The Shifting Price of Prey (31 page)

‘Ah. I see.’ His lids half-closed in his sleepy tiger look. ‘Perhaps if I were to issue you another invitation, one with a more private venue in mind?’

I grinned. ‘I would be delighted to accept.’

We looked at each other, the silence growing, tension charging the air, as something changed between us. As if my acknowledgement that we were friends and I was ready to help him had dissolved
an indefinable wall separating us. Part of me almost wanted to shuffle my feet, part of me wanted to gaze at his beautiful face, to take in every detail of him. Another part just wanted to say, to
hell with this, and throw myself at him.

Just as that part was winning and urging me to do something, anything, his gaze intensified. ‘What if I wish us to be more than friends, Genevieve?’ His low voice slid over me like
cool satin –
mesma
– its touch both tentative and electrifying. ‘Would you still be willing?’

The breath whooshed out of my lungs, my heart stuttered then steadied. Part of me was prepared to say ‘yes’ without hesitation, but this was too important a decision, and had been
too long coming, to do that. He wasn’t asking for furtive meetings, or snatched moments, but something more open. More lasting. With ramifications for both of us. The Bastien problem. The
other vamps’, the fae’s and the witches’ reactions. But, more than all of that, there was a much more personal obstacle. If Malik ordered me to do something, I had to do it. So
far I’d got around that problem by blackmailing him. Only, if we were going to have a relationship, that wasn’t an option any more. But then relationships are about trust. So I would
have to trust him not to order me about, and in return he would have to trust me not to blackmail him.

I raised my hand, placed my palm over Malik’s heart and lifted my gaze to his. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I am very much willing.’

He grasped my shoulders, fitting his mouth to mine gently and carefully, then more insistent and demanding, then hard enough to bruise. His tongue thrust against my teeth. A part of me reeled,
stunned, not at the kiss but at his rapid loss of control, as though my answer had unleashed him to take what he wanted. I parted my lips instinctively, eagerly, surprised as his dark spice blood
invaded me, quickening my pulse and drowning me in a wave of heady desire. My body responded as if a switch had been flipped. I pressed against him, insides swirling in giddy anticipation, nipples
budding to aching peaks, molten heat slicking between my thighs. Gods I wanted this. Wanted him. Needed him. I had for so long. And now we could have it. Have each other.

I tangled my tongue with his, pleasure sparking as a sharp fang pierced my bottom lip. Sweet honey and copper-tasting blood exploded in our mouths and someone groaned: me, him or both of us. I
slid my hands over his silky skin, rewarding my fingers with the lean, defined muscles of his back, the beautiful indentation of his spine. He sucked hard at my swollen mouth, the rhythmic
sensation resonating in my core.

The pashmina fell away, quickly followed by my briefs, leaving me naked, open.

He groaned, a harsh desperate sound, and grasped my hair, trailing rough kisses down my jaw as I tipped my head back to offer him my throat. His hand roved over my breasts, pinching and pulling
with brusque touches, bringing forth inarticulate cries for more. I pressed against him, fumbling at his leather jeans, impatient to free him, his fervent growl matching mine as the thick satiny
length of him sprang into my eager hold. His hand caressed lower, long elegant fingers parting me with perfect skill, sliding over the throbbing bundle of tiny nerves and pushing deep inside, their
marble coolness a glorious overwhelming counterpoint to my own wet heat. For a long moment, time stilled and he held me there, a willing captive on the very edge as the pressure spiralled tighter,
and tighter, and tighter . . .

Mine!
The shout reverberated against my throat as his fangs pierced my flesh, his will commanding my release. I screamed, arched against him, and the orgasm rolled me over and over in a
tsunami of pleasure, fluttering my heart, stealing my breath and plunging me headlong into soft black-velvet darkness laced with delicate patterns of gold.

D
istant voices dragged me from the darkness.

