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Authors: Felicity Heaton

BOOK: Enslave

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“Do you love him?”

Love. Impossible. “Succubi cannot love.”

He snorted. “How convenient.”

Varya bristled. “What do you mean?”

“You cannot read him, can you?” he said and she shook her head. “Incubi experience something similar when we meet women with no aura who we cannot fully control. It is a sign that they are our destined mate.”

Varya scoffed. “Shadowed males are forbidden because they are dangerous. It is to protect us because we cannot control them and they will hurt us. That is why my clan says we must not interact in any way with them.”

“Like I said… how very convenient.” The man sighed, crossed the room to the dressing table and took the mirror from the wall.

He came back with it and sat on the edge of the bed. She shuffled backwards, trying to keep some distance between them in case he had violent plans involving the glass of the mirror, but didn’t flee as her instincts were telling her to. Every word that left his mouth intrigued her and kept her in place. It was all lies and ridiculous, but her heart longed to hear him tell her the answer to the question that had plagued her. What were her feelings for Andreu?

He stared at his reflection in the mirror, his grip on the frame so vicious that his knuckles bleached. “Do you not think it convenient that your clan, who draws power from each of its members and therefore has strength because of its numbers, outlaws interacting with males you cannot read and cannot control? Has Andreu shown himself as dangerous to you at all? He has sought to protect you, even at great risk to himself and his happiness.”

“Whatever do you mean?” Varya’s blood ran cold in her veins. “Where is Andreu?”

“Focus on my questions and I will tell you where your lover is.”

Lover? Love.

Was it really possible that she could love and the warm feeling of attachment and need that she had experienced during her time with Andreu was that emotion?

She didn’t like the thought of him in danger either. She wanted to protect him and keep him safe.

“My clan banished someone once for breaking a law. I had thought it was an unknown one regarding vampires but perhaps it was because she had found a shadowed male and had not obeyed the rules regarding them. She had been happy, talking of wondrous things that had many of my clan eager to listen to what she had to say.”

“It sounds to me as though she had fallen in love. It is possible. I have experienced love myself.”

He had? The look in his deep grey eyes said he spoke the truth but that he had loved and lost. She didn’t want to know what that felt like.

“You must tell Andreu how you feel.”

“I cannot. You are wrong. I do not love Andreu.”

“You do not sound very sure of that. There is an easy way to test whether you love him or not.” Payne fixed her with a hard look.

Varya frowned. “What is it?”

He stood and stared down at her, holding the mirror in one hand. He shifted it so it was in front of her on the bed and she glanced at her reflection. What was he doing?

“Look at yourself and tell me… would you let Andreu sacrifice everything he holds dear in life to take your place, bound to this theatre?”

Her blood froze this time. “No. I couldn’t.”

Her eyes widened. The fae writing on her throat had faded but hues of pink, gold and red shimmered over it. She touched the pronounced markings, unable to believe what she was seeing, and a shiver raced down her spine and arms.

Love.

Her gaze snapped to Payne’s.

“You need to stop him,” he said.

Andreu wasn’t.

Varya clung to the sheets and disappeared. Screams echoed in her ears and the marks on her throat blazed as she reappeared in the theatre. Her heart lurched in her chest and she raced forwards, towards the stage where Andreu knelt in the middle of an ash circle, savagely tearing at the silver collar around his throat. Tears stung her eyes and she tripped on the red silk sheet wrapped around her. She dropped it, leaving herself bare, and launched onto the stage.

“No, Andreu,” she said and he turned pained blue eyes on her. He smiled shakily.

“It is the only way.”

“It is not!” Varya shoved Antoine aside and reached out to take the collar. Andreu snarled and pushed her away but she didn’t relent. “I will not allow this.”

She swept her hand downwards and shattered the ash circle. Andreu howled in agony and collapsed forwards. In a heartbeat, she had the collar off his throat and had twisted the silver in her hands, crushing it in a fit of rage. Her vampire would never be shackled.

“No,” Andreu groaned, stumbled to his feet and snatched the wrecked collar from her hands. He growled at her and tried to bend it back into shape. “It was the only way. It is the only way. I promised I would set you free.”

Varya knocked the useless lump of silver from his grasp and stepped into him. He snarled and growled at her, baring huge fangs, his red eyes pinning her with all of his anger. Varya stared right back at him, fury howling in her blood and screaming for violence. She ignored it, aware that it was the remnants of her blood in Andreu’s body that was responsible for the strange feelings. They weren’t hers. They were all his.

The second time she had allowed him to take her blood, she had realised that he gained more than sustenance and pleasure from it. She hadn’t stopped him, had secretly enjoyed sharing all of herself with him, letting him see things about her that she had always kept hidden from others. She had wanted him to know her. She just hadn’t realised why.

Love.

