Dark Destiny (Principatus) (35 page)

Rolling his eyes, Patrick climbed to his feet, shaking his head at Ven’s dramatics. “Fair dinkum, Ven. Remind me again why I just saved your life?”

Stretching onto his back, hands behind his head, Ven gave him a grin the Cheshire cat would have envied. “Because you love me and your life would be boring without me.”

“Yeah, right, that’s it. Now I remember.” Patrick snorted, shaking his head again as he reached out for Fred and slid his arm around her back, pulling her into the side of his body to hold her close.

Ven chuckled, turning his attention to Fred. “Guess you missed me again, Death. That’s twice I’ve denied you.”

Fred pulled herself closer into Patrick’s embrace and smiled. “I’m getting the feeling it will be impossible to miss you, fang face. You’re now the third constant in the universe.” She arched an eyebrow. “Me, taxes and Steven Watkins.”

With a wide smirk, Ven leapt to his feet and brushed the sand from his arse. “Well, you know what they say? You can’t keep a good vamp down. Or should that be a good Principatus?” He gave them both a puzzled look. “What the bloody hell is a Principatus anyway? Pestilence kept carrying on about it. Figured it must be something important.”

Fred laughed. “As you have pointed out before, Steven, a Principatus is an Agent of the Order. A hunter—of sorts—controlled by the Powers, who gets to kick the shit out of…how should I put this…otherworldly scum who step out of line. I’m afraid your bad-boy days are behind you.”

A dark light ignited in Ven’s eyes and an expression of furious grief etched his face. “If it means I get to kick the shit out of arse-holes like Pestilence and Raziel, consider me signed up for life.”

Patrick studied his brother. There was more to Ven’s uncharacteristic response than physical pain and he would ask him about it, as well as fill him in on their family connections, a little fact his brother would probably find highly amusing, or irritating. Just not now. Not while his obvious anguish simmered so close to the surface.

Later.

He turned to Fred, smoothing his hands up her back. All he wanted to do was bury his head into her neck and breathe her in until he was giddy on her scent, but something still troubled him. “Tell me,” he said, fixing her with a steady look. “Where did I send Pestilence? Cause frankly, I haven’t got a bloody clue.”

Fred laughed. “The only place befitting an egomaniac asshole with delusions of grandeur. The lowest pit of hell. Kinda like being sent to detention for demons and entities.”

“Can he come back?”

A distant expression crossed her face for a moment, her eyes glowing a brilliant white before they returned to their normal blue and she shook her head. “No. The First Horseman is where he is meant to be. The punishment is sound and the Weave has been rethread. The Order of Actuality is restored.”

Patrick suppressed a sigh and tugged her closer. “Is that it? Is it over? Can I go back to being just a lifeguard now?”

She gave him a long look, gnawing on her bottom lip. “Well…”

He cocked an eyebrow. “If you say no, you’re going to miss out on the best sex of your existence.”

“Oh, in that case.” She grinned. “It’s over. The beginning has ended.”

Patrick touched his lips to hers. “About bloody time.”

Epilogue

Death looked at herself in the mirror and sighed, a smile curling her lips. She looked good naked. Damn good. Maybe that’s why the lifeguard couldn’t keep his hands of her, a situation completely acceptable in her opinion. For the last five human days they’d done nothing but make love and when it came down to it, she could definitely go the rest of eternity with Patrick Watkins unable to keep his hands off her. Definitely.

“Are you done yet? Or do I have to come over there and help you check out how goddamn gorgeous you are?”

Fred threw him a grin over her shoulder. “Promises, promises. And you should probably rethink the blasphemy. You’re going to piss off the family.”

He cocked an eyebrow at her and straightened from the bed. “The thing with family,” he murmured, walking towards her, his lean, surfer’s body as naked as hers. “They’ve all got that embarrassing cousin that just can’t seem to keep his mouth shut.”

The pit of Fred’s belly twisted. Her nipples pinched tight. She watched him approach her, her sex growing heavy. Thick. Wet.

Yes. An eternity of Patrick Watkins she could really go for.

An eternity she didn’t have.

She sighed and turned back to the mirror. Despite the fact Patrick had no date of death she was aware of, one day he would die. She couldn’t see it any other way. He was mortal. All mortals died eventually. The Order of Actuality demanded it so. One day, Patrick’s number would be up and no matter how much she hated it, she would—

She cut that line of thought dead and sighed again. By the Powers, she didn’t want to think about this. She really didn’t.

“That’s a lot of sighing for a woman just paid a blasphemous compliment.” Patrick slid his hands over her hips and tugged her back against his body. “Is there something you want to tell me?”

Fred closed her eyes and leant into his delicious embrace. He felt so damn good. So damn
right
. How did she tell him they didn’t have an eternity? That she would continue long after she’d brought his life to an end? How did she tell him one day he would—

“Die?” he murmured in her ear, pressing her closer to his body. “By your very hand?”

She stiffened, closing her eyes. “I thought we agreed to not peek inside each others thoughts.”

Patrick lowered his head, nibbling on her neck. “Didn’t need to be in your head to know what you were thinking, babe.” He smoothed his hands up over her ribcage, skimmed his knuckles along the bottom curve of her breasts. “I seem to be able to read your face better than I do the waves.”

She laughed, shifting her weight until her ass nuzzled his very impressive erection. “That well?”

“Hmmm.” He trailed his fingertips up the under swell of her breasts, circled her nipples once. “Scary isn’t it.” His lips moved over her neck, explored the little dip below her ear. “Just out of interest, why do you think you
are
going to claim my soul one day?”

