his hand through the water in the large square pool. It was warm. He stepped down into it and sunk under the surface, holding his breath and letting the water heat every inch of him. Coloured light rippled and danced across the surface above, and a sense of peace flowed through him. When the need to breathe became urgent, he broke the surface and moved to the side of the pool closest to his bedroom. He leaned back against it and closed his eyes, resting the back of his head on the edge.

Thoughts of the female instantly invaded the darkness behind his closed eyes. Loren focused on the warmth surrounding him and how peaceful he had felt while under the surface, trying to shut them out. His cock ached again, rigid beneath the water. Loren ignored that too. He would soak to ease his tired muscles and sore body, and then he would rise and dress, and would speak with Bleu.

The female danced back into his mind, wearing the parted white coat and very little beneath. He pictured her standing across from him, at the edge of the pool there, her brown eyes dark with desire as she raked them over him.

She cocked her head to one side and ran her fingers down her chest, circling her breasts with them, shifting the two sides of the white coat and flashing her dark nipples. He groaned and she smiled, hooked her fingers into her coat and slowly opened it, revealing all of her to his eyes. She let the material slide down her body and pool around her bare feet, and then stepped into the water.

Loren swallowed hard, transfixed by her as she waded towards him, her hips swaying with each leisurely step, teasing him.

He ran his arms along the edge of the pool, waiting for her.

The female stopped before him and he held one hand out to her. She slipped hers into it and he lured her down to him. She pressed one knee beside his thigh and straddled him. Loren swallowed again and eased lower in the water, took hold of her hips, and brought her into position above his hard length.

The head of him nudged into her hot sheath and she moaned, easing down onto him, taking him deep. Loren clutched her hips and groaned as he raised her off him and then brought her back down, setting a slow pace this time. She held on to his shoulders, causing his markings to shimmer brightly, and began to ride him, seizing control of their lovemaking. Loren let her, laying back and enjoying the feel of her taking him into her body, squeezing and releasing him, making him buck beneath her. She smiled whenever he thrust upwards, unable to help himself, and rode him harder and faster, until they were both panting and moaning, lost in the moment.

She arched backwards and cried out her release. The feel of her quivering around him pulled him over the edge. He growled as he grasped her hips, slammed her down onto him, and spilled himself, pleasure rushing through his veins and stealing his senses. He breathed hard, trying to bring himself down, his thighs trembling.

Loren didn’t want to open his eyes.

He didn’t want to witness the result of the erotic acts of his dreams becoming fantasies that invaded his waking hours too.

Loren peeled his hand away from his still-throbbing length, reached under the water and pulled the chain on the large stone plugging the bottom. The water immediately began to rush down the drain. He stepped out of the pool, dried himself off with a square of thick purple cloth and growled at his lack of self-control.

He padded silently across the dark stone floor to the elegant wardrobes lining the wall of his bedroom, drying his hair at the same time. All eight doors were black wood decorated with a beautiful inlay made of precious stones and shells, depicting dragons and his kind, living in harmony with all the kingdoms. Life had been like that once, thousands of years ago. Now, many of the demon kingdoms wanted him dead, blaming him and his people for his brother’s ruthless attacks on their villages.

Only the first and second demon kingdoms kept the other five from razing his lands and murdering his people. He had signed a peace treaty with them a thousand years ago. The kingdoms didn’t tolerate any individual demon from outside their realm passing through it without permission, let alone an army.

He took a pair of black tight trousers from the stack and slipped them on, fastening them over his hips, and then jammed his bare feet into his black leather riding boots.

His markings flared, a hot shivery feeling that always made him tense. They had done that too often since he had taken blood from the female, unsettling him.

It wasn’t the only anomaly.

He wasn’t healing as quickly as he should have either. It had been two days. His wounds should be gone by now, but they lingered, and he felt weaker than usual. His brother’s attack had been severe, but he had taken blood from the female and had drunk stored blood since returning to his world. He had eaten too, devouring the plates of nourishing vegetables and fruits that Bleu had pressed him to consume even when he hadn’t felt hungry. He should have healed by yesterday.

Perhaps he needed more blood.

Loren raked his fingers through his damp black hair and crossed the expansive bedroom. Daylight flowed in through the tall arched windows lining the wall to his right, where his bed was. Someone had been in while he had been resting and opened the twin arched doors that led onto his balcony. A breeze swept in through them, tousling the sheer blue curtains, carrying the scent of flowers.

He stopped at the long black low cabinet that lined the shorter side of his bedroom and opened one of the doors. Someone had topped up the icebox too. The small triangular metal containers of blood in the dark stone box smelled faintly of Bleu. Loren smiled to himself and took one of the canisters out.

Bleu had been livid with him when he had come to take him from the female doctor’s laboratory. Loren had received more than an earful. Bleu had practically scolded him, sounding much like the mother Loren had lost almost five thousand years ago.

His second in command had never learned how to express his feelings. Whenever he was concerned, it came out as angry. Loren appreciated his friend’s concern though, and that he had managed to track him to the mortal world before the humans had, well, he still wasn’t sure what their intention had been.

Studying him.

The female had said she desired to study him.

She had desired to help him.

Loren groaned at the memory of what he had done after that. He had bitten her. He had felt weak and shaky, on the verge of passing out from the pain of his injuries. It had been instinct. She had smelled divine and had been so close to him, so warm and beautiful. He hadn’t been able to stop himself.

He pulled the cap off the canister and swiftly gulped the contents down. He closed the cabinet door and set the empty canister down on the top, and walked across the room, passing his bed and heading for the double doors beyond them that stretched twenty feet high. The light blue fabric caressed his bare torso as he moved through the curtains. The blood would kick in soon and then he would feel better.

His stomach cramped, pain vibrating through his body. He shot a hand out and grasped the door to his left, clutching it for support. Something was wrong. He should be growing stronger but he felt as though he was getting weaker.

Loren’s eyes shot wide and he held his stomach, fighting a wave of nausea.

Cold fingers danced down his spine, chilling his blood in his veins.

The female was more than a source of sustenance. She was different. Not just a normal human. Did she know it? Did Vail?

Loren had a terrible feeling that his brother knew.

Ki’ara.

His knees weakened. She couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible that the human doctor was his fated female. His ki’ara.

Loren growled, his frustration getting the better of him. He had wanted to find his ki’ara for almost fifty centuries but he didn’t need this now and he certainly didn’t need her to be a member of some sort of demon-hunting organisation.

Icy claws drifted down his back again and curled around his heart.

He feared that it wasn’t fate that had brought him together with his eternal mate now.

It was his brother.

He needed to know exactly what had happened the night he had met her.

Loren pushed away from the door and stumbled across the room, aiming for the bed. He had to be careful though. If he was right, and he had bonded the female to him, returning to her might not be a wise move.

Bonded males could become extremely aggressive and dangerous in the presence of their female.

Vail was proof of that.

The completed bond with the dark witch had changed him and Loren felt certain that it was responsible for his brother’s madness and thirst for violence. If he had taken the first step in binding himself to the female doctor, he couldn’t afford to let it change him as it had changed his younger brother. He could never complete it, no matter how long he had waited for his ki’ara. The fate of his people rested on his shoulders.

He needed to find a way to shatter the fragile bond.

If she was his ki’ara.

There was one way of finding out.

If she were, he would be able to use the bond between them to locate her. His knees hit the mattress and he collapsed on his front and rolled onto his back.

Loren closed his eyes and focused, turning his thoughts inwards, towards the female and her blood. He found a slender thread of her within him and held on to it, using his psychic abilities to enhance it, until it grew into a thicker ribbon of colours that swirled like his markings, iridescent and beautiful. His breathing grew laboured, the strength it took to use his abilities weakening him further. A room shimmered into focus in his mind, a place with cream walls and soft brown furniture, and technology he had never seen before.

The female walked into view, dressed in her long white coat and dark tight trousers beneath them, her chestnut hair twirled into a knot at the back of her head.

Loren stood and willed his personal portal to appear. Violet and blue light chased over his body, outlining it, and he commanded it to take him to the female.

He appeared behind her in her small apartment. He had been to this building before. It smelled familiar. She lived in the place where she worked.

He had wanted to speak with her here, where familiar things would surround her and she wouldn’t feel threatened, but he couldn’t risk her raising the alarm.

Loren grabbed her from behind and covered her mouth with his hand. She instantly began wriggling in his arms, rubbing her backside against his groin, reigniting the desire he had barely managed to leash back in his bathing room. He ground his teeth together and caged her against his body, and willed himself to return to the portal in his room.

The moment his rooms appeared around him, he released her and she turned on her heel and smashed her fist into his mouth.

Loren stumbled and fell on his backside, the impact with the cold stone jarring his spine.

His female stood over him, a fiery glow in her dark eyes, her lips compressed into a thin line of fury.

She was beautiful.

But she could never be his.

No matter how long he had waited for her, had dreamed of having his ki’ara, he had to do the right thing for a change. He had to place his people first and he had to defeat his brother.