I pushed them away, enjoying the warm weight of the leather coat covering me with a familiar dark spice scent and the sated haze swirling through my mind and body. But even if I was sated, Malik
wasn’t; I’d passed out before we’d really got down to it, an annoying hazard of donating blood during orgasm. But now there was more to come. I grinned at my unintended pun. Oh
yeah, so much more was to come. My body perked up, obviously appreciating the thought, and I stretched out under the coat, searching for the beautiful vamp so we could continue what we’d so
gloriously started.

He wasn’t there. Something neither I, nor my body, was too thrilled about.

I opened my eyes. Above me, I expected to see the night sky. But the view was hazed, as if I were looking through thick plastic. I squinted uncomprehendingly. Then blinked. A dome of magic rose
high above me. A blood-Ward circle. And judging by the golden-pink tinge to the magical dome, it was my blood and power fuelling the protection it offered. Either I’d started doing magic
while unconscious – unlikely – or something weird was going on.

I looked sideways, vaguely aware my neck felt like someone had chomped on it—

Malik sat a couple of feet away on the sandy grass, leaning against a lump of rock, forearms resting on bent knees, hands loose between his leather-clad legs. His head was tipped back, his eyes
closed. Unease slipped down my spine. He didn’t look like a happy blood-bunny basking in the aftermath, but more like he was waiting with weary resignation for me to wake up. I glanced back
up at the moon; it didn’t appear to have moved across the sky much, so I couldn’t have been out of it long. I looked back at Malik to find him staring at me with an unnerving blank
expression.

Out of eyes gone solid gold.

‘What happened?’ I said, or meant to, instead I croaked ‘Whahp—’ thanks to the killer sore throat.

His eerie gold stare didn’t flicker.

Fuck. Had I trapped him in my Glamour? Only he’d said it wasn’t possible. Gut clenching, I threw off the leather coat and leaped up—

The ground heaved like I’d jumped on a storm-tossed boat, my stomach roiled, darkness spotted my vision, and I faceplanted again. This time into his arms. He lowered me gently to my butt
and pushed my head between my knees.

‘My apologies, Genevieve.’ His not-quite-English accent was formal, his tone empty. ‘I fear I took too much blood.’ Cool fingers on the back of my neck eased the rapid
onslaught of a hammering headache.

‘’S’okay,’ I whispered past the thudding pain in my head. ‘Body’ll replace it soon. Red cells’re turbo-boosted – 3V, remember.’ Though why I
was explaining all that to him, a vamp . . . Only, beneath his empty tone, he’d sounded like his heart was breaking.

His wasn’t the only one. Mine felt like it was cracking into tiny pieces too. We finally get together and things were supposed to be mindblowing. And they had been mindblowing, and amazing
and glorious and any number of other wonderful adjectives, for all of what felt like five seconds . . . then I’d woken up. Now, for some unknown reason, everything seemed to be going
horribly, heart-wrenchingly wrong.

That bastard Cupid must truly have me on his shit list.

My nausea eased, the ragged tufts of grass and sandy earth beneath me coming into focus, and I realised the pain was muting. I raised my head carefully, grateful for Malik’s soothing touch
at my nape.

I slanted a look at him, crouching elegantly next to me and started with something simple. ‘How come we’re in a circle?’

His golden eyes flickered. ‘The kelpie wished to take you from me.’

Huh? ‘When was Tavish here?’

‘He appeared while you were . . . sleeping.’

Had to be the voices I heard.
Annoyance flashed through me. Damn kelpie. One thing for him not to trust Malik, but he should trust my judgement after all this time. Though perhaps I
should’ve expected the interfering wylde fae to turn up; I’d known he wasn’t thrilled about me seeing Malik. But that didn’t explain why we were in a circle.

I asked Malik again.

Briefly he closed his eyes. When he reopened them, the gold was duller. ‘I
cast
the circle.’

‘You?! But you can’t do magic.’ I frowned. ‘Can you?’

He held out his hand. A can of Blue Bat juice, emblazoned with the Blue Heart logo, appeared in his palm. ‘It appears I can.’

I frowned. Had he just done some kinetic vamp trick? Or—‘Where did that come from?’