The damp heat blooming between Fred’s thighs cooled and she frowned. She didn’t want to have this conversation. Not while they were both naked. Not ever. She tried to pull away from him, but he wouldn’t let her go, his lips charting a slow path down to her shoulder, as if he wasn’t asking her about his removal from the mortal coil. She swallowed, the churning in her stomach overwhelming. So this was fear? By the Powers, how did humans live with it? Handle it?

“Fred?” The tip of Patrick’s tongue drew a line along her shoulder, and she shivered.

“Because you are mortal. One day your time will come.”

She expected his hands to stop their slow torment of her body. Instead, he scooped each breast into a gentle grip and rolled the pad of his thumb over her taut nipples.

“Hmmm,” he murmured against her neck again. “If I told you we had the rest of forever, would you be upset?”

Fred twisted in his embrace, studying him from the corner of her eye. “Why would you say that?”

Patrick’s lips twitched. “Let’s just say I’ve been talking with the family.”

She frowned at him, her heartbeat growing quicker. Louder. Thumping in her chest, her throat, her ears. “With the family? What are you—”

Patrick chuckled, sliding his hands from her breasts, down to her hips to rotate her slowly in his hold. “Turns out that embarrassing cousin is very good at weaving.”

Fred’s heart thumped harder. Her lips tingled. “Weaving?” She paused a moment, gazing into Patrick’s laughing green eyes, not wanting to believe the squirming hope unfurling in the pit of her belly. “As in rethreading? As in rethreading the Order of Actuality? As in…”

“Not now, Fred.” He pressed her body to his, hip to hip, sex to sex, heart to heart. “Ask me again in a millennium.”

About the Author

Lexxie Couper started writing when she was six and hasn’t stopped since. She’s not a deviant, but she does have a deviant’s imagination and a desire to entertain readers with her words. Add the two together and you get romances that can make you laugh, cry, shake with fear or tremble with desire. Sometimes all at once. When she’s not submerged in the worlds she creates, Lexxie’s life revolves around her family, a husband who thinks she’s insane, an indoor cat who likes to stalk shadows, and her daughters, who both utterly captured her heart and changed her life forever.

Contact Lexxie at
[email protected]
, follow her on Twitter
www.twitter.com/lexxie_couper
or visit her at
www.lexxiecouper.com
where she occasionally makes a fool of herself on her blog.

Look for these titles by Lexxie Couper

Now Available:

Savage Australia

Savage Retribution

Savage Transformation

Party Games

Suck and Blow

Twister

The Sun Sword

Tropical Sin

Triple Dare

Dare Me

Love’s Rhythm

Sunset Heat

Suspicious Ways

Muscle for Hire

Coming Soon:

Principatus

Dark Embrace

Should she kill him? Seduce him? Or both?

Dark Embrace

© 2013 Lexxie Couper

Principatus Series, Book 2

As an ex-succubus granted her soul by the Highest of Powers, Inari Chayse has spent the twenty years since her “rebirth” channeling her voracious sexual energy into kicking the asses of all malevolent paranormal beings.

Torn between the sex demon she was and the demon assassin she has become, she has no intention of complicating her life further. But when the vampire who pleasures her dreams walks into her paranormal strip club—and takes complete, humiliating command of her body—complicated doesn’t even begin to cover it.

Fifty years ago, Ezryn Navarr abdicated his trueborn throne to spare his people a bloody destruction. He never expected to find himself in a Sydney strip cup, buried in the deliciously sensual body of the very divine assassin he’s been commanded to kill. The bigger surprise? Inari awakens something he thought long dead. His humanity.

As their tormented desires intertwine with a centuries-old battle of blood and power, redemption seems as unobtainable as love. The backlash will rock the entire vampire race, leading to their salvation…or their deaths.

Warning: Herein lies dark lusts, dark deeds, dark desires, no-holds-barred passion, an ass-kicking succubus and a vampire to make your blood burn…

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Dark Embrace:

The overlord flashed a wide smile, his pointed fangs glinting in the muted light from the many candles littering the ballroom. “You do us a great honor with your presence, Master Navarr.”

Ezryn suppressed the urge to snort, casting the room a disgusted glance. Candles? Dark Ones, what century did the fat fool think it was?

“Although,” the overlord continued, raising black eyebrows, “you are almost four hours late. We feared the Navarr master would not present himself to us before the sun rose.” He shot his new bride another quick look, as if eager to see her reaction to his royal disapproval.

Ezryn gave him a flat stare. “I had better things to do.”

The new bride gasped, pale skin bleaching white. She gaped at Ezryn, her eyes wide, candlelight turning her extended fangs a sick yellow.

The overlord snapped to his feet, jowls wobbling. “How dare you insult—”

“Give it a rest, Harry.” Ezryn cut him short. “Or I’ll pin you to the floor and drain you within a drop of empty like I used to.”

Haral Navarr, twin son of the first family, overlord of the vampire race, turned beet red—an interesting feat for someone deprived of sunlight for close to seven centuries. His mouth flapped in silent protest, his knuckles popping as he clenched his fists.

Ezryn shook his head, a sour taste coating the back of his tongue. “Do not fret, baby brother.” He ambled over to a long table overburdened with carafes of what could only be human blood, eyeing the ridiculously ostentatious ice sculpture of the overlord positioned amongst them. “I would not dream of harming the great leader of our people.” He pulled an apple from his inside jacket pocket and polished it on his sleeve, turning back to the royal couple. Very few of his kind could tolerate human food, his twin brother included. That Ezryn had no difficulty consuming it caused many a vampire to clench their jaw in envy—and trepidation.

Lifting the apple to his mouth, he parted his lips, letting Haral see his fangs before biting into the fruit’s flesh.

Haral narrowed his eyes, his face—so like Ezryn’s if not for the fat of indulgence—still red with anger. Or was it shame? “You will not call me ‘baby brother’, Ezryn. I ordered you to cease doing so over half a century ago.”