Love Bites Read online

  The one time she met Vlad, he’d looked straight through her, as if she didn’t exist. She had no doubt he’d marry her without even seeing her, if it was at all possible.

  Kat pressed her cheek against the back of Finn’s buttery leather jacket. If the night ended right now, it would have been worth it.

  Plus, she realized, a thrill rippling up her spine, they were going the wrong way. The airport, and Love Bites’ private jet, was to the rapidly fading east. Finn was headed west.

  She was so right to pick the Scotsman!

  Kat wiggled against his firm backside and wondered if there might be a way to glamour him into kidnapping her to the coast. Royal blood had its advantages, or so she’d heard. Oh this was going to be fun, indeed.

  On the way through the centuries-old town of Vinnystia, he took advantage of a stop light to twist around in his seat. He was rather dark for a Scotsman, and a vamp. The soft glow of the street lamps played off his features. The night was still young. Finn was supernaturally fast, even when he obeyed pesky things like traffic signals.

  She licked her lips. “So what’s the plan, Braveheart?”

  He stiffened. “William Wallace was a patriot and a martyr. I’ll not have you making glib comparisons.”

  She cocked her head to the side, studying the thunderclouds that rolled across his brow. “Did you know him?” Kat had certainly heard the stories. Her father had called the Scottish rebels a bunch of damned fools. Technically, she shouldn’t have been in awe over a rebel to a king, but darned if she didn’t find the whole thing a touch romantic.

  Finn cranked the engine, almost as if he was buying time. Finally he said, “I knew him. I fought under Wallace, and King Robert the Bruce.”

  A vampire who fought human wars? Interesting. But not as interesting as what she wanted to do next. She ran her nails to his elbow and smiled inwardly as she felt him stiffen. “So where are you taking me?” she asked, her voice huskier than she’d intended.

  Finn gave her a wicked smile. “I thought we’d go on our own adventure.”

  “Oh,” she managed, almost surprised that her plan had actually worked. He wiped away that and every other thought when he lowered his mouth to hers.

  His lips felt warm, firm and . . . Oh goodness. She’d dreamed of this for centuries and it was so much better than she imagined.

  Finn was a man who knew how to take his time. Spirals of pleasure wound through her as he kissed her, slowly. Gently. There was an intimacy she’d never expected from all of the kisses she’d watched on daytime television. He took his time savouring her, tasting her. She loved every second of it.

  Just for her.

  He wasn’t looking to her out of obligation, not because she was a princess or because this was something owed or something due. For once, it was about Kat as a person, as a woman. It was as if this kiss was the first thing she’d truly owned in her entire life.

  She pressed herself against him, hands splayed on his chest. He was so warm, so vibrant. And the way he was making her feel. He took her mouth, her lower lip, her mouth again, with a raw sensuality that made her ache. When his tongue swept hers, she thought she might burn to a cinder on the spot. Just when she was thinking she could lose herself for ever, he pulled away, a mere breath from her.

  Dazed, she watched him. The hunger in his eyes, the glaze of her kiss on his lower lip. She was glad to see how it affected him. Other, more modern vamps might do this all the time, but she certainly didn’t.

  The closeness, the feel of him. It was almost too much. Her confidence stuttered.

  “I’m not easy,” she told him. She didn’t know why she’d said it, exactly – only that she’d needed him to know.

  He levelled her with a conspiratorial grin, as if he understood how tough it was sometimes to reconcile this century with all the ones that had come before. “No worries, Princess. It was just a kiss.” He leaned towards her again, ever so slowly, and, just when she thought she would erupt from the anticipation, he brushed his lips over her nose. “Green light.”

  She felt the sides of her mouth quirk as he turned forwards. The shock of the engine lurched her against him as they tore off into the night. It was almost like flying.

  Closing her eyes, she relished the pleasure rippling through her veins. He couldn’t have known he was only the second man she’d kissed. He made her whole body thrum with anticipation for – Oh my.

