Kissed by a Dark Prince (Volume 1) (11 page)

He looked to her and she nodded.

Bleu shuddered. “I don’t want to see my insides. I like not seeing them.”

A soldier born and bred. If anyone had ever doubted it, they would have changed their mind on hearing and seeing Bleu as he pressed a hand to his stomach, the most vulnerable point on any elf. Bleu liked his insides hidden because it meant he wasn’t gutted and bleeding out on a battlefield.

“Very well. You do not need to see them.” Loren touched his shoulder, squeezing it gently to reassure him that no one would force him to look at the results of the scan, but making it clear that Bleu would be going through the scanner whether he liked it or not.

“I can take your blood now, Bleu,” Olivia said, a slight quiver in her voice, a sign of her nerves.

Bleu took a deep breath and nodded. His armour receded, exposing his bare muscular chest, and he sat in the chair for Olivia.

Olivia took the seat beside him and picked up the rubber strip.

The moment she laid a hand on Bleu’s arm, Loren saw red.

He flicked his armour back into place and launched himself at Bleu, slamming into the chair and him, and bending the stand. Bleu growled and called his armour back, but not before Loren had slashed at his exposed chest with his sharp black claws, cleaving into his flesh. Olivia shrieked and stumbled backwards, toppling her chair and landing in a heap on the floor.

Loren snarled, exposing his fangs, and his ears extended, flattening against the sides of his head. Bleu’s eyes blazed purple and his lips peeled back, revealing his own large fangs. He grappled with Loren but it didn’t stop him from hacking at the chest of his armour, trying to gouge through the tough black scales. His armour was weak against the same material. It was the only metal able to penetrate it. He would shred it with his claws and tear the male’s heart out for daring to go near his female.

Bleu growled and bowed up against him, forcing Loren off him. Loren attacked again and Bleu evaded him, countering any strike he couldn’t dodge completely.

“My prince,” Bleu snapped, his anger flowing from him, inciting Loren’s rage. The male was furious with him because he had dared to stop him from laying hands on the female. The female belonged to Loren. The male would pay for attempting to steal her from him.

Loren threw himself at him again.

Bleu smashed his right fist hard into Loren’s face, the blow connecting solidly with his left cheek. Loren staggered right, his head reeling and the taste of blood filling his mouth. He stumbled into the wall opposite the table with the computers on it.

And his sword.

Loren stared at it and then at Bleu.

“You are not yourself. Do not do something you will regret.” Bleu flexed his claws.

Loren would not regret removing this male’s head from his body because it would mean this male could not attempt to steal his female again.

Loren reached for the weapon.

“Loren, no!” Olivia appeared between them, her brown eyes enormous, the racing beat of her heart echoing in his chest. Her fear crawled through him, subduing his lust for violence and bloodshed. She paled and he did too. She could feel his dark twisted hungers. They rushed through her blood just as her fear filled his.

Bleu stood a few feet behind her, his purple eyes locked on him and his armour still in place.

Loren lowered his hand to his side and stood down, horrified by how strongly he had reacted to the sight of Olivia touching Bleu, and how badly he had wanted to hurt his friend because of it.

Bleu cursed him in their tongue. “And you tell me that I have no reason to be concerned? Really? Because that little display of aggression had nothing to do with your ki’ara laying her hands on me, right?”

Just the words and the image they evoked were enough to have Loren flying into a rage again. He dodged past Olivia in a blur of speed and fury, and grabbed Bleu by the throat. He slammed Bleu down into the chair, pinning him against it, hissing at him as he tightened his grip to choke him.

“Loren!” Olivia grabbed his shoulder and hauled him off Bleu, her strength startling them both judging by the ripple of shock that ran through their bond. He clenched his teeth and growled at her, but her look of disgust mixed with horror was enough to ground him.

He took a few steps back, distancing himself from Bleu, disgusted at himself and disturbed by how driven he was to protect her and stop Bleu from being near her.

Bleu rubbed his throat and glared at him. “Maybe I can draw my own damn blood or just spit in the vial.”