There was only one way he would be strong enough to battle and kill Vail.

He looked up at the female towering over him, his heart beating in synchronisation with hers, his body weakened by their incomplete connection.

He had to find a way to break their bond and let her go.

He had to sacrifice his dreams.

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Olivia’s knuckles burned.

The man she had planted on his backside didn’t look as though she had dealt much damage with her blow though. She had the feeling she had caused herself more pain than she had inflicted on him. She stood over him, letting him see the full extent of her anger in her eyes. It was a little over two days since he had tried to take a chunk out of her throat and her fury over it hadn’t dropped from a boil to a simmer. The twin wounds on her neck were still sore, irritating her, a constant reminder of what he had done.

She had thought about how this meeting would go many times during the course of the past fifty hours, considering all the scenarios, but she had never once imagined it would actually happen and she would see him again.

She had definitely never imagined he would kidnap her from her apartment.

Where the hell was she?

Her gaze darted between him and the room, trying to take it all in without giving him a chance to attack her unawares.

If he tried anything funny, she was aiming lower and with her foot. He was anatomically similar to a human male and that meant she could deal him a blow he would definitely feel, all without causing herself a single ounce of pain.

The room around her was dark and grim, the walls and floor made of stone that verged on black, and the ceiling made up of a rich sort of timber. The arched windows at intervals along the wall to her right and the tall arched door a few metres behind her on the same wall let in a large amount of light though. The world outside was bright. Far brighter than it should have been. He had taken her in the dead of night. Were they on the other side of the world now?

The man picked himself up off the floor and she scooted back a step, brandishing her fists in front of her. He cocked an eyebrow at her and rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand, his purple eyes darkening. She knew that look. She had pissed him off. Not what she had aimed to do, but it was satisfying nonetheless.

“You have a hell of a lot of nerve, Mister. You take liberties with my vital fluids and then you kidnap me?” She stood her ground when he rose to his full height, reminding her just how tall he was, the honed muscles of his bare torso stretching with his action.

Olivia refused to let her eyes drift down and take in that delicious body. He had hurt her. He was some kind of demon and he had bitten her, and she’d had enough damn men in her life like that. She wasn’t looking for a repeat performance with the tall, dark and deadly slice of sexy standing before her. No way.

She really wasn’t.

“Do you intend to hurt me?” She was sure that he wasn’t likely to be honest and tell her if he was, but she had to ask.

He shook his head. “No. To hurt you would be to hurt myself.”

That sounded rather noble and romantic. She glanced around the room again. It was huge, and the furniture was solid wood, possibly ebony, and very ornate. Was she in a castle? This was how she had imagined castles looked. Why did he live in a castle?

“Female, tell me everything about how we met.” That commanding tone again. He was a man used to getting his way, issuing orders and having people obey, and he seemed to live in a castle on the other side of the world to her offices in London.

Her mind supplied that perhaps he was a knight or a prince. He had a regal bearing and was handsome enough to be someone of noble blood. He acted like a stuck up bastard too.

He took a step towards her and Olivia moved back one, keeping the distance between them steady. She wasn’t sure whether he had other powers besides the ability to teleport, but she wasn’t going to risk letting him close the gap. He had already bitten her once. There was nothing to say he wasn’t going to try that trick again and drain her dry this time. She bristled at the memory of him attacking her and clenched her fists.

He halted and quirked an eyebrow at her. Maybe he had good senses like many demons and had detected her anger.

“Listen. I’ll answer your questions but if you come near me, I won’t be held responsible for the damage done to your private parts.”

He backed off a step. It seemed that even demons had preservation instincts when it came to their balls.

“Better.” She moved a step too, enlarging the gap, giving herself more space and ending up closer to the doors. The rich blue sheer curtains billowed on a warm breeze that smelled like blossom. Southern hemisphere? It was early autumn in the northern. “The patrol team found you close to the facility.”

“How close?” He frowned, his eyes darkening.

“That was the weird thing. You were practically dropped on our doorstep... like a gift.”

He cursed in his foreign tongue, his expression turning pensive, which was not good for Olivia because he was even more handsome when the black slashes of his eyebrows drew together, his sensual lips pursed, and his purple eyes flashed with keen intelligence.

“I knew it,” he muttered, his bass voice still at odds with his lean athletic figure. He paced, his boots making no sound on the floor.

How could he move silently like that? The dark floor was solid stone and his boots looked heavy, the soles made of layers of leather and possibly wood. He should be shaking the foundations with each determined stride, but he wasn’t.

She had a thousand questions she wanted to ask him, most of them about whether she was getting out of this alive, but couldn’t find the courage to voice them when he looked so dark and troubled.

Olivia settled for tracking him as he paced, sure that he would have another question for her soon, because he was thinking hard. He was pale too, maybe even more so than he had been when she’d had him on her inspection table. Was he still sick?

His purple gaze flitted to her, and then away, and then back again. Whenever it landed on her, he looked lost for a moment, bewildered, as if he had forgotten what he was supposed to be doing but had a suspicion he had been doing something before setting eyes on her.

Olivia’s body betrayed her every time his gaze landed on her, flushing with fiery heat and that shivery achy feeling that had come over her when they had first met. She cursed herself. She was not going to go through this again. At least the first time she hadn’t realised that she was dealing with a demon until he had tried to take down the central headquarters of Archangel. She knew this time and she had her barriers up and locked in place. There was no way he was going to break them down.

She was not going to lust after another demon.

He wheeled around to his right and her eyes shot to the arched door near the other end of the room, close to a low long cabinet.

It was one of the men from the other night. The one who had spoken. She recognised his face. He still wore his suit of armour, but his helmet was gone, revealing black-blue overlong wild hair. Did all of their species have the same hair and eye colour? He stared at her, purple eyes dark and cold, but laced with a touch of surprise.

“I sensed your agitation.” He switched his focus to the man who had bitten and kidnapped her. “Is everything well, my prince?”

Prince. Oh my. She had been right on the money. Her kidnapper was a prince. A prince of what though?

The other male’s eerie gaze slid back to her and narrowed, and Olivia had the dreadful feeling that he would be all too willing to kill her if she was upsetting the man he had referred to as his prince.

The prince in question shook his head and waved regally, dismissing the male. “That action will not be necessary, Bleu. The female is not a threat to me.”

Olivia bristled at that. She could have killed him when she’d had him unconscious on her inspection table. Not a threat her ass.

Both men slid deadly looks her way and Olivia realised she had said it all aloud. She shrank back, trying to make herself look as small and nonthreatening as possible.

The prince dismissed the male again. This time, he obeyed and left. Olivia waited until he had closed the wooden door before she moved her attention back to the prince and relaxed a fraction. The man in the room with her had bitten and kidnapped her, but had said he wouldn’t hurt her. If she had to choose between him and the one he had called Bleu, who had looked at her as if she were a pest to be eradicated, she would choose her blood-drinking captor over the homicidal maniac.

“Continue,” he said and she half expected him to use that regal wave on her. If he tried it, she might be inclined to relocate his testicles after all. She might be human, but she wasn’t going to let anyone order her around, not even a powerful immortal prince. She had enough of that from her superiors. “What condition did you find me in?”

“You’d taken one hell of a beating... don’t you remember fighting?” she said and he shook his head and sat on the edge of his bed. Rumpled purple covers. Barely dressed male. She could do the math. He had woken and come to take her shortly afterwards, because he couldn’t recall the fight and how he had ended up at Archangel. He looked like the sort of man who liked to be in control and hated weakness, and not remembering the events that had seen him dumped unconscious at a demon-hunting organisation were probably driving him mad. “It must have been epic.”

The light in his eyes faded and he looked off to his right, staring at the foot of the row of wardrobes.

“My battles with this particular enemy always are.” Something drifted in his rich purple eyes, a shadow of remorse that left her feeling he would rather not fight this enemy.

He cursed again, pushed to his feet and paced, taking long agitated strides up and down the room.

Olivia leaned back against the wall and studied him in silence, giving him time to think and beginning to relax.

He was beautiful, his tall lean figure shifting sensually with each stride, working his muscles like a symphony. Every so often, the markings she had followed with her fingers would flash into existence and he would growl, seemingly irritated by them, and glare at her, as if she were to blame.

Olivia lost track of time, her fear melting away and her guard dropping with it. What was he thinking? He looked melancholy at times, pained, but angry at others. Feelings flitted across his handsome face, rapidly changing his expression, drawing her to him all the more.

He seemed sad for some reason, a terrible sorrow that shone in his eyes, fathomless and painful. Mixed in with that sadness was a sense of lethalness though, the danger she had originally felt in his presence, a feeling he exuded like an aura. It should have warned her away from him. Instead, she found herself moving away from the wall and towards him, lured by an inexplicable need to comfort him and ease the pain she swore she could feel in him.

“Are you okay?”

He stopped dead and looked across at her, his expression open and blank, as though her question had caught him off guard. His look hardened again a second later and he pivoted on his heel and crossed the room to her. He halted inches from her, towering over her, making her feel nervous and unsure of herself. The longer he stood there studying her with those intense purple eyes without saying anything, the more on edge she felt, until her insides had twisted into tight knots and she couldn’t bear it anymore.