The bastard—the blond vampire—had said she could experience such an emotion and as she stood in front of Andreu, seeing the pain and the affection in his eyes, feeling everything flowing through him, she knew that he was right and the colours she had seen shifting across the band of markings around her throat were hers not Andreu’s.

She would have given anything for her freedom in the years before meeting Andreu, it had meant everything to her, but now things were different. Andreu meant everything to her. He had given her something she had never thought possible, allowing her to know what it was all those couples she had watched felt as they interacted with each other, and she couldn’t allow him to sacrifice so much for her sake.

She placed her hands against his cheeks and stared deep into his crimson eyes, into his elliptical pupils.

The faint fae markings on his throat began to fade and she felt them bloom on hers, the full force of the spell returning to her.

Andreu broke away from her and she feared he would leave or seek the collar again, but he only went as far as the red velvet couch. He picked up his discarded blue shirt and came back to her, settling the material around her shoulders. She slipped her arms into it and he buttoned it over her chest, covering her nudity.

“I want to do this,” he whispered, his head hung and fingers paused on the last button.

Varya shook her head, sending the tears in her eyes tumbling down her cheeks.

“No, Andreu. I will not allow you to suffer for my sake. I cannot.” She stroked his ears with her fingertips and furrowed her eyebrows. “I brought this upon myself and I will live with it.”

He was silent for so long that she wished he would speak and say something reassuring to her. He wanted his freedom as much as she did. He had spoken to her of his plans to build a life for himself in Spain. It had broken her heart to hear them but she had smiled and had been happy for him, even when she had ached to be free of her spell so she could go with him and had known in her heart that it would never happen. She accepted that now.

The blond vampire appeared on the stage next to them, a look of relief in his eyes when he glanced at Andreu. It turned to pity when his gaze shifted to her and she shut him out, not wanting to feel sorry for herself. She could have saved herself if she had allowed Andreu to go through with the ritual but what sort of life would that have given her? She would have condemned the man she loved to a hollow life.

“I can do this, Andreu. I can live here at the theatre.” Her voice hitched even as she tried to sound strong and unaffected by the prospect of spending eternity trapped, imprisoned.

Love certainly had a high price.

Andreu raised his hands and covered hers, holding them to his cheeks and then curling his fingers around. He drew her hands away, clasping them close to his bare chest, and smiled down at her, so handsome that her heart flipped and her blood heated.

“And you will not be alone,” he said and she blinked, shocked by his declaration. “I will stay with you, however long it takes for us to find a way to break the spell and free you.”

“But everything you’ve worked towards—”

“Can wait another few years,” he interjected, lowered his mouth and pressed a kiss to their joined hands. He looked up through his lashes into her eyes. “I have found something far more important than chasing a dream. Call me a fool… but I’ve fallen under your spell… I think I love you.”

Varya blinked again, excited by the prospect of saying words that she had heard so many others say but believed she would never speak herself.

She smiled. “I think I love you too.”

Andreu released her hands, wrapped his strong arms around her waist and lifted her for a kiss. It was warm, soft, and full of affection that melted her right down to her bones and erased the pain she felt whenever she thought about her lost freedom.

Andreu had shown her that being trapped in the theatre wasn’t a bad thing at all. She’d had more fun with him in the past week, learning everything about him and sharing everything about her, allowing him into her life and into her heart, than she’d had in the three hundred years that had come before it. Andreu had been an attentive, passionate lover who had proven more than once that he knew how to indulge her more wicked needs and wasn’t averse to watching the performances as long as he was with her to satisfy the cravings they created in her, and in him too. He had given her so much, had made her smile and laugh, had made her forget that she was trapped at all.

She had once valued freedom above everything.

Now there was nothing in this world or the fae one that was more valuable to her than Andreu.

She hadn’t come here looking for love, and neither had Andreu, but destiny had brought them together, changing their plans and them both in the process.

Varya wrapped her arms around Andreu’s neck, savouring his kiss and the way he always fought her for control, his mouth mastering hers and heating her blood to boiling point. Destiny had given her a mate and she believed him when he promised that together they would find a way to gain her freedom, but freedom wasn’t what she needed anymore.

She had everything that she needed right here in her arms.

When the fae markings on her throat were gone and her freedom gained, they would leave this place and they would begin a new life. Together. A succubus and her destined mate.

A love that she had never thought possible.

A love that would last forever.

The End

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Felicity Heaton 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, four of her six paranormal romance books received Top Pick awards from Night Owl Reviews, Forbidden Blood was nominated as Best PNR Vampire Romance 2011 at The Romance Reviews, and many of her releases received five star reviews from numerous websites.

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

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PARANORMAL ROMANCE BOOKS BY FELICITY HEATON

Stories in the Vampire Erotic Theatre romance series by Felicity Heaton

Covet

Crave

Seduce