He grabbed the needle from the table near him, sent his armour away from his chest and arms, and carelessly stabbed himself in the soft flesh on the inside of his elbow, grimacing as the sharp metal punctured his skin.

Loren closed his eyes and lowered his head, feeling like a monster for the way he had treated his friend and driven him to harm himself. Bleu’s lip was cut and bleeding, swelling too, and his chest bore deep claw marks. Bleu hadn’t held back when he had struck Loren, but it wasn’t payment enough for what Loren had done to him.

“I am sorry, Bleu.” He lifted his head and looked across the room at his friend, his black eyebrows furrowed and his heart heavy. “I will wait outside while Olivia tends to you.”

Loren didn’t wait to hear either of their responses. He headed straight for the twin glass doors. They whooshed open, sliding apart for him to exit the room, and he moved down the corridor far enough that he couldn’t see into the room so he wouldn’t be tempted to look. He couldn’t risk another outburst like that. Olivia needed to record Bleu’s vitals and take his blood, and Loren had no doubt that he would try to kill him again if he saw Olivia touching him.

He leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes, seeking some calm amongst the raging storm of his emotions, needing it so his fangs would recede and his eyes would return to blue, masking their true colour from the humans using the corridor.

He could feel their eyes on him as they passed. Some of them even triggered his senses, warning they were a threat to him, but he didn’t care. If they attacked him, it would be their death right now. He would kill them in a heartbeat to slake some of his thirst for violence. Rather them than Bleu.

Olivia wouldn’t be pleased.

Her expression had cut straight through him and he never wanted her to look at him with such disgust and disappointment again.

Loren’s fangs finally receded and he commanded his eyes to become blue again. He pushed away from the wall and took swift agitated strides along a short length of the pale cream corridor, fighting his desire to return to the room. Too dangerous. He wanted to see what they were doing but he couldn’t risk it.

His mind supplied images of them, taunting him with visions of Bleu and Olivia. He ground his teeth and tried to shut them out, focusing on other things, anything to get his mind away from his friend and his female.

The more he tried to halt the images, the worse they became, until all he could picture was Bleu and Olivia, locked in a passionate embrace, his friend pleasuring her as Loren had in his dreams.

Loren couldn’t take it, or how it made him feel, violent and on the edge, wild and lost to a feral need to claim Olivia as his and put Bleu in the ground.

He growled under his breath, earning a startled gasp from a young female hunter as she passed and a glare from her older male companion. The male’s hand went to his weapon, a short blade hanging at his waist, and Loren silently urged the mortal to draw it. He wanted to fight. He needed it.

Loren dragged himself away, turning his back on the humans. This wasn’t like him. He was normally peaceful, seeking diplomatic solutions whenever possible, even with his brother.

Vail.

He didn’t want to end up like his younger brother but he feared he was already treading that dark path, and the bond wasn’t even complete.

Loren stopped, turned towards the wall and banged his head against it. The humans passing by gave him a wide berth and he couldn’t blame them. He was acting like a madman.

Driven wild by a female.

He pressed his palms against the wall, despair eating away at him, twisting his insides into tight painful knots. What was he going to do? He had been in Olivia’s presence for barely more than a human hour and he was already close to falling over the edge and doing something terrible that he could never take back. The longer he spent in her company, the worse this hunger was going to become, and if he wasn’t careful, it would end up controlling him. What if he hurt her? What if he killed Bleu?

He would never forgive himself.

Loren banged his head against the wall again, grinding his teeth and grimacing as it all became too much for him. The images of Bleu and Olivia still played out in his mind, pushing him ever closer to the edge, until he had to dig the claws of his armour into the plaster of the wall to keep himself anchored there, stopping him from bursting into the room behind him.

The doors swished open.

Loren forced himself away from the wall, a second apology to Bleu balancing on his lips.

It was Olivia.

Their bond spoke to him, telling him what he could already see in her expression and her soulful brown eyes that always showed him everything she was feeling. She was tense and wary, afraid of him now. He lowered his head, unable to look at her. He had frightened his female, shaking her trust in him.

“Loren?” she said in a low, gentle voice that curled around his numb heart, thawing the ice that had encased it.