“Have you finished questioning me now?” she blurted out.

He nodded.

“I can go home?”

“I am sorry but I cannot allow that to happen.” He looked beyond her left shoulder, towards the blue curtains and the doors. “My enemy has made you a target, a well played move on his part and one I did not predict or even consider.”

Her anger came back to a rolling boil and she opened her mouth to give him hell, but he stole her voice. His eyes came back to meet hers and he lifted his hand, slowly reached towards her and brushed aside the collar of her white coat. He caressed the marks on the left side of her throat, sending a hot achy shiver through her.

“I have made you a target.” Those words sent a different sort of shiver through her. This one not at all pleasant.

She raised her hand to touch her throat and ended up covering his hand instead. His skin was cool beneath hers. His nostrils flared, his eyes brightened and the pointed tips of his ears extended and sharpened. He bared his fangs at her and shifted back, pulling his hand away from her touch.

Olivia’s heart leaped into overdrive, thundering against her ribs, and her hand shook, fear freezing her feet in place.

The prince looked ill but, at the same time, there was an unmistakable spark of desire in his eyes.

It might have flattered her if she hadn’t been clinging to what he had said, repeating it in her head and growing increasingly angry with each cycle. She was a target for a maniac who had beaten this immortal male close to death?

“What the hell is going on here?” she snapped and advanced on him, surprised when he actually retreated, as if he feared her. No way a powerful male like him would fear a little woman like her. He hadn’t liked it when she had touched him. He had reacted strongly to it. Maybe he feared she would touch him again if he let her get close enough. She wanted to touch him alright. She wanted to crack his nose with her fist. “I want to know what’s happening because I have the feeling my life is on the line and I didn’t sign up for this shit. You bit me... I damned well didn’t ask you to violate me... and I want to know how your abuse of my body and my rights has made me a target.”

The prince held his hands up and she halted, breathing hard to settle her volatile feelings. Getting angry with him probably wouldn’t solve anything. If she was in danger, she was probably going to need his help. He had dragged her into this. He could damn well get her out of it unscathed.

“The reason your comrades found me so close to your facility is because my enemy left me there... it is a twisted game... he could have killed me but I would not have suffered.” He sounded too damn calm and he looked it too.

Olivia couldn’t see how he could be so relaxed about all of this. Some psychopath had beaten him close to death and dropped him on her doorstep, and it was all a game? That wasn’t a game. That was sick.

“And he wants you to suffer... why?” She couldn’t hold the angry note from her voice. He had wanted answers and had brought her here. Well, now she wanted some damn answers of her own.

“It is not for you to know,” he said quietly.

It damned well was. “Why did he dump you with us? Did he think Archangel would torture you?”

He shook his head, the solemn look returning to his eyes. “No. He knew you would torture me.”

Olivia frowned. “I don’t get it. What do you mean? I said did he think we would torture you and you said no, and then you said he knew we would... that doesn’t make sense. I warn you, I am liable to relocate your testicles if I don’t start getting some straight answers.”

He took a step back. “It was a straight answer. Not we... you... he knew you would torture me.”

“Me?” Her eyes shot wide and indignation joined the ranks of her feelings. “I’m a doctor. I know I work for a demon-hunting group, but that doesn’t mean I would torture one.”

He glanced down at his boots and then back at her, his expression troubled. He growled, exposing his fangs, and shoved his fingers through his black hair.

“He knew what you were when he dropped me there and he knew what I would do,” he barked the words at her, his expression wild and desperate, the look of a man firmly on the edge. He stepped towards her and reached for her, and then let his hands fall to his sides and cursed.

“What... bite me?” She touched the marks on her neck, feeling the pronounced bumps where his fangs had punctured her. What had he done by biting her?

The prince closed the distance between them and she tipped her head back, holding his gaze. He frowned and she gasped as his fingers settled against her jaw. He slid his hand along it to cup her cheek, his eyes locked on hers, drawing her into their purple depths until she felt lost.

“Bind you to me.”

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Olivia couldn’t breathe, and it wasn’t only because she was drowning in his eyes and lost in the feel of his gentle touch.

Bind. Her. To. Him.

Bind her. To him.

It gradually sank in, leaving her feeling numb and dazed.

The man had beaten him unconscious and dumped him on her doorstep. Specifically. The prince had come around, injured and weak, and had bitten her. That bite had bound them together.

His enemy had known the whole thing would happen.

He had orchestrated it to make the prince suffer and make her a target.

Olivia changed her mind. It wasn’t sinking in at all.

“What the hell do you mean?” she snapped and glared up at the prince.

His hand was still against her face. Dangerous. She pulled her barriers up, more afraid of him now than she had ever been. She was bound to him. That couldn’t be a good thing. It sounded distinctly intimate and she was not doing intimate with a demon. Never again. She had learned her lesson. You couldn’t trust a demon.

“Under normal circumstances, my biting you would not have been a problem. Your blood would have restored my strength, you would have healed, and your life would have gone back to normal.”

“You keep saying normal.” She always had been perceptive and he might be talking in a very practiced calm and rational voice clearly designed to placate people and keep them calm and rational too, but she was so far beyond calm and rational that she couldn’t even see it in the rear view mirror. “If that’s the normal version of events... what crazy one really happened?”

His fingertips caressed her ear, distracting her.

Olivia knocked his hand away and glared at him. “Answer me.”

He lowered his hand and his shoulders slumped. “Very well. Your blood carries a specific gene that is rare amongst humans. It marks you as a potential mate for my species.”

“Vampires.” She threw it at him like a barb.

He neatly deflected it. “You know I am not a vampire... a forefather of that kind, yes, but not at one with the darkness as they are.”

He was right and it wasn’t only because he had told her before that he wasn’t a vampire that she knew. She knew better than most that he only bore a passing resemblance to a vampire because she’d had firsthand dealings with one, a memory she had buried deep and would rather not recall because it hurt worse than the memory of the bastard demon who had used her.

“Female?” His deep voice pulled her out of her dark thoughts and back to him, and she stared up at him, lost again but for a different reason this time. Her heart ached. She rubbed the spot on her chest and stifled the tears that threatened to come. “Are you unwell?”

Olivia shook her head, touched by his concern and the gentle way he brushed his knuckles across her cheek.

She sucked in a deep breath and squared her shoulders, shoving the pain away and locking it back within her heart.

“What kind are you then? Just what species are you a prince of?” Would he finally give her the answer to the question that had plagued her from the moment she had set eyes on him? He owed her a little honesty since he had pulled her into a messed up war.

“Elvenkind.”

Olivia’s eyebrows shot up. “Elves? The elven species are supposed to be extinct... little more than myths... and you expect me to believe you are an elf?”

He had pointed ears, sure, but he also had fangs and was darkness made flesh. She had always imagined elves would be fair-haired and nature friendly, not black-haired with a penchant for drinking people to death.

He was beautiful though, and tall. She was overly aware of his stature as he closed the gap between them again and she had to tip her head back to keep her eyes on his.

“We are not extinct. We merely left the mortal realm and for good reason. Mankind had become increasingly violent, waging war against demonkind and the fae.” His expression blackened, as if he were recalling the bloodshed he spoke of. “They hungered for violence, butchering our kind until many of the weaker harmless and defenceless species were extinct. We withdrew from the world, fearing the cruel acts would taint our souls.”

And turn them wicked no doubt. Had the vampires stemmed from the elves who had remained behind, their souls blackened by the violent nature of mankind?

“How long ago was that?” she said, her curiosity getting the better of her again.

“Close to fifty centuries have passed since I lost my father and withdrew my people from the mortal realm. I have not set foot in that world since forty-two centuries ago, when I went to war with Vail.”

Olivia couldn’t take that in. Almost five thousand years since he had moved his people and over four thousand two hundred years since he had been in her world. He was old. Very old. Damn ancient. Was Vail the name of his enemy?

“Why were you here this time?” she said with a frown.

“I did not consciously move from my realm to yours.” He averted his gaze and it picked up that conflicted edge it had whenever he was thinking about his enemy.

The man had injured him, rendered him unconscious, and then dropped him into her world.

Olivia paused. “Wait... what realm is this?”

“It is not your world.” His smile was wicked.

It did a funny thing to her insides that should have been illegal.

Olivia’s gaze slid off to her left, towards the tall arched doors and the flowing curtains. Not her world. Her eyes slowly widened.

The scientist in her found that fascinating.

Beyond the walls of this building, there was another world, one filled with creatures she might never have heard of before.

The woman in her was petrified.

“I want to go home now.”

“I cannot allow that.”

Olivia snapped her attention back to him and fixed him with a scowl. “Why not?”

“Because you are bound to me... my mate.”

He didn’t have to say it like that, in a deep husky voice that sent another unwanted hot shiver dancing over her skin, making it ache for his touch. It didn’t matter what had happened. She was not staying here and she was not being his mate.