  Whatever she was going to have to pay for this night, it was so going to be worth it.

  She closed her eyes and savoured him for a long while, until the familiar scents of oak and hornbeam trees, roe deer and foxes ebbed into her consciousness.

  Kat stiffened against him. Were they in Romania?

  His muscles tightened, as if he could sense what she was thinking. “Trust me,” he said.

  Finn turned the bike onto a black asphalt road that led through a grove of immense beech trees, their bare trunks like hundreds of soldiers reaching up to the night sky.

  Panic skittered down her spine. How could she trust him? She didn’t know him. Not that she had to worry about defending herself. She was a royal vamp, and as strong as a Carpathian wild cat. Still, she wasn’t about to be played for a fool.

  Kat reached out with her senses. No, her father wasn’t nearby. She sighed with relief. Still, why would the Scotsman take her to her homeland for a romantic getaway?

  The blacktop ended at a painted monastery unlike any she’d seen before. North-eastern Romania was famous for them. They were usually large, ornate affairs, with striking medieval art decorating the outside and inner walls. This one almost looked as if it had been abandoned.

  Smaller than the rest, and rounded, it hunkered in a tangle of wild flowers. Waist-high iron crosses ringed the outside of the structure, and garlands of large, fat cloves of garlic hung from the aged wooden roof.

  It seemed that the villagers in these parts still had a healthy respect for vampires.

  Good for them.

  Finn held the garlic aside, so that it wouldn’t bump her on the head as she entered. They didn’t need assistance to see in the dark, but her date lit a series of tapers anyway. She savoured the way he moved through the large, round room.

  Wooden benches backed against the brightly painted interior walls, almost as if this was some sort of old meeting place. Or storage area, she noted from the cluster of weather-beaten gargoyles and angels next to her. She watched Finn’s military-precise movements as he touched a lighter to the last of the fat red candles.

  She hooked a thumb through her brand-new gold belt. “Would you like to tell me what’s going on here?” An amazing kiss was only going to get the studly vamp so far. It was crazy to come back to Romania. He wasn’t looking at her and, even though she’d never been on a date in her life, this didn’t seem like a happening place.

  He turned slowly, as if he didn’t quite want to face her. Candles cast deep shadows across his face. “I’m not a vampire.”

  “What?” Her mouth hung open. Thanks to years of ladylike training, she snapped it closed rather quickly.

  He didn’t bother to sugar-coat it. “I’m an empath fairy. I can pass as a vampire, or any other creature you can imagine. I can look like you, smell like you, feel like you –”

  She bolted for the exit.

  In a flash, he was around her, blocking the doorway. “I’m also faster than you.”

  Well, if he was like most men . . . she brought a knee up to his groin.

  He blocked it just as swiftly. “The Princess likes to play dirty,” he chuckled, avoiding a karate chop to his kidneys. “Look, I’m not going to hurt you.” He looped a finger through her sassy gold belt and hung her out like a hooked sturgeon. “There’s no escape, so don’t even try. I was sent by your father.”

  It was worse than being kidnapped. More like being sent back to prison. “I won’t do it. You can’t make me go back there.” Not without a fight. Kat mustered her strength and shot him with a full dose of royal glamou
r. “Your mission has changed.”

  He stared at her. “OK.”

  “Let me go.”

  He eased her to her feet, leaving her with the wedgie of the century.

  She shook it off and locked the empath fairy into her thrall. If he could use her, she had no reservations about using him.

  “You’re going to be my transportation, my bodyguard.” And, if she was lucky, something else. Of course she wouldn’t glamour him into sex. That would be wrong. But perhaps she could glamour him into a peek at the best body she’d seen in eight centuries.

  “Take off your shirt,” she ordered, before she let herself think on it too much.

  He hesitated.