He was afraid too. He had never felt so afraid. He didn’t want to look into her eyes and see her fear of him, or her disgust, and he didn’t want to hear how he had scared her by allowing her to experience such dark terrible emotions through him.

“Loren?” Her tone held a firmer note and he obeyed, unable to ignore a command from his ki’ara.

Loren looked down into her eyes. They filled with pity, softening more with each second that he dared to look into them.

“I’m done now,” she said, casual despite the nerves he could sense in her. “I did my best not to touch him. That was what it was all about, wasn’t it?”

Loren shut down the fury that curled through him on hearing that she had indeed touched Bleu while he had been out here pacing like a caged animal, refusing to let it own him. He was master of his body, not this wretched bond.

He hated to admit it but Olivia needed to know what he had dragged her into so she would know the cause of his outburst and could perhaps help stop it from happening again.

“I could not bear the sight of you touching him,” Loren said, the tight gravelly sound of his voice shocking him. He had never sounded so dark and possessive before. He had never felt it either.

He wanted to possess Olivia. Body and soul. He wanted to claim the heart that was rightfully his.

His to own. His to cherish. His to protect.

His to love.

She belonged to him.

His fangs itched and the points of his ears began to extend. Loren fought the change but it was hard to suppress it and stop it from happening when he was thinking about Olivia, and also thinking about her touching Bleu. It was a one-two punch that knocked his senses reeling and had him back on the verge of losing control. A male doctor coming towards him eyed him, not a challenge but Loren felt it as one, and he wanted to rise to it and beat the male into submission.

The male’s eyes narrowed. He had noticed Loren’s eyes changing. Loren cursed beneath his breath and looked away, fighting to master his emotions. His gaze caught on Olivia’s and he stared down at her, feeling lost and bewildered, tired of the constant battle against his emotions and the effects of their incomplete bond. He wanted a moment to breathe.

He needed a minute to rest, sixty seconds away from this world, alone with Olivia.

Olivia moved closer, raised her hand and touched his cheek, staring deep into his eyes. Bliss. Loren leaned into her touch, finding his balance in it, mentally stepping away from the edge and towards her. His ki’ara.

“It’s fascinating when your eyes do that... and your ears. Why does it happen?” She brushed her palm across his cheek and a hot shiver went through him when she feathered her fingertips up his ear to the tip. He barely stifled a groan. He wanted her to stroke them. Lick them. His eyes began to change again.

“It is a response to my emotions. Certain ones trigger a change and it is difficult to stop it from happening.” Difficult was the understatement of his extremely long life. Impossible. Especially when she was gently caressing his ear, brushing the pointed tip, her eyes filled with the fascination she had mentioned.

“Emotions,” she whispered and then her brow crinkled and her brown eyes shifted back to his. “Such as anger?”

He nodded.

“And?”

Loren frowned. “And what?”

“What other emotion?” She tilted her head to one side, her fingers continuing their exploration of his ear, driving him mad with the emotion she was asking about. “You said emotions. Plural. What other emotions trigger this change?”

Loren stared at her, his gaze drawn to her rosy lips and his mind instantly leaping to recall his vivid erotic dreams of her. He wanted to sample her mouth and know her taste as he had in those fantasies. He wanted to explore every inch of her soft skin and show her what it was like to be loved by him. He wanted to slake his thirst for her.

His fangs grew long again and his ears extended, and he knew from the surprise in her eyes that his had changed and from the arousal darkening her irises that she had figured out the other emotion that would always make him lose control.

Loren claimed her waist with both hands, careful not to hurt her with his claws, and pulled her closer to him.

She wanted to know what other emotion fuelled this change in him and he would spell it out for her.

“Desire.”

O
livia swallowed hard, held captive by Loren’s beautiful rich purple eyes and the passion in them, falling into them with no hope of stopping herself. The feel of his hands on her waist shattered her self-control, plunging her deep into dangerous territory, and her guard slipped. His gaze locked onto her lips, burning her with its intensity, stealing her breath away. Enough men had kissed her in her life for her to know that was what he intended.