“Why did he do this?” There had to be a reason. The prince had said his enemy had done it to make him suffer.

“Vail sought to bond us to weaken me and make me vulnerable, and therefore grant him a shot at killing me.”

That wasn’t right. His logic was screwy and he was hiding something.

Olivia folded her arms across her chest. “Your enemy could have killed you rather than dump you at my door. I still don’t get why you haven’t just killed him before. You’ve been at war for four thousand years. There must have been opportunities.”

“I almost succeeded once.” He began pacing again, long strides eating up the stone floor with ease. The man couldn’t keep still whenever he felt agitated and watching him pace only served to agitate her. It showed off his body in far too good a light and gave her a terrible excuse to stare. “I came close to killing Vail’s ki’ara... it would have given me a chance to capture him.”

Olivia didn’t miss that he had said capture him. Not kill him. Now she knew why they had been fighting for so long. The prince couldn’t bring himself to kill this psychopath. Why not?

“What’s a ki’ara?” She figured it was safer than probing about his reasons for not killing his enemy.

He glanced across at her. “It is our term for our fated female... our eternal mate. You are my ki’ara. The dark witch named Kordula is Vail’s ki’ara.”

So his enemy was another elf, and he had a fated female too, and the prince had tried to kill her.

“Do you get like a harem of them... or is it a one-time deal?” She hoped he didn’t say that each elf only got one ki’ara, but the solemn edge to his purple eyes warned that he was going to shatter that hope the moment he spoke.

“We have one fated female.” He looked away from her again, his head lowered now, his focus on his knee-high black boots.

Whatever this ki’ara thing was, she had the impression that elves placed a lot of value on it and it wasn’t something they gave up lightly. She couldn’t imagine having just one shot at true love. The prince was five thousand years old and now he had found his ki’ara, in her, and he didn’t need to say it aloud for her to know that he was thinking about giving her up. He didn’t act or look like a man who was happy to have found his soul mate and was going to fight to keep her.

“What happened with Vail and his ki’ara?” Olivia said and he stopped pacing, his gaze on the floor and his eyes widening.

He frowned and spat out what she could imagine was a vile curse.

“I am a fool. I have been looking at this all wrong.” He threw his head back and growled, his fangs sharp and ears pointed again. “Vail will seek you out and torture you to drive me to the brink. He is seeking revenge and desires me to suffer as he had. He will use you to hurt me.”

Olivia’s blood chilled to sub-zero temperatures and she stared at him, struggling to get past the part about this madman torturing her.

She managed to reach the end of what he said and realised that what he had told her earlier hadn’t been something romantic or noble at all. He had meant it literally. If someone hurt her, then he would feel it. He would share her pain.

Olivia couldn’t comprehend that. It was too much. She couldn’t breathe as the weight of it pressed down on her and the thought of being tortured closed her throat. Her head spun, the room viciously turning with it.

“Calm yourself!” he bellowed, a dark commanding snarl.

No. She was damned well going to have herself a major panic attack and he could damned well deal with it. She was sure that a panicking woman wasn’t on his list of things he enjoyed dealing with, but he had just announced that someone was out to torture her and considering this man had beaten the crap out of the prince, she felt her demise at his hands was somewhat inevitable.

“Female,” the prince gritted out and Olivia tried to focus on him.

He wobbled into focus and she frowned when she saw he was clutching his chest and was paler than ever, on the verge of collapse too.

Oh my God. He didn’t only share her pain.

His knees gave out, sending him crashing to the floor, and he whipped out a vicious curse in English this time, his handsome face contorting, revealing how much he despised what was happening to him. Olivia rushed to him and crouched before him. He inhaled hard, his shoulders heaving with each breath, struggling for air just as she had been a moment ago. She laid her hand on his shoulder. He was shaking like a leaf.

Olivia ran her hand along his jaw and lifted his chin, and studied his eyes. She tilted his head towards the light and away, monitoring the responsiveness of his pupils.

“What’s wrong?” She checked his pulse, pressing her fingers against his neck. It was fast, far quicker than it had been when she’d had him hooked up to the machines in the lab.

She dropped her hand away.

It matched hers.

“Not used to the pace,” he ground out. He was talking about his heartbeat. Her heartbeat. She swallowed, stunned by the reality before her.

The bond between them was so deep that it affected him physically. It linked them right down to their hearts.

Incredible.

He sat back in front of her and drew in slow breaths and her eyes widened when her pulse began to slow. He was the one making it happen.

Olivia tried to help him, seeking calm amongst the raging storm of her feelings, but it was hard. She was in a strange environment, felt threatened and overwhelmed, and someone was out to torture her. Just thinking about that had her pulse picking up again.

“Calm yourself.” He was back to commanding her again.

“I’m trying... it’s... I can’t... it’s too much.” Olivia’s panic spiked, her hand shaking against his face.

He looked deep into her eyes and then she was in his arms, held close to him, and they were kneeling together on the floor.

Familiar scents swirled around her and she instantly felt more relaxed. “What did you do?”

He drew back from her and she found that he had taken her home and they were kneeling in the middle of her small living room on the cream carpet, between the beige sofa and the TV.

The prince brushed cool fingers across her brow. “You feel better now.”

She nodded, her heart levelling out again, the soft feel of the carpet beneath her knees and the familiar surroundings making her feel comforted and safe.

He sighed.

“I cannot remain here... and that means you cannot either... but I will not rush you,” he said in a low voice, one laced with a solemn note.

She appreciated that because she could see how difficult this was for him. He was a man used to issuing orders and having someone instantly obey. He was a man unused to having a weakness and she knew that was what she was. She didn’t want this bond between them either. She wanted it undone or broken or just gone somehow. She didn’t care how.

“Is there a way to undo it?” she whispered, afraid to hope that there was.

“It is possible it may fade if we do not complete it. I will have my men look into it and we will know soon enough if it is possible to break the bond. If it is possible, you will be free to go.”

She didn’t like the sound of that. “And if it isn’t?”

“If it is not possible, then my only choice will be to complete the bond. Completing the bond will restore my strength, because it will make you immortal, stronger.” He held her gaze, unflinching as she glared at him, thinking about giving him another piece of her mind. “You must understand... I must defeat my enemy and to do that, I need to regain my strength, whether that is through breaking or completing our bond.”

In other words, she wasn’t getting a choice. He was just going to make that decision for her.

“I don’t want this bond. I’m stating that for the record. I didn’t ask you to bite me and drag me into this mess. I don’t want it completed. I want it gone.”

“I will do all I can. I will have my best researchers on it as soon as we return.”

Olivia shook her head. “I’m not returning. That’s another thing. I want to stay here until we know for certain.”

His black eyebrows pinched together. “I cannot allow that. You will be vulnerable here.”

Olivia held her ground, refusing to give an inch. “Can’t one of your men stay with me, like a bodyguard?”

His expression darkened and his ears went pointier again. His voice was a thick growl as he spoke, his fangs brushing his lower lip. “You wish for another male to keep you company?”

Not what she had said at all but clearly that was what he had heard, and he didn’t like the idea one bit. Was the dark possessive snarl in his deep voice a result of the bond too or was it because he felt attracted to her? She hadn’t failed to notice the desire that shone in his eyes at times either. Was that the bond at work? A fragment of her heart hoped it wasn’t. Olivia squashed it.

“Listen, Buddy, you don’t seem to want to stay with me and you won’t let me stay alone, so what other option do we have?” She prodded his chest, driving her point home so he wouldn’t be able to miss that she wasn’t going to roll over and do whatever he commanded.

“You will come with me.” Clearly, he hadn’t got the message at all.

“I damned well will not,” she snapped and he leaned back, frowning at her. She could tell he wasn’t used to people speaking to him like that but he was going to have to get used to it if he was going to be hanging around her. Maybe if she were caustic enough, he would let her have her way. “I have work to do and I don’t need another boss in my life. One is enough, thank you very much. You caused this mess and that means you have to do some major sucking up... starting with allowing me to continue my work.”

He snarled and Olivia bravely stood her ground. Or sat it. She realised that they were still sitting together with his arms around her. He hadn’t made a move to release her and she didn’t think he would. For all his growling, he clearly felt possessive of her. Because of her blood and the bond?

Olivia didn’t like it. Not one bit. She didn’t like how her feelings towards him were mercurial either, swinging from anger one moment to desire the next. The last time she had felt attracted to a man, she had ended up duped and then disgraced, and she wouldn’t let it happen again.

“I cannot allow you to continue your work, because... because...” The demanding prince lost for words? This was a new one.

“Because what?” she barked, trying to force him to spit it out. She really wanted to know his insane reasoning so she could rip it apart.

“Because that would mean you desire to take one of my men into your laboratory.” His expression hardened, his purple eyes verging on black. “Men there would desire to harm them.”

She couldn’t rip that one apart. If he had spouted the answer she had anticipated, stating she desired one of his men, she probably wouldn’t have had the heart to rip that apart either. At this point, if he looked at another woman, she would probably go all growly too.

What the hell was wrong with her?