  Shoot. True, she hadn’t used her glamour in, well, for ever, but this was supposed to come naturally. “Take off your shirt,” she said again and was shocked when she found herself removing her red silk top instead. It slipped from her fingers and rustled into a silken pool on the stone tiles at her feet.

  She couldn’t have been more astonished than if she’d morphed into a bat.

  Finn gave absolutely no reaction as she stood there in her black silk bra. And why should he? The man was under her thrall. Now if she could just get it to work right.

  She tossed her hair off her shoulders and planted her hands on her hips. “Lose what you have going on upstairs, stud.” She wanted to see that chest.

  Instead, her hands found the clasp at the front of her bra. “Wait!” she said, slightly panicked as she popped the front clasp and tossed the scrap of silk over a bowing cherub.

  Still, his face showed no expression. But her little striptease had done a number on him below the waist.

  The truth crept over her. “You’re not even under my thrall, are you?” The supernatural snake.

  And now she couldn’t even cover herself. She tried to cross her arms over her breasts. Embarrassment stung her. Fine time for reverse glamour.

  “Do you mind?” she asked.

  Candlelight flickered over his features and a roguish smile tickled his lips. “I was hoping you’d want to go another round. See if I might take off anything else.”

  “I don’t think I could afford the humiliation,” she said, even though she felt far from defeated. In fact, now that he wasn’t bothering to hide his interest, she found his attention to her body quite stimulating.

  Too bad he was on dear old Dad’s side of things.

  Planting one sexy gold shoe in front of the other, she sauntered up to him so close that the tips of her breasts almost – almost – touched his white linen shirt. That wiped the smile right off his face.

  “Tell me,” she said, her Transylvanian accent thickening with her mounting need. “How are you doing it?”

  His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “I push your own glamour back on you.”

  “Indeed,” she purred. “So what does my illustrious father have in mind?”

  He gave her a stony look, but she almost detected a softening in him. He checked his watch. “In about two hours, King Volholme is going to meet us here. He wants to have a few words with you before we escort you back to the castle. Your wedding is tonight.”

  Dread settled in her stomach. She wouldn’t do it. She couldn’t. Kat did the first thing that came to mind. She elbowed Finn in the ribs.

  She dashed past him, the night air cool on her breasts. Until Finn’s hand clamped down hard on her arm. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  Tears welled up in her eyes. “Well, so am I.” She whipped around to face him. “Do you know what it’s like to have an eternal life where nothing you say or do matters? There’s a reason the old ways die out. There’s a reason things change.”

  “Princess, I – ” He looked as helpless as she felt. He swore under his breath and shrugged off his thick leather jacket. “Here,” he said, wrapping it around her shoulders.

  It was super-heated from his body and held the dark, spicy scent of him. She wrapped it around herself, taking comfort in the sheer size and weight of it. How long had it been since someone actually cared about how hard this was for her?

  “You have to understand,” she said, “I can’t be like this. I can’t live like this.”

  She could see the muscles working in his jaw. “This marriage will offer the most security for you, and for your family. You don’t have a choice,” he said, losing steam with each word. “I don’t have a choice, either.”

  The thing was, she did have a choice. And she was going to make it.

  The Princess blinked away her tears and strode back into the old monastery, more resolute than she’d been all night. Finn braced himself. It was a bad sign.

  She stood with her back to him in the circular room, which was fine with him. She’d broadcasted enough raw desire tonight to give him a hard-on for the next year. Burying her in his jacket made it worse. She might not feel exposed any more, but now it was almost like a part of him was covering those luscious breasts, the sweet curve of her back. Heaven help him.

  Katarina tossed a wave of black hair over her shoulder and it was all he could do to keep himself from reaching out and touching it.

  Which was insane.

  He never should have let her take her shirt off. He could have just told her that her glamour wouldn’t work on him. But no. He had to show off. He had to prove something to her. What did it matter anyway? She was leaving with Vlad, and Finn was going back to work for the King.