‘The Blue Heart.’ He offered me the can with a flat, eerie stare. ‘Drink it, Genevieve. It will assist with your recovery.’

I took it and chugged back half the drink before I realised he’d given me an order. The stuff tasted like goblin piss (Beater goblins in Sucker Town have their own peculiarities when it
comes to subduing rogue vamps, as I’d discovered once when I’d been wearing Rosa’s body as my vamp disguise). As I started to splutter, Malik clapped a hand over my mouth, pushed
my chin up and ordered, ‘Swallow. Then drink the rest.’

I glared at him, promising retribution. If he thought giving me an orgasm, no matter how freaking fuck-tastic it was, gave him permission to order me around like some junkie blood-slave, even if
it was for my own good, then he was sucking on the wrong sidhe.

I finished the drink, went to throw the can at him, but it was out my hand and
vanished
before I had a chance.

‘Tell me you did not just do magic?’ I demanded.

‘Why would I tell you that, Genevieve, when that is exactly what I did do?’ His mouth turned grim. ‘It appears your blood not only enhances my own powers, but grants me your
magic as well. Much as if you were another vampire I had fed upon.’

Which was so fucking unfair. ‘Except I can’t
call
stuff,’ I said, hearing the thread of a childish whine in my voice. ‘Or
vanish
it like
that.’

He lifted an elegant shoulder. ‘The vampires I feed on cannot necessarily tap all the powers that run in their blood either.’ He flicked his fingers and the dome went fully opaque; a
Privacy spell. Crap, this just got better and better. I scowled at Malik as he draped the leather coat over my shoulders, saying, ‘Put the coat on and fasten it.’

‘That’s the third order in as many minutes,’ I snapped, jerking the coat on, fingers buttoning it up clumsily, as I fought to disobey. ‘I thought we agreed you
weren’t going to do that shit any more?’

In answer, he bit down on his wrist then held it in front of my face. ‘Drink.’

Both my hands grabbed his arm, my mouth latching on to the bloody bite like I was starving. I sucked down his spicy blood as if it was ambrosia, my fury mounting even as he pulled me into the V
of his legs and my body traitorously responded to where his obvious arousal pressed against my butt.

Bastard
, I thought loudly at him.

‘You are right, Genevieve,’ he murmured against my ear as his hard arm pinioned me around my waist. ‘I am indeed a bastard. My father never married my mother, and her people,
Christians who worshipped the western god, forced her to give me up when I was seven as dev[#351;]irme. Dev[#351;]irme was the tithe paid by those conquered by the Ottomans.’

Surprise made me choke on his blood. He was choosing
now
to tell me something personal about his past? Didn’t he know the time for sweet nothings was during the post-coital haze?
And not after he’d pissed me off with all his orders. But his words still muted my fury, and raised an instinctive compassion in my heart for the child he’d been.

‘You do not need to feel pity for me,’ he said coolly, as if he’d read my mind which, with me attached to his wrist like a limpet was a possibility. ‘I was trained as a
janissary, one of the sultan’s elite army, and was proud to swear my loyalty to him and his blood. It was a prestigious and rewarding life, more so than the one I was otherwise destined for
as a subsistence farmer in Northern Albania.’

Bully for you
, I muttered at him.
But how about we can the personal history and talk about the present? For starters: I’ve had enough blood. In fact, sucking on you is making
me feel nauseous.
Which wasn’t a lie. I was feeling sick, just not physically. Though, the way my stomach was bloating up like an over-stretched wine bag, physical sickness was going to
be an option in the near future.

‘Keep drinking,’ he ordered.

I didn’t need to pity the child he’d been, or the bully he was being now. But while I might not be able to disobey his ‘keep drinking’ order, I could dig my teeth into
his arm in protest. Triumph sparked as he flinched, then an odd note of remorse hit. I was causing him pain . . . or he was causing me pain . . . I was getting echoes of what he was feeling,
sucking them down with his blood. Damn. If we merged thoughts any more, then between us I was going to get emotional whiplash.