It was the bond. She was blaming the bond. She had been wrong the night they had met. It hadn’t been blood loss that had made her feel attracted to him, hazy and hot whenever he touched her or looked at her. It was this stupid bond.

“We would want to study them, not hurt them.” Although she could see why he had reservations about it. He wanted to protect his men. “If a demon or fae isn’t a threat to mankind, then Archangel doesn’t hurt them. Besides, I would like to run some blood work and see if there is something I can do about this bond. If I have a sample of your blood and my blood, and perhaps some blood from an elf who isn’t bonded, then I might be able to see how we’re connected.”

He arched an eyebrow. “I highly doubt that.”

Olivia sighed at the incredulity in his tone and then reminded herself that he was five thousand years old and hadn’t been in the human world in four of those. He might not have a clue about the progression science had made in those four thousand years.

“Listen... I’m a scientist. Studying demon genetics and physiology is what I do for a living, and I’m very good at it. I know a lot about demon and fae, as well as human, genomes. If this bond is somehow physical... a change at a base level in our bodies... I might be able to find it and find a way to reverse it. At least let me try.”

He stared blankly at her for long seconds, as though trying to decipher what she had just said, or maybe he was impressed that the little human female knew things he and, probably, his people didn’t have a clue about. Finally, he released her and rose to his feet in one effortless fluid movement.

Olivia used the couch and scrambled to hers. Her feet tingled, numb from the awkward kneeling position. She scrunched her toes, trying to clear the pins and needles so she could walk without making a fool of herself.

The prince paced a short distance away from her, his handsome face locked in a troubled expression. He still looked too damn gorgeous for his own good whenever he turned pensive. Olivia looked anywhere but at him, thinking about how she could convince him to let her do her thing while his men did theirs. She was sure that the answer to the bond lay in their blood. It had to be something like that. A change on a molecular level.

“What is your name?” He turned to look at her and she lifted her chin. His eyes captured hers again, their incredible colour still fascinating her.

“Olivia.” It was on the identity badge pinned on her left breast pocket but she didn’t mention it. Making a prince look like a fool when he was already on the edge would probably tip him over it and she preferred him calm. And pensive.

He padded towards her, his steps silent on the carpet, but she knew he wouldn’t have made a sound had he been walking on solid stone. He held his hand out to her. “Loren.”

Loren. A very noble sounding name. One that suited him. Prince Loren.

Olivia slipped her hand into his. A shiver of current shot up her arm as they came into contact. The way his pupils dilated, swallowing his purple irises, told her that he had felt it too.

“Olivia,” he said, his foreign accent and deep voice combining to make her name sound exotic and sensual, leaving her wondering how it would sound if he husked it close to her ear. She shook herself out of her dirty thoughts. She wasn’t going there. Never. His fingers closed around hers and he drew her closer, and she lost awareness of the world again, falling back into his eyes. “I will escort you to your laboratory.”

She blinked. He was going to let her continue her work and was going to be the one to stay here with her? That surprised her until it dawned on her that he would sooner risk himself than one of his men.

She could see he was a prince as he stood before her, tall and beautiful, noble and willing to step into the lion’s den to protect his men from those he believed would seek to harm them, offering her a diplomatic solution to their problem and patiently awaiting her answer.

Olivia felt as though he had just offered her a second shot at regaining her status within Archangel too and she wasn’t going to waste it.

She nodded and shook his hand.

“Agreed.”

Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Loren appeared in his rooms in the castle and desire to return to Olivia flickered briefly in his heart. She would be safe without him for now and had to speak with her superiors about allowing him access to the building. It had been hard to agree to the time apart, but Olivia needed some space to take in everything he had told her and he had already pushed her too firmly on the subject. If he had tried to force her to agree to allowing him to remain in her small home while she went to speak with her superiors, she would have demanded he leave and refused to cooperate with him again.

He didn’t want her demanding that another male take care of her.

Loren growled at that. No male would go near her.

He stilled, freezing right down to his marrow. What if she already had a male?

He hadn’t smelled the scent of anyone male in her apartment. He had smelled only his female.

Olivia.

She smelled sweet like blossom.

He rubbed his thumb across the pads of his fingers, remembering how they had interacted, both verbally and physically. He had touched her soft skin too and felt each meeting of their flesh like a hot current going through him. She had reacted similarly, her pupils instantly dilating and her breath hitching whenever they touched. The increase in her heartbeat had spoken to him of desire, forcing his to obey the rapid beat and follow suit. Perhaps it had been desire on his part too and both of them were responsible for the increase in the speed of their combined hearts.

Loren crossed the dark stone floor to his line of wardrobes and opened one near the door of his apartment. He took out a long black jacket and paused.

His pain was gone.

He looked down at his bare arms. The wounds on them seemed more healed now than they had been before he had taken Olivia, the red marks faded to pale scars. He felt stronger too. Being around her, close to her, had restored his healing ability and had given him back a fraction of his strength. Fascinating.

Loren focused on her. It was still very fuzzy, but he could sense her more clearly now, even over the enormous distance between them. He no longer had to exert his powers to the point that they drained him in order to feel her.

The distance between them diminished the effect of the bond though. If her heart rate increased, it wouldn’t affect him. He could feel a glimmer of her emotions, but not as clearly as he could before.

Was this boost in his strength and abilities temporary? If he remained away from her, would his strength fade again and his abilities weaken?

He knew much about bonds, but had never read anything about a bond between a mortal and an elf. He couldn’t risk remaining here in this realm long enough to discover the answers to his questions. He had to speak with his men and then return to her.

Not only to protect her and help her find a way to break the bond.

He wanted to see if spending time in her presence would give him back more of his strength or whether it had been something else, something more dangerous, that had restored his healing ability and a sliver of his strength.

Not closeness in the sense of proximity, but closeness on an emotional level.

He couldn’t allow himself to fall for her.

He couldn’t bear the pain of parting with her if that happened.

He slipped his jacket on and buttoned it down his bare chest. He straightened the stand up collar that almost reached his chin and did up the purple metal fastening across the front of it.

He had been wearing something similar the night he had met Olivia. When he had come around, it had lain shredded on the table beneath him. He hoped that this one fared better.

Loren smoothed the flat ends of the tails over his knees and studied the purple embroidery that depicted dragons locked in battle.

What had Olivia made of his clothing?

It must seem strange to a modern human. He doubted any of them wore a long coat such as his, fitted flush to his chest but looser at the waist, and then flowing down in four long rectangular tails, all outlined with fae symbols and with a beautiful depiction of fae life at the base of each panel. Would she think him handsome in it?

Loren pushed that thought away. Considering such things would only cause him pain. It didn’t matter what she thought of him. He would find a way to undo the bond, she would be safe from his brother, his full strength would return, and they would never see each other again. It had to be this way. She had said herself that she didn’t want this bond.

The way she looked at him when she thought he wasn’t watching said differently though.

She had studied his body, lingering on his bare torso, and he had reacted fiercely to the heat of her gaze, his markings flashing violently in response. Her eyes had roamed back and lingered on him whenever he had begun to pace, trying to get his thoughts into order. She was afraid to look at him when he faced her, but couldn’t help herself whenever he left her to her own devices and lost himself in thought.

Her behaviour confused him.

He would call her shy, but she had stood up to him, fiercely at times, challenging him and even putting him in his place.

Loren couldn’t recall the last time someone had dared to do that.

Bleu tried from time to time, but his attempts were always weak, held back because of Loren’s position as his prince.

The last person to put him in his place was probably Vail, all those millennia ago.

Loren shoved those memories out of his head too because only pain lay down that road and he didn’t want to go there. Even the happy memories he had of his brother had become sources of sorrow for him.

He switched his thoughts back to Olivia. She hadn’t mentioned how long she would need to convince her people to allow him to come to the facility in an official capacity. He would go and speak to his researchers about finding a way to undo the bond and then he would return to her.

Loren closed the black wardrobe door and turned towards the main arched door of his rooms.

Bleu leaned there, dressed in similar garb to him, with rich blue embroidery on the jacket. The collar and top few buttons were undone, revealing the three jagged scars that slashed diagonally down the left side of his neck.

Loren shifted his gaze up to Bleu’s face and grimaced.

His second in command did not look pleased.

He waited, staring into his friend’s cool purple eyes as they slowly narrowed with the increasing frown that joined his black eyebrows.

“You reek of mortal female,” Bleu said, his bass voice suiting his slightly larger build and the darkness in his expression. “What business had you bringing her here?”

Loren exhaled slowly. What business indeed? Bleu suspected that Loren had brought the female here to make love with her and that was enough to have him ready to lecture him on his safety, the safety of their kingdom, and a myriad of other things. If his friend didn’t like entertaining the idea of him risking his neck and those of his people to get a taste of a pretty human female, then he was going to hate the truth.

“It is not what you think,” Loren said and waited until Bleu’s expression began to soften before he added, “It is worse.”

“Worse?” Bleu shoved away from the door and came to stand in front of him. They were equal in height but that didn’t stop Loren from feeling as though Bleu was towering over him, attempting to show him how angry that one word and the involvement of the human female made him.