  “Why?” she asked, the simple question stark against the quiet of the night. “You’re not one of my father’s subjects. Why do you have to follow his rules?”

  “It’s my job,” he said, as if that answered it all. It did in Finn’s mind. He’d been a soldier all his life and he was good at it. He had the power to fight war and aggression and he’d be damned irresponsible not to use it. “It’s my life.” He heard his voice go husky. “This is what I do.” It was the only thing he did. If he didn’t protect people, keep the peace, well, then he was nothing.

  “You don’t even play cards, do you?”

  It was finally sinking in just how much he’d deceived her.

  “No.” He didn’t have time for frivolity.

  He reached a hand out to touch her and stopped just short of her shoulder. The memory of her soft, delectable skin was bad enough. He didn’t need to feel it again – even through his leather coat. He curled his fingers into a fist at his side.

  Princess Katarina didn’t understand the sick creatures that were out there in the world, which was how he wanted it. It was his duty to safeguard her and other innocents. Sometimes duty came with a price tag attached. “Your marriage contract is final,” he said, willing her to understand, to accept. “It’s the way of your people. I’m not about to open up you or your kingdom to an altercation with Vlad and his family. Do you remember what his cousin did the last time a king double-crossed them?” The History Channel still did specials on that one.

  “I can’t give you your freedom. You’ll have to convince your fiancé, or your father,” he said, knowing at the same time that she couldn’t. He closed his eyes. It was a bad situation all around. But it wasn’t his fight.

  She turned to face him, her arms in his bulky jacket folded over her chest. “So I go back and marry the crypt keeper and you spend the rest of your life saving the world.”

  He wanted to sigh in relief. Finally, she understood.

  She considered him carefully. “So we’re both trapped.”

  He blinked. “I’m not trapped.”

  She ran her hands along her sides, over her hips, down to where his jacket barely covered her backside. He wanted to close his eyes, but he couldn’t. He knew the Princess wouldn’t go down without one last fight.

  It wasn’t right. She shouldn’t have to marry a cold, conniving vamp. But there was nothing either one of them could do about it. It was the way of her race. Feeling sorry for her wouldn’t help.

  Katarina lowered her hands and shifted so that his jacket hung open in the front. He swallowed
hard, but kept his composure. Barely.

  “You live for your duty—” a flicker of sadness crossed her face “– and it seems I will have to do mine.” The candlelight threw shadows under her breasts, into the hollow of her belly. “But we should live first.” She smiled at him like a goddess of old. Only a slight trembling at her collarbone gave her away.

  He opened up his senses, readied himself for battle. Immediately, he felt her nervousness, but more than that, he almost staggered sideways at the brunt of her sheer, unadulterated hunger for him.

  Oh hell.

  “Be careful, Princess,” he warned, his throat tight.

  She lifted a slender shoulder. “You said it yourself. I can’t escape you. I can’t glamour you. In two hours, I’m going to be taken away, forced to live out what could be the rest of my life locked in another castle.” She took one step towards him, then another. “You’ll go back to your job.” She toyed with the waistband of her downright addictive black leather pants. “Tell me, Fionnlagh MacLaomainn, what can we do with our last two hours of freedom?”

  His mouth went dry.

  She shot him through with a look that practically brought him to his knees. Her next words were mere whispers, but he heard her clear enough. “No one ever has to know.”

  Sweet heaven.

  Maybe he couldn’t change the way either of them lived, but they could have a night to remember. He specialized in keeping secrets. None of the vamps could read him. And she had no reason to provoke even more ire from her father. Besides, she and the King would have little or no contact once she was shut away in Dracula’s Castle. By MacLeod’s lock, was he actually considering this?

  He gripped the hard leather belt at his waist. The mere thought of touching her had fire coursing through his veins. “This isn’t going to change anything,” he warned. He wasn’t going to go soft. He wasn’t going to let her go. He wasn’t going to go off mission just because she let him touch her.