Loren moved past Bleu and headed along the long stone corridor. Coloured crystals lit it at intervals, casting shadows in the intricate carvings across the barrel-vaulted ceiling.

“The female doctor... is my ki’ara.” Loren kept one step ahead of Bleu, not wanting to see the thunderous look he could feel directed at the back of his head.

“What do you mean... she is your ki’ara?”

Loren sighed. “Exactly that. Vail left me outside the Archangel facility on purpose. He knew that the female was my fated one and conspired to throw us together.”

“He ensured you would need blood the moment you awoke... believing you would be in the presence of this female.” Bleu stopped dead and Loren halted too, and slowly looked over his shoulder at him. Bleu stared straight ahead, his eyes wide and eyebrows lodged high on his pale forehead. He remained motionless for almost a full minute and then his purple eyes slid to Loren and he frowned. “You bit her and unwittingly bound yourself to her.”

Loren nodded. “Unfortunately. In doing so, I have made her a target for my brother and have weakened myself. I have no doubt that Vail will seek her out and torture her, inflicting her pain upon me, having his revenge for what I did to Kordula.”

Bleu swore an oath under his breath and started walking again, his footsteps silent in the hall. Loren waited until he was in line with him and then began walking, keeping pace beside him this time.

“What will you do?” Bleu said in a low, cautious voice.

His second in command wasn’t sure what to make of this or what Loren would do. Loren could sense it in him. His emotions were all over the place and fear laced all of them. Not fear for Loren or the female. Bleu feared saying the wrong thing, inciting the wrath of a bonded male.

That sagacity was the reason Loren had made him his second in command four thousand two hundred years ago when Bleu had been one of the few to make it back from the first attack by Vail. The male had been born for the role of commander of Loren’s legions, a first rate soldier and strategist, and a man who would speak his mind without fear if he felt the kingdom was making the wrong move.

“I will not be completing the bond if I can help it,” Loren said and felt his friend’s emotions immediately settle, the fear drifting away. “I go to speak to the researchers about it now. They will find a way to undo it.”

Bleu cast him an unconvinced look. “What if there is no way?”

“I will complete the bond to restore my strength.” He didn’t let the emotions that swirled inside him whenever he thought about laying claim to his ki’ara colour his voice. If Bleu detected that part of him wanted to complete his bond with Olivia and finally have his eternal mate, he would speak out against her and remind him of his position and his duty, and his war with his brother. All good reasons to let Olivia go, but it wouldn’t stop him from turning on Bleu. Loren wasn’t sure he would be able to control himself.

He felt irritable just talking about her with Bleu, half of him expecting his friend to turn against her, the other half expecting Bleu to attempt to steal her from him. Would he feel like this around all males until the bond with her was broken? He was on the edge and close to losing his cool, scenarios running amuck in his mind, most of them involving beating any male who dared look at her into a bloody pulp.

If this was how he felt now, he didn’t want to think about how he might feel if he completed the bond with Olivia.

No wonder Vail had gone insane.

“I will kill the female.”

Those five words turned Loren’s blood to fire.

He fought to contain the explosive rage that ignited within him and calmly said, “She must not be harmed.”

Bleu cast him a suspicious look, eyeing him closely. “Because it would hurt and weaken you.”

Loren couldn’t lie to his sole friend. “No. I will not allow her to come to harm because she is my responsibility. I brought this upon her.”

Bleu snorted and folded his arms across his chest, stretching the thick black material of his jacket. “She is nothing but a mortal. She is expendable. If we kill her now, you will regain your strength before your brother can attack again.”

Loren whirled on his heel, grabbed Bleu around the throat with one hand and slammed him against the dark stone wall. He shoved Bleu up it, until his feet dangled above the floor, and tightened his grip until the male choked and grabbed at his arm, desperately trying to prise Loren’s hand off him.

He felt his markings flash, the buzz of them appearing adding fuel to the fire, pushing him closer to the edge.

“That is my ki’ara you speak of so ruthlessly. My female.” Loren squeezed harder, his fangs sharp points against his lower lip and the tips of his ears extending. He growled, exposing his fangs, and his ears flattened against the sides of his head. Bleu’s face turned red, veins popping out on his forehead and temples. He gripped Loren’s hand, scrabbling against the wall, pulling at Loren’s fingers. “Watch your tongue, Bleu. I will not hear another word against Olivia.”

Loren sucked in a harsh deep breath, struggling to tamp down the emotions running riot inside him, demanding Bleu’s head as payment for his cruel words regarding Olivia. He shut them down one by one, his grip on Bleu’s throat easing at the same time. The colour drained from his friend’s face and he breathed hard, wheezing and relaxing in Loren’s grip.

“Olivia?” Bleu rasped, his hands going lax against Loren’s arm.

Loren lowered him to his feet and peeled his hand away from his throat. He forced himself back a few steps, giving Bleu some room, still battling his heightened emotions. He didn’t want to hurt his friend, but he would if Bleu dared to speak of killing her again. He wouldn’t be able to stop himself. He might want to break the bond, might not have been looking to form one with Olivia in the first place, but he was still a slave to the effects of it. He would defend Olivia from anyone who sought to harm her, male or female, and he would kill any male who dared to attempt to take her from him.

“My female is called Olivia,” Loren said and Bleu bent over, grasping his knees and wheezing as he tried to breathe normally. “It is a good name. Beautiful.”

Bleu looked up at him, his black hair strewn across his forehead and wild around his pointed ears. The look in his purple eyes told Loren that he was dying to ask if he truly wanted to break the bond, but that sagacity that Loren admired in him won out, and Bleu held his tongue.

Loren knew he didn’t sound as though he wanted to undo what had happened. He could understand Bleu’s difficulty believing him.  He would put his friend’s mind at rest.

Bleu straightened, swept his hair back out of his face, and exhaled hard.

“Sorry about that.” Loren wasn’t used to issuing apologies and he had done it twice this day. Once to Olivia and now to Bleu. Maybe the bond changed him in ways other than awakening his lust and making him volatile.

Bleu casually shrugged. Loren continued along the hall, banking left when he reached an intersection and heading down the stone staircase to the next level. This one was made of paler stone that glittered in the white lights, far brighter than the level where his rooms were.

“Olivia is going to work on finding a way to break this bond too, so you see, you have nothing to worry about, Bleu.” Loren turned right at the bottom of the pale staircase, heading along the grand hallway, past towering white statues of the former kings and queens of his bloodline. Vail had a statue once, opposite his at the end of the hallway, close to the throne room.

Someone had destroyed it.

“How is the female able to help?” Bleu sounded sceptical again.

Understandable.

Loren had felt the same way when the female had offered to help, but his lack of belief in her had frustrated her and then she had said a lot of words he hadn’t understood. They had all sounded very technical. He had also felt her belief in herself and her abilities, and that was the reason he had decided to grant her request. She felt she could find a way to break the bond by studying their blood. It sounded fascinating and he was almost looking forward to being with her while she worked on it.

“Olivia is a scientist. It would appear modern science is rather incredible. She is apparently able to study our blood and something to do with things called genomes, and other things I have no clue about. She is confident she can discern from it whether our link is a physical change that she may be able to reverse.” It still sounded incredible, even when he still wasn’t quite sure what those things were.

Bleu raised an eyebrow.

“You know they have cloned things... creating a duplicate of a living creature.” Bleu motioned with his rigid index fingers, holding them with their full lengths pressed against each other at first, and then moving them apart but keeping them identical. “Some of their science seems dangerous to me.”

Loren frowned. “How is it you know about things I do not?”

Bleu smiled at last. “The benefits of being able to travel freely to the mortal world whenever the mood strikes me. I think I had relations with a doctor once... or a journalist who was writing about cloning. I cannot remember.”

Loren wasn’t surprised. Whenever the ‘mood’ struck him, Bleu took off for a night to the mortal world to satisfy himself with loose women all too willing to give up their bodies, and their blood. The mood struck Bleu often, at least three or four times in a lunar month.

He was probably the most well-versed in human affairs of all of Loren’s staff, yet he was also the one with the lowest opinion of that species. Perhaps spending so much time in the company of females who slept freely with strangers affected Bleu’s opinion of the species in general.

“I am looking forward to discovering more about the advances in science when I spend time with Olivia at Archangel.” Loren banked left, past the statue of his mother, and pushed the first set of arched dark wooden doors on his right open.

“What?” Bleu reached for him, stopping just short of grabbing his arm, the volume of his voice causing the five males in the library to stop their work and stare at him.

Loren looked across his shoulder at Bleu. “I mean to spend time with Olivia in her world. She needs laboratory equipment in order to do her research.”

“Bring it here. We will build her a laboratory.” Bleu had that look again. The one that Loren had often seen in their four thousand years together. He thought Loren crazy.

“I cannot. I brought this upon her—”

“You will be too vulnerable there,” Bleu interjected, shocking the five males in the room and Loren too.

Bleu had never dared to speak over him before.

They were friends, but Loren was still a prince. The flicker of nerves in Bleu’s purple eyes was apology enough for Loren. He knew his friend meant well, but he couldn’t speak to him in such a way in front of others. He didn’t want to have to punish Bleu for such a thing. He valued what they shared and never wanted the difference in their statuses to come between them. If the council heard of Bleu’s disrespectful behaviour, they would demand Loren punish him.

“Forgive me.” Bleu lowered his head and Loren placed his hand on his shoulder and gently squeezed it to let him know that he forgave him. Bleu lifted his head. “You will be vulnerable there... both to your brother and to an attack from the hunters within that place. You know I cannot allow you to venture there, and neither will the council.”

Loren intended to visit them next. The moment he had agreed to Olivia’s plan and had offered to be her escort, he had known he would need to convince the council of elders to agree to it too. They were not going to be happy with him. He was going to pull rank on them.

“I will speak with them and make them see that my mind is made up on this matter and I will not be swayed.” Loren stepped into the expansive double-height room that served as the library. There were two levels, although the upper floor didn’t cover the entire length of the room. There was an open rectangular space above him with a balcony running around it. White oak bookshelves lined every inch of wall space and elegantly carved stacks filled the area to his left on both floors.

Above the open area, rainbow colours swirled across the sheer crystal roof, softly illuminating the room.

“I still believe you should bring the female here.” Bleu wasn’t going to let this one go, was he?

Loren sighed. “Olivia needs her laboratory to conduct her research and I cannot leave her alone and vulnerable.” He held his hand up to silence Bleu when he went to speak. “And I will not bring her here, where she feels afraid and unsafe, or allow any other to protect her in my stead.”

He turned to face his friend, wishing for all of his kingdom that Bleu would see in his eyes that his mind was truly made up and no one was going to change it.

“I disrupted her life, Bleu. I caused this problem for both of us, and I will deal with it.”

“Your brother is to blame here.” Bleu’s frown returned, turning his eyes cold and dark. “Meaning your brother plans to attack her. I cannot allow you to place yourself in danger—”

“What do you suggest then?” Loren shoved his fingers through his black hair, his frustration mounting and getting the better of him.

He was going in circles with Bleu and he wanted to break the cycle almost as much as he wanted to break his bond to Olivia. His heart whispered that was a lie and he knew it. Loren ignored it and stared at Bleu, his gaze narrowed and demanding the male offer a solution that would stop him from constantly harassing Loren about his plans.

Bleu looked deadly serious. “I will go with you.”

Some of Loren’s frustration faded on hearing those words leave Bleu’s lips. Loren appreciated his friend’s support and his desire to protect him. The council would be more likely to allow him to go to the mortal world to assist the female if Bleu were with him and he would be safer from his brother too.

The only downside Loren could see was that Bleu would be hard to control around people he evidently viewed as a threat to Loren, but even that wasn’t dampening Loren’s spirit. He would be glad to have Bleu with him.

If only to keep Loren in check and stop him from fulfilling a desire that had seized him with both hands several times this day.

He wanted to kiss Olivia.

Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Olivia wasn’t making any progress at all. Mark stared back at her from behind his large black wooden desk, his grey eyes narrowed, causing crow’s feet to form beside them. She had known him for almost ten years now, and he had been caring towards her, taking her under his wing and giving her so much freedom and opportunity within Archangel. That had all changed the night she had royally messed up and her demon boyfriend had gone on a rampage, attempting to bring down Archangel’s headquarters in London. Since then, Mark had held her at arm’s length and rarely agreed to meet with her. He didn’t even acknowledge her if they passed each other in the hallways or were present in the same meeting.

Mark leaned back in his mahogany leather executive chair, the deep red colour setting off his crisp black suit and almost matching his silk tie. He tunnelled his fingers through his sandy hair, a tell that she knew well. He was having difficulty taking in what she was asking him to do, and even more difficulty bringing himself to find a shred of the trust he had once shown to her.

“Please. You’ve read my report on the specimen that the team brought in.” Olivia leaned over the black desk, planting her palms on the surface. She struggled to keep her voice smooth and level, hiding her mounting hurt and frustration from Mark. “He’s a rare fae and when I spoke to him about how I would like to have the opportunity to study him, he offered to come in and willingly subject himself to it. All I’m asking is that you call a meeting with the higher ups and we can come to some agreement about this opportunity and they can issue an order to the hunters stating that he’s not to be touched.”

Mark steepled his fingers in front of himself and frowned at her. “Your report about the male intrigued me, Olivia, and I agree this appears to be a good opportunity, but I don’t need to remind you that having living fae or demons in the building as guests is not allowed.”

He really didn’t need to remind her. He didn’t need to remind her on the rare occasions he did speak to her, but that didn’t stop him. He was still punishing her for her mistake.

“Mark... please? I know the risks and I’ll take full responsibility for him. He isn’t a threat to us. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to record data and study a species hitherto unknown to us.” Olivia dug her fingertips into his desk, her patience slipping.

He dropped his gaze to his laptop and tapped a few keys. “You know that you can’t judge whether he is a threat or not. What you’re asking for is a leap of faith, Olivia. I’m not sure my superiors will agree to it. Not after last time.”

Her shoulders sagged and her hope deflated. If Mark couldn’t get her clearance to work with Loren in her laboratory, perhaps she could go to the prince’s castle and work with him there. He had teleported her there. Could he teleport the equipment she would need too or was his ability limited to living objects within specific parameters?

“I’ll call the meeting... but on one condition.”

Olivia jerked back to the room and stared at Mark through wide eyes. “Name it.”

“You work in a team and you have armed escorts at all times.”

Loren would never go for that. Neither would she. If she had a team working with her on this, they would ask questions about what she was doing and how was she meant to explain that Loren had accidentally bound them and they were really looking for an out clause?

Never mind the fact that they would realise what Loren was. If they realised he was an elf, and a prince of that species, they would kick her off the team and hand it over to those still in Archangel’s good book.

She was damned if she would let someone steal Loren away from her.

Olivia didn’t want to consider how that sounded. She was talking professionally, not romantically. Never romantically.

“We’ll convene in meeting room three in fifteen minutes. I suggest you prepare.” Mark’s tone made it painfully clear that he knew her thoughts and also believed that their superiors would try to hand this over to someone more worthy of the opportunity to study a new species of fae. If she didn’t make a good case, she would be off the team.

Her only choice then would be to have Loren kidnap her again.

If she went back to his castle, separated from her world and everything here that kept her grounded, it would only be a matter of time before she gave up the fight against the sparks that exploded along her nerve endings and heated her blood whenever she was in Loren’s presence.

Olivia straightened and curled her fingers into fists. That wasn’t going to happen. She would find a way to make her case watertight so Archangel couldn’t remove her from the team or make this about a team at all.

“Thank you.” She picked up the scattered papers of her report from his desk and swiftly left the roomy cream office, heading along the pale corridor to the elevators.

She pressed the call button. She would start with her report and her findings, and then she would state her case, embellishing a few things. If she said that Loren had agreed to the tests on the basis that only she would be involved, and they would be left in peace during them, would her bosses go for that? She wasn’t a great liar, but she was sure that Loren had only agreed to come to Archangel and work with her because he thought they would be working alone.

He wouldn’t want others at the facility finding out what he was. He had taken his people away from the mortal world to protect them. If Archangel discovered that elves not only existed but lived in a whole different realm, accessed via teleportation, they would want to go there and investigate it.

Olivia knew that for a fact because it was what she wanted to do.

She headed down to the next floor, found the meeting room and set herself up at one end of the long oval beech table. She opened the folder and spread her report out in front of her, scanning over Loren’s vitals and the transcription of her voice recording. She could do this.

No sooner had she thought that than the doors opposite her opened and several senior staff members filed in, together with four hunters, one of which was Sable, and some of the top medical staff. Mark was the last to enter. He took the seat at the other end of the table.

Olivia glanced at Sable. It was nice to have a friendly face amongst a sea of scowling ones. No one looked happy to be here and Olivia changed her mind.

She couldn’t do this.

All three grey-haired men on her left, the senior members of Archangel based in this facility, looked as though they had already made up their mind about her request and she was going to be off the team. Two male doctors in white coats sat opposite them to her right, a smug look on their faces. They knew the deal. Let her speak, indulge her, and then watch as her superiors crushed her hope and gave the fae to them.

They had probably all scanned her report in the last few minutes, taken a look at her findings, and then her request, and thought she had gone crazy to even think about asking to lead the study.

Olivia’s hands shook as she shifted her papers around and then sharply raised her head and threw herself onto the tracks of the last train for La-La-Land.

It took her less than fifteen minutes to outline her findings and field some very personal questions that she definitely hadn’t anticipated, and a few disdainful remarks, and then all Olivia could do was try to prove that she hadn’t gone insane and that she believed that the test subject wasn’t out to blow up the building.

One of the doctor’s made a very snide comment about it being a male specimen and her report about his body. Olivia’s blood boiled and she pressed her hands against the desk, fighting to keep her anger below their radars. The chatter amongst the hunters, her superiors, and the doctors verged on an argument.

“What she’s suggesting is crazy. A healthy fae male of unknown origin cannot have free run of the facility. At the very least, he should be contained during the study.” The oldest male hunter’s brown eyes had a twinkle in them that looked a touch sadistic to Olivia.

“The male in question will not subject himself to containment. You’re talking about forcibly restraining him. Doing such a thing to a guest of Archangel is not going to help us improve our image.” Olivia’s words fell on deaf ears as the doctor who had remarked on her relationship with a demon spoke over her.

“Of course we would contain the specimen. He should have been contained when he had first come into the lab. Then we could have carried out a full study on him, without this debacle.”

Oh, he didn’t. Olivia almost growled. “He is willing to come in and let us study him. Surely you can’t expect him to agree to being strapped down while that happens? I want him here as a guest, not a prisoner. He must be free to come and go.”

“As he pleases? That sounds dangerous to me.” The grey-haired man in the middle of the three superiors raised an eyebrow at her and the other two nodded in agreement.

Olivia drew in a breath to stop herself from saying something that would probably get her the same treatment as they were offering to Loren. She had spent a few days in the cells at the containment centre before. She didn’t want to go there again.

“Perhaps we should have a break?” Mark smiled at everyone, defusing the bomb that had come close to exploding.

Olivia nodded and exhaled slowly. Everyone rose from their seats and the doctors immediately made straight for the senior staff members, schmoozing them with false smiles and talk of how they would handle this study. Sable caught Olivia’s arm and pulled her away, towards a table lining the cream wall.

“Don’t kill the other doctors,” Sable said, her voice light and airy. Her friend was deadly serious seventy-five percent of the time. The rare times Sable let her sense of humour out, things were normally dire and about to get worse.

“They’re going to take this away from me.” Olivia knew it. They were going to pull rank on her and take her off the study completely, and then they were going to strap Loren down and do God only knew what to him. “I can’t let that happen.”

“So don’t let it.” Sable’s logic was sound but also full of holes.

“And how do you propose I don’t let it happen? I have zero standing with the five most powerful people in this room. Even Mark doesn’t want to let me have this chance to redeem myself. I can see it in his eyes.” She looked across the room at him where he was talking to the three male hunters.

The air between them shimmered and Olivia gasped as Loren appeared right before her. The air behind him wobbled too and the other one appeared, the one who had looked ready to kill her the few times they had met.

Sable drew her short collapsible crossbow from the belt of her black uniform and had it aimed at Loren before Olivia could react. The other three hunters sprang into action too, drawing their weapons and aiming them at the two elves.

Loren stood before her, dressed in complete black scale-like armour that hugged every inch of his lithe body like a second skin. A black helmet covered most of his head, the top flaring up from a point above the bridge of his nose, sweeping back into serrated curved spikes that almost resembled a crown. The black metallic material obscured the lower half of his face, but she would recognise his blue eyes anywhere.

His fingers flexed around the black sword he had drawn. His armour turned them into long jagged claws with sharp pointed tips that looked deadlier than the blade they gripped.

Loren’s blue eyes met hers, a touch of warmth in their silent greeting, and the lower part of his helmet folded back to reveal his face, stopping when it had cleared his cheeks.

She had forgotten how tall he was, but she hadn’t forgotten how beautiful. He stole her breath.

The hunters behind them called for assistance on their communication wristbands and the alarms in the building wailed, dropping the room into red flashing light.

Loren’s sensual lips peeled back and he bared his teeth. All blunt. He was masking what he was and she couldn’t blame him.

He raised one hand, his claws flashing menacingly in the red strobe, and the alarms went silent and the lights came back on.

Everyone stared at him, surprise written across their faces. She probably looked the same way. What powers did Loren have? Just the abilities she had seen him use so far were incredible and she had the feeling they were just the tip of a very big iceberg.

Loren turned on her, his blue eyes cold now, his voice little more than a thick snarl. “Is this the greeting I was to expect?”

Olivia raised her hand and lowered Sable’s weapon for her, and indicated for the other hunters to do the same. They didn’t. This wasn’t going to go well. If Loren felt threatened, his friend would attack to protect him.

The male tossed an emerald green glare at the men around him, disgust written in every line of his handsome face.

Olivia stepped towards Loren. “No, but we hadn’t settled the details regarding your visit and your arrival was unexpected... and you’re not exactly dressed in the friendliest way.”

“You expected us to walk into this trap without weapons... pitiful mortal.” The man behind Loren sounded just as gruff and vicious as he had the time he had barged in on her and Loren back in the castle. He went to draw the black blade hanging at his waist.

Loren placed his hand on the male’s arm. “We are not here to do battle, Bleu. Remember that. Our quarrel is not with these mortals.”

He sheathed his own sword and released Bleu.

“I apologise for the manner of our arrival, Olivia. We had not agreed a time and I had concluded my business, so I felt it provident to come here so that we might begin our tests.”

Olivia stared up at him. No one in this world spoke like Loren. He sounded antiquated, a constant reminder of his incredible age. A cute sort of reminder. She liked how he spoke all formally and rigid. All noble and princely.

Her bosses came forward, the three male hunters flanking them, leaving the doctors to stare at Loren and Bleu from across the room.

It struck Olivia again how tall the elves were, towering four inches over the tallest of the men in the room. They were slighter than two of the male hunters, but Olivia knew that didn’t mean a thing when it came down to their actual physical strength. These two elves probably had the strength of twenty powerful human males.

“I apologise for the way you were greeted.” The senior staff member who had said it was dangerous to allow Loren to come and go as he pleased held his hand out to the man he wanted contained and Olivia wanted to tell Loren not to take it. It turned out she didn’t need to. Loren just stared at the man’s offered hand and then into his eyes, a cold edge to his blue irises. The man shifted nervously and lowered his hand. “We are not a threat to you.”

Bleu smiled grimly. “At least you are aware of that.”

Olivia had the feeling he wanted to squish the man like a bug, and there was a tiny part of her that would pay to see it because he was being an almighty ass.

She cleared her throat, bringing all eyes to her, including Loren’s. They burned into her, setting her body aflame, making her yearn to look up into his eyes and lose herself in them all over again.

“Now that we’ve established that the fae I want to study is real and he’s not a threat to us and we’re not a threat to him, will you send out the notification that he and his comrade are off limits to all staff?” Olivia smiled, figuring that it wouldn’t harm her chances.

“I believe our top medical staff should handle this case,” the grey-haired man said and the other two backed him up again. The smug doctors in the corner exchanged a glance and sized up Loren and Bleu.

Olivia opened her mouth to protest.

Loren stepped forwards to tower over the man. He tilted his head and narrowed his gaze on him. “I believe Olivia must have mentioned that I will only work with her, and the data from our tests will remain private until she sees fit to make it available to others. I am a busy man, and I do not have time for this delay. It is very simple. Olivia is to work with me, alone, and if anyone seeks to harm myself, Bleu, or the female, they will answer to me.”

Olivia might have omitted the threat at the end, but all in all, he had perfectly captured what she had wanted to say.

The senior staff members scurried off to a corner with Mark, talking in low voices. The irritating doctors cast thunderous glances her way. Bleu eyed them and the three male hunters as though he was already dismembering them in his head, and was enjoying it.

Loren stared at her. “It will work out, Olivia. There is no need to be anxious.”

Anxious. Elevated pulse. Increased hormone levels. Everything that Loren was probably experiencing just because she was feeling it. She nodded and breathed slowly, settling her racing heart. She didn’t want to make him ill again.

Her superiors returned to them and Mark came forwards. “We have agreed you can work alone with the fae, but on the proviso that they are not allowed to roam freely without supervision and you run thorough tests, including those requested by other medical staff, and document everything.”

Loren looked reluctant to agree to that and hair-trigger boy looked as though he was going to draw his sword and cut her boss into tiny bite-sized pieces.

Loren’s blue gaze slid down to her and he spoke softly. “I will subject myself to whatever you believe is necessary.”

Olivia nodded. “It will be simple tests. Stamina, strength, abilities. That sort of thing.”

Loren still looked uncertain. He leaned closer, bringing his lips down to her ear. His breath tickled her neck and his proximity did funny things to her insides, making them quiver and heat. She ached for his touch, her body curving towards his against her will, drawn to him.

“My results may not be the most sensible to record,” he whispered and Olivia’s eyes widened. He was right. His bond to her had affected him physically, weakening him because of their link.

He was weaker because of her.

Was she stronger?

She was curious about that and wanted to run a few tests on herself too. Loren drew back enough that she could see his eyes. The moment they met hers, she was lost in them again, fighting the current in the torrent of desire that flowed between them and feeling as though it was already pulling her under and she was going to drown before she could save herself by breaking the bond.

 

Did you enjoy this extended excerpt? For details on how to purchase this book, please visit: http://www.felicityheaton.co.uk/kbadp

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

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Tag der Veröffentlichung: 16.12.